Thursday

Frequency?

You may have noticed a slow down in sales. Not everyone is experiencing a reduction in business, but many are. The most likely culprit - frequency of visit.

Competition is high, the economy is uncertain. If you're in a primarily residential area you've probably noticed it more than those in, say, a business district. Share of wallet is even more important now that folks are hesitant to spend $40 per week for lunch, or are eating out once a month as a family instead of twice.

For marketing purposes, the best place to start is with those already visiting you. Your existing customers don't require brand awareness or product education, they just need a reason to come back (preferably sooner rather than later).

Important marketing competencies for frequency of visit:

Bounce-backs
Put a tight deadline on a great offer (thru Friday only!). If it gets redeemed, you know that the redeemer is on his/her second visit of the week.

Specials - Lunch
Be sure to change your specials board, but not too often. If you sell a lot of chicken sandwiches, and you promote steak on your board, remember that each day brings new people. Why change the board every day? Leave it up for 10 days or 2 weeks so that infrequent customers can see it too.

Specials - Dinner
Dinner specials are different. The typical Monday evening customer is usually different than the typical Thursday or Friday customer, treat them accordingly. Sunday-Wednesday might be "get an extra side for free when you purchase a platter", but Friday-Saturday might be "kids eat free with every adult meal".

Advertising during a slow down
This is one area when advertising is most helpful. A consistent presence in a publication will help to soften the beaches for sales. Studies show that companies that advertise during recessions usually emerge in a stronger position than those who don't.

Offers
In slower times it's a good idea to go with deeper discounts or better offers to stimulate trial or frequency. Sacrifice profitability for volume of customers for the short term, but put caveats on your offers. "After 6pm"; "Buy 2, Get 1 FREE"; "thru Friday only!" Use the offers to generate visits, but also to modify behavior.

Don't forget about email and fishbowls. Both of those offer a great opportunity to reach out to existing customers and invite them back more often. External marketing is necessary, but should be a lower priority to gaining frequency of visit.

Monday

Audience vs. Daypart

Choosing complementary audiences in the early going of a new restaurant is relatively easy: where are my customers immediately before or immediately after they visit? What other businesses are before me or after me in the sales cycle? What types of businesses cater to, but don't conflict with, my target audience?

Health clubs, high schools and smoothie bars; office buildings and coffeehouses; churches and family restaurants. Form partnerships, cross-promote, and sample on-site with these businesses and you can see your customer base take shape.

It's more difficult, however, to identify the audience that can help your business right now. For example, say you want to build your lunch business. Your existing relationships with churches, little league teams, and movie theaters won't do you much good here. What you need are people who are in the 1-3 mile radius of your unit during lunch.

It sounds simple, but you'd be surprised how many owners don't take that simple truth to the next level. Would you run a lunch special in the local newspaper? The newspaper reaches households, members of your community for sure, but are residents in your area during lunch? It's doubtful that your daytime population is the same as your evening pop.

So for a store that's been open for a while, you need to add "daypart" to "audience + objective" in order to make your time and effort more effective.

It does you no good to run entree specials, or family carry-out deals, if you want to build lunch. Lunch specials to the Little League baseball teams (usually dinner and weekend targets) isn't effective either.

What do you want to accomplish?
What is the complementary audience for that objective (ie: most likely to take you up on the offter)?
What channels make the most sense in promoting that item to that audience?

Thinking like a customer, instead of like an owner, will help you with those answers.

To Coupon Or Not To Coupon, 6 Tips To Do Them Right

That's the question. Customers love them, businesses hate them, but what's the right balance.

A recent article in the NY Times details how Macy's felt the results of eliminating coupons where it hurts most - at the register. Terry Lundgren, the company's CEO, has since changed the company's policy and promises lots of coupons for the upcoming holiday season.

According to the article, Macy's isn't the only one who has felt the pain of weaning customers from coupons. Ruby Tuesday's and Procter and Gamble have also had horror stories.

Basic human nature says people want coupons. Same store sales show coupons drive sales. Everyone knows addicting customers to coupons leads down an unhappy path. What's the solution?

The answer is two parts: embrace coupons for what they are and use them to modify behavior, not bribe customers. Macy's reports distributing 15%-20% off coupons to customers, the goal being to remind folks "we're still here". But this type of coupon makes them hoes for the dough. There's no behavior modification in it.

Restaurants, hear this: the dumbest coupon you can do is $1 off. It conditions customers to wait for a coupon. You might as well be in the pizza business.

Here are 6 ways (you get a bonus) to make sure your coupons don't create a welfare state out of your customer base:

1. Focus your objective. Do you want more customers? More frequency? A higher ticket average? Make your offer reflect that goal. Buy one, get one free after 6pm; FREE upsize with any purchase; come back tomorrow and get 20% off. Don't give something for nothing, but make it look like you are.

2. Think like the customer. Too often we see stores give out offers they don't mind giving, regardless of whether or not the customers want it. 10% off bookmarks, for example. Another problem is that the audience isn't right. Buy one, get one free is worthless to someone who is driving to work, or working out, alone.

3. Use a loss leader. Grocery stores are good at this. Buy one, get one free gallons of milk, for example. Nobody stops at the store just for a gallon of milk. If they win share of wallet from their competitors the coupon held a strategic purpose as well as a tactical one.

4. Daypart the coups. We alluded to this earlier, but special offers "before 9am", "after 6pm", or "weekends only" help to build other dayparts. No one should mind giving away something that builds other dayparts.

5. Encourage trial of new items. Anyone who is currently in your store or restaurant is already a fan, they don't need too much more convincing. Coupons to try different menu items or purchase complementary items simply increase frequency and ticket average. If you can make it a habit to always get a scone with my morning coffee, I only need the coupon once.

6. Incentivize your core, don't discount them. Dollar off coupons distributed through the same media again and again erode profitability. The same people will see them again and again. It's like standing at your door and giving people a discount - you might as well lower your prices and be done with it. Incentivizing your core with short expiration dates for additional purchases or to bring a friend, however, modify their behavior to your advantage. Likewise, if you find a new pocket of potential customers, don't be shy on the discount. Make it a killer offer to incentivize behavior.

Remember, coupons modify behavior (sometimes on the current visit, sometimes on future visits). They are neither inherently bad nor good. It's how you use them that counts.