Getting customers in the door
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Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
One challenge with social media marketing (e.g., Facebook, Twitter) specifically with respect to getting people in to your shop (to buy stuff) is that 99.999999999999% of Facebook members live nowhere near you. Trying to find the ones who do is nearly impossible. If you have an online store, then less than .001% of Facebook members are interested in your business and trying to find them is next to impossible. In my experience, Fan Pages work when you already have an established presence and you have more friends than Facebook allows you to have on your personal profile. Otherwise, it's a lot of repetitive work (you have to spend time every day) for little or no return. The same is true of Twitter and Craigslist. To be effective you have to develop a reputation and doing so requires daily activity. If you want to do some B2B (business to business) online marketing and promotion try LinkedIn. Or Plaxo. But concentrate on one.E-Mail MarketingE-marketing (through services like Constant Contact) enables you to reach out to people you already know about and are on your e-mail list. To be truly effective, you need to constantly grow this list AND you should be sending them out on a monthly basis AND when there are special events, holidays, or when you have other news about your business or special promotions to share.One effective use of your e-mail list is to offer incentives that get people to come into the shop. If you're mailing out monthly, include at least one coupon for each week of the month. Rather than give stuff away, offer discounts or something "free with purchase." Try a different type of offer each week and keep track of the coupons that are turned in so that you can learn what kinds of offers work best with your customers.You should also keep printouts of each month's newsletter/coupons in the store and offer them to customers as an incentive to sign up for your e-mail newsletter.Finally, have a "refer a friend" coupon in every newsletter. In this coupon, the recipient writes their name on it and gives it to a friend. The friend comes in to the store and gets something (must also provide e-mail address), and then the referrer gets gifts based on the number of new referral customers. Refer 1 friend a get a free cup of coffee. Refer 10 friends and get a 4-piece box free. (These are wimpy incentives but you get the idea.)Co-MarketingIf you purchase ingredients from a local business to use in one of your products is there a way to turn your supplier into a wholesale customer? Say you buy coffee from a local roaster to turn into a truffle. Is there a way to get the roaster to sell that product (or some other one you create just for them)? Other co-marketing partners are event and wedding planners. Make sure that all sales to planners (other than in-house corporate planners) earn them a commission (give chocolate as a thank-you gift after teh event to those) and encourage them to bring their customers into the store for consultations and sample your product (see below).Farmer/Local MarketsBelieve it or not, these can be a very effective form of marketing while generating some sales. Pick a market in an area where you want to grow your customer base and commit to at least 6 weeks. Use this as an opportunity to find local co-marketing partners (above) and be sure to give out the newsletter coupons and sign people up for the newsletter.SAMPLE, SAMPLE, SAMPLESampling is the way to introduce people to your product. Use seconds and bits and pieces you'd otherwise relegate to rework. If you get to know a customer really well and know that they like a particular piece, and you have a "second" in the back, give it to them to reward them for their loyal business. Make sure that all your counter help is empowered to do this.Know your customerOne way to grow repeat business is to make it a priority to know your customers. Remember how they take their coffee, remember what flavors they like. Stuff like that. Showing that you are paying attention is the surest way to get them back into the store.Another aspect of this is to do your homework with respect to the demographics of your town and the neighboring communities and how they are the same or different. In my town (which is composed of three distinct villages/towns) one village has a median income that is double the media income of the rest of the town. Where your store is located should affect product mix and pricing. The rest of the town has a media income that is slightly higher than the median income for the county and that is nearly 50% higher than the median income for the entire state. The population has a slightly higher percentage of females and the average age of adults is about 1 year greater. Knowing all of this helps you position your business properly. Go an look it up.DonationsI make it a rule never to donate to an event I can't attend, especially if it is a silent auction. Plus, I always make sure that there is some other sort of other immediate PR benefit I can claim, which might just be a newsletter letting people know that I am donating and encouraging them to lend their support. Also, make sure to develop a relationship with someone at each organization you donate to who is a high-powered networker and who can introduce you around. In other words, you have to do work in order to ensure that you get something (sales) for the donation. It's not just a "if I give it they will come." That has NEVER happened for me.Networking GroupsWhether or not a networking group works for you is entirely dependent on the makeup of the group and how it's run. I paid to attend breakfast networking meetings over the course of several months and the group generated only one lead that turned into a sale. Set a maximum amount of time and $ your are willing to spend and then look at the return on the invest made when you hit those limits. If the return is not up to the investment, then stop supporting the group. It's a business decision, they'll understand.PressMake it a point to find out who the local food writers (daily/weekly) and bloggers are. Make sure to let them know what you are doing. Make a point of reading what they write and figuring out what kinds of stories they like to run and then not only pitch them those stories (or provide them mostly written in the form of a press release).
Landia
