Great Taste Magazine

by Todd Lejnieks July/Aug 2008 Issue

In 1984, Jay Conrad Levinson coined the term “Guerrilla Marketing” to describe a newly emerging and unconventional strategy of bringing customers to buy more of your product or services. The foundation of this idea was to use your own imagination instead of large, expensive advertising campaigns.

Some of the key principles of Levinson’s book, Startup Guide to Guerrilla Marketing: A Simple Battle Plan for First-Time Marketers:

• Guerrilla Marketing is geared for small businesses and entrepreneurs.
• Time, energy and imagination should be the primary investments, rather than  large sums of money.
• Focus on cooperating with other businesses, instead of competing.
• Use current technologies to enhance your efforts.
• Create a standard of excellence with a focus. Don’t over diversify or lose your focus.

Having zero dollars as our entire “Marketing Budget” at Schooner’s Grille & Brewery, guerrilla marketing was all we could do. The following are some of the methods we tried, and how they worked out, successfully or otherwise.

Building from our loyal customers.

In its 6-year history, Schooner’s had, without trying, attracted a base of regular customers that any restaurant would envy. We had already identified this as a key strength, so we brainstormed about ways to capitalize on it. Although many of the staff knew our “regulars” by their first name, we had no real information about our customers. We started a “Customer Loyalty” Program. Utilizing our POS (Point of Sale) system, we ordered 500 blue magnetic swipe cards, had our logo printed on them and began to offer them to our frequent diners. Our offer was to give them a $10 coupon for every $100 they spent. The first 500 cards were gone within two weeks. We ordered 500 more, which again were quickly depleted. As each card was given out, we asked or the customer’s name and email address. Every week, one of our hostesses would enter that information into a database, using “icontact.com”. Within six months, we had an email list of nearly 2000 customers. We were also able to begin tracking their spending and found out that many of our customers were spending over $10,000 a year at our restaurant!

With this new program providing valuable information, we needed to figure out ways to stay on a roll, focusing on how to make a return on the information. In Great Taste’s next issue, you’ll find out what we did to maintain our success. Armed with over 1500 email addresses we acquired from our new frequent diner program, we began a monthly newsletter. In each edition, we wrote four or five paragraphs of information we thought our customers would be interested in, and, in some cases, included a printable coupon for them to use. We sent out information regarding upcoming Wine and Brewer’s Dinners, live bands, special holiday menus, reminders for people to make reservations on certain days, and even a link allowing them to reserve online. The cost of the email campaign was about $30 a month.

What worked? Sales jumped and our customers couldn’t wait to get their own blue card (the rewards card distributed to frequent diners). Being able to contact a large percentage of our regular customers helped us to make sure special events were well-attended and kept our loyal base informed of important happenings. We not only increased attendance frequency of already loyal customers, we were able to turn occasional customers into more regular diners.

What didn’t work? While the program was successful, there were a few snags to be aware of that caught us off-guard. The $10 coupons were set up to print out when the customer reached their $100 threshold after the check had been closed out. So, many times, the server would close the check after the table left, and out would come the $10 coupon. We scrambled to invent a system of storing the coupons and letting the customers know we were holding on to them. Another problem was that customers were using $10 coupons with other discount offers, and, in some cases paying for large parties almost entirely with their saved-up coupons. While we recognized that they had “earned” the coupons, we also knew that we could not afford to serve, cook and clean for a party of 8 paying entirely with them. To fix this problem, we started adding a disclaimer, “not valid with any other offer / only one coupon per visit”.

Events

Here are just a few of the events we at Schooner’s thought up, complete with a few pro’s and con’s for each:

Monday Classic Car Night: We filled the void of a traditionally slow dinner rush by contacting a few local car clubs around town, offering them the use of our parking lot. We roped off a section for them exclusively, and had a “free” DJ spinning classic songs from the 50’s and 60’s. Our patio was filled every Monday evening, and the parking lot full of classic, well-kept cars brought in a lot of curious customers, who could see them from the street. The only real negative on this one was that another restaurant caught onto our idea, and some of our regular car club crowd thinned out as there were more than one event a week to attend. But hey, imitation is the highest form of flattery!

Tuesday Bike Night: This one needs an article all its own. The idea was to again rope off a section of our parking lot, inviting a few of the local motorcycle clubs from around town to come show off their “hogs”, this time offering a live band on Tuesdays instead of a DJ. The idea took off like wildfire. Our normally pedestrian 80 guest-count Tuesday nights turned into 300 cover weekend-like sales bonanzas. The live band, which played on our patio, could be heard from a block away and attracted not only bikers, but rock and roll fans and the merely curious who saw the 70 or 80 motorcycles parked out front.

We were giddy with success until one night one of the band members got socked in the face by a young ruffian (who didn’t even own a bike). No one got seriously hurt but I can tell you without a doubt that our normal family crown began to shy away on Tuesday nights. And, as the GM, I can tell you it was intimidating to walk in front of the restaurant and see “Hells Angels” making an appearance at your friendly establishment. I will say though, that 99% of the bikers were the nicest folks you’d ever want to meet. And any trouble we saw usually came from the “wannabes”. Nevertheless, be careful what you wish for. We wished for hundreds of people to come in on Tuesday nights, and it came true!

We plan to continue the Tuesday night events, with the live band on the patio. But we will not close off the parking lot exclusively to motorcycles.

Brewer’s Dinners and Wine Dinners: Having a brewery on the property gave us some unique opportunities. In addition to being able to sell our own beer (from pints to full kegs), we also had an owner, Shawn Burns, who is a Master Brewer. His knowledge of the beer making process is unparalleled in the area, and Shawn is considered one of the top microbrewers in the country, as proven by the several medals and ribbons won in the Great American Beer Festival and California State Fair, as well as other numerous awards. The point is not to laud Shawn with accolades but to emphasize that focusing on your strengths is a key to successful guerrilla marketing. We used Shawn’s talents, as well as that of our skilled Chef Daniel Patino, to create “Brewer’s Dinners”. Shawn and Daniel created a four-course dinner, designed to be paired with four of our house-brewed beers. As each dish was served, Shawn, and Head Brewer Craig Cauwels would personally pour the accompanying beer to each guest, while explaining the brewing process of each beer and why it was paired with each food item. The end of the night was highlighted with a tour of the brewery, where guests were offered a sip of one of our “specialty beers”, which were not yet available to the general public.

Every Brewer’s Dinner we ever offered was a sold-out huge hit.

Although not known as a restaurant to seek out for excellent wines, Shawn had managed to put together an eclectic and impressive wine list. Beermakers and Winemakers share the common trait of an excellent palate and Shawn used his to bring in many good wines. We took a risk by offering our first “Wine Dinner” but with Chef Daniel’s excellent food, and the help of Beaulieu Vineyards, we pulled off an outstanding evening. Our customers can’t wait for another.

There were no real negatives to either of these events. But focus and attention to detail are more important than ever, as you are attempting to showcase the best you have to offer on these kinds of nights.

Deliver The Goods

As Levinson said in his groundbreaking book, a business must ultimately “deliver the goods”. I believe, that in Guerilla Marketing, what you are trying to do is simply share just how good, your goods are. It is not easy. Restaurant operators, faced with a potentially “Stagflating” economy must fight for the seemingly-decreasing dining dollar. But, as the cliché goes, “Everyone needs to eat”. The first step in making your place the best; focus on your strengths. Then brainstorm and do the tough work necessary to remind people that your place is the place to be.