You opened a coffee business, pots are brewing and you offer goodies, such as croissants, muffins and maybe even breakfast sausages. For your town, a coffee shop is in demand and offers people a place to gather and socialize.
But without the right marketing strategy for coffee shop owners in place, you risk dwindling sales.
You want to take a piece of the local coffee shop market and have people find you:
- Online
- Through referrals
- On social media
- Everywhere they look
We're going to walk you through nine tasks that you can add to your marketing to increase sales and be "everywhere at once." In the US alone, there are 77,500 businesses in the industry, and the steps below will help you stand out among them.
9 Tasks to Add to Your Marketing Strategy For Coffee Shop Growth
Whether you've just opened your doors and started brewing your first of many pots of coffee or have been in operation for years, these marketing strategies will help you grow your sales.
1. Partner with Influencers in Your Area
Influencer marketing is trusted by 69% of consumers, and micro-influencers are a cheap source of promotion. You'll want to look for people with 1,000+ followers and up to 10,000 followers who have a lot of local engagement.
And you'll pay them to promote your shop with:
- Video posts of your shop
- Reviews of your shop on their socials
You can focus on TikTok and Instagram as a good source of visual social media marketing. Simply reach out to these influencers and propose a partnership. You can even offer to give them free coffee or food for a month in return for promoting your shop and "@ing" your socials.
And if you don't want to do this, consider creating your own social media strategy.
2. Focus on Your Social Media Strategy
People love connecting with local businesses on social media. As part of your coffee shop marketing, you need a strong social game. A few ideas are to:
- Post behind-the-scenes content of running your coffee shop
- Run contests on your socials, such as "@ your friend for a chance to win two free coffees"
- Ask your staff to start posting about the coffee shop
Be real with your socials and give your followers a peek at what happens from opening to close every day.
Need help creating your graphics?
Consider a tool like Canva to help you create stunning images and videos.
But also don't forget to add your socials to your:
- Window decals
- Your checkout counter
- Placemats inside
3. Grow Your Email List
While this part of coffee shop advertising takes a while to grow and drive visitors to your shop, it should be a part of your long-term strategy. You'll want to capture people's emails through:
- Coffee shop promotions
- Loyalty programs
For example, "sign up for our newsletter for 25% off of your next coffee" is a great way to capture people's emails.
You can then use these emails to send out future promotions on slow days. Perhaps August is a slow month and you need to drum up sales. Well, you can send an email out to your list offering a discount on your most popular items.
Email marketing works so well because people signed up to be marketed to by you. With the right strategy, your return on investment for email marketing can be as high as $36 for every $1 spent.
4. Add Loyalty Programs
Do you want your customers to be loyal? Of course you do. Loyalty programs allow people to get a reward for simply frequenting your business. You can see programs like this at:
- Dunkin'
- Starbucks
- Panera
You can find many companies offering easy solutions to add loyalty programs to your business, such as Loopy Loyalty.
But before you search for a third-party provider like this, consider your existing point-of-sales system provider. Many of these companies have add-on solutions that allow businesses like yours to offer loyalty programs to customers.
People will keep coming back for something as simple as every fifth coffee being free.
5. Optimize Your GMB for Quick Wins
People search Google for "coffee shop" every single day. And the way that Google works is that it will use the person's location data to find matches that are within the person's general area. The person may even add a city name to the search to narrow down the results even further.
You must be on Google My Business, and it's 100% free.
What you'll do is:
- Sign up for a free Google Business Profile
- Fill in every last bit of information you can about your business
- Ask customers to leave reviews online
Google will need to verify your business, but it's worth it to show up on Google Maps and in local search results.
6. Create User-Generated Content
User-generated content (UGC) is a powerful form of free ads for coffee shops because it uses:
- Branded hashtags
- Location tags
Essentially, you want your guests to have an easy time sharing their experience at your location on social media. Positive feedback loops like these are priceless and easy to create.
Add cute corners and areas of your coffee shop that attract people to take photos and share them with the world.
Be sure to have a sign that says, "tag us at #coffeeshopname" and replace your name with the unique hashtag that you want.
7. Consider Sponsoring Local Events
What local events do you sponsor? Which ones can you sponsor? For example, you can sponsor:
- Local business meetings
- Community events, such as town fairs
- Local sports teams
If you have a cause that you're passionate about, you can be their supplier. For example, let's assume that there's hurricane relief in your area. You can supply free coffee to first responders and be sure to use branded cups so that everyone can see that you're sponsoring these amazing causes and events.
8. Collaborate With Local Businesses
Local businesses will be happy to cross-promote with you. For example, you can connect with a local hotel or motel to have flyers in every room recommending your coffee shop. Collaborations like this, especially if you offer a discount for their guests, are a win-win for all parties involved.
9. Host Coffee Tasting and Events
Events bring people to your coffee shop. You can hold a coffee tasting and a meet and greet with other vendors in your area in your shop. Create a book club or offer to host birthday parties for coffee lovers in your shop.
Offering tastings and events is a great way to bring in more foot traffic.
And over time, as you conduct your coffee shop market analysis, you'll notice that all of these activities increase your market share. You can be hip, profitable and successful if you focus on the right marketing strategies from day one.