Download the eBook to learn about the 48 proven strategies for success for local marketing. For example, the eBook can be used as a reference manual.
In other words, it can be useful for CEOs, CMOs, franchisees, operators, and “Mom & Pop” owners of brick & mortar operations. Several of the 48 proven strategies for success are useful for service area operations such as home services.
How to use this eBook
As the CEO of a multi-unit operation, you could download the eBook and give it to your operations and marketing teams.
For example, if you are the head of marketing for a multi-unit brick & mortar business, you could use it for ideas and ways to challenge your team.
And most importantly. if you own a brick & mortar business or are the franchisee of any retail or restaurant chain, use the 48 proven strategies for success to augment the marketing tactics your franchisor provides.
What is local marketing?
Local marketing is marketing to the people who live and work in your trade area and have a propensity to buy your services and/or offerings.
Local marketing used to be simple. To market your business in a local area, business owners used to join the local chamber, send direct mail postcards, buy a yellow-pages ad or perhaps even walk the trade area to introduce themselves to other local businesses, schools, banks, etc. in the neighborhood.
One of my favorite stories is about a small business owner who had the misfortune of being located in a strip center with two other businesses that sold the same wares. The store on the right advertised that they were having a sale, and everything was 10% off. The store on the left followed suit and put up a banner that said everything was 15% off. What was our owner to do?
He also put a banner over his front door that said:
MAIN ENTRANCE
Which door would you enter?
Examples:
#2 is how to optimize your Google My Business (GMB) page
#8 explains the importance of email marketing
#22 how to use local service ads for service-area businesses
#31 about how direct mail still works
#37 explains how to deal with the constant request for donations
#40 on how to use various kinds of signage to promote your business
In addition to ITB Partners, Doug works as a fractional CMO with Chief Outsiders. Chief Outsiders is the largest fractional CMO firm in the USA. As a result, Chief Outsiders is home to 75+ chief marketing officers who specialize in helping small to mid-sized companies grow.
Like the eye of a hurricane, businesses raked by the leading edge of the COVID-19 pandemic are now taking a cautious look outside. Though the winds have subsided, and it’s tempting to think that the worst is over, the eye simply gives us a chance to prepare for what’s left to come. But the time is now to begin planning for the rebound.
If you withstood the worst of the impacts of the pandemic so far, you likely have accepted that the storm was coming, and had battened down your hatches (or at least applied for PPP funding to keep vestiges of your business afloat). Now, as we can start to imagine a future, it’s critical to have your plan in place when the rebound hits.
For those who haven’t been willing to consider the details needed in your post-pandemic recovery plan – or simply weren’t willing to “go there” – now is the time to plan for your rebound.
The public has been released from their quarantine in many states and other states are scheduled to open. Research indicates consumers will be ready to shop and dine. The world into which they will venture will indeed be changed. Will their appetite for dining with you also be transformed?
In my view, planning for the rebound – the re-grand-opening into the brave new world – will require a three-step planning process:
An accurate assessment of NOW – Analysis and cost-cutting based on where you are today, and how you’ll conduct business until social distancing is no longer needed;
Planning for NEAR – Executing on pivots or changes to your offerings to help your cash flow to improve your survivability, and;
Plan NEXT – Stop random acts of marketing and follow the 12-step approach that follows “The Growth Gears,” a strategic marketing book authored by Art Saxby and Pete Hayes, to plan for your recovery.
Where have your customers gone? Are they still in need of your unique brand of hospitality? Have you maintained your competitive edge? Can you keep your employees active and engaged in the business? Many businesses are grappling with these and other questions, as they fight for survival in an apocalyptic present, and uncertain future. Here are four tips to consider when planning for the rebound and assessing your business:
Review costs
Most people have already done this – things like canceling recurring services that are simply irrelevant, asking for payment terms on necessary services, and in general, having a series of difficult conversations about labor, supplies, and rent. Job No. 1 is to understand your cash flow – and factors influencing it.
Review competition
What is your competition doing now? How have they pivoted? Did they reduce hours of operation? Were they forced to close? Is there something you could do with your local competitors to encourage customers to order takeout and delivery? For example, an entity called “The Great American Takeout” has formed, and has encouraged customers via social media posts to takeout food to support restaurants every Tuesday since March 24.
Reconnect with your employees
Did you furlough or lay anybody off? With the crew that is left, what has the pandemic done to morale? How are you? Now is the time for frequent communication with your current and past employees. To prepare for reopening, you should prepare a plan to re-hire and train employees.
Reassign tasks
To keep employees on the payroll (assuming you have sales because you are offering curbside pick-up or delivery), reassign team members to answer the phone, shuttle deliveries, or serve as curb-side ambassadors. In the short term, this could also mean repurposing the business for strictly philanthropic purposes. One restaurant invited the American Red Cross to park its Bloodmobile in their parking lot for a blood drive to help medical professionals.
Step 2: PLANNING FOR NEAR
Planning for the rebound needs to happen now. If you’ve withstood the worst of the pandemic so far, you may find that the tweaks you’ve made temporarily should be considered for permanence. Now, more than ever, understanding the customer’s needs and wants – and how you are positioned to be a guiding force in their upturned lives – can be a make or break proposition. Here are some ways to be a part of this change:
Rethink offerings.
If you’re a restaurant, you might offer groceries or sell toilet paper. Most restauranteurs reduced their menu offerings to optimize the to-go experience. For retailers, this can involve sticking with conveniences like online ordering and curbside pick-up. Creativity is key. Here are some creative examples:
Red Roof Inns: The lodging company offered up hotel rooms as a remote office and alternative resting spaces during the day for truckers for only $29.
Fogo de Chao: The unique Brazilian restaurant shifted its focus to offer curbside packages of ready-to-grill cuts of meat.
Wow Bao: The restaurant has begun “selling the materials necessary to make a simplified version of their menu of bowls, buns, and potstickers to other restaurants and ghost kitchen facilities,” according to the website Restaurant-Hospitality.com.
Subway: The sandwich chain is testing a Subway Grocery concept in California. The beta program allows customers to order items such as baked bread, deli meats, sliced cheese, vegetables, and soups.
Panera: Like Subway, Panera Bread has launched a grocery offering at scale to allow customers to order essential grocery items such as loaves of bread, milk and produce, and to have the items available for delivery or drive-up pickup.
Reconsider sacred cows
As businesses rethink their offerings, they can run smack into certain “sacred cows” that seem to be integral to their identity. For example, a full-service eatery may balk at delivery options, since that fish dish might be ruined in the 30 or 45 minutes it takes to deliver it. This is no time for those kinds of pretensions. Find a way to make a meal pack, or focus on offerings that can be delivered successfully. Several restaurants have created pop-up drive-throughs, with no more than a tent and a landlord’s blessing. And the likes of Home Depot have shifted to curbside pick-ups even as it prided itself on counseling customers in the store.
Reschedule Initiatives
Retailers and restaurants that had planned remodeling projects could move those up, but only if the resources exist to do so. Only the best-capitalized businesses will be able to embark on a remodeling project now, but if you can move up the date, it’s worth doing while your dining room or bricks-and-mortar location is closed. Of course, such initiatives can still be hindered by government directives that limit non-essential work and will vary by municipality.
Reconnect
Communication matters more than ever. We may be keeping our distance physically, but we’ve never been more social. We have regular Zoom happy hours, and we can still call upon clients virtually on a regular basis. B2B companies will have closer relationships since they sell directly to their clients, but B2C companies shouldn’t go quiet either. They need to reach out every few days, so long as they are mindful in tone and content.
On an April 8 webinar sponsored by Valassis and featuring data from Technomic, they suggested:
Source: Valassis
If you can maintain communication with your customers through advertising, social channels, and email, do it. You must be mindful of your tone and message, but the research of the past 93 years is clear – if you can maintain or increase your advertising during a downturn, especially when your competitors don’t, you will be rewarded with higher sales and market share during the recovery.
Step 3: PLAN NEXT
Opening Soon
Planning for the rebound sooner, rather than later, is critical. Those who wait for the rebound to begin will be late to the party. If you wait too long, you will likely lose market share to more aggressive competitors.
With what you’ve gleaned from studying your competitors and company in Step No. 1, above, it’s time to learn more about your customers as they exist today, to get an idea of what and who they may be in the future. The shifts in public policy, social interactions, virtual workspaces, and personal hygiene will likely be tectonic in scope. As a result, you need to understand how the shifts will affect your business and which ones you may be able to exploit.
Ways to learn about your customers now, so you can plan for the Next.
Google Analytics – Look for shifts in devices used, demographics, source of traffic, etc.
Email surveys – Query your customers about their lifestyle, media preferences, food choices, favorite foods, etc. as they were prior to the pandemic, and as they are now. Do a gap analysis to find opportunities.
Read – Information abounds online regarding perceived or guessed new behaviors by many sources. Pete Hayes, CMO, and Principal for Chief Outsiders outlined the basic steps to follow in his blog “COVID-19 Crisis – 12-step Pre-Recovery Checklist for CEO’s. Also, McKinsey & Company posted an opinion on how to prepare for the next stage of the crisis. Their opinion is deeply rooted in management consulting expertise and is more about preparation for the next stage of the crisis vs. recovery.
Regardless of your current posture on the COVID-19 pandemic, it is a certainty that the danger will eventually come to an end. Now is the time to be sharpening your pencils and honing your strategies so you can be ready for the next steps.
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Maintaining advertising in a recession has been proven over time to increase market share and boost revenues over time.
In these uncertain times amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, there are likely two distinct pathways for businesses to follow — adapt or perish. Because none of you reading this would ever consider laying down your arms and not fighting for survival, I thought I’d share a couple of quotes from noteworthy types who chose the latter mindset, choosing to both adapt, and thrive, rather than survive.
“To improve is to change. To be perfect is to change often.” –Winston Churchill
“Skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it is.” – Wayne Gretsky
Of course, your survival instinct is just a starting point. What will it take to truly gird your organization for the post-pandemic economic recovery?
In this blog and the one to follow, I’d like to lay out some steps that might be worth taking. First, we’ll discuss why your advertising budget should be spared the ax. We’ll then discuss strategies to employ to prepare for an economic rebound.
Onward, ho!
Playing to Win the Ad Game
History is full of examples where businesses that maintained or increased advertising budgets during a recession were rewarded with more market share and higher sales and profits.
During the Great Depression, Post cereals reduced its advertising budget while Kellogg doubled its ad spend. The result? A catchy slogan — “Snap, Crackle and Pop” – for its new Rice Krispies cereal, and a 30 percent increase in post-depression profits. Oh, and they’ve been the market leader ever since.
During the 17-month recession in 1973 -75, Toyota maintained its ad spend and became the No. 1 import in 1976, surpassing Volkswagen.
In the 1990-91 recession, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut took advantage of McDonald’s decision to reduce its advertising spend. Pizza Hut sales increased 61 percent and Taco Bell,s jumped by 40 percent, while McDonald’s decreased 28%.
More than 40 studies over 93 years for Advertising in a Recession
In 2009, Gerard J. Tellis and Kethan Tellis compiled and synthesized 40 historical empirical and non-empirical studies on the topic of advertising in a recession. What they found was a healthy dose of evidence that advertising during a recession is a good thing. Several studies found clear evidence the reduced recessional ad spending led to lower post-recession sales; still, other studies found that the inverse – higher spend led to higher sales – was true. And, some studies actually found that market share can actually increase more for some companies during a recession than in stable times. The likely reason is a combination of lost share by competitors and the entry of new, more nimble firms into the post-depression marketplace.
Advertising Drives Word of Mouth
In another example, researchers looked at the lessons learned from the automotive and financial industries during the 2008-2009 depression. Brad Fey and David Shiffman concluded that:
Advertising plays a substantial role in driving positive word of mouth (WOM) for major brands.
Even during a major crisis, ad-driven WOM continues to be nearly as positive as during normal times.
Cutting back ad spend during a crisis diminished the impact of a valuable tool for offsetting negative news (though customer service, public relations, and social media also play a role).
From personal experience, I lived in the 2008-2010 recession. While a member of the executive team at Firehouse Subs, we used the downturn to reposition the brand and double our ad spend – actions that led to increased market share and exponential growth from 2010 to 2016, at a 20 percent year-over-year clip.
“The optimum response to the recession is to maintain, and ideally increase your advertising investment.
Unfortunately, to pull this off you require three things. You need to have some money available to spend on advertising. Then you need an executive team smart enough to know marketing is an investment or trusting enough to listen to your presentation that explains all of this to them. And, finally, you need to not be shit.”
How Does This Relate to Today?
Of course, we know that cash flow is critical, and maintaining ad spend during this crisis is easier said than done for many brands. But, if you have the ability to communicate with your customers through email/SMS text and other owned channels like social media, do it. As Fey and Shiffman learned from their work, the message is important, and this is the time to do all you can to maintain positive Word of Mouth with your customers.
If you are fortunate to have cash reserves and can maintain ad spend, especially by shifting to digital channels where “shelter in place” directives have increased usage, do it too.
Messaging Counts Too
Now, the message you convey during the COVID-19 crisis will vary slightly by industry. In some industries like restaurants and retail that are considered essential services, the advertising message could be similar to pre-COVID-19 messaging, since customers seem to be sympathetic to the struggles being experienced by their local merchants.
But striking the right balance is critical. If you are seen as putting profits before people, you may squander trust in a way that it cannot be recovered. A recent study by Edelman on brand trust confirmed this fact but also found that most brands are using their advertising powers for good rather that evil. Consumers in the survey responded as follows:
90 percent want brands to do everything they can to protect the well-being and financial security of their employees and suppliers, even if it means substantial financial losses until the pandemic ends.
89 percent believe brands should offer free or lower-priced products to health workers, people at high risk, and those whose jobs have been affected.
83 percent are seeking a compassionate connection, including brand messaging that communicates empathy and support with the struggles they face.
84 percent are turning to brand social channels to find a sense of community and offer support to those in need.
65 percent like hearing from brands they use about what they are doing in response to the pandemic because it is comforting and reassuring to them.
The takeaway?
Though it may be ok to advertise product or brand, as usual, it is advisable to change messaging, especially in owned channels like email, SMS/text, and social to a more humanistic tone and values.
“There is no doubt that the COVID-19 crisis is more than a recession. It is much worse and physical distancing is a demand killer. However, we at Edleman believe there will be much pent-up demand after the tide turns. American consumers like to be mobile, to eat out and spend money shopping. Don’t under-estimate the power of “Cabin Fever” and the “stir-craziness” for all Americans due to physical distancing.”
In our next blog, we’ll look at the importance of strategic go-to-market planning in being ready for the rebound.
Doug Reifschneider
Thank you for visiting our blog.
Jim Weber – Managing Partner, ITB Partners
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Your feedback helps me continue to publish articles that you want to read. Your input is very important to me so; please leave a comment.
I thought it was time to look into the crystal ball. After scouring news articles for 60 days, several themes arose from the ashes of the pandemic to reveal the top-10 changes for restaurants after the crisis ends.
Chains will rule – 7 of 10 restaurants are owned by individual operators according to the National Restaurant Association, most of whom are independent. Unfortunately, those independents have been the majority of closures and if 10-15% of all restaurants permanently close during the pandemic, then only healthy chains will be left.
2) Growth will rebound – Chains will increase unit growth to fill the void left by closed restaurant locations. New independents will arise out of the ashes. The new wave of restauranteurs will have learned from the recent crisis and will focus on sustainability of operations by leaning hard into delivery, take-home, contactless payment, and other enabling technology.
3) Ghost kitchens – new and existing concepts will cooperate together to develop ghost kitchens where multiple cuisines live in harmony to satisfy the appetite of urban dweller and the virtual food court will become a thing.
4) Cleanliness is next to Godliness – Serve-Safe and other entities who train restaurant employees to prepare and handle food will proliferate and the constant disinfecting of communal surfaces such as counters, door handles, tables, chairs, and condiments will become the expected norm. The reopening guide by the NRA will be followed by all and probably expanded by many. https://go.restaurant.org/covid19-reopening-guide
5) Off-premise will continue to grow – Now that consumers are getting used to ordering food digitally and internal and external delivery is expected, the trend may slow after the pandemic ends but the trend for facilitating delivery, take-out, meal kits and the like will proliferate.
6) Digital Rules – Every restaurant, whether they be independent, or part of a chain will provide as many e-commerce channels for guests to order food as possible. Wing Stop, Domino’s, and Chipotle are doing well during the pandemic because they were positioned to survive in a crisis. All restaurateurs who don’t learn that they need to embrace digital orders and provide ways for customers to get the food where they want it and when they want it will fail. Perhaps this should be #1 on the list for the top-10 changes we will see in the restaurant industry.
7) Shrinking dining rooms – Because of the shift to off-premise dining, new restaurants in all categories will reduce the square feet of their dining areas. Existing locations will remove tables and chairs to always be prepared for social distancing.
8) Marketing mix shift – Whereas TV was a big part of the advertising mix for national chains and larger regional chains, the shift to off-premise will force restaurant brands to lean much more heavily into digital advertising channels. The shift will occur because restaurants will more easily track conversions from online visibility to online orders as a key metric. The brands that do continue to use to TV will determine how to make Outcome-Based TV buying work.
9) Marketing Messaging – All restaurants will need to understand their consumer and know the new customer journey better than ever before. Every brand will also need to nail their brand proposition because if they don’t, all ads after the pandemic ends will be about digital ordering and delivery. Digital channels may be a convenient benefit, but if every restaurant offers the standard digital channels, those digital channels will not be unique to anyone.
10) Counter Culture – There will also be creative and innovative individuals and organizations that will buck the status quo. Whether they embrace video dining, reinvent food halls, or return to a cash-only payment model, we will see successful attempts to do everything they can to not be trapped by the previous 9 changes.
In conclusion, the top-10 changes for restaurants may be different from this list but you can bet many of the themes will occur because they are happening now.
Doug Reifschneider
https://www.itbpartners.com/doug-reifschneider/
Thank you for visiting our blog.
Jim Weber – Managing Partner, ITB Partners
I hope you enjoyed our point of view and would like to receive regular posts directly to your email inbox. Toward this end, put your contact information on my mailing list.
Your feedback helps me continue to publish articles that you want to read. Your input is very important to me so; please leave a comment.
According to a recent study by Chief Outsiders, a national marketing strategy consulting firm, 88% of Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) see the difficulty in staying ahead of Marketing Technology.
Why?
According to Forrester, technology has not just impacted business, it has disrupted it. So much so that CNBC reported that the average life span of an S&P 500 company is about 20 years. It was 60 years in the 1950s according to Credit Suisse. 1
The way technology is evolving, imagine what that figure might be in 20 years.
All you have to do is look at Moore’s law to understand why technology is moving so fast.
What is Moore’s Law & How Does It Impact Marketing Technology?
In 1965, Gordon E. Moore, the co-founder of Intel, made this observation that became Moore’s Law.
Moore’s Law refers to Moore’s perception that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles every two years, though the cost of computers is halved. In addition, Moore’s Law states that we can expect the speed and capability of our computers to increase every couple of years. Plus, we will pay less for them too. Another tenet of Moore’s Law asserts that this growth is exponential.2
Moore’s Law tenet is that the number of computer chips on a single board grows exponentially.
Source: Moore’s Law graph3
It is hard for a human to keep up with exponential growth. And marketers are human. This is why marketers are having trouble keeping up with marketing technology.
Why specifically do CMOs think it will be hard to stay ahead of technology?
Because many CMOs haven’t kept up with marketing technology to-date. And the exponential growth that is expected to continue will be mind-boggling.
The Marketing Menu Changed!
For example, as recently as the 1990s, marketers had a finite list of advertising and promotional tactics at their disposal. The tactics to increase sales, improve brand awareness, and grow market share were low tech too.
Out of Home (Billboards, transit benches, and shelters, taxi’s, etc.)
Promotion (sports teams, schools, etc.)
Yellow pages if a local or multi-location business
Today, with the addition of OTT (Over the Top) TV, banner ads, advertising on social media, and other digital options, the choices on where to place advertising dollars are staggering.
MARTech = Marketing Technology
The modern CMO is faced with options in Martech and Adtech. Yes, those are real terms used within the marketing world. In 2011, we had about 150 MarTech choices. By 2019, there were over 7,000 choices.
In 2011, there were about 150+ Martech vendors. By 2019, there were over 7000!
To put in perspective, RedHat published the following tech stack that is aligned with the customer journey. One brand using this technique would interact with over 30 Martech vendors.
Who can keep up with that, let alone stay ahead of it?
Illustrates 30 MarTech companies have to work with to manage the customer journey.
Source: 4
Technology has disrupted business in many ways. According to Forrester, the primary reason technology has disrupted business is based on three issues:
Empowered consumers
Blurred lines between digital and physical
Disruptive business models powered by data and tech
In their reports titled “Winning In The Age Of The Customer,” and “The Customer-Obsessed Enterprise” Forrester suggests that companies that are not just customer-focused, but customer-obsessed, achieve higher revenue growth, customer satisfaction, and employee satisfaction.
Enter the COVID-19 pandemic
To put into perspective how important technology to business is, consider how different brands in food service were impacted by the pandemic.
Chipotle sales decreased 16% in the last two weeks of March compared to -25% at McDonald’s & Pizza Hut, -30% at Taco Bell and -35% at KFC
According to Black Box Intelligence, sales reported by all restaurants in their database for the week ending April 19 were -47.6%
As reported in QSR magazine for Domino’s “What’s happened in the first four weeks of Q2 (March 23 to April 19) has been more enlightening. Domino’s witnessed U.S. company comps jump 10.6 percent. Franchises are up 6.9 percent. Blended, it’s a 7.1 percent year-over-year same-store number.”
The first 3 examples are from brands that were already focusing on their digital capabilities. Wing Stop was one of the first restaurant brands to offer chatbot ordering on social media platforms. And Domino’s has become the de facto leader in the pizza segment when it comes to technology.
The key takeaway for restaurants is that the pandemic created a new set of consumer desires and demands and the brands (often chain with marketing teams) already knowledgeable and leading in technology won. This plays out in retail too. If you’re a retailer and you didn’t have an eCommerce platform prior to March 13, you’re probably hurting bad, or closed.
The pandemic forced many brands to accelerate their use and adoption of technology to meet the new consumer needs.
Conclusion
The bottom line when it comes to brick & mortar businesses is that marketing technology is part of the customer experience and great technology can create a great frictionless user experience. Bad technology can do the opposite. The pandemic forced business owners to embrace eCommerce, digital ordering, and contactless payments and transactions faster than ever before. Consequently, brick & mortar brands must:
Own all the consumer touchpoints
Own customer data
Connect offline to online for a true omnidirectional view of your customers
It’s not easy to keep up with technology. The effects of social distancing and working from home simply made every business pivot or adapt to less touch and more connection via technology.
If Forrester is right, the technology we marketers use to reach intended customers needs to pivot and more companies need to become customer-obsessed to succeed.
Staying ahead of that trend will be very difficult, very difficult indeed.
Doug Reifschneider
Doug Reifschneider is a 30+ year marketing veteran in the foodservice industry. He currently works with Chief Outsiders as a fractional CMO.
The current COVID-19 crisis is already changing the economy in extraordinary and unexpected ways. But there are steps private equity firms can help their portfolio companies make to help weather the storm, and recover when the clouds lift, according to Doug Reifschneider, a CMO with Chief Outsiders.
The world’s best epidemiologists only have models to predict the full depth and breadth of the COVID-19 pandemic, but companies are already feeling the weight of the economic fallout. They’re scrambling to find the best way to respond, and in many cases, survive, all the while being rightly concerned for the health of their families and communities. It’s not easy, and this is no time to pretend otherwise.
Some enterprises might be dusting off contingency plans for downturns or large-scale threats, but this moment requires more than that. It demands a resiliency program, one that’s clear-eyed and proactive. If the outlook is too bleak or too rosy, the result can be the same dangerous inertia. But Doug Reifschneider, a CMO with Chief Outsiders, has a series of initiatives that can counter that.
Building off his extensive experience in the retail and restaurant industries, Reifschneider has devised what he calls the “7 Rs of Resiliency Programs.” It’s a checklist that can help frame and direct the efforts to respond to COVID-19. “It’s based on a mental framework from the US Marines that is centered on three steps in coping with a crisis: improvise, adapt and overcome,” says Reifschneider. “Plenty of people are improvising at this point, but it’s time to look at more constructive ways to adapt and plan for recovery.”
Private equity firms would do well to look within each company of their portfolio and help guide them in executing each one of these steps.
Review costs. “Most people are already doing this, as they’d have to be asleep at the wheel if they weren’t,” says Reifschneider. Still, beyond canceling recurring services that are simply irrelevant, like window washing, it can involve hard calls about labor and supplies. A lot of restaurants, retail brick & mortar and even brand HQ’s are furloughing employees and the current stimulus will help alleviate that pain, but those cuts need to be executed without crippling the resiliency program.
Reassign tasks. Sometimes the best thing a company can do is focus on what it can give back. In the short term, that can be repurposing the business for strictly philanthropic purposes. He cites one restaurant that used its parking lot for a Red Cross Blood Drive. “It doesn’t address the bottom line, but it establishes the business as a partner in the community,” says Reifschneider.
Rethink offerings. For restaurants that never considered takeout or delivery options, this is the time to launch those. For retailers, this can involve more online ordering and curbside pick-up. But creativity is key here. Brazilian steakhouse chain Fogo de Chao was centered around its all-you-can-eat in-house dining experience. “So they became a butcher shop, offering their unique cuts of meat so folks could cook them at home,” says Reifschneider. “It’s a savvy way to redeploy inventory and keep sales from cratering completely.”
Another example is the company Wow Bao, that created a special licensing deal to allow other restaurants to produce and sell its dumplings by selling the ingredients and a few pieces of equipment to do so.
Reconsider sacred cows. As businesses rethink their offerings, they can run smack into certain “sacred cows” that seem to be integral to their identity. That high-end eatery may balk at delivery options since that fish dish might be ruined in the thirty or forty-five minutes it takes to deliver it. “This is no time for those kinds of pretensions,” warns Reifschneider. “Find a way to make a meal pack, which are popular now, or focus on offerings that can be delivered successfully.” Several restaurants have created pop-up drive-throughs, with no more than a tent and a landlord’s blessing. And the likes of Home Depot have shifted to curbside pick-ups even as it prided itself on counseling customers in the store.
Reschedule Initiatives. Retailers and restaurants that had planned remodeling projects could move those up, but only if they have the resources to do so. “It would take only the best-capitalized businesses to embark on such remodeling projects, but if they can, it’s worth doing,” says Reifschneider. “Instead of closing for that week in August to remodel, do that now.” Of course, such initiatives can still be hindered by government directives that limit non-essential work.
Reconnect. Communication matters more than ever. “We may be keeping our distance physically, but we’ve never been more social,” says Reifschneider. “We have regular Zoom happy hours and contact clients regularly.” B2B companies will have closer relationships since they sell directly to their clients, but B2C companies shouldn’t go quiet either. They need to reach out every few days, so long as they are mindful of tone and content.
Reifschneider cites a recent study by Edelman that surveyed over 12,000 people across 12 countries on brand trust in the wake of COVID-19, which finds that 71% of respondents would lose trust in a company forever if that company is seen as putting profits before people right now.
“Every enterprise should take that 71% seriously, and make sure their communications are exclusively about how they’re helping their communities, their customers and their employees cope with the situation,” says Reifschneider. “Striking a tone of generosity and support is crucial.”
Ready the relaunch. There is no reliable guidance for when any company will return to normalcy. However, Reifschneider notes this shouldn’t prevent companies from planning the steps for a reopening. Employees will need to be retrained with new procedures for interacting with customers, and in the restaurant business, there are likely to be new protocols for food prep and increased sanitation. Dining rooms and showroom floors will get dusty during the shutdown, so time needs to be allocated for a deep clean. “This also might be a great time to retrain employees in customer service, stocking shelves, or getting CPUs in line,” says Reifschneider.
However, no one should take any of these steps in a vacuum. Each needs to be tailored to the market reality facing a given enterprise. “At Chief Outsiders, we vet all assumptions, with hands-on research initiatives that capture how customers and peers are thinking and acting,” says Reifschneider. “And we do this even when the market is stable and growing, let alone during a crisis that can change everything overnight.”
So perhaps the first step in any resiliency plan is for a business to get its bearings, and understand exactly where it stands at the moment. It might be all the more important to listen before speaking, to ask, and use that feedback to gauge what to do next. The best private equity firms will already have open channels with their portfolio companies and that level of candor and sense of collaboration should be extended to all stakeholders.
In times like this, humility might be a secret weapon, provided it doesn’t stop a company from acting. Fortune may still favor the bold in times like these, but only if the bold is informed and willing to help.
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Loyalty, not such a long time ago, was a fairly easy thing to cultivate. You give a punch card or green stamps (or even wooden “round-tuits,” some of you may recall) to your customers, and they reward you with frequent visits or purchases so they can earn the points or badges to pocket free stuff.
Even today, as businesses like restaurants, retail stores, airlines, and hotels work to digitize and mobilize loyalty programs, customers still find it exciting and compelling to rack up the rewards.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the bank—loyalty, it seems, can be a fairly fickle concept—and even with the ease of participating in today’s e-programs, they don’t seem to be creating the brand affinity and “stickiness” that companies crave.
In fact, a third of customers will vote with their feet after a single instance of poor customer service, according to one survey. Keep ‘em happy, however – with outstanding personal service, great products, and minimal gimmickry—and you have an 80 percent chance of cementing that loyalty.
The message here: Being loyal to your customers, in today’s uber-competitive landscape, is as critical—if not more so—as customers being loyal to you.
If it seems like the script has been flipped, you’re right. In the days of Loyalty 1.0, those green stamps paved a one-way street of loyalty, from consumer to company. But now, in the world of Loyalty 1.5, with the ability to gain insights through apps, clicks, interactions, and views, it’s easier than ever to open a reverse lane of loyalty traffic from the company, right back to the customer.
So, let’s step back for a moment and think about what we really want to do. How do we tool our loyalty programs to demonstrate our love of, and affinity for, our consuming public? And, in particular, how do we replicate this online, without the benefit of the human interaction that comes with bricks-and-mortar businesses?
How to be loyal to your guests
Here’s an example using a counter service fast-casual restaurant concept.
Imagine if you will, striding into a local fast-casual restaurant near your office. You’ve been in about once per week for the last two months because it is close, and you like the food. You decide you’re in the mood for their grub again for lunch, so you cross the street, walk in the door, and take your place in line.
As you wait, you look at the menu and think about the meeting you just departed. Now, you approach your cashier, Susan (you know because of her name tag) and she looks up and says, “Hi, Mr. Smith! Great to see you. Would you like the usual today?” You are shocked she knows your name and are impressed she knows your usual order. You reply, “Yes, please,” and add a drink. Susan goes on to say, “Mr. Smith, you’ve been in a lot recently and we love serving you. Lunch is on us today!”
In this scenario, it’s easy to see why you would be floored. Susan not only knew your name, but she comped your meal too. The rest of the experience is equally as stellar (clean restrooms, a spotless restaurant, a follow-up visit from the manager) and you return to the office and tell six of your co-workers. The restaurant was loyal to you — which created an emotional bond, and the intensification of your love for that restaurant brand.
Loyalty 1.0 and 1.5 promised the ability to scale loyalty, and in most cases it did. But to add personalized messaging – like that offered by the restaurant chain — and to attempt to be loyal to your guests on this type of grand scale, takes time and a mastery of technology. Is your company up to the challenge?
If you’ve been around for awhile, perhaps you felt a little déjà vu when you heard loyalty platforms would save your team time?
Many years ago in a galaxy far, far away, a similar promise was made…
The Machine of The Year – 1982
At the dawn of personal computing, and before PCs and laptops became ubiquitous, we were promised that these gizmos were going to make our lives easier and give us more time to enjoy life.
The impact of the Apple II and the IBM PC was fully demonstrated when Time magazine named the home computer the “Person” of the Year for 1982. It was the first time in the history of the venerable publication that an inanimate object was bestowed with this award.
An excerpt from an accompanying article, “A New World of Dreams,” painted a rosy picture of a promised future:
“…Point is, it will save you time. Time time time. And we need all the time we can save. Can’t kill time without injuring eternity. Thoreau said that. Great American, Thoreau.
You say: Why should I want to save time? I hear you, friend. I hear you. You wonder where it gets you, saving all that time when you think about old Henry Ford’s gizmo that was supposed to save a peck of time. Only instead of conquering the open road, we wound up living on it. You’ve got a point. You a college boy? But this is the country of the A-bomb and the zipper. We always save time, good and bad. Tempus fugit. Time is money. Most of all, time is dreams. And computers give you time for dreams.”
Loyalty 2.0
So, how do we upgrade to Loyalty 2.0? How do we blend all that we have learned to produce a loyalty relationship with our clients that is as strong as the one we wish them to have with us? A good starting point is to replicate the 1-to-1 experience – with as much richness as we can – in the digital universe.
For a Loyalty 2.0 program to succeed, it needs to have a few of the following features:
Social media integration
Detailed analytics
Targeted email marketing
Targeted text message marketing
Smartphone integration and an app
Software that’s integrated with POS
Segmentation tools
Campaign tools
Customer recognition
Loyalty automation
The last four points are the most important. Most Loyalty 1.5 platforms lacked automated campaign and segmentation tools. Or, took too much time and effort from your teams to create the kind of personal connections we are advocating for now.
To get your company on track quickly, you might consider a provider like Punchh, LevelUp, Paytronix, and others that live in the Loyalty 2.0 space.
All of these are vendors that are purely focused on the B2C experience. They are dedicated to providing clients with a mobile-first strategy. It makes it easy to analyze customer behavior, generate insights, and develop sophisticated marketing automation. And it makes customized campaigns and promotions possible. Most offer deep integrations with leading eCommerce/online ordering, POS, and payment providers. All that provides marketers with a single view of the customer for omnichannel engagement across physical retail and digital channels.
Are you ready to take a leap forward into the world of two-way loyalty? By adopting a Loyalty 2.0 mindset, you will find it easier to be loyal to your customers. However, you’ll still need to commit corporate resources to execute with success if your customers are to feel the love.
Doug Reifschneider
Doug Reifschneider is a dynamic results-oriented, data-driven professional, Douglas drives nationwide growth through the creation and delivery of unique, creative brand strategies enhancing customer affinity and market position. With 25+ years of executive marketing experience, he strengthens brand equity with resonating positioning strategies. He uses successful marketing programs and innovative marketing campaigns that boost revenues. An innovative leader with strong team-building and collaboration skills, his strategic initiatives generate substantial shareholder and franchisee value and open new revenue opportunities.
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There was a time, generations ago, when buyers didn’t venture too far from their home to satisfy their basic needs. Today, most consumers don’t think twice about using a few keystrokes to get the necessities shipped from some distant warehouse to their front door.
Despite this phase shift, “buying local” remains a relevant concept and even a source of pride for communities that rally around the brick-and-mortar businesses that still dot the landscape.
So, in the face of Amazonian-sized efforts to get consumers to do otherwise, how can you, as a multi-unit CEO, provide the necessary marketing support to your local units to keep the lifeblood flowing?
Local store marketing, or LSM, though not easy, isn’t really that hard. Once you commit to a strategy, the actual motions can be exceedingly easy. Nonetheless, LSM requires patience, commitment and resources; and execution can be time-consuming and tedious. And unlike online marketing, where data flows in both directions, many LSM efforts are still measured by feet (the human kind), and not 0s and 1s.
So, how do we define LSM, and what are some key considerations to foster success?
LSM – A Definition
First, let’s consider the following examples:
• A local restaurant drops off a catering menu to your office.
• You notice that a little league baseball team is sponsored by the local hardware store.
• You encounter three dry cleaners within a mile of where you live, each with a sign that promotes their price or extra benefits.
Of these, which would you consider to be LSM? If you answered “all,” you would be correct. Whether you know it as guerilla marketing, shoe-leather marketing, neighborhood marketing or even just plain old “local marketing,” all of these fit the definition of LSM – marketing and advertising for a small business location to augment other national or regional marketing, IF the small business is part of a larger brick-and-mortar chain.
Lather, Rinse and Repeat
To be effective, LSM has to be executed every week, all the time. Sponsoring a little league team once, or replying to online reviews twice per year, or buying an ad in the local shopper twice is what we at Chief Outsiders call “Random Acts of Marketing” – those sporadic and non-strategic one-offs that do little to move the needle.
To be truly successful, LSM needs to be a fixture of every local store’s marketing plan – in the words of Vince Lombardi, “it is not a sometime thing, it is an all the time thing.” The best way to make this happen is to commit resources to it as part of your overall marketing mix. Since it typically comprises but a small percentage of your chain’s overall marketing budget, it is built for endurance – not speed – so you need to be patient with the outcome.
Site Awareness is as Important as Brand Awareness
I’ll share a true story about an experience I had when I was at Firehouse Subs. The story takes place several years ago, when online reviews weren’t yet a big thing, and mobile didn’t have the pervasive influence that it does today.
It was at a time when Firehouse Subs had about 300-400 restaurants, and we determined that, without the air cover of regional or national advertising, we had to do something to jump-start sales and get franchisees engaged.
One way we did this was by conducting “Founder’s Tours.” The co-founders, COO and many of the rest of the HQ staff went on bi-weekly road trips, known as Founder’s Tours. On one trip, we pulled up to a restaurant in central Florida and clamored out of the bus. There were 12 of us on the bus that day and when we arrived at the restaurant at around 9:30 a.m., we were given a map of neighborhoods and businesses to visit and bags filled with catering menus, courtesy cards, cookies, and chips. Of course, one person had to remain behind to be the sign waver.
That’s right – the sign waver. That’s because the two primary LRM tactics we were modeling for the franchisee were:
1. Neighborhood canvassing to get to know your neighbors
2. Sign waving to draw attention to the location
Sign waving in the rain
While I waved a large sign with a Firehouse Subs logo on it, six teams of two people each went into the trade area and visited as many other local businesses as they could in about two hours. When everyone returned to the restaurant, we debriefed.
Here’s what we learned:
• Each team covered a distance of about ¾ – 1 mile from the restaurant
• Most businesses were happy to receive the “free” goodie bag
• About 75 percent had heard of Firehouse Subs (Brand awareness, yes!)
• Over half of those visited did not know of the specific location of this restaurant
I’ll let that last bullet point sink in for a moment. Over 50 percent of the people we talked to within a mile of the restaurant had no idea they were less than a mile from the restaurant. Had this been a new location, site awareness would have been expected to be low. Unfortunately, the business had been open and operating for more than 4 years at the time of the Founder’s Tour visit.
That’s when we realized that brand awareness is one thing, and site awareness is another. Having brand awareness without site awareness is worthless.
How can a small business let potential customers in their trade area know where it is located?
Be active in the community, get to know your neighbors — and be visible.
In other words, commit to local marketing for your locations, and be found.
About the Author
Doug Reifschneider is a dynamic marketing leader with 30+ years of experience in the restaurant industry and a demonstrated history of driving growth through the creation and delivery of unique, creative brand strategies enhancing customer affinity and market position.
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