The past year or so has seen it fair share of ups and down with the economy, and with that we see some interesting marketing ideas. I love coffee and occasionally visit the local Starbucks or Dunn Bros. A recent idea someone at Starbucks dreamed up was to reward your receipt with a stamp that will discount your next coffee if you return the same day. If you cant tell I love coffee.
I admire Starbucks for trying, but I don’t see anyone talking about the new marketing scheme. At least they are rewarding the people who visit their stores multiple times a day, which can be up to 3 times before 10 a.m., according to one Starbucks worker.
Within a week, Dunn Bros. Coffee offered me the same deal as Starbucks. Do they really think giving someone a $1 off their next drink will stir up buzz and bring people flocking in? It won’t. The reason is simple. Nobody cares about saving $1 with the condition of having to return within a few hours. And most of us are probably going to be annoyed that we were even told about this lame deal.
If I were in the decision-making process of one of these two companies, I would reward the faithful customers by going over the top. Working the early morning shift at a coffee shop, you would learn quickly who are the talkers and frequent customers. I would then greet those customers with a limited edition card (like the Black Centurion Card). The card would be worth a month’s worth of free regular coffee if they return it at the end of the month. I would maybe make about 20 of these, depending on how much business is done at that particular store.
I would then create a couple more cards (different colors) like that in greater number that would be worth between 25-50% off for the month. Now you have a product that people will talk about. Plus you have just placed that into the hands of the talkers. It won’t take long for that to be passed around and a month is just long enough to get it into the hands of another talker as the first gets less excited.
Then I would run a campaign in the store showing the picture and posters of “Have you seen this card?” Let everyone know who comes to the store they could potentially get one of those cards. Now that is an idea worth sharing. Scarcity and Reward. Scarcity to create a desire and a reward to the talkers and return customers.
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Tags: Branding, Marketing Ideas, Marketing Tactic, Unconventional Marketing
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Great idea Josh. I also frequent the caffeine cafe's. In the last 2 days, I've been to 3 different coffee shops. I was offered nothing special at either of them to make me return.
They all had free wi-fi. Coffee was comparable and good. I was treated well but an opportunity was there to make an impact with me and none did. There was no marketing materials or signs indicating they were involved in social media, or to follow them on Twitter for discounts.
This was a totally wasted opportunity. If one of them were to do what you suggest, it would not take long to make an impact for these businesses.
I know what you mean. It doesn't take a lot of effort to make a lasting impression. They could offer you a card that says if they don't remember your drink order you get the next one free. Of course there would be a lot of missed drink orders if you go in at a different time or location of the same company. But then you come back to “prove” them wrong and collect you free drink. If they did this to every new face they saw for a week or two I am sure they would get a lot of new people to frequent their store. Worth a shot and fun to boot.