I recently did a survey of my customers on how they found us...so many have said we are hard to find though we sit on a corner, have 75' glass exposure, with a wrap around portico, bistro tables with bold umbrellas (they, for the marketing dollar, have likely given us the most ROI). So many new people come in with the question of "How long have you been here?" and expect us to say a few weeks, and we have been here a year, struggling for more traffic. Anyways, the results were that ~65% found us driving or walking by, and ~32% by direct referral of friends & work cohorts, and maybe 3% said they found us on the web first. We have done new mover direct mailing, coupons in and out of the store, flyers & special rate announcements with major corporations, and NONE of those were even reflected in our survey returns. What marketing have you done that drives traffic?

Our little drive-through just celebrated its 1st anniversity in our Wyoming town. We have been told we have the best coffee in town, and both my sister and myself try to give the best service possible (we are the only baristas). The location is easily acessable, and on a busy street. Yet for all that, we are only making 2/3 of what it will take to break even, although we are up from the spring.
Is there still hope that we will make it? What kind of advertising, if any might help? Any ideas you could give us would be appreciated.

Hoping for some suggestions on favorite coffee house music...we are running out of ideas and going crazy listening to the same playlist over and over!! Thanks for any suggestions!

-Amy

Hey folks,

Would love to hear how you market your stores to your communities. I am reading through my marketing plan and would really like to put some more muscle into our marketing. How do you guys get the word out on your shops? How can you get your name in the paper, so to speak? Has anyone used a PR firm like the "PR Store"? They are pricey I think, but seem to do a lot of the heavy lifting. My shop is supported mainly by early drive timers and then during the day from the neighborhoods that surround our center. Stay at home mommies, trades and such. We get good traffic through out the day. In the afternoon and evening we get the highschoolers and folks headed to the gym or grocery (in our center) or the bar/resturant next door. But I really want to get our brand out there. I do a lot of instore promotions and we pretty much have a freebie going on just about any time. I do a taste guarantee where people can bring in a same day receipt from any of our near by competitors and we will make the same drink for them to try out. We do loyality cards. We support a couple of local sports teams (baseball and soccer) and we have our logo on the fence at the nearby sports fields. We sponsor a night a for 2 elementary schools were a percentage of our proceeds are kicked over to the schools and we sponsor the high schools Chess Club. (I bought 10 very cheap t-shirts and offer them a place to practice) We offer discounts to teachers (there are 4 public schools and 3 private schools less than 2 miles from our shop) fireman and police. I bought space on a 5k t-shirt in our area as well. I don't do a lot of print ads. I do mailbox flyers and send one of my partimers out to put them in paper boxes in pre-determined neighborhoods. Ususally we put some type of coupon on it or sometimes we just announce a special event (I do live entertaiment and open mics once a month) My logo is on my sleeves and posted on just about everything in our store.

All this works fine and I have no complaints, but just wanted to see what else others are doing.

Thanks!

Johnlatte

Does anyone have any suggestions on what to use to tag our coffee urns with the different flavors? I made some nice tags and laminated them however, over the course of a couple of weeks, the coffee drips and gets the laminate all gooey and the tag eventually looks yucky.

Any suggestions at all would be much appreciated :)

Thanks!

I am sure everyone agrees that it is necessary to have a solid marketing plan. One that covers our seasonal activities (Valentines Day, Spring, Summer fun, Fall, holidays, etc.) We have found that weather has a lot to do with our sales in general. We make big money on ice cold smoothies but hardly anyone wants a smoothie in the cold, wind and rain. We are in a college town so our smoothies don't do as well in the cold and our kids only want hot chocolate that is if they think to come in. Most will settle for McDonald's or other quick specialty drinks. Our coffees are much more expensive and most of the students don't drink coffee. So we have to spend more energy on enticing people to come in for specials and seasonal activities. That requires a lot more of the budget than we can actually afford. Which means radio, television, billboards are out. We are not making enough money during the cold and rain to afford such things.

We are now relying a lot on posters that are provided through our vendors. They are free or very cheap. Also we send our employees out an hour a day when it is slow to put flyers on cars at markets and other crowded places. We have added sandwiches, salads and wraps which make up about 50% of our sales when business is slow.

Anybody got any more suggestions out there?

Question: Is the whole bean bin concept dying? In most groceries the bins are not air tight and mostly in an unkempt appearance. Is that why or is it because people have grinders at home and want whole beans in bags that are resealable?