Parking Lot Blitz with a Twist

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I was reviewing a local store marketing manual to prepare for a seminar to be presented at the annual convention of Wienershnitzel when I came across a variation of an old stand-by promotion that caught my attention. This version of an under windshield wiper piece seems like it would capture a lot attention...way more than the standard promotional flyer. If you saw this under your windshield wiper when you return to your car, you would no doubt notice it too! And when you turn it over you see the message on the right. This simple grassroots, Street Fighter tactic with a twist is just the ticket for helping to capture a little more business on a shoe string budget.

The Wizard of Sales: A musical parody on selling

The Wizard of Sales tells the story of four sales people each who has a problem in selling: Dorothy can't close, The Scarecrow can't generate qualified leads, The Tinman has trouble handling objections, and the Cowardly Lion (played by Steve Rizzo) suffers from call reluctance. They travel to seek help from the great and powerful Wizard of Sales. Written and produced by Jeff Slutsky to provide a fun way to learn about basic sales. The original production ran 45 minutes for the National Speakers Association annual convention in Washington DC. Here is but a brief promotional preview...

Problem With Taking Other Company's Coupons

I was giving a Street Fighter Marketing keynote speech in San Francisco several weeks ago and one of my audience members shared an interesting promotion. Apparently a pizza chain in Bloomington, Indiana (let's call it Tiny Nero's) advertised that they would give a free pizza if you brought in any competitor's coupon, regardless of its value. They were probably thinking it would be a great way to build some foot traffic and get rid of the competition's promotional pieces at the same time. A competitor then took out a full page ad in the local newspaper. In that ad he filled it with $1.00 coupons. (Which would all be good for free pizzas at Little Nero's but only a buck off at his place.) Needless to say, Little Nero's was inundated as you might expect. After giving away an untold amount of free pizza, they then cancelled their offer early which made a number of customers very unhappy. I would would have to say that it was a perfect "Street Fighter" defensive move. So, just be careful when you run a guerrilla style promotion to think it through carefully.

Promotions to Increase Sales Right in Your Back Yard

We were conducting a comprehensive Street Fighter Marketing development program for Back Yard Burger, working with the franchisees in the Knoxville area with their local store marketing. In just one month each of the store managers came up with promotions that cost very little yet brought in customers.

Doggy Dog Promotion. One clever promotion was from their Ashville franchisee who came up with the idea, “dogs eat free.” Of course everyone has heard of promotions where kids eat free, but dogs, got our attention. They collect the unused hamburgers that normally would have to be thrown out. They cut them up in the bite sizes pieces and they give them to the customers’ dogs when they go through the drive-thru window. The promotion is done on a specific day of the week and customers come by regularly to take advantage of the promotion. The really clever part of the promotion is that it costs nothing. They don’t have to buy treats since they’re using their own product,

Food And Flicks. The single most successful promotion they did was a simple cross promotion with a Blockbuster. The Blockbuster assistant manager is a regular at Steve’s (the manager) location and he was able to suggest the idea to him without having to leave the store. They traded gift certificates for their employees, who handed out a special certificate that allowed each Blockbuster customer to get a special meal deal. In just the first few weeks of the promotion, Steve generated 92 new customers. To determine if a customer was a first timer, Steve had his counter people ask each customer with the certificate if it was the first time to a Back Yard Burger. This simple question helped to determine a new customer from one that was a regular. That number will no doubt increase over the weeks following. Oddly enough, they received an additional 55 redemptions at one of their other locations further away.

Cookie Sales. The burger bucks promotion was designed for non-profit organizations. In Ashville, they were able to get the Girl Scouts to promote a $1.00 of f certificate with the purchase of cookies. Part of the arrangement was to allow the Girl Scouts to sell their cookies at their two locations. Yet the $1.00 certificates were used at all points of distribution. Only 10% of the redemptions came from the onsite sales. The nice thing about this promotion is that it ties you in with a high-visibility organization and the actual discount is very slow. As a result of this effort, the Boy Scouts approached the franchisee for the same arrangement for the popcorn sales.

Kids Night. Kids nights are always a nice way to pick up business on a slow day. The twist here is that Natalie, the franchise owner, was able to provide an inflatable “moon walk” attraction at two of her locations. Normally they would cost quite a bit, but the vendor just bought three new attractions and wanted to get the word out that they were available for rent at birthday parities and other special events. Fortunately, Natalie’s two locations are on busy streets, so the vendor agreed to provide them, at two locations, every Monday for four weeks. The only cost was $50 each to cover the cost of the person to run the attraction. The vendor will pass out brochures about his moon walk attractions to the customers. Everybody wins.

When Business Is Down,
Street Fighter Marketing Gets Swamped

While most businesses are cutting back due to the recent financial meltdown, Street Fighter Marketing, Inc. is busier than ever. Why? Because they specialize in developing community oriented, sales and marketing programs that cost practically nothing to implement. When times get tough, one of the first things to get cut back is the marketing and advertising budget. Yet, businesses know that they have to reach their potential customers if they want to survive this volatile period. That’s where the “Street Fighters” come in. There’s are literally hundreds of opportunities on the community level to get free and low cost marketing and advertising to generate new customers. Street Fighter has perfected a system of taking advantage of them. And while there are always businesses for one reason or another who need to employ their unique tactics, now it seems that nearly every business does.

I feel this is no time to cut back. Rather, by becoming aggressive with a grass roots marketing program, it’s very likely that a business can come out of this turmoil better than when they went in. The tactics are being use by the very small independent business as well as major national chains and franchises. The key is to get implementation on that community level. For that to really work, it requires that the owner or manager of that business get involved with their local marketing efforts directly. Additionally, it’s just as critical for business people to structure their promotional efforts so that they can track results and know if they are getting a good Return On their Marketing Investment (ROMI). Without tracking, they’ll never really know what is working and what is not.