Running a café may be one of life’s greatest achievements for most people. You get to serve other people a cuppa and relax at your own place while earning money at the same time. Coffee is the second most popular beverage in the world, next to water. In fact, around 30% to 40% of the world’s population consumes coffee every day, according to Coffee Rank. That’s why many people want to take advantage of this situation by establishing their own café. Starting a coffee shop may be a great idea to make money. However, opening one doesn’t mean people will start coming in. You need to create a marketing strategy to attract more customers to your café. However, formulating an effective strategy isn’t something you can do overnight, but with pure hard work, you’ll start reaping great results. This article will introduce some actionable ideas that’ll help you grow your coffee shop this year. So, grab a cup of your favorite coffee blend and keep reading.
Hand Out Personalized Products
If you’re looking for a cost-effective and simple marketing strategy to advertise your brand, this is the perfect one. When you hand these custom drink coasters in relatable and fun designs, your customers will surely love them and may spread the word to their colleagues, family, and friends. Of course, no one would dare to throw away something that looks great. They’ll probably use it until their next cups of coffee, whether hot or iced. This way, you get to advertise your café while letting your patrons beam over their customized coasters. You just have to release multiple designs with names or initials and allow your customers to pick what they want—people greatly appreciate the freedom of choosing what they love and the idea that something was made for them.
Make Your Storefront Appealing
You know the saying, ‘Feast with your eyes first.’ It doesn’t matter what kind of coffee you’re selling, whether it’s a 100% Colombian, Brazilian or Ethiopian. If the façade of your café looks awful, sad and dirty, you might start saying goodbye to your potential customers. They’ll most likely pass your shop by and head out to stores that are more comfortable and cleaner. So, what should you do to make your storefront pleasing and appetizing?vKeep it decent, relatable, and neat. In addition, you may consider putting some plants outside or a blackboard that promotes your shop’s special of the day. Use humour or wit to grab attention.
Offer A Bottomless Cup
This promo primarily targets beverage lovers who take drinking to the next level. Other people would also love to try it out, even if they don’t drink more than a cup of their preferred beverage per day. Of course, a bottomless mug should be a bit pricier than regular orders. But the fun starts when they ask for refills for free for as long as they want to stay. With this trick, customers will feel that they’re getting more than they pay for. This is where the bottomless promo begins to advertise the other items on your menu. Customers might want more lamingtons or meat pies to go with their drinks. Also, it’s a great deal for night owls who want to spend the night doing work and drinking a nice hot cup of coffee, tea or hot chocolate.
Provide Strong Wi-Fi Connection
For most people, especially those who bring in their laptops to work, staying in the coffee shop would be worthless without a stable Wi-Fi connection. In fact, most customers stay for almost an hour to enjoy the free internet connection provided by the café. Also, your shop’s Wi-Fi should be fast enough to serve everyone inside the shop effectively. So, don’t think of getting the bare minimum just to say that your café has Wi-Fi. In addition, internet connectivity is one of the reasons university students prefer to study and do their homework inside coffee shops. Not just them, even remote employees find working in a café is better, especially when they’re looking for new working environments. Remember, you’re in the generation wherein everyone wants to stay connected. If your customers can’t, they’ll look for other places where they can stay online for long periods. Keep in mind that the longer your customers stay, the more they’ll order.
Offer Refills At Half The Price
If you can’t do bottomless drinks, another great idea you can adopt and implement would be discounted refills. So, how does it work? The customer will order a standard, regular-priced drink. Then, they can ask for a refill, but they only need to pay half of the original price. This is an effective way to help customers get the most out of their money, perfect for those who aren’t fans of the bottomless drink idea. You don’t have to give discounts every day. You may select a month, day, event, or whatever works perfectly.
Start A Loyalty Program
This marketing strategy that many businesses do makes use of gamification. Why? This is because loyalty programs often work by providing a card that gets stamped or signed every time customers purchase anything, be it coffee or dessert. When customers fill the card with the right number of stamps, they’ll be eligible to receive a reward. It could be a free drink, cake, bread or anything your café offers. This strategy is really effective because, as you know, it’s like a game. As a result, your customers are less likely to switch to other shops because they probably don’t want to waste the opportunity to get the reward. Furthermore, if you want to take your loyalty program to the next level, you may use an app that would allow your customers to receive and monitor their points. They can use these points to pay for their drinks or claim a reward.
Final Words
Running a café is fun and thrilling, but making it grow may not be that easy, considering the intense competition among different shops. You always need to be creative and unique to keep up with the competition. But don’t forget to provide your customer with the best service and experience they can get to stand out from the crowd. Furthermore, always set your sights on the latest trends in the market, and try to implement such strategies in your café to garner a lot of attention and interest. In this way, your café will grow in a gradual yet consistent manner.