Friday

Marketing to Schools

It's great if your store is near a high school, middle school, or elementary school, but you can't simply rely on the students and families to know you are there. You have to reach out to them, support their causes.

Below are the basics for reaching the different types of schools (the ones above, plus colleges and pre-schools), along with some helpful tricks to getting things done.

High Schools / Middle Schools
  • Become a partner in education (this is the hoop you jump through to getting in with all schools)
  • Invite admin and staff to visit you, do this with free product (thank them for all the hard work they do)
  • Spirit nights don't work as well with HS as they do with elementary kids. Focus on a specific group within the school (eg: cheerleaders or student council). Let them promote the event.
  • Fundraising for clubs. Everyone wants the sports teams, but remember that the band is a larger group with very loyal followers. If you support them, they'll support you.
  • Trade banquets for advertising dollars
  • Hire through the school's DECA program (or something similar)

Elementary Schools

  • Become a partner in education
  • Invite staff, admin, and PTA/O to see you for lunch or dinner
  • Fundraising for special projects
  • Spirit nights for this age group are great (remember to make them fun to encourage word of mouth and to post a sign on your door during those nights - you'll get credit from the rest of your customers for being a good guy)
  • Give teachers stickers to remind parents
  • Put signage in their carpool lanes
  • Make sure the admin promotes the event
  • Offer gift certificates to Office Depot to the teacher with the most kids at the event (make it a contest)

Pre-Schools

  • Pretty much the same as with elementary school kids, but here are a few twists
  • Fundraising is key for many of these schools
  • Mom's are more likely to get together after they drop kids off (if you're a coffeehouse, smoothie shop, health club take note)
  • Make sure you're kid friendly if you go after this group (high chairs, kid friendly menu, and always have a give-away and distraction for the kids - the happier they are the happier mom and dad will be)

Colleges

  • This is a community unto itself
  • Fraternities/Sorrorities: fundraising, spirit nights
  • Athletics: think intramural, club, and fraternity level
  • Pan-Hellenic council
  • Be a guerrilla marketer in the library (book marks, flyers on tables)
  • Coffeehouses: bottomless cups during finals week
  • Study break specials
  • Tailgating
  • T-shirts: ever seen a college kid turn down a free t-shirt?

The tactics can be different depending on your products, but the strategy is the same: care about what they care about, surround students and parents with your message, and put food into their mouths.

7 Complementary Audiences

Now that the lease is signed and the concept has been finalized, the big question for a restaurant is: who is my customer?

The answer doesn't involve household income, education level, or 2.4 children. It's a question of who works in the building next to you. Once the lease is signed the demographics are almost irrelevant. The trick is to get more of the 48,000 daytime population to visit, more of the 60-90,000 cars per day to stop.

Your audience, then, is whoever is there to buy your product. Niche marketing (Local Store Marketing) will help you to create a message for each group within your trade area. We'll look at each of these in detail in future posts, but the 7 Complementary Audiences for nearly any restaurant are:
  • Schools
  • Houses / Apartments
  • Large office buildings
  • Small office buildings (there are different strategies for each)
  • RE Agents / Pharm Reps / Financial Planners
  • Current customers
  • Employees

There are more, of course, but these are the groups that make up nearly any trade area. RE agents, pharm reps, and financial planners are catering engines. Create a message for each of these 7 audiences (again, more on each in future posts) and results should come quickly.

Notice that this is backward from traditional brand marketing. In brand marketing you determine your target audience, craft a message, and then deliver the message repeatedly.

Why doesn't that hold true for restaurants? Because your lease is signed. You're paying rent. Target audiences are great for lots of reasons, but when it comes time to move the needle you need to tailor your message to the people who live and work in your community. For better or worse.

Surround your customers with messages

I was reading an article on employment strategies for those out of work. The common lament was that resumes were sent, phone calls were not returned, no employment was found (their marketing didn't work). The recommendation of the experts was to surround the hiring manager with a message. Resume, phone message, snail mail letter, and, whenever possible, have existing employees mention your name. Showing up at the office in person would be a big plus.

That might look like an 'it's who you know, not what you know' strategy and you're right, it is. That's the point. One of them anyway.

The other point is that multiple mentions of the same message through multiple media makes you look like you're everywhere, like you're bigger than you really are. Multiple media have a higher frequency than a single medium.

By now, we all know that customers need to hear your name somewhere around six or 7 times in order to remember it. We also know that it takes a few more mentions in order to get them to purchase from you.

Contrast that with this fact: people remember the names of their acquaintances after only two or 3 meetings.

The lesson: if you want to use media to promote your business, plan on at least 7 contacts (7 times cost of the ad). If you want to get people to remember you faster, go out and meet them. Put a face with the name, put product in their mouths and a coupon in their hands.

Surround the customer with your message. People buy from people they know.