bonus gifts
Freebies and Goodies
Vocabulary
| bonus | dinosaur | tyrannosaurus |
| set | lagniappe | brontosaurus |
| item | purchase | transaction |
| junk | cabinet (2) | all sorts of |
| logo | share | appliance |
| CEO | stuff | it turned out |
| local | in turn | pot/potted |
Dinosaurs
“Look, I’ve got a tyrannosaurus!”
Remember the little toy dinosaur you got inside the box of popcorn you bought as a kid?
Your friend had a brontosaurus — and so you bought more popcorn….until you had a complete set of dinosaurs.
This is an example of lagniappe.
Lagniappe
Lagniappes are free gifts or bonuses that customers receive along with their purchase. Often they remember these gifts long after their transaction — sometimes even more so than the main item itself!
Marketing expert Bob Bly described the lagniappe at a company he worked for.
Junk
“We had a ‘junk cabinet’. It was filled with all sorts of things imprinted with the company logo.”
When he first saw them, Bly thought, “Who’d want this cheap stuff?”
It turned out that everyone did.
Generals
Whenever visiting generals came by the plant (their biggest client was the military), the CEO always give them golf balls — which cost a few dollars.
“These powerful, middle-aged men reacted like children on Christmas,” said Bly.
Refrigerator
Ann had bought a refrigerator from a local appliance store. When the deliverers brought it to her home, they presented her a potted cactus along with a thank-you letter.
She shared this story with her neighbors. They in turn bought items from the store — and got their own cactus.
The Conclusion
The conclusion: everyone loves FREE stuff!
By offering small gifts, you can make a big difference in your sales at minimal cost. The possibilities of lagniappe are endless: T-shirts, movie passes, pens, key chains, and calculators, for starters.
The cost of the premium depends on the value of your product or service, but generally $5 or less.
1. Lagniappe is……
2. What was the “junk cabinet”? What was inside? What was its purpose?
3. The generals thought the golf balls were silly. True or false? What happened with the generals?
4. Talk about the appliance store.
5. How does lagniappe work? Is it advantageous to thrill or delight prospects, clients, customers? What happens afterwards?
6. Do companies need to give away high-quality, expensive gifts?
A. What free goodies, gifts, bonuses have you received with a purchase?
B. What did you think? How did you feel? What did you do? Did these affect your shopping choices? If yes, how did it? I told all my friends about it. Yes or no?
C. Have your friends received free presents and raved about it to you?
D. What are some good ideas of lagniappe for things or services you buy. What prize or bonus would you like to win?
E. Does your company or business give freebies? What about for big deals and clients? Can you come up with some good ideas?
F. Most businesses these days are using lagniappe to the point of saturation. Do you agree? Do you think the “lagniappe industry” is big business?
G. What will happen in the future?
