Ch. 16: Coupons and Contests

Amy’s offers coupons as a purchase incentive for potential buyers and as a gift for loyal fans who write to Amy’s to express their love for their products. Coupons are also used as prizes in promotional contests. Most recently they are offering $500 in Amy’s products for whoever can come up with an official Amy’s slogan (mentioned in an earlier post), which will most likely be in the form of coupons. If you write to Amy’s, pledge your love for their products and ask for coupons, they will most likely send you a few. Their coupons aren’t found regularly in supermarket fliers, though. Let’s just say, I’ve been looking and haven’t found one coupon at my disposal as of yet. It’s probably time I wrote in! Here is an image of one I saw someone selling on ebay (weird).

Ch. 15: WIN $500 IN AMY’S PRODUCTS!!!

“Healthy Eating for Busy People” sums up the motivation behind Amy’s Kitchen. Though, they have just celebrated 22 years strong and are searching for a catchier tagline. They are now promoting on their website (and inadvertently through numerous bloggers) a 15 words or less slogan contest. They are searching for a phrase, word, jingle, or rhyme that encompasses “what Amy’s Kitchen means to you”. You have until February 1st, 2010 to enter. Here’s a link to the entry form and contest rules: http://www.amys.com/contest.php.

Amy’s website (http://www.amys.com/index.php) is a great venue for marketing their company. It updates all new products and events, including every new (and old) publication they were featured in. It features letters written by Amy’s fans and a form to subscribe to their newsletter. They also offer an abundance of health information including their own diet plan that includes a shopping list and daily planner. Amy’s Kitchen has thousands of newsletter subscribers and numerous blogs posted about them regularly.

Amy’s is “the leading organic frozen food company” and yet they still don’t have an official slogan?! This amazes me, even as a longtime vegetarian and huge Amy’s fan. How does a company become so successful when they don’t engage in advertising, even with all of their PR effort. I definitely feel that at this point in their development stage, advertising could be an effective tool for them. Consumers are ready for these types of products. Amy’s should make the effort to familiarize more of the population with their company and the benefits that their products can offer them. Their huge following does say a lot about the quality of their products and the loyalty of their customers, so they must be doing something right. Maybe it’s just the nature of this niche market. They’ve developed intimate relationships with customers that are more comfortable with the trial and error mentality (since the vegetarian market is still fairly young) and are eager to find products that suit their lifestyle. Their even letting their customers do their advertising for them.