We didn’t have a Morrisons in our little corner of Hertfordshire for a long time – bear with me, it gets better – so Iron Maiden’s beer, Trooper, was pretty much unavailable to me despite me being a fan of both Iron Maiden and beer.
I knew of Trooper’s existence via the band’s Facebook page, so when I popped into Morrisons in Bodmin at the end of a family holiday in Cornwall in 2013 I picked up three bottles.
On the back of the bottle, I read the story behind the song, The Trooper. But I felt it omitted one intriguing element.
That, I told Iron Maiden’s manager in a meeting I’d managed to get, was where they had an opportunity to boost customer engagement and increase sales of their beer:
- At that point, having told three-quarters of a good, brief story on the back of the bottle, I suggested they place a QR code (and give a short URL forwarding to the same page) along with a call-to-action: get people to “Scan here to read the rest of the story”
- The person with the bottle scans the QR code or enters the short URL and is taken to a landing page on the brewery’s website
Then, I told them, they have two options:
1. In order to read the rest of the story, the drinker and fan of the band must give you his first name and email address (any more than that and people are less likely to bother)
Once they’ve ‘opted in’, they’re able to read the rest of the story (in The Trooper’s case, I wanted to know who gave the command and who misunderstood it, which led to such disastrous consequences as a result of the Charge of the Light Brigade during the Battle of Balaclava)
The fan would then be on the band and brewery’s email list.
The other option:
2. People land on the brewery’s website and read the rest of the story. At the bottom of the copy, there’s a call to action: “Want to read more stories behind Iron Maiden songs” or “Want more stories of calamitous commands?”
Then encourage people to sign up for more of the same.
As a fan of the band, I would have done this.
- The band/brewery would then have a series of pre-written follow-up emails that go out once a week for five or six weeks, each of them containing another brief, related story. Premium, valuable content for people like me.
- Then I suggested they send out a final email (for that campaign, at least) that says something like, “Because you’re a loyal fan of Trooper, we’re giving you a special offer to buy more of what you love at a discounted rate….” with a subject line that tells the reader that they’re among an elite group because they’ve signed up to receive these emails.
- Include a code which enables the beer-drinking Iron Maiden fan to buy Trooper online in the usual way – but at a discount.
I told the band’s manager that I would definitely have purchased through this channel.
Sadly, it ended up being another idea in the Pazza back catalogue that didn’t quite make it, but I had a bit of fun researching it and trying to get it off the ground.
>>>Playlist<<<
