A client of mine just launched their business, Sugar Llamas. Sugar Llamas is a brick-and-mortar location that offers delicious cake donuts, gourmet coffee and ice cream. When I met with them, they were so excited because their numbers exceeded their projections dramatically after they’d only been open for about a month. They couldn’t believe their success – but I could, because they did everything right with their launch. They created an amazing brand and had an ideal marketing strategy that resulted in quick growth.
The reason they’re having such great success comes down to these three factors:
1: They were able to create a product that people want. Everyone loves food – especially sweets. The key to marketing is either bringing people pleasure, or presenting a way to get them out of pain, and nothing brings people more pleasure than enjoying a yummy sugary treat. It’s all about having a great product. You can do all the marketing in the world, but if your product doesn’t live up to the expectations of your customers, you’re likely to lose them.
2: They invested in a complete marketing package. They created a look for their brand and a great, easy-to-navigate website. Additionally, they had professional photos and videos taken and launched a comprehensive social media campaign on Facebook and Instagram. It doesn’t matter how great your product is if you don’t have good marketing to pair it with, because if no one knows about your business, they’re not going to buy your product. You want people to stop in their tracks when they’re scrolling through social media and pay attention to what you’re saying and offering. Then, they’ll become familiar with you, start to like you, and decide to come to your location and give your product a try. We had the pleasure of creating Sugar Llamas’ entire brand look, their website, and all of the accompanying creative elements. Once all of the assets were created, we launched a social media campaign. Sugar Llamas customers (moms with kids) mainly use Facebook, so that’s where we targeted our marketing. We created a contest to win a year’s worth of donuts and coffee, with the goal of capturing a list of potential customers we could market to in the future – we ensured this by having people enter the contest by providing their names, phone numbers and email addresses. This did two things:
- 1. We have their data to text and email them other specials.
- 2. We captured their IP addresses once they visited our landing page, which meant we can follow them online with ads.
In the first 30 days of launching the Sugar Llamas campaign, we had 3,946 people sign up for the contest and the ad was seen over 220,000 times, resulting in a 2x return on our ad spend with their redemptions in-store.
3: We then followed up with a video campaign that shows close-up shots of their amazing treats. In only two weeks, over 8,500 people who live in a 5-10 mile radius of their store have viewed the video, with us spending only two cents per view. Truly, there’s not a more cost-effective way to market.
This approach worked so well because it allowed us to stay at the top of the minds of the people who had already shown interest in Sugar Llamas by clicking on the ad. In marketing, you want to inundate the potential customer repeatedly until they react to what you’re trying to sell them. This way, they go from being unfamiliar with your brand to familiar. Once they’re familiar, they will start to like you, trust you and buy from you with time.
Having great customer service in-store leads to repeat customers.
Once a new customer comes to your location or visits your online store, you need to wow them with customer service and provide them with a great experience so they’ll want to return. Remember that people choose where they shop and do business, so it’s important to make them want to come back (and tell their friends)!
Having a complete marketing mix (having a great product, investing in marketing tools, providing excellent customer service) is the key to having a successful business. These factors are all of the things the customer will think of when they’re deciding if they’ll buy from you. This means that your logo, website, social media, videos and in-store experience should all align and look cohesive. All areas of your business must be operating on the same cylinder to succeed.
Here are the 7 P’s that make up a marketing mix!
- Product – What are you trying to sell? What does this product look, feel or even taste like? Make it consistent every time.
- Price – If you’re targeting a high-end audience, you need to price it that way. If you’re going for less expensive pricing, you need to make your product appeal to your target audience – what can you provide them that they don’t already have? You also should look at what your competitors are charging and what the demand is for your product.
- Promotion – How are you choosing to promote your product or service online? Are you using partnerships with other brands or influencers? What about through a email or text list? How are you reaching the people you want to sell to?
- People – How is the customer treated from the time they walk into the store until they leave? Staff, salespeople, customer service reps…Everyone your customer encounters needs to reflect the company culture.
- Place – How do people buy your product or service? Do they shop in-person or online? Through a salesperson or trade show? If you’re selling online, do you have customer service assistance ready to go?
- Process -What are the processes for the delivery of your product that make it consistent every time? This is especially important in the food industry. Think of McDonalds – their fries always taste the same no matter where you are.
- Physical evidence – This is the space where customers experience your product or service. If it’s a physical location, how does it look, smell and sound when they walk in? If it’s online, how is their user experience navigating your website?
Before you launch your business, it’s crucial to have a plan for your entire marketing mix!
Before you launch your business, make sure you have a plan for your entire marketing mix!
