A simple, yet effective way to build positive mind share with your customers would be — provided you run a restaurant or retail store (you can certainly adapt this idea to other types of businesses as well) would be to offer a discount or free gift / item in return for your customer agreeing to check-in or post a Facebook message or tweet mentioning they are at your particular business.
It is worth keeping in mind that whatever you offer, you need to make sure your numbers work out OK — meaning you don’t want your discount / or gift to have an adverse effect on your bottom line. In most cases this won’t be a problem, and you’ll find that it doesn’t require a whole lot to foster some real goodwill between you and your customers.
Examples:
1) Upon ordering, the waiter (or if it is a place you pay at the front) or person at the cash register could say, “are you on Facebook or Twitter? If so, if you’re willing to check-in or tweet that you’re here now eating we will give you your drink with your meal at no cost” (you could replace the free drink with an appetizer, or whatever fits best).
That’s just one such example, but hopefully you can see how effective such a simple gesture can be. Plus, you get the advantage of having them share your place of business with their personal network — you can’t imagine how many times this positive experience is likely to be retold during the course of normal conversations.
2) In a retail store – when the person comes into the store, or as they’re checking out you can mention that you offer a set amount of discount or a free gift (you’ll have to run your own numbers to find a percentage that works best for your business) if they are willing to share that they just shopped at your business, or that they found what they were looking for at your business.
You can be creative here. The point isn’t to make it a difficult experience. In most cases people are checking into businesses on the various social media places anyway, here you’re just creating a little extra value for them.
Get creative with the ideas above — give them a try and see for yourself what happens when you develop the habit of doing kind, unexpected cool things for your customers. Unleash the magic, and see how much more fun, not to mention profitable your business can be.
It’s your life, LIVE BIG!
Josh Hinds
-your thoughts and feedback are always welcome in the comments below.
P.S. Through Josh’s coaching program & speaking he teaches small business owners and entrepreneurs to use relationship marketing to grow more profitable companies — while having a lot more fun in the process!