Shopper Dockets - Yes or No?

For those who are unfamiliar with what shopper dockets are, it's the advertising space on the back of supermarket receipts, you basically pay a fee to have some space on the receipt for a month or 3 month campaign.

Sounds like a great way to boost your sales and get some new customers, but what's the best way to make it work?

The reality is, that not everybody's going to look at the back of a receipt that they're given at the supermarket, I'd say 80% of the little things will get thrown out with the bags or scrunched up and thrown in the bin.

There's 2 types of people who are going to use shopper dockets -

1. People who read the shopper dockets thoroughly, keep them all and look through them all so they can get stuff cheap and save some money.


2. People who happen to see a coupon because something out of the ordinary catches their eye when the shopper docket i put in their hand or when it's making it's way to the bin.

So it's important that you make your advertising space count, you need something that really appeals to the cheap-skates, but is also visually appealing enough that it'll catch people's eye as they handle it.

As with all coupons, it's also important that you don't have an expiry date that's too far away, as you won't get the the desired immeadiate boost in customer numbers. With shopper dockets I'd suggest using the end date of the promotion as your expiry date, so that when people see the coupon and it only has a week left til expiry, they think - 'geez we better buy quick!'

Shopper dockets are a great way to attract customers to your business, but don't expect them to work if you don't offer something out of the ordinary like a really special deal or your happy hour, the idea is to really excite people with with an offer they can't refuse.

10 Tips For Networking

I was recently invited to attend a networking night run by one of the apprenticeship centre's I deal with as part of my work with Positive Training Solutions.

As I'm pretty new to the whole networking thing I wasn't totally sure what to expect, So instead of going in with a view to sell my services, I figured it would be just as beneficial to me if I went in to just meet some people and learn about how other people approach networking situations, so I could develop a great strategy for the next one I was invited to.

I was amazed at some of the bad techniques I came across, some of these were -

• 'The Card Spammer' - Giving out as many cards as possible, but never talking to anybody for more than a couple of minutes.


• 'The Hard Seller' - Meeting people and only talking about how good their company is and how you should do business with them.


• 'The Drunk' - Yes, it does happen at the events, people can tend to get a little rowdy when there's free drinks involved.


• 'The Newbie' - Huddles in the corner in their old little world, texting someone on their phone, not bothering to introduce themselves.


• 'The Small Talker' - Walks around the room saying things like, so how's about the weather?


• 'The Loudmouth' - Always interrupts people and talks about themselves, never listening to what other people say.

So if all of those are bad ways to approach a networking event, what are the good ways?

Here's the 10 tips -

1. If you're in a group of people you know, break away and meet someone new.


2. Listen to what other people have to say, before you talk about yourself.


3. Take business cards and keep them handy. (shirt pocket works)


4. Write notes on business cards of people you just meet. (helps you remember them later)


5. Use people's names when talking to them (both friendly, and helps you remember)


6. Use eye contact to show people they have your full attention.


7. Always keep a hand free to shake. (choose between food or drink)


8. Never break into a big group of people. You'll always feel like the outsider who has to catch up.


9. Introduce people to other people you meet at the event.


10. Follow up within 48 hours of the event (an email works well)

The main thing to remember when attending a networking event is that you are not there to bombard people with information, or to strike a million dollar deal, you are simply there to meet people and develop useful business relationships that you can benefit you in the long run.

How to make the most of Happy Hour

Happy Hour, best known as the time where you head down to the local pub and down as many pints of whatever's cheap before they're bumped back up to their usual price, during which time the pub is overflowing with punters spending their money, so everybody's happy.

So how do you maximise your 'Happy Hour'?

There's two ways you can go with running a Happy Hour.

1. Run it during your peak period to maximise on the time of day where customers would usually come in to buy, making that period a hugely profitable one.

2. Run it during a time of day where you are usually very quiet, to entice customers to come in when they usually wouldn't.

The latter is far more effective.

Example- In a food business, your busiest times of the day are from 12pm-3pm and 5pm-9pm, because that's when everybody eats their lunch or dinner.
Make your happy hour period from 3pm-5pm, so that you're busy from 12pm-9pm, without the break in-between.

It's important to make the most of every hour that you're open because during the down times, you still have to pay wages, rent and overheads. People will come to your business in the busy times whether there's a special or not, so attract them with a Happy Hour in your normal quiet times, and you're whole day will be a peak period.

What's your specialty?

Ever since I was young, going on family holidays down to the beach I heard about 'The Famous Vanilla Slice' in Sorrento, Victoria.

Recently we went on a holiday down that way and when we were thinking of things to do for the day, guess what came to mind?
So we went down to the main street in Sorrento to find the place that sells this product that's so well known, it didn't take us long to find the place, as there was tens of people at tables out the front either eating Vanilla Slice or waiting to order their Vanilla Slice, not to mention the people walking up and down the street eating them.


So why am I talking about this?


It really made me think, if this place is so well known for a product they sell that the entire town is buying it, and everybody who visits the town is buying it, then why don't more businesses have 'specialties'?

It's obviously not expected that every retail store can have something that can be labelled 'famous' or be known the world over, but why not pick the product that you sell that is the most popular, change it's name to include the business name, like 'Joe's Restaurant's Beef Special', and make the product unique so if they want it again they have to come to you.

You can also label it with something like 'Most Popular Product 2009'. The reason why I would add that is because customer's are like sheep. They'll always follow what everybody else is doing or what everybody else likes. So if it's popular, they must like it too, right?


FACT- 90% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know. (source)


So ask yourself this-

What do I specialize in?

How can I market that do get new customers?