How do I promote My Coffee house?

Question

I am looking to increase customers at my cafe. I am a small business owner in the northwest.

Answer 1

There are several ways you can promote your Coffee House.

First: Use the local media. Provide your local newspaper, tv and radio stations with free samples of your coffee. If they like it, they'll probably want to follow-up and do a story about your business. Many businesses have been launched just this way.

Second: Have some flyers printed up and distribute them every place you can think of: laundromats, apartment complexes, office buildings, etc. Just make sure you get permission first.

Third:Best promotion of all is word of mouth. Tell everyone you meet about your coffee house. Talk about it every chance you get. You may drive a few people crazy with your enthusiasm, but it will pay off for you in the long run. Best of luck to you!

To your success,
Dale King, Owner
http://guruknowledge.org

Answer 2

If your coffee shop is a local, then there won't be any regular long distance customers (5 miles or more). Hand out flyers, coupons, and once in a while advertise on newspaper. Ask customers to leave comments and publish those comments along for "word of mouth".

Answer 3

There's plenty to learn from the big boys in this business (Starbucks, Seattle's Best, etc.)

First, make sure you are easy to find (location, signage, etc.) Then, make yourself noticed. In Seattle, Starbucks stores simply send one person at a time out to the street with a tray full of pastry samples to hand out to the passerby. If your local newspaper has an annual "Best Coffee House" contest, try your best to win it. If it doesn't, suggest it to the publisher.

Having been noticed, don't scare customers away by hiring untidy youth to work in the store. Believe it or not, there's plenty of tidy youth out there... Encourage your workers to have conversations with customers.

Make sure the customers enjoy their visit. Consider providing free or reasonably priced wireless Internet access to your customers (Coffee Bean in my area has a deal with a telco that charges customers $2.50 for a two-hour time block). Get some comfortable furniture. Have a daily trivia contest (with the winner recieving a drink or a pastry of their choice free). Host literary and/or music events in the evening time. In other words, be a coffee house. Remember, great coffee houses of the past are famous for books written in them, debates and discussions that took place in them, and business transactions that were concluded in them...

Answer 4

You know, to be honest, the best way without investing in mic stands, musicians; invest in yourself and your staff. The more friendlier, more welcoming your cafe is, the more people will talk about it.

People come to your cafe not just because of your cafe but you have a great skill in listen, in creating a rapprt, in taking interest in your customers.

So, ask your customers how you can make your cafe better. You can everyone here but you know whose opinion counts for your business? Your customers who come into your cafe. That's who mate.

By asking them they'd see you care. Have even a little too long but a survey, questonnaire and reward your customers for filling them in with free coffee. Their answers are vital.

Then have a meeting with your staff, make them feel part of the process. That's the second most important opinions that count because while you're gone, if they don't feel its their cafe, then when the cat is away, the mouse will play.

Most of all, the best advise you can give is be a good listener, always be positive, listen to your customers, and it maybe one might need help in business contact, and then one day a business man or woman walks in and chats with you and bang, you know he can be useful for another customer. So by helping them to meet, you showed you cared, even if nothing comes of it.

Take interest in what your customers are into.

I know a person who did this and his business is booming fast.

Answer 5

If you are "short" on money and you don't have enough to advertise, you can always use 'wordofmouth'. By doing this, it might increase your business and than some. You won't know unless you try first.

Answer 6

Try linking up with a good local bakery and offering their products with your coffee.

Answer 7

Change your pricing. Instead of having a fixed price, just let people pay what they think it's worth. Of course you will have some cheapskates, but they will eventually get the evil eye.

Answer 8

A guy in a funny costume with a sign and catch phase

Answer 9

Try open mike nights, poetry readings and flyers everywhere (coupons attached would help).