Contest Promotion/Marketing Idea Contest - $50 Prize

Hello, everyone!

I'm opening a contest here on DigitalPoint. I'd like for any interested parties to reply here with promotion/marketing ideas for a specialty coffee company. The company sells premium, fair-trade and organic coffees to consumers (and wholesale). It's a higher-end brand so it's more expensive than what you'd see in a store. We roast the coffee ourselves, support small farmers, and genuinely believe in producing great coffee for our customers. We're looking for marketing and promotion ideas and I figured the DP community would likely have some cool suggestions!

Reply below with your idea(s) and the author of whichever I like the most will receive $50 via PayPal. I'm open to selecting two winners as well if there's good turnout here.

If you have questions please PM me. In the meantime, let's see what you have in mind:

 

One of the many tools we use is a viral contest via https://www.punchtab.com we are more than willing to host this contest for you or you can join Punch Tab, there are some great uses to it including reward programs and so much more.

My suggestion is hold a 30 day contest for a years worth of your signature product and decide how much that would be, say 2 bags a month for 12 months etc. This will build brand recognition, increase your social following, if you have any youtube videos you can add views to a video, etc. The viral function comes from the sharing by your participants, the more they share and participate the more entries they receive.

 

Sounds like an awesome company

Love good single origin coffee.

My idea:

I suspect you are going to get loads of answer for competitions. My idea is not a one off idea or gimmick, and it will take a lot of work.

It is a long term strategy. I would recommend a combination of story telling, content marketing, social and blogging - built around extremely content on the farmers behind the coffee.

Find one, or a selection of farmers - and find a way of telling their story. Get high quality pictures of them if you can. Don't sell the coffee, sell the story of the farmer, the community and exactly why it is a good idea to support them.

Do a small campaign - budget $100 or so on Facebook.

I would recommend building up a presence on either Google+ or Twitter, also mix in Instagram, Pinterest - and using them to tell the story and drive traffic.

Then of course reach out to the local and if possible regional press. Also contact coffee and suitable bloggers and taste makers.

 

Guilty But I am a big believer in the viral promotion path, though I think yours is a great long term strategy that can fit right in.

 

Thanks a lot for participating guys! Great ideas! I'm excited to see what else the DP community can recommend. Here's a new bonus so that everyone can receive something for helping out: Everyone who submits an idea (I mean, as long as it's legitimate) will receive a free bag of one of our coffees (provided that you live in the United States)!

 

WOOOT Caffeine lol What is your website by the way?

 

Don't forget about a quiz with questions from the coffe domain and it's history, and the willer will win let's say enough coffe for a year, for 2 cups of coffe per day. Find a way to tel the people the story of the coffe (2 or 3 facts in each ad) and the story of the farmers (one in each ad). You know the ads about wine, where they says few words about why they make wine? Than you've got a clue about what I'm talking about. And at the end of the add, say that there will be a contest (question and who presses first the button, answers first) and the site where they could find more informations about that.

In addition to that, don't forget to invest on advertising on all well-known social sites (facebook, google+, twitter, instagram, pinterest, for example), also google adsense (ads with link to a site of the brand, where they could order your coffe) and few other big ad selling services (both online and offline), like newspaper, local TV channels and no so local TV channels, youtube (all your ads should be uploaded on youtube, and you should have your ads on youtube, as in-video ads), and your site should have: a home page (with a short description of your business), a shop page (where to buy coffe online from), an "about" page (history and so on; a random ad should show every time they get on that page, and auto-play it if you use it from youtube), a contact page (don't forget to tell that you're open for partnership and choose your partners wisely), a blog (where to write few words every day, so people know that you are paying attention to them), maybe a forum (with another -monthly- contest: who have the most posts without spamming, will get a pack of coffe for free and if the winner fron the actual month is the same as the one from the past month, the winner will also get a random item signed by your company -a t-shirt, a coffe spoon with style, a cap, a jar with coffe, a glass with coffe and a glass pad with the logo of the company (found on the top of the glass, at the delivery), a key holder, a wallet, a scarf and few other small things that you would think of) where to talk about coffe (and if you're wise enough, it will be on a different domain, so you could allow other coffe talks, but with ads leading to your coffe site, saying that it is sponsored by your coffe company).

Also, you should also try something like: coffe for kids (with a verry small amount of coffe, but make it tastes good enough). Belive me, this will buy! (If the law allows you to sell it...)

And if you want to cheat a little bit, you could always add a few wheet to some random packs, to make them want more coffe... but this one is illegal, so you should be careful if you do this...

Remember that you could always make a small-term partnership with let's say Coca Cola and few other companies (not all at the same time, but with a break of like 3 month between them), so for every 2 bottles of 2 liters (that example is for juice) or greater they will get a small pack of coffe, for 2 bottles of 1 liter of greater they will get 5 coffe bags for one coffe cup each, and for the half a liter just a coffe bag. Excepting for juice, you could have that small-term partnership with companies of wine, cooking oil, and pretty much everything is kinds not so cheap or with the most sales on the market. You could give a pack of coffe for each coffe maker device, for example...

Now remember that what I said imvolves a lot of money (like really a lot; your logo should be redesigned, too, even if it might look great for you, and that before starting to advertise! Be prepared to pay like $500 just for the logo and another $1000 for the website. I sugest 99designs.com and let them enough time to think about it, like a month or two, and that before starting with the TV and online ads on adsense and youtube; meanwhile you could make a base of facebook followers, make the forum start without a logo or with a basic one -people on the internet offers to make free logos- and then, when you will have like 1000 or more users, think about changing the logo as soon as possible; I might try to make a logo for your forum to start with, but only if you want me to, and only if you will include me in a page whith people that should be remembered on that forum and don't include that I made the logo for free, at least not on the same page, because this will make your business look a bit cheaper and not professional) and a lot of time for your business to grow. Don't expect it to be a top product over night, but the whole campaign will surely multiply your selling rates, and if not instantly, eventually, after some time. (Tou know how it is with the ads that stays there a week and people never sees them again, don't you? They will easily forget them!) Keep pressing on advertising! If they will see you like once per week for like half a year, they will at least try your product, if they won't become "addicted" (by that I mean that they will buy coffe from only your company, even if for a little while) and they will probably tell their friends to try your coffe.

(Note: I am still thinking on other few ideas, but none of them is good enough to work, at least not at this stage of thinking about them...)

 

...uhm... any more updates? Did he/she just used the ideas and not paid for what she/he said he/she would?

 

It hasn't even been a week... why would you immediately jump to such a hostile conclusion? Very unprofessional. I'm giving people more time to respond, I didn't plan on making the decision in only a handful of days.

 

Sorry, but you could simply say that from the beginning... usually, no-deadline contests are the easiest to "cheat on", so I was just checking if this offer is still valid, nothing more. Even if it might seems to be rude, it was a risk that I had to take, in order to know if to keep thinking at new ways to promote your business or just give up on it...

 

So did you like any of the ideas? No worries if not of course!

 

I did not see a result to this so I guess there were no winners

 

This is a real world business, dp is probly not the best place for ideas for a simple coffee shop.
My biggest concern for you, is that fact that coffee machines now are piss cheap, and becoming more and more popular. Even my workplace now has a coffee machine, its not the worlds best coffee, but quality vs convenience, and it wins hands down. With people struggling to make ends meet, one of the first things they cut back on are things such as expensive coffee. in our area, January, Feburary, are the worst months for some of the coffee places that we know, and one owner actually suspects that its to do with overspending over christmas, and January is often when they get their credit card bills.
This is why you need to get excellent advise on this, because right now is december, the good times will last for another week or two, then you might be very very quiet for another month or two. Spending huge amounts on advertising, might not help you in this period, this is why you need to seekout experts in the industry.

for me and from what I have observed, most times people buy coffee is simply when you walk past and think, yeah, about now i need a coffee. Its never something that you walk down a few blocks specifically for, i mean, i might go as far as crossing the street, but thats about it.
Reason I say this is not to be harsh, but its about convenience. if you have 15mins for a break, or running late for work, you go to the closest coffee shop, or the coffee shop that is on your route. Going an extra 5 minutes out of your way for "better" coffee isnt an option as your break will be over before you get back to work.

So for me, i would pay attention to signage, having a well designed sign outside of the store, or banners and what not, as you need to capitalize on everyone walking past, to make sure they buy from you, and not the other coffee shops that are nearby. But this also comes down to location, location, location.

Another thing that I would do is have a website built. and no, i dont mean a $5 website from someone on fiverr. Have one professionally designed by people that are local to you, and understand the local environment. I imagine a website so amazing that you can almost smell the coffee beans. And then run a campaign on adsense, and then later run a different one on facebook so you can test to see which one gives better results. Your market niche is "not everyone" it is people that seek quality, that want to avoid the robotic atmosphere that other coffee shops seem to have, as well as coffee lovers that are in, or pass through, your general business area.
You might be able to do things such as mobile phone advertising (dont ask me, i am making this up as i go), to target people in your business area. I guess one thing that business people need is a place with wifi as well.

I do like the idea of doing things such as sending leaflets to business around you. For example, take a bunch of coffees to a business, with a stack of flyers (maybe some donuts or something) and leave a bunch of your best coffees there free for them to take. having discounts can work for you, and against you. But having a stack of free coffees with flyers, might work well.
One site that I really like reading, is http://tomfishburne.com/ and one article that I cannot find right now, discusses how discount coupons can damage your brand. For example, our local pizzahut can make reasonably decent pizzas (they are better then some of the other premium pizza places in the area) but they are so well known for discounts, that the majority of people wont buy from them unless they have a coupon. And even though their premium range is quite good, there is a stigma about the brand, such that socially, it is better to pay more, for a worse pizza from somewhere else, then to offer to guests pizzahut.
Same with gloria jeans and starbucks. Gloria jeans has a good brand as being a great place for great coffee. On the other hand, Starbucks has a stigma of being budget and crap, to the point where I have never even tried their coffee! (it might not be the same stigma in the US though), and I dont know how starbucks got that stigma either.

if you have $50 to hand out to randomers and kids on a forum, then i advise you to look at this system:
https://www.nevercoldcall.com/
the guy has a blog and some of his stuff is just amazing. Even if you learn only 1 thing from his site, blogs, books, it is worth it.