Coffee Shop Marketing Tips

Try some of these marketing strategies in your coffee shop to boost sales.

1. Take a look at your menu.

Have you ever thought about your coffee menu as a marketing tool? Your coffee menu is your primary marketing tool for your coffee business. Try some of these marketing tips to get the most out of your menu.

• Revisit your menu placement. An old marketing trick is to put your most expensive drinks towards the top of your menu. Generally, your customers don’t want to read through your entire menu, so they’ll choose the first item on your menu that looks good. This has proven to significantly boost sales.
• Take advantage of seasonal promotions. Adding flavored syrup helps you sell more coffee. According to Coffee Connection almost 50% of all beverages sold includes flavoring. Pushing your flavored coffees will help you sell more drip coffee. And taking advantage of seasonal flavors such as “pumpkin spice” or “peppermint mocha” for a limited time encourages customers to grab it up!
• Play the Name Game. Do you have a specialty drink? A name that raises curiosity can lead to more sales.
A bakery customer of ours featured four or five rotating flavors of personal sized pot-pies in their display cases. One of the least popular was the “Mexican Pie.” They decided to experiment with the name to see if it changed sales and went with “The Diablo.” The results were immediate, and quickly became a best-seller, just with a name change.

Shakespeare asked; What’s in a name, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Marketers answer; A rose by any other name, wouldn’t sell as well and we’d be sending each other lilies on Valentine’s Day instead.

2. Targeted Free Samples

Everyone loves free samples, but there’s a difference between giving out free samples and giving away your entire business. If you take some of the time to think about your promotional strategy with free samples you can ensure a high return on your investment almost immediately.

Be a good neighbor

Do some good neighborly things, such as dropping off your coffee and a map to your establishment to local businesses. Not only does it get the word out about your coffee shop but it can even convert some of your neighbors into loyal customers. Building these business relationships are valuable and see a high return on investment. An additional plus; if any local businesses are looking for a coffee shop recommendation nearby, you’ll be at the forefront of their minds.

3. Make Sure to Offer A Suite of Services

Coffee Shops have become the defacto place to “work from home.” Whether you’re close to a college campus, in an urban metropolis or in the suburbs it’s become the norm to work from nearby coffee shops. If your shop doesn’t offer wifi, reconsider that. Are there a number of electrical outlets for your customers to plug in their devices?

Some coffee shop owners have some trouble wrestling with the fact that some customers order one coffee and set up camp for hours while regulars don’t have room to enjoy their cup of coffee leisurely and are sometimes pushed out. A solution to this problem is to set-up a quick service coffee drinkers section. This is where casual customers, not looking to work or study but want to enjoy the cafe culture can sit for up to 30 minutes, relaxing, hanging out with friends, or read the paper. Think of it like 15 minute parking…This is especially effective in areas close to college campuses where coffee shop tables are often filled to max capacity all day long with studying students.

4. Make-Over your Coffee Shop Loyalty Program

A great way to encourage customers to return to your coffee shop is a loyalty program.I’m sure you’re saying to yourself, yeah yeah yeah… punch cards whatever. And yes, I am going to again recommend a buy 10 get one free program, but with a twist. Integrating your coffee shop point of sale system with this loyalty program couldn’t be easier.

The more data you can capture about your customer’s spending habits the better you can cater to your services to them and grow your business. One of the benefits of a point of sale system is that is gives you a greater picture on how your customers interact with you brand by monitoring purchasing habits, online interaction, loyalty campaign participation etc.

By eliminating the need to remember their punch cards, your coffee point of sale software remembers for you. Customers simply enter in their phone number, and their coffee purchases are recorded. No more cluttered wallets with forgotten punch cards. You can even opt to print on the customers receipts how close they are to a free coffee creating the itch to return soon!