The Art of Winning New Customers
One of the greatest aspects to marketing your tea shop is the numerous mediums tea can be infused within the community. Tea can be a meditative aid, a healthy elixir, a celebration of numerous cultures around the world, an energy booster, and many more. Knowing the universal nature of tea is a helpful start to begin seeking out collaborative partnerships in your community.
Of course its not always prudent to simply hit the ground running; it requires an understanding of your customer base to determine the best venues to showcase your store. At Adagio all three stores are located in the Chicago area, but the market surrounding them contains a slightly different customer base.
In Naperville the main customer is the health conscious suburban mom whom might be found at your local yoga studio, spa, or bookstore. The first place to start in this type of market is to find relevant local events. But it is equally important to ensure that your message is appropriate for the venue, and most of all that you create a portal for them to visit your store. To capture attendees attention at the moment is much easier than maintaining their attention after the event.
This is where you have to get creative. Consider for a moment that it takes approximately seven occasions of exposure to stimuli in order to cross the chasm from temporary recall, into a more permanent memory. Understanding this concept you might consider placing your logo on items that the individual interacts with on a daily basis. For instance, at a recent yoga event featuring an adagio tea tasting, we placed a sticker on folks key chains. In this way attendees are reminded of adagio tea on a daily basis. Individuals displaying the sticker will be rewarded with exclusive deals at the shop. Most importantly you will want to collect emails to establish an ongoing dialogue with your new found customers.
At State Street the majority of the customers are tourists visiting the Chicago area. Where might tourists be found? Typically at hotels, city landmarks, within public transportation, and at the airports. We had store associates begin creating relationships with the local hotel concierge and offered an exclusive discount for guests a referral from the hotel. Second, we launched an ongoing ad campaign on the Chicago transit system. Next we are featured in tourist publications that are found in over 58,000 hotel rooms in the Chicago area. Even though this is a very different environment the name of the game is still finding mediums to gain exposure to the most amount of people.
The Old Orchard store is located in an outdoor mall and often has a much younger demographic coming to the shop. This environment is largely composed of impulse shoppers and therefore it is crucial to establish cross promotional opportunities with complimentary shops.
In my next tea retailer article I will elaborate on the value of a referral from both your existing customer base, and from community partnerships established in the area.
Adagio Teas
Twitter: @AdagioRetail