For me I use text and email marketing. I think text marketing for me is more effective with quick updates, sales, etc. Email marketing for me is great for introducing new merchandise. I also use social media but unless I'm posting a video, I don't really get a lot of interaction.
All of them! 🤣
We use Square email marketing, though we have slacked off on that this year. This question was a great reminder to me that not everyone is reachable via social media!
Otherwise, we have a very active FB page. I’m starting to figure out how to use Instagram to post our weekly outdoor entertainment via videos. And we stay on top of the review sites and handle what needs to be handled — Yelp, Google, etc. At the beginning of each season, we do a media blitz. A local PR firm helped us set all of that up last year and it has been a huge success! We are at the point that the media outlets are coming to us first.
Besides all of that, we find our best marketing is the tried-and-true word of mouth. Our customers are our best salespeople. We are also very involved in neighborhood events, and we offer our space for neighborhood groups, apartment complexes, etc, to host get-togethers.
Lastly, my husband and I carry a stack of “Free Ice Cream” cards around with us. Whenever we are somewhere it is appropriate we hand them out to people we meet. Works like a charm!
I’m going to add one more thing to my reply that I should have said. The point of my answer was that my most effective way to reach each customer is the way they want to be reached. That might be social media. That might be email. That might be word of mouth. That might be neighborhood outreach. We do ourselves a disservice by limiting our marketing if we don’t have to limit it. Obviously, I will limit the amount of paid/expensive marketing, for the obvious reason. But otherwise, I will meet the customer on the grounds they prefer I meet them on. If I don’t do that, I won’t reach them at all.
We call that Guerrilla Marketing.
Vetting them was easy @QuokkaCoffee. When they started business, they leased a small office space from us. We watched them grow and establish themselves. They are very involved in the community and have positioned themselves as a major player here.
We gave them our goals for our rebranding process. They gave us a menu of options and we chose the ones we wanted. It was a mix of traditional marketing channels as well as social media. From that point we had a budget. We did set aside a budget but we did not assume an expected ROI. In our case we were redefining ourselves, and it was critical to get the word out quickly and widely. Having said that, it was money very well spent. Our rebranding push was last year and it was very successful. This year, many of the media outlets that we used took the initiative to come back to us as they were preparing pieces for local “ice cream season.” The gift that keeps on giving, as it were!
Social media for us, but being more proactive with marketing is on my todo list.
We are a small winery/distillery and for us not to have an active 'club' or email list is bordering on criminal. I'd like to use the square marketing tools, but struggling a little with how to piece it all together.
