| July 2004 | |
| Catering Corner , Michael Attias | |
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You don’t
have to flip too many channels to know about the popularity of police
shows
focused on the science of forensic evidence. Watson would have followed
behind
Sherlock with a spectrometer if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a modern day
author.
A survey is
a great tool to uncover those variables usable in creating a niched
target
market for your next promotion. On many occasions we have asked about
address,
age, gender, radio and television station preference and how first time
customers discover us. The results of our first survey lead us to rent
a list
of men, 25-55, within three miles of our restaurant that lived in a
house
versus apartment, with at least two people in the household. We also
asked our
list broker to break down the list by birth month of the man.
With the
list in hand, we created a mailing piece good for a free meal on the
recipient’s birthday. We achieved more than a 17 percent response from
a cold
list without the perception of heavy discounting. Why? Let’s look at
the offer.
A free meal is as about as strong an offer as you can run and on all
accounts
should pull well. If you run a “Buy One Pizza, Get One Free” ad in the
paper,
your response will be high because of the strong offer, but you’ll
create a
coupon addict. They’ll be on the lookout for your next “buy one, get
one free”
offer and will not return without one. This forces you in a downward
spiral of
discount dependency.
By
insisting on the birth month of my super-targeted recipient, I tied my
offer
into a special day that most people do not usually celebrate alone -
forcing
spending above the offer. Since the offer was tied into a birthday,
that only
happens once a year, my target did not expect another free meal the
next month.
This promotion serves the purpose of getting first time visitors in for
a free
sample meal and leaves it in your hands to wow them back with your
great food
and service. Because of how they were acquired, you have kept the
coupon crowd at
bay.
This
strategy works even better with catering prospects. The two questions I
always
ask at the end of a catered event are, “Who booked this event?” and
“Why did
they book this event?” The answers will lead you to a flood of new
catering
business. The “who” refers to the type of company that ordered the
event as
well as the title of the person at the company. Examining the “why” is
an
insight into the type of events you cater.
Imagine you
just finished catering a meal at a construction site. You would
discover that
the project manager of a commercial general contracting company ordered
the
event. If you asked “why,” you’d be educated to the existence of
Topping Out
Parties, a celebration for all the subcontractors on a large building
project
once the roof is completed. The “who” and “why” questions have led me
to focus
on different catering niches to attack, from pharmaceutical reps
bringing in
lunch for doctors’ offices to high school athletic directors booking
sports
banquets.
Hopefully,
you maintain a list of your catering clients or will if you’re just
getting
started. Companies like Dunn & Bradstreet can take your database
and create
reports that identify the industries you appeal to the most and the
average
number of employees. Microsoft Map Point will allow you to import your
database
and place a push pin on their map to identify the geographic location
of your
customers. If you lack the resources, you can do it manually. The clues
of your
current customers will allow you to identify the profile of your future
customers without wasting mass media dollars.
You
don’t
have to be a Sherlock to figure out how to leverage your past events
into
future business. Armed with the “who” and “why” will allow you to be a
catering
specialist for these niches and not a generalist. And as in the world
of real
doctors, the specialist always makes more than the generalist.
