Pull more people into your local business by profitably partnering in ways that inspire more buying yet often reduce your promotional overhead. Sound good? Here are some success stories of how others have done it.
Involve More Partners to Multiply the Potential Customers You Reach
The California Association of Bed & Breakfast Inns promotes “Small Town Escapes” citing their members’ places to stay and also sites to visit (Harley’s Farm, Duarte’s Tavern and unnamed others) yet does not leverage the mention of those other sites by linking to them after inviting the owners of those other places to visit to partner in this themed promotion, touting it to their constituency.
Hint: Co-create a reason for people to visit - a Situational Sell – rather than simply promoting your place or product. What other things might they buy or do or simply see when your would-be customers hear about your co-created offering?
With each new, relevant partner who serves your “mutual market” your visibility and credibility are likely to go up while your overhead costs often goes down.
Alternatively, a regional cycling club, bike stores, motels and B & Bs could join forces with to offer three and five day cyclingpackages, co-creating the suggested route, times, places to dine and stay offered by businesses able to cater to the special foods and time needs of avid cyclists.
Take photos and videos of places on the picturesque route and encourage those who take it to submit their own video and photos to the co-created web site. Add a twitter name, Who knows? Some makers of portable GPS and heart monitoringdevices might be national sponsors. Then pitch the story to Sunset magazine, the AAA publication editor and other outdoor-centered publications. Perhaps your scenic area has great places to hike. Show them where with online and wall maps at your business, plus suggest what to do before and after.
Tempt Them to Drop In
One Fall, J.C. Penney handed out coupons for a free cup of coffee at 7-Eleven stores at the same time 7-Eleven stores featured displays at the checkout stands with a tear pad coupon good for $10 off at J.C. Penney stores. To make it more equitable in such a collaboration the partners could have had displays (on the window, wall or counter) to tout the free coupon for those who buy from them, then give them away only when handing the purchased product to the customer.
Hint: This profitable partnership could also work for local, independent business owners:
• Family-friendly restaurant and a kids clothing store
• Health food store, sports equipment outlet and the YWCA or YMCA
• Medical clinic and yoga studio
• Plant nursery and garden maintenance firm
• Candy store or gift shop and florist
Painless Way to Visibly Help Customers Help Others
When a local disaster or other crisis or community need happens that will matter to your kind of customers be ready to jump in and help like Winn-Dixie did with the local Salvation Army. Here’s how. Even as many Floridians were fleeing their homes to avoid Hurricane Frances years back, their “neighbors” in Florida and Georgia found a small way to support them, just as they did last month after Hurricane Charley and tropical storm Bonnie hit.
When people visited a Winn-Dixie grocery store they could support storm relief by “even-it-up” at the checkout counter. That is, they can have the cashier round up their food bill to the next dollar, with the extra change going to the local Salvation Army chapter for relief efforts. Winn-Dixie also created a program that enables customers to vote for the charity they want to support – each time turning a non-profit into a partner that will tout that support to their fans.
Hint: What if you invited our customers and employees to periodically vote for their favorite charity to get money from your even-it-up program. They could vote by writing the name of their favorite charity on a card at the checkout counter and slip it into the nearby Vote Box. Each voting period you have a news hook when you announce the winner.
You also gain a happy non-profit partner that will share the good news with their backers plus, now that you know many of your customers like that cause, you might discuss with them other ways to partner to generate more visibility and value for each other.
Provide the Reward That Pulls Them In
Around Charleston last Thanksgiving when the South Carolina Highway Patrol pulled you over for a traffic violation you’d get bad news and good news. You may get a ticket but if you were wearing a seat belt then you might get rewarded with a free chicken sandwich vouchers from Chick-Fil-A. That is unless you were driving while drunk.
Co-promoting that popular program might have made more people buckle up and it did generate priceless, positive media coverage. In Vermont, home of Ben & Jerry’s, drivers got ice cream certificates.
Hints:
What if, for a limited time, those who passed their driver’s test at the DMV got a voucher for a:
• Celebratory desert at a nearby restaurant when they buy something else?
• Free car wash after the driver pays for the first one?
• First aid kit for car trunk from the local hardware store, free with a minimum $20 purchase
• Gift packet of coupons from all the above partners?
What if, for a limited time, city firefighters, local hardware stores and Realtors joined forces to co-create and distribute Making My Home Safer tip sheets (in person and online) covering everything from the proper placement of smoke alarms to removing back fire-catching shrubs. Firefighters could park their fire trucks in popular shopping lots to hand them out. Realtors could share them at the many community events they attend and the hardware stores could post them at their entrances.
The nudge? Those citizens that follow the tips can contact the fire department to have their home checked by firefighters and other trained community volunteers and get a coupon for $15 off a lunch at participating restaurants when they bring a friend to dine.
What local government agency could you partner with to reward citizens when they walk in the door of your business, coupon in hand?
As a local government agency, what businesses might want to offer coupon through you – especially for taking the sting out of paying a fee.
For example, homeowners paying for permits might perk up when the planner gives them a coupon for a free plant from a nursery or a smoke alarm from the hardware store.
Get Introduced to Each Other’s Biggest Spending Customers
To help other local business owners, Detroit’s grocery chain Hiller’s offered one-time coupons for customers who spent over $100 in one visit. Those coupons can be used for special offers at selected delis, restaurants and sweet shops.
Hillers got media coverage for this first-ever offer, built community goodwill and gained visibility among prospective customers as all partner touted this offer at their business.
Hint: You could be the ringleader for a partnership in your community, recruiting non-competing business owners who serve your kind of customers, offering one-time coupons to all customers who spent a minimum amount in one visit at your business.
Customers visit your partnering businesses to redeem the coupons and your partners reciprocate with, offering a same-value coupon to their best customers who spend the same amount with them, redeemable at your place.
Motels sometimes offer guests those often stained, laminated 8 x 12 cards listing nearby restaurants that deliver pizza, Chinese food or other fast food.
Hint: Instead what if a motel, a B & B or city-run community center partnered with nearby restaurants to offer samples to guests as they register, with a small menu card attached to take to their room that might motivate them to then call and ask for a meal to be delivered. Then the motel can give guests a freebie as it warms up the guest to buy that meal.
Other kinds of local businesses could adopt a similar partnership.
Hair salons, veterinarians and others who serve people who may have to wait at least momentarily, could give small snacks from their partnering food business. The paper plate holding that snack could have the printed offer, redeemable at the partnering food business. That food business reciprocates with a comparably-valued special offer card to their clients – say a certain amount off the cost of the first visit. 
Become the Convenient Choice. Get Closer.
On several blocks in Berkeley hungry shoppers find specialty shops selling produce, cheese, meat, seafood, chocolate and a charcuterie, bakery and florist. Their proximity makes them a bigger magnet for the foodies they serve yet they leave some opportunity on the table.
Periodically they could co-create a situational sale – suggestions on what would go well together from each store for Valentine’s Day, a seasonal dinner party or Superbowl gathering.
In Denver a women’s clothing boutique is adjacent to a yoga studio which is adjacent to a store selling make-up, vitamins and home spa products. They are connected by internal doorways.
A senior citizen center is located above a childcare center and next to a library facing a pocket park where the city parks and recreation department provides classes ranging from Tai Chi to dog obedience training.
Managers of all organizations plan shared activities for the people they serve. (Confession: this last one is one of my dream scenarios. In Denmark there are many multi-use community places that are busy all the time, where all ages can mix.)
Hint: How could you attract more customers by getting closer to complementary businesses? Could any of these options work for you?
Lease space within another establishment or agree on side-by-side sites. Examples: Noah’s Bagels is next to Starbucks Coffee. A restaurant or fast-food operation leases space within a hospital or motel (Pizza Hut in Days Inn). Popeye’s Chicken & Biscuits in a Kroger supermarket increases traffic for both guest and host companies.
The post office locates a substation in a supermarket. An accessories store leases space within or next to a clothing store and is joined by internal doors. A stadium leases space to a concession operator.
Give ‘Em Another Reason to Visit Your Business
That’s how Applebee’s attracted more customers – many first-time visitors – to their family restaurants one summer, without advertising more. When Weight Watchers designed several low-cal menu items for Applebee’s, followers of their diet program (and those who were thinking of losing weight) had a new reason to eat at Applebee’s. The restaurant’s customers got introduced to a new program – Weight Watchers, by a restaurant they already knew and liked.
Hint: How could your product be sold at another’s business as a way to introduce it to more people while enabling your partnering business to stand out from the competition? What if:
• A kitchen store periodically sold freshly-made appetizers from a partnering upscale deli that displayed those appetizers on plates from the kitchen store. Both display signage describing the dishes, the appetizers and both stores.
• A sports equipment store touted Saturday morning –in-store “Ask the Tennis Pro” time, partnering with a tennis teacher?
• A clothing store featured a series of evening briefings with a partnering make-up artist, a clothing color expert, dermatologist and nutritionist – each of whom promoted these events on their web sites and to their clients?
See other tasty ways that restaurants and other locally-owned food and other businesses can to attract and coddle customers while spending less at Joel Cohen’s Restaurant Marketing blog and Lorri Mealey’s Restauranting.
Then find more small business marketing ideas at Judy Dunn’s cat’s eye marketing, Jay Ehret’s The MarketingSpot, Small Business Labs, Small Business Survival, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, Anita Campbell’s Small Business Trends and Andy Sernovitz’s Damn! I Wish I’d Thought of That. See links at http://howwepartner.com/2010/02/tasty-ways-to-attract-more-customers/
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