"Interestingly, koi, when put in a fish bowl, will only grow up to three inches. When this same fish is placed in a large tank, it will grow to about nine inches long. In a pond koi can reach lengths of eighteen inches. Amazingly, when placed in a lake, koi can grow to three feet long. The metaphor is obvious. You are limited by how you see the world."
-- Vince Poscente

Showing posts with label advertising. Show all posts
Showing posts with label advertising. Show all posts

Monday, November 14, 2011

Check out Best Practices: Six Steps to Effective Facebook Posts from Nightclub & Bar

Business Sherpa: "Hey check this out bar owners - this is a great article on using Facebook to increase traffic and revenue to your bar!"

VIBE Newsletter
www.nightclub.com
October 17, 2011
By: Dave Dronkers

According to Facebook, more than 1 billion pieces of content are shared on the social networking sites each day! This presents a huge challenge in trying to get Facebook visitors to engage with your brand and your beverage program.

How have some restaurant companies figured out how to move from "broadcast" mode into "engagement"? How have they engaged people so well that their fans invite others along for the viral ride? You and your team may or may not be directly involved in social media marketing, however, it's important to understand how to execute it properly so it reaps the greatest rewards - traffic and sales - for your drink program.

To learn more, read the entire article... click here.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Article: The Accidental Hero

BusinessWeek

The Accidental Hero
Subway's $5 footlong, the brainchild of an obscure Miami franchisee, is the fast-food success story of the recession

By Matthew Boyle

Stuart Frankel isn't what you'd call a power player in the world of franchising. Five years ago he owned two small Subway sandwich shops at either end of Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital. After noticing that sales sagged on weekends, he came up with an idea: He would offer every footlong sandwich (the chain also sells 6-inch versions) on Saturday and Sunday for $5, about a buck less than the usual price. "I like round numbers," says Frankel, a brusque New Yorker who moved to Miami in 1972 and owned a drugstore before opening his first Subway outlet in 1988.

Customers liked his round number, too. Instead of dealing with idle employees and weak sales, Frankel suddenly had lines out the door. Sales rose by double digits. Nobody, least of all Frankel, knew it at the time, but he had stumbled on a concept that has unexpectedly morphed from a short-term gimmick into a national phenomenon that has turbocharged Subway's performance. "There are only a few times when a chain has been able to scramble up the whole industry, and this is one of them," says Jeffrey T. Davis, president of restaurant consultancy Sandelman & Associates. "It's huge."

In fact, the $3.8 billion in sales generated nationwide by the $5 footlong alone placed it among the top 10 fast-food brands in the U.S. for the year ended in August, according to NPD Group. That puts the $5 menu's success just a notch behind KFC (YUM) and ahead of Arby's and Domino's Pizza (DPZ). It helped privately held Subway, of Milford, Conn., lift U.S. sales 17% last year at a time when most restaurant chains, save for industry leader McDonald's (MCD), struggled. Actually, make that soon-to-be-former industry leader McDonald's. Subway's low-cost franchising model and mainstream appeal have allowed it to add 9,500 locations in the past five years, for a total of about 32,000 outlets. At its current growth rate of 40 new stores a week, Subway is poised to surpass McDonald's in worldwide locations sometime early next year. (Measured by total sales, McDonald's $30 billion still dwarfs Subway's $9.6 billion, although Subway has now supplanted both Wendy's (WEN) and Burger King (BKC) in market share.)

...cont.

Click on title above, or HERE to view the entire article and video online.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Location, Location, Location?

It is an axiom that in retail it is location, location, location that breeds success for a business. However location is just one part of the equation, of equal or more importance is marketing,marketing, marketing. In this day of economic challenges I think a more accurate description is promotion, promotion, promotion of the business in cheap and creative ways. Carefully examine the ways in which advertising dollars are being spent and that a good return on investment is indeed being realized. Satisfied customers and word of mouth are still the cheapest form and most effective form of advertising. Capturing of customers e-mails and loyalty programs can be effective and inexpensive tools. Spend more time in employee training and education to insure that each customer has a good experience. In a down turning economy there is an increasing supply of truly qualified employees--no excuse except owner laziness not to take advantage of this economic reality and upgrade staffing, if necessary.

Son Isaac on Camel in Tangiers

Son Isaac on Camel in Tangiers
"Sometimes your only available transportation is a leap of faith."-- Margaret Shepard