PREVIEWS TO POS

Sometimes I find myself thinking of different marketing ideas which I blame entirely on my B-school background. I was very impressed by the technology found in, of all places, a Christian bookstore I recently visited to pick up some CD's. Mind you, I haven’t been to HMV or any large music retailer in a while so I can’t assume that this is leading edge. You can take the CD’s that you’re interested in to this computer that is set up with a bar code scanner. Once you scan the UPC, up pops the item and you can preview each song on the album (a 20 second clip) on a set of headphones. Afterwards, I thought of an interesting marketing idea:

Have people set up an account with the store to receive a special card or access credentials that allow them to log into their own listening station. Each listening station will be connected to the internet, so the user can look up reviews and discussions about the album that they are previewing to help their purchase decision. The system will track what songs are previewed and correlates this data with the Point of Sale information, matching titles previewed and titles purchased. Thus, a unique customer profile can be created based on purchase behavior. This profile can drive direct marketing custom tailored for this consumer, sending it to the other information found in the account (e.g. new releases, discounts, bundles, etc. to the customer's mailing address, email address, text message, etc.)