Labor Day Weekend was ripe with local advertising lessons!
Haole Paddle Board – Brian chatted my parents up one time when he had finished a personal training paddle board lesson. My parents had their own paddle boards but Brian was so personable they thought that the next time I needed to rent one, it should be with Haole. And so that’s what we did! He dropped off the board and picked it up right at the location I wanted him to and he was so friendly. I recommend him to everyone for individual paddleboard rentals. Even you!
Lesson – If you are a major selling point for your business, always make sure you’re selling yourself. You never know when you’ll be picking up a new customer.
Magical Dining Month – IT HAS BEGUN! And it is one tasty adventure. My friends and I went to Chez Vincent last night for dinner. Thirty-three dollars for a three-course meal and it was fantastic.
Lesson – If you are a nice restaurant and you want more locals to try you out, get involved with Visit Orlando’s Magical Dining Month. Yes, you may lose a little on the food cost, but do you know how much wine and champagne we bought? Yeah, we bought a handful of bottles worth.
Modcloth.com – At dinner, my friend was wearing the cutest dress. We kept commenting on it and she said that she wasn’t going to buy it initially so she left it in her “shopping cart” and bought a couple of other things she had wanted. Then, this past Tuesday, Modcloth sent her an email saying “we saw you left this in your shopping cart. If you really want it, we’ll ship it to you for free and you’ll have it by Friday.” She then realized she had a networking event this weekend and wanted to look her best, so she bought the dress and picked up a few more things.
Lesson – If you have an online store component, make sure you have a great Customer Retention component that involves email and behavioral targeting display ads (use Ebay, Overstock and Amazon as benchmarking examples – you don’t need the volume these guys have to still be able to recapture previously lost business).
I would have mentioned more activities that were done because of local advertising, but while we were enjoying the yummiest creamiest gazpacho at Santiago’s Bodega today, my bike tire literally exploded and so we had to go back to some of my greatest friends’ house and drink their pepper infused and peach infused vodkas the rest of the afternoon. Oh darn.
Lesson – Be open on Labor Day. We tried to bicycle to four different places until we passed by this place and they were open. Have a limited staff. Maybe even have a limited menu. BUT BE OPEN. We were standing in front of White Wolf Cafe contemplating our next move and five other parties drove, walked, or parked nearby and were as disappointed as were that they weren’t open today. Lost revenue.
Patti is still learning 