Think of the marketing you create like a three-legged stool – every campaign, whether email, direct mail or social media, needs the right message, to the right market, through the right media to be effective.
To demonstrate, here’s a marketing campaign that that was so successful last year, our client used it again this year.
He turned every $1 spent into $17 and generated a ton of interest and goodwill, along with a memorable experience in his restaurant. Not to mention the $12,883.85 it generated in sales
Sending The Right Message
This particular marketing example uses a Premium giveaway as the message. Giving away a free gift to your customers can have a huge return on investment – people LOVE receiving gifts. And if you do your shopping right, January can be a great time to find deals on premiums that will appeal to your target market.
We’ve helped our Merchants use duct tape (yes… duct tape!), gift wrap, teddy bears, jewelry, BBQ utensils… we’ve even seen Birthday Cake that was a special family recipe and Chocolate chip cookies. Anything goes!
Using premiums in your marketing campaigns means giving something away that has a higher PERCEIVED value to your customer than what it actually costs you. It’s an item that you don’t typically sell. Usually, you would bundle it with your normal products or services to drive additional sales. You can build the perceived value of a premium with a compelling story or by finding something you can buy at a very attractive price relative to its value.
Captain Crunch Cereal and Cracker Jacks were masters at using premiums in their marketing. Remember as a kid digging to the bottom of the box to find the toy? Or going to the gas station to get the next piece in the glassware set? That’s a premium.
Premiums allow you to increase your average order by bundling a gift with some product or service you want to promote. You aren’t discounting your products or services which will increase your average ticket and revenue. It also gives you a reason to reach out to your customers with something different or fun. The trick is to find something that YOUR customers want and will respond to.
Choosing Your Target
In this case, the restaurant is in Wisconsin and many of the customers are die hard Packer fans, so this was a no-brainer! Your target audience might respond to something different – tech tools, jewelry, automotive gadgets, t-shirts or sports apparel, tote bags, or gift cards for another product or service your customer might value that isn’t your own. Anything you can think of that your customers will find enticing can be used – it really depends on who you customers are and the story you can attach to it.
Offering existing customers exclusive gifts provides more excitement and engagement for customers than a percentage or dollars-off reward. You can market directly to your customer list – the people that have given you money in the past and are most likely to do so again. (We are assuming you have a customer list…) These existing customers already know, like and trust you so it is easier to convince them to return again.
When new customers see people getting fun, exciting gifts in your business, they will want to know how they can get them too, which helps to grow your customer list.
Choosing Your Media
Picking how you will deliver your message is your last decision. Your message and market need to be determined first because every market responds to different media.
What is the message that you want to send to your target market so that it will grab their attention and they’ll respond? Then the last thing is what media is the most cost-effective to reach that target market?
Often a huge mistake that Business Owners make is buying space in a publication, on Google or Facebook, or on the radio, or in the newspaper without thinking about the target they will reach. If the media choice is too broad, you’ll end up paying for an audience that will never be interested in what you are offering. That’s wasted money.
Figure out who you want to target, then what you’re going to say to them, and then how you’ll convey it. That HAS to be the order if you want to make your marketing dollars work for you.
Focus Your Firepower
Over time, you’ll learn what works and what doesn’t work for your target audience, which means you can focus only on the marketing that brings you results and stop paying for marketing that doesn’t.
Our direct mail campaigns (like the one above) have proven to work over and over again, yet many Business Owners have an instant reaction about how they think it’s outdated, or how it might be perceived, or how much it costs. And, really, marketing is about two things, math and human psychology. It’s not about how you feel, or what your friends think, or if other businesses are doing it or not. You really have to put emotion aside and know the facts. Tracking marketing results is the heart and soul of Royalty Rewards® so we can report on if the marketing was successful, or when it needs to be improved.
You spent X dollars, you got Y sales as a result. These people came in, they spent this amount of money, compared against the marketing and premium costs. That’s the math. The human psychology is how can to get more people to respond? What grabs their attention? That’s all that matters.
Remember… you are paying for all the circulation or coverage of the media you choose. The less waste the better. The people that your marketing reaches that are not likely to come to your restaurant is wasted money. Find out everything about who your best customers are: study their similarities and habits to understand what interests them. Match this information with the media this group of people most likely looks at. It might be social media, or email, or direct mail. Monitor the results.
All the other stuff is just noise.
If you want to start creating a comprehensive customer list so you can focus on sending marketing that targets your audience, with messages and offers that they respond to, through all the marketing media channels – book a call to discuss having a free trial of Royalty Rewards for 90 Days.
