any marketing tips

[celement]

Circumstance;

We purchased a very run down 2 window drive through only on a busy street in a shopping center parking lot. They had 41 cars a day when we took over. We've changed names, menu, beans, people and managed to get to 130 to 150 cars per day in 8 months. But we've been at this same level for 3 months now with no more upward movement? We really need to get to 200 cars per day.....

Anyone have any advertising programs that work? We've tried penny saver (cheap direct mail ads), bus bench signs, outdoor banners, and we're just flat?

Appreciate any tips

 

[javahill]

Of the people that come, how many are regulars vs. intermittent? That will help tell you what you need to do.

Are enough people finding you, just not coming regularly?
Do you have a bunch of regulars and you're just not getting new customers?

What else is in the strip mall? Could you partner with any of the other businesses in the shopping mall? For example, their employees get a 20 percent discount if you can put up some fliers in their stores? You would want to structure that as a temporary offer. Or market directly to employees - make sure they get travel mugs with your logo on them as good advertising. As long as they use the mug, they get an individual discount - and then those mugs are visible to other people who visit the shopping mall.

If not enough people are coming to the strip mall, then you could also do some joint advertising with other businesses.

You can also target programs for the time of day. Depending on the crowd that comes into the shopping mall at different times of day, you could have different programs. If there are early morning mall walkers, try some sampling programs at the doors as they go in/out. If there are mid-morning moms with kids do something with flavored coffees and no spill (easy to use) mugs. Maybe give away free balloons for kids. Kids will steer parents to free balloons.

You get the idea. Let us know what you try and how it works.

-James

 

[celement]

traffic - repeats - irregulars

Thank you for the reply - I really appreciate it. I had wanted to do something for the employees in the center we're in...but my relunctance was the fact some were great customers and I'd just be cutting my slim margins to do so?

I'd say at least 1/2 or more of our business is regulars. We do 65% of our volume from 6:30 a.m. - an hour after opening to 9:30 a.m. in the morning...the rest of the day one person can easily handle our limited traffic...

The street we are on has incredible volume. I read where some coffee places should get 1/100 cars to stop...I'm getting 1/250 to 300. The starbucks around can't be helping - 3 within 5 minutes each. Just not sure what to do next....

PS...yes I did get some travel mugs...but it seems like most of our traffic wants more then 16 ounces - we sell 20 and 24 ounce hot drinks. And they are more popular

 

[Twitch]

A couple of pages from my marketing plan....

customer rewards cards: Offer "buy X get 1 free" cards. (I'm thinking buy 5, get 1 free) as a customer loyalty incentive. Also, have "2 for Tuesday" where you give 2 loyalty stamps for each purchase. Plus, the sign for that should get a couple of curiousity seekers up to the hut.

Along these lines, when you have a first time customer, don't ask them if they want a card. Just give them one with 2 or 3 of the purchases pre-stamped. So they don't have to get that many more for a free one.

Regular customer incentive program: If you have regular customers that you know by name, print up some cards with their name on them that offer a free cup of coffee to anyone that they send in. Give them to the regular and tell them that for every card you get from someone else, they get a free cup. Or if they are heavy espresso based drinkers, make it 2 cards for 1 cup. Get your regulars to advertise for you.

Those are two of my plans anyway. If I can ever get my location for my hut.

 

[celement]

thanks twitch

Those are pretty interesting ideas...I particularly like the Tuesday one as its simple and I have the ability to hang banners out in front of my drive through...I have one now for Mocha Monday's where we give a $1 off all hot mochas on Mondays after 10:30 a.m.....that was a reasonable success but to make it shine I think I need something for each day of the week and Tuesday wasn't one I had an easy time filling.

1 free drink for 5 purchases - ouch....my margins are to thin as I try to stay under Starbucks prices. If my drinks cost a $1.00 I'd be spending $6 to get 5 paid for or increase my cost to a $1.20 that way. We have loyalty cards and I do buy 9 get a 10th free....even that one bites into the bottom line.

 

[javahill]

Coffee is one of your highest margin items. Don't give it away. Find something else that costs less to give away that customer might want and/or would make it less likely a customer would go to a competitor.

I'm drawing a blank right now.

Something like lost mug insurance. If you have your own logo mugs that give customers a discount or something like that, let them have mug insurance. Maybe you sell it for 5 bucks. Anytime for life, you will replace a broken mug or let them trade it in for a newer design.

Mugs you might go through 1 per customer a year (actual usage will probably be lower). If you can sell something that customers are not going to use soon if at all, you're ahead of the game short term. Actual costs will be delayed and you're given a reason for a customer to come back.

One of the most important pieces is that if the customer breaks a travel mug (or whatever rules you invent) you treat them like royalty.

There was a bike shop that sold flat insurance. $20 for the lifetime ownership of the bike. THey sold 4,000 of them. $80K revenue. They have about 50 redemptions a year. To ensure that a customer remembers, they crimp a little tag over the valve stem to remind the customer they bought flat insurance. When the customer comes into the store the first employee who sees it, drops what they are doing, greets the customer and sets them up with a coffee or snapple while the flat is repaired (takes a trained employee about 2 minutes to change a flat). Every person who gets a flat fixed is treated like they are worth $1750. How many people do they tell?

Can you bridge that to your business?

 

[Twitch]

Think of it this way: buy 5 get one free is less than a 20% discount. But if you're doing 10:1 then work with that.

You can always run "Double Purchase Points" or something for a month or so to see if you can get a few extra regulars.

 

[jsitz]

Have you done a grand opening since you got there? It might have been an existing location, but clearly the customers that knew the old owner were not impressed, so if you haven't been able to communicate effectively that this is a new store, you may be missing an opportunity.

The idea is to get people to try the place, thinking that if they try it once, they will want to come back. Hopefully with three months under your belt your product is excellent and this would work.

So how to do it? It sounds like you may be having cash flow problems, but the way to make this work is to pick a date, promote the heck out of it and give product away for free all day. The key is promoting the date to as many people as possible. Yes, you will take a bath on that day, but if you do it right that is the only "discount" you will need to give. Hurts alot less than a recurring discount.

How to promote? If it's a small town, you could advertise on the radio or even better try to get a good station to do a radio remote during drive time. In a larger market, this is a waste of money, so go with direct marketing--either mail or door hangers or fliers or val-paks--to let people in the vicinity of your store know about it.

 

[drrule]

numbers

Great job on increasing the customer count.

One thing I have not seen mentioned. The end result of trying to get more customer is to increase the bottom line. Perhaps you can increase the average sale.

example
180 sales X $3.25 ave sale X 30 days=$17,796 @ 65% margin=$11,567 gross profit.

Move the bar just a bit

180 X 3.50 X 30=19,165 @ 65% margin = $12,457 gross profit

compare that to raising your cust. count by 20 people per day, the gross is within $200 of each other if you do not raise ave. sale.

Customer count is vital, but don't forget salesmanship. It is just as important!

Now one more, just cause I like numbers.

200 X 3.25X30 =19,773==== $12,647 gross margin

200X 3.50X30= $21,294 ====$13,841 gross margin

Don't get me started on decreasing cost of goods.... MAN I LOVE NUMBERS

 

[celement]

replies

again thanks for the replies,

We did not do a ground opening. We did change it from camoflage biege and green (kidding but that was their colors) to bright white and dark red. We also still have our Christmas lights up cause they look like they are part of the motif. Also the city never got mad about the 14 foot wide by 4 foot high banner with our name and logo I managed to put across the front under the window Its defintely different but we didn't do a free day like that.

We did offer a free latte through the penny saver and gave out over 350 of them. We also offered a free cup of coffee with door to door flyers in the neighborhoods around. We only got about 40 of those back. The town is a fairly big one, 200,000 population. I'm also sweating the opening of a new starbucks with a drive through only 5 minutes away. (3rd one)

As to the numbers we just increased our prices. One of the things we did was keep prices low for that first few months - I mean I had a 16 ounce white mocha at $2.50 up until a week ago. We just raised it to $3 and its still cheaper then the starbucks version.

Have to go - just got a new sandwich sign ... now I'll see how long the city lets me role with that one...

 

[Twitch]

I'm curious... of the 350 lattes that you gave away via the penny saver, are any of those people now regular or semi-regular customers?

 

[celement]

a handful

Yes there are a handful of regular customers that came to us through the pennysaver....though none of that handful are daily regulars I did track it and found about 6 coming on on a week to week basis - a few twice a week.