Little surprises can create lots of conversations.
Opportunities to offer unexpected delights include a free upgrade, expedited shipping, a little something extra in the box, an extra free sample, or even a hand-written note.
How a word of mouth supergenius does it:
Butterfly Sushi here in Chicago does great things with sushi, but they also have amazing cheesecake. But most people wouldn’t know it — few think to order cheesecake from a place you order spicy tuna rolls and edamame.
So they do something clever that gets people trying their dessert and leaves them feeling special: They bring you a small slice with the bill and tell you it’s on the house.
And everyone leaves raving about it — both about the cake and the gesture.
A lot of buzz-generating ideas center on introducing something new or adding something to your product line. But for Austin-based fast-food restaurant Cabo Bob’s, their topic is about what they don’t sell.
Cabo Bob’s is officially the first fast-food restaurant to be high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) free, serving only sodas made with pure cane sugar and using HFCS-free barbecue sauces and vinegars.
In an interview with QSR Magazine, co-owner Don Brinkman explains how sales have doubled and customers are excited about the HFCS-free food and drinks.
The Lesson: Look at your menu or product line — is there something you could stop selling or an ingredient you could remove that would get people talking about how different you are?
TAC (Thai Authentic Cuisine) Quick Thai Kitchen in Chicago’s Wrigleyville neighborhood hands most diners a standard menu with traditional Thai cuisine — but insiders know to ask for the special menu with dishes like Fish Maw Salad, the Boat Noodle, and Chewy Beef Jerkey.
Here’s Tasting Table’s writeup on it:
“Most diners walk into TAC Quick Thai and are handed a standard trifold menu. But the informed request something else: a single sheet of authentic Thai specialties reserved for those in the know.
It holds some of the restaurant’s most addictive dishes, like chewy beef “jerky” (neua dad deaw, $6) marinated in sweet soy sauce until almost candied and served with a vinegary chile sauce. Nuggets of deep-fried marinated chicken (kai thawt, $7.50) are flavored with soy and lime, and peppery Vietnamese-style pork meatballs (nam nuang, $8) come with plum sauce, herbs and rice paper for wrapping.”
The Lesson: Making someone feel like an insider requires giving them special benefits or information — and a secret menu or product offering is a fantastic and inexpensive way to do it.
Photo from Tasting Table.
Smokey Bones – a 68-unit franchise concentrated in Florida – has given several of its employees second jobs as social media marketers charged with engaging fans online.
Each location selects a web host — someone familiar with social media tools — to run localized web, Facebook, and Myspace pages to communicate with each location’s fans, known as members of the Smokey Bones Family. Web hosts go through special training sessions and are equipped with a social media handbook.
According to Push — the agency behind the new social media strategy — since the new website and associated features went live in February, web traffic is up 50% and the chain’s email list has increased 30%.
The Lesson: Your employees can be your biggest asset when it comes to reaching out to your fans — and many of them would love to do it. Teach and encourage them on how to do it the right way.
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