Tuesday, May 12, 2020

Comparing 3 Free Puerh COVID Promotions & The Return of the Charity Cake

I found it interesting that my three most frequented Western puerh vendors started offering free puerh promotions during the current COVID 19 crisis.  What is even more interesting to me is how they are each very different from each other.  Also I wondered why one of the three promotions seemed to work on me.

Yunnan Sourcing’s Free Gift Offers and BOGO Offers

This was the first and earliest of the free puerh promotions.  Basically there are tiers of free gifts and puerh cakes depending how much you spend.  I first got a promotional email at the end of Feb about these offers and I believe that Scott and Xiao Yao just decided to extend it until things normalize (whenever that will be).  This free promotion is within Yunnan Sourcing’s current marketing scheme and it is really the continuous part that is the branch offered to us at this trying time.  I don’t think this is as good as the rotating 13% or 15% off sales but for someone who is looking to not wait it is nice to receive some free! Thanks Scott and Xiao Yao!

The Essence of Tea’s Singularity Free Cake Give Away

This promotion was offered in both March and April so they ended up giving away two of their premium offerings from their very small 2019 line.  The 2019 Essence of Tea Singularity Gushu is a full 400g cake worth $178.00 people!  All you had to do was post a review of one of their teas on their website- sold out or in stock, it didn’t matter.  The March give away only allowed one entry but the April allowed as many as you could review.  I think this was a very successful promotion because it did a few things. Firstly, it got people excited about a pretty absent as of lately Essence of Tea at the right time- just before Spring release.  Secondly, it drew a lot of attention to the Singularity cake which had not sold out yet.  Thirdly, it filled a vacant website full of energetic and positive reviews.  People are a lot less likely to post a negative review when they are trying to be optimistic about landing a free cake- that’s not how human behaviour works.  It also is more of a reciprocal promotion with the customers giving something back to help David and Kathy out at a tough time in the form of some good reviews.  It’s a win-win really.  Thanks David and Kathy!

white2tea’s 2020 Umbrella Free Cake Give Away

This promotion was offered April 2, 2020 and offered a free cake of 2020 white2tea Umbrella, a 5 year aged mocha pressed into a new cake, .  It also offered free shipping on the free cake- no strings attached.  They hoped to give away 100 of these cakes and also offered the rest at $15 per cake.  They asked that only those most in need use the coupon code for the free cake and others go for the $15 reduced price cake.  I wrote a blog post on how this is the most epic of free promotions and Paul of white2tea pulled it off!  I suspect that Paul will release the remaining stock of this one in his first release of Spring 2020 puerh if he has any left to offer.  Thanks Paul!

So which one did I go for out of the three???

Readers of this blog will know that I felt like I already had enough tea and that there were others in more need for me.  So the white2tea promotion didn't directly effect me, but it did make me think more favorably of the brand that I am probably the most critical of.  So in some ways it worked.  I guess you could say the same for the Yunnan Sourcing promotion as well.

However, I thought the reciprocal nature of the Essence of Tea free promotion was really cool and I wanted to participate in it.  Plus I think I'm a sucker for sweepstakes promotions and the prize was big.  So I participated..  I already had the reviews on my blog so I just basically transferred a few of those to the site.  I didn't win but it made me feel good about doing something rather small without actually buying a cake to support a vendor that I buy from.

Did you participate in any of these free promotions?  Why do you think they worked for you?

I guess the other thing I kinda wanted to mention here was that this year I think we are also going to see lots of the vendors give back with charity puerh cakes.  Vendors were doing this off and on throughout the years with Tea Urchin doing it first I think then vendors like white2tea and Yunnan Sourcing.  I think we are going to see a lot of these this year some might even drop in the next few days/ weeks.

Peace

2 comments:

Paul Manring said...

A happy pile of Umbrella cakes from W2T greets me as I look up...I didn't get the free one, but I bought a few for the $15. That promo worked really well for me as I needed to stock up some drinkers before I dip my wallet into deeper waters :). I've ordered from W2T before, and their promotion solidified my desire to purchase from them again. Thanks Paul and well done!

Matt said...

Paul Manring,

Score! Probably the best of these free promotions. Sounds like it’s ready to drink very comforting puerh, which is what everybody needs right now. Likely, destined for a blend.

For those looking for blind buying drinkers, the tong plus free 2019 Yunnan Sourcing Impression would be another good option.

https://yunnansourcing.com/pages/buy-7-cakes-of-2019-yunnan-sourcing-impression-raw-pu-erh-tea-cake-and-get-the-8th-cake-for-free

Peace