Give Your Customers a Taste
Photo Courtesy of Bruce Tuten
I’d never call myself a chef.
My culinary repertoire consists of hot dogs, scrambled eggs & peanut butter and jelly (but it’s a dang good PB&J). However, over the years of experiencing my wife’s excellent cooking I’ve grown quite fond of learning more about it & I am attempting to branch out my menu a bit.
Which is why I was looking forward to the Cleveland Food Show that was held last weekend in C-Town.
While I had some reservations about the cost ($25 bucks a ticket PLUS parking isn’t cheap) looking back on it, it was well worth it. The food demonstrations were fun, I enjoyed seeing a live cooking demonstration featuring Cleveland’s Own Iron Chef Michael Symon - they even had a wine tasting area that was exceptional.
As a marketer though I was particularly interested in the individual booths for the small & medium-sized businesses that were there.
Most gave out a couple of samples of their wares with no reservation. Everything from coffee to ice cream to Polish sausage & meatballs was being handed out in small, bite-sized portions.
The traffic at these booths would pick up & slow down like a wave. As fresh food was available, a line would form. Once the food was gone the line would shrink until it was replenished.
While everything was good, it was what you would expect at a food show.
But as we walked around, my wife & I noticed one booth that had a line around the corner. So we went in for a closer look.
What we found was a marketing machine.
At first glance it was a typical stand filled with assorted smoked meats & cheeses of all kinds from beef jerky to smoked cheddar. But as we continued to move back we saw the variety of food went beyond the normal stand. Everything from stromboli & peanut butter to hummus and grape leaves were all free & available for customers to try.
It made the competition’s cheese cubes on toothpicks seem like an insult.
We tried everything & it was all exceptional. We enjoyed it so much, we ended up buying quite a bit of food & this small deli stand gained two new customers. I know we weren’t the only ones as the line to the cashier was a long one.
Here’s the lesson: If you give a taste of everything you have, you get more attention because you have something that pleases a variety of personal tastes. This leads to more customers which leads to bigger sales.
This is a lot more than just lip service...
Malina Ink hopes this begins a dialogue with you as we discuss the ever-changing landscape of business. As most blogs are nothing more than a marketing 'vehicle', we hope this introduces you to our unique perspective.
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