5 Steps to Maximizing Your National Digital Ad Offers

Jul 10, 2019

Are you maximizing your use of IGA’s National Digital Ad? With new offers every two weeks promoted on the Flipp app, the IGA ad has already been seen by an average of 12 million people since launching last October—that's a lot of shoppers looking for great deals.

So give your shoppers what they're asking for—discounts! Your team at IGA created the National Digital Ad to leverage our numbers as the nation’s largest group of independent retailers to offer your shoppers discounts on national brands that they might not otherwise receive at an independent store.

Best of all, there’s no need to sign up, NO COST to participate, and it’s never too late to get started. Here’s how it works:

  • There are a minimum of six promotional offers each week sourced by IGA. The same ad will be published for all IGA store locations (along with the disclaimer “Offers available at participating stores while supplies last”).
  • Flipp users searching the app or website for grocery stores or products will be served information about each IGA store that corresponds to their search (based on zip code).
  • A new ad with new items will launch every other Sunday; offers will be effective for two weeks.
  • Every store can be reimbursed for the value of the advertised offers sold in the promotional period in one of two ways:
    • Stores activated on the new IGA Shopper Rewards program are reimbursed automatically.
    • Stores not yet on the new IGA Shopper Rewards program will be reimbursed by Scanner Apps, an Inmar company. Scanner Apps automatically sends an email to each store in advance of the ad with information about promoted items and how to submit a report to request reimbursement.

So why is the National Digital Ad such an important step forward for IGA? First, it puts IGA on par with other national brands in the eyes of manufacturers, says IGA CEO John Ross in his mid-year update.

Brands are quickly learning that IGA can now support their national campaigns,” Ross says. “Where before we were impossible to work with at a national level, they are now seeing us as a reliable partner in the launch of new items, supporting their national advertising and marketing. And that means we are moving from 'too hard to work with' to 'best practice partner.'” 

Second, it’s an opportunity to attract shoppers—both old and new. “Shoppers who use Flipp are going to it to look for ads and deals,” says Heidi Huff, senior director of Red Oval partnerships and the IGA team member in charge of procuring offers from manufacturing partners. “That means we can help drive new shoppers to IGA because we’re attracting them through a medium where they already are. For current shoppers, they are getting consistent offers in a way they haven’t seen from their local IGA.”

Philip Payment, president of Floco Foods, agrees, saying it’s a great way to attract customers. The company manages 45 IGA retail stores owned by W. Lee Flowers & Company, a wholesaler in South Carolina that also services 78 stores in Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, and Payment has seen a lot of success using the National Digital Ad to attract and retain customers.

“Embrace it and figure out how to promote it in store, because it’s a benefit to your customers," he says. "It’s not an ad markdown for your store; it’s a markdown funded by the manufacturer—you’re just passing it through, so if you can do that, you’re going to get credit for it. The more you do it, the better off it’s going to be for your store.” 

Ready to level the playing field with shopper-focused offers that put you on par with big box and online retailers? Follow these five steps to get the most out of your National Digital Ad.

5-steps

1. Stock the products

Watch for emails from Scanner Apps with a list of promoted offers, and work with your wholesaler/distributors to make sure the products are in stock. Keep in mind that many of the products featured in your National Digital Ad will be store staples, but Red Oval partners will also use IGA’s National Digital Ad to release new, innovative items that make for great promotions. To help retailers prepare, IGA notifies stores about new products tied to the ad well before the ad runs. Pay attention to the Learning Bites in The IGA Minute (like the one below about a new Meow Mix product being featured in the ad beginning July 28) to find out about these unique releases, then stock the products in anticipation for the promotions.

2. Put the offers in your POS

Don’t let your shoppers miss out on these great deals—set aside time every two weeks to add the offers into your POS so that you can attract new shoppers and reward current shoppers. Want to make the process even easier? Watch your mail—and next week’s edition of the The IGA Minute—for an update from IGA on our new Shopper Rewards program, which uses cloud-based technology to automatically set up IGA-sourced offers available through the National Digital Ad in your POS system as well as automates reimbursement for offers sold at your store. It’s the ultimate easy button!

3. Print and display the free in-store signage 

“The stores that are really successful are the ones that put the signage in the store,” says Huff. Even when shoppers see an offer on Flipp, they often forget about it once they get inside, she says. “The shopper needs to be reminded at shelf.”

Payment agrees—his stores used to produce their own in-store signage for the National Digital Ad offers, but now they use the IGA-provided signs. “These [IGA-provided] shelf talkers are much easier for the customer to understand, with identifying images,” he says. “They call out the savings and they’re promoting the digital offers with the app...they stand out in the store because they don’t look like anything else we have. It’s different from what most retailers use for their weekly ad signs.”

Click here to access downloadable, printable signage for each ad offer. And if you haven’t already done so, sign up to order your evergreen POP kit.

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4. Download and post free IGA graphics to promote the ad on your store’s social media pages

Once you’ve covered the in-store promotion, the next step is making sure your shoppers see the offers online. IGA takes care of promoting on the Flipp app and on IGA.com, but you can make a huge impact by promoting on your social media. “You don’t know which piece of media the shopper will see, so all of those things really need to be utilized,” Huff says.

Download free social media graphics to post on your pages, or sign up for IGA social media services through our Red Oval partner AR Marketing to have the offers automatically posted on your store’s social pages for you.

5. Submit for reimbursement

Once your shoppers have received their offers and the promotional period has ended, run the report and submit to Scanner Apps for reimbursement right away. The sooner you submit for reimbursement, the sooner your store will receive it. Get in the habit of submitting for reimbursement as soon as the promotion ends.

Payment’s stores stay on top of the process by running the POS data through the cloud, often receiving the reimbursement within two weeks. “We’re only about two weeks behind the promotion in getting our money and then giving it to the stores, because we have good point of sale data,” Payment explains. Then they match the cash reports to their movement reports to ensure the reimbursement numbers are correct.

IGA's National Digital Ad offers put your store on the same level as national chains when it comes to national brands, so why not take advantage of it? Stock the products, add them to your POS, print the signage, promote the offers, and submit for reimbursement. In five easy steps, your shoppers and your stores will reap the benefits. 

Have questions about IGA’s National Digital Ad? Contact IGA’s Heidi Huff at hhuff@igainc.com.

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