Thursday

Smart LSM: Drinking Beer = Doing Good

This is a good idea that someone just reminded me of. It's not 100% germane to you during the colder months, but this is a good summer / 4th of July promotion. A local restaurant printed his logo and the local fire station's logo (engine 13) on beer coozies. All proceeds help furnish the new fire station being built.

He probably gets them for $1 each (total spend = $300) and each one sold = 1 person in his restaurant (not exactly, but pretty close). Plus, the fire fighters tell everyone to go there and get one (word of mouth). I just love the simplicity of it.

Wednesday

Destination Ideas

How can you make your store a destination? Get a little creative. You can often get free radio time or local news ink, depending on your hook. But partnering with an organization will also get you frequent messages in their newsletters.

Feel free to comment with other ideas:
- Toys for Tots
- Coats for Kids
- Pictures with Santa
- Related to Santa: get a mailbox and promise to "deliver" straight to the North Pole. Hand out coloring sheets/Dear Santa templates to local schools and pre-schools.
- Car washes in your parking lot (best for free-standing buildings)
- Touch-A-Truck events
- Bicycle safety rallies (partner with the fire or police dept.)
- Host open enrollment for local sports leagues
- Meet the Mayor (councilperson, state rep, whatever)

Make Your Store a Destination

If only you could make your store a destination spot. If only you could get people into your store (during a season you'd really like to capitalize on) to see all of your merchandise. Oh, and it'd be great if you could get people to thank you for the privilege of being in your store.

Wait a minute. . .you can (from ACE Hardware in East Atlanta Village - great LSM-ers, btw):

We heard reports of UPS & FedEx packages disappearing from porches - often only moments after being delivered. The speculation is that the thieves are following the delivery trucks.

So, as a service to our neighbors, Village Hardware will receive and hold your packages for you until you can pick them up. Have your packages delivered to your name, c/o Village Hardware, 1231 Glenwood Ave, Atlanta, GA 30316. When you are expecting a delivery, just give us a call and we'll see if it's arrived.


And the response?

Wow! That's awesome of you guys!


That is awesome customer service!!


No kidding. Jason, that's fantastic.

And, you know, when you go pick up your package, buy some stuff!
(Don't forget, this is a customer telling others to buy stuff.)

OK, so you're not a hardware store. Change the idea to fit your restaurant (or book store, or nail salon, or whatever). Ideas forthcoming in another post.