Coffee Cup Marketing (Pt. 2)

[Michael Brown]

When you ordered your coffee cups you couldn't help yourself. The price per cup was soooo much better when you ordered 12 gross (sound like someone succumbed to some marketing, eh?). Only, no one explained that a gross was 144. You've hit the local coffee shop and you still have extra coffee cups. Boy do you have extras. Boxes of coffee cups are stacked all over the office. What do you do?

Dad says that Don Stone, the CEO of Pro Cuts, showed up at the Denton South Rotary Club with coffee cups for every member. That's not a bad idea. Pass them out to the members of your service club. In fact, give them out to the members of all of your clubs and organizations.

Think. Where does the public meet and wait and drink coffee? Hmmm. If you've got commercial customers, an obvious answer is their offices. Why stop there. Your suppliers' employees need your services too from time to time. Give them your coffee cups. Not only does it help get your name out to the back office people, but it will drive your competitors nuts when the visit the supply house and are accidentally served coffee in one of your cups.

Where else can you place them? What about the waiting rooms of your local auto dealers' service departments? Most of them serve coffee to customers in plush waiting rooms these days. Heck, you don't even need to ask. Just show up and drop off a few cups. They are likely to cycle into the regular supply.

Your banker probably drinks coffee. Bring him a few cups. It may help generate some business among the employees of the bank. More important, it's always good to be on friendly terms with bankers.

Using the same reasoning, take a few by city hall. Give them to the inspectors and code enforcers. Drop by the local radio and television stations. Drop off a few cups

at the front desk.

Oh, let's not forget. Give one to every customer on every service call. They drink coffee too.

Next... The end of Coffee Cup Marketing (whew!)

Copyright © 2002 Matt Michel