A new Thai restaurant opened up a couple of blocks from my house. My wife told me it was there but I drove by and couldn't see it. That was a few weeks ago. They finally got a sign up and I spotted the restaurant as I drove by one day.
But I had seen nothing about them. I didn't know they existed for weeks after they opened and I only lived two blocks away.
Last night, Nancy and I went there to eat for the first time. The manager came over and asked if everything was okay. It was great and we liked it, so I asked him why I hadn't heard about the place.
"Are you advertising?" I asked. "Have you done any direct mail in this area to let people know you're here?"
"Direct mail is expensive," he said. "It's about 600 dollars for 7,500 homes."
I didn't think that was too bad. Put a good coupon on some direct mail and put it in the hands of people in the neighborhood. Instead, he had spent $100 for a coupon in the Wednesday paper. We don't get the Wednesday paper so we didn't see it.
Sometimes, you get what you pay for.
But he did have a great idea on Halloween. He gave coupons to some kids. Each time they visited a house and got some candy, they gave a treat -- a coupon -- to the adult at the house. So the kids got candy and the grownups got a coupon for Thai food. I thought it was brilliant and a great example of guerrilla marketing.
Then I gave him a good guerrilla marketing idea. Since he's concerned about cost, I told him to print up a one-page flyer and pay some kids $50 each to put them in the storm doors of houses around the neighborhood. When I was in 4th grade (early 1963) my friend's father paid us to do that with flyers for his tire business. I made a few bucks and bought my very first record album (Rick Nelson's "Rick is 21"). It was a great way to earn some money and a cheap way for him to do some direct marketing in the neighborhood.
If you have a shop or restaurant that caters mainly to customers that live within a certain radius, don't waste your marketing dollars on a shotgun approach that targets everyone in the region. Work smarter. It's possible that a $600 investment in direct mail -- even Valpak -- to residents within a couple miles of the restaurant (providing the direct mail contained an attractive free offer like one entree free with the purchase of one) would produce regular customers and give the restaurant a boost from the start.
Comments