Category: Marketing

Jun
21
2011
June 21st, 2011 by ssadmin

Do you take advantage of the customer file features SP-1 has?  If not, then you might be missing out on one of the best features of SP-1!


Most people are aware that SP-1 can track your customers and their name, address, phone number but have you explored the other items that are in the customer file and available to you? 


Birthday.  Yep, we track your customers birthday!  Better yet, you can use SP-1 to alert your staff that customer has a birthday coming up!


Email.  Anyone can track an email address – we track ten per customer! 


Multiple phone numbers.  Use a phone number to track past orders for your customers?  SP-1 tracks ten per customer.  If a customer calls with their cell, home, work or any other line, you can link all of them to the same account. 


Multiple addresses.  An address is great for delivery but what if the customer wants it to go to his office or friends house?  What about catering?  With SP-1 you can have up to three additional addresses for catering.


Custom remarks.  A line just for your staff!  What ever you type here is highlighted on the screen for your clerk to see.  










Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Posted in Marketing, Uncategorized Tagged with: ,

May
10
2011
May 10th, 2011 by ssadmin

Gift cards are a big part of the Coffee and Restaurant industry.  The marketing and promotional ideas are virtually endless


So, I thought it would be fun to share 7 or so different, and sometimes unusual, gift card promotions with you:


1)  Buy a card, get a drink (or appetizer etc).   This is a fun promotion that helps provide instantaneous gratification.  The idea is that when a customer buys a gift card of sufficient value, they get something free.  Usually 10% is the standard discount to consider.  So, buy a $35 gift card and get a free coffee!  Buy a $50 gift card and get a free order of bread sticks.  It can be a great way to introduce a new product at the same time you increase gift card sales. 


2)  On a similar track. . . Buy a card and get a $5 card (or $5 off the gift card).  This is a pretty popular promotion and works very well if you find customers are buying primarily as a gift card.  Think about it. . . It puts a gift card in two peoples hands! 


3)  Accept a competitors card as a trade in.  This works specifically with Starbucks.  The thought is that you will take certain types of Starbucks gift cards and issue one of your own with equal value.  It sounds a little crazy but what can make it work is that there are multiple sites that will pay you a percent of the total value for that Starbucks card.   Plastic Jungle is a site that allows you to do this with cards that are over $25.   When I checked, they were offering $41 for a $50 Starbucks card.  EDIT:  I was informed by a reader that Plastic Jungle has shut down.    Luke Knowles suggested the following (Thanks Luke!). 

Gift Card Granny – shows a comparison of what other sites will give you for a gift card.

Gift Card Zen – a gift exchange site.


4)  Sell big!  Everyone should have at least one huge value gift card offer.  $200 gets you $220 or some variation.   Jack Groot of the Midwest Barista School tells a wonderful story on LinkedIn about selling $1,200 gift cards for $1,000 each to finance a piece of equipment.  

5) Use gift cards instead of employee discounts.  Instead of a 50% discount, pre-load a gift card for each employee every pay period.  The employee can then use this for any purchase in the store.   Let them buy their girl/boy friend a drink, purchase a muffin for their Mom etc.  Instead of tempting them with using their discount.


6)  Hand them out!  Pre-load a number of gift cards with a small amount and pass them around. Use them as business cards and start promoting your brand.   


7)  Promote through non-profits and community events.  Selling a gift card at a discounted price to schools and church’s allows you to promote your store, help the community and have your customers introduce new people to your product and brand.  


Have an 8th?  Comment and let us know! 




Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Posted in Gift Cards, Marketing, Uncategorized Tagged with: ,

Mar
15
2011
March 15th, 2011 by ssadmin



In my last blog I wrote that we would be looking at what reports SP-1 has to offer.  More importantly, we will look at what you should use them for.


As I said last time, reports are something that people love and hate.  They love the fact that the information is out there and hate the fact that they don’t use it.   Let’s try and clear some things up here. . . 




In SP-1 we try to put our reports in some specific categories:


Daily Sales – This is the main business reporting section.  In here you will find the reports that impact your sales totals and menu mix breakdowns.  We will cover this more later.


Time Keeping – This is where employee reporting is.  Hours, time worked, wages etc.


Delivery – Here we cover what happened to the drivers you have on the road.


Mailing / E-mail –  Marketing is what goes on with these reports.  This area is incredibly important as it can help you directly increase your sales and customer retention.


Ticket History – Specific, surgical reporting on some certain categories of discounting, comments etc.


Account Billing –  If you run an accounts payable system for your customers, this is where you will see what is outstanding. 


Order Processing –  If you use our Order Processing module, you will get quote time breakdowns here.


Street Names –  For those of you that do delivery, you can find out about your delivery area here.


Inventory – All of the inventory and portion control reports are handled here.  Including the variance reporting on inventory.


Deferred Orders – If you handle timed or scheduled ordering, you will find it here.


Customer – Specific reporting regarding customers is located here. 


Now that we have that out of the way, let’s start to talk about these categories in more depth.   My next blog will focus on the Daily Sales area. 






Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Posted in Marketing, Reporting, Uncategorized Tagged with: ,

Feb
22
2011
February 22nd, 2011 by ssadmin
Custom Gift Cards



Interested in ordering gift cards?  Don’t forget to think about custom gift cards.  Too many people go with a  generic card that does not remind the customer of your unique business. Having your logo on the card increases the likely hood that they will remember you.


What if you don’t have artwork for the logo etc?  There are other ways to target your customers with the gift card design without having to spend a ton of money on graphic design.   


One common method is to put a high quality picture of your primary coffee or food on the front.  Nothing reminds us better than an image of the product we love.   There are even plenty of websites that offer royalty free pictures for anything from $2.00 to $50.00 for the pictures.  These are usually really high quality digital photos.

Other customers have simply taken a high quality picture of the location itself and used that for the front of the card. This is a great way to promote your cards as your customers recognize the building and the signage.


The back of the card is a great opportunity to market and promote as well.  Don’t be afraid to wrap the color that you use on the card around to the back of the card as well.   When a customer looks in their wallet, we want them to associate the color on the back of that card with your location.


Don’t hesitate to look at www.facebook.com/selbysoftinc for some examples of custom gift cards! 






Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Posted in Gift Cards, Marketing, Uncategorized Tagged with: ,

Feb
10
2011
February 10th, 2011 by ssadmin

Have you ever thought of your gift cards as a marketing and fund-raising tool?  If not, I feel you might be missing the boat on one of the unique advantages to plastic gift (pre-paid, loyalty, rewards, customer profile) cards.  


Most stores receive at least a couple fund raising requests a year.   You may offer a discount, cash, free food etc on occasion to help out your local charity or non-profit organization.    Using a gift card may be a better way to go however.


Because you can pre-load gift cards with a dollar amount, you can easily setup a fund raising card system when asked.  The scenario would play out like this. . . You offer to sell the organization gift cards at a discounted amount.  So, maybe $20 cards for $15.  They then sell the cards for the face value of $20.  They make $5 on each card and you make a potential new customer and goodwill in the community. 


Another great example of using gift cards as a marketing tool is to keep some pre-loaded cards on you as a business card.  A $1.00 pre-loaded gift card works great for friends and associates.   It’s an easy way to introduce people to what you have to offer. 

By the way – we have a number of example gift cards at our Facebook page – Don’t forget to “like” us while you are at it!   Sample Gift Card Pictures


Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Posted in Gift Cards, Marketing, Uncategorized Tagged with: ,

Feb
03
2011
February 3rd, 2011 by ssadmin
Automatic discounts for customers





Here is a neat feature that we have in SP-1.  A lot of our customers offer a discount for seniors, fire, church, police, teachers etc.  One of the benefits of having a POS is to make life easier for your staff and for a more convenient order process for your customers.


If you offer any of these customer specific discounts, you can assign them to the customer profile.  In the example below, David gets the “Fire Dept” discount of 10% whenever he orders.  




If the customer comes in, your clerk can simply swipe the gift card and the discount is automatically added to the ticket.   If it’s a phone order, then simply enter the phone number and the discount will be added to the ticket.



Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Posted in Marketing, Uncategorized Tagged with: , ,

Jan
16
2011
January 16th, 2011 by ssadmin
Have you ordered gift cards?


Typically the holiday season is the busiest time for gift card sales to your customer.  How is your stock?  Are you prepared?

Every year we have customers that order gift cards at the last minute, hoping that they will be printed by Christmas.

Don’t let this happen to you!  Most of the gift card companies that are out there have a couple week turnaround time from receipt of artwork to shipping of the cards. 

Here are some of the other blogs on gift cards for more information! 

http://selbysoft.blogspot.com/2010/07/gift-card-questions-and-information.html

http://selbysoft.blogspot.com/2010/09/holiday-customer-rewards.html

http://selbysoft.blogspot.com/2010/01/pre-load-gift-cards.html

http://selbysoft.blogspot.com/2009/10/gift-card-promotion-and-marketing.html


Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Posted in Gift Cards, Marketing, Order Entry, Uncategorized Tagged with: ,

Jan
13
2011
January 13th, 2011 by ssadmin


Curious about gift card usage?





We all know that gift cards are a great way of increasing revenue and customer retention.  One of the questions that comes up is how to track what happened with a gift card.   Usually this comes up because a customer thinks they should have more money on their card than they actually do. 


SelbySoft has a great report that will show you a complete history of the gift card when you are using our free internal gift card system. 


In Reports | Customer | Internal Gift Card System you will find an option that provides a couple different types of information.


For example, to see all the transaction history for a specific card, you would simply select the Individual button and then enter the gift card number and dates to see.    The example below shows what type of information is being displayed – notice that all voids, loads, sales etc are shown along with the date and the employee that performed the transaction!


This is a great way to check if someone has used a card incorrectly and to help verify transactions. 







Another report that can be run here is the list of outstanding cards.  With this report you will see a total list of all gift cards that have not had any use since a certain date.  This is a great liability report!











Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Posted in Gift Cards, Marketing, Order Entry, Reporting, Uncategorized Tagged with: , ,

Jan
04
2011
January 4th, 2011 by ssadmin
QR Codes


Do you know what a QR code is?  It’s that funny little black and white square barcode that you see on some products.  Manufacturers and retailers have started using them over the last few years as a way to look up product information.  It is designed as an advanced barcode that stores more information than the traditional UPC style barcodes that you see.  The beauty of the QR code is that it can store actual information like web addresses.
 
One of the great things about a QR code is that you can place it on products and quickly direct customers to a website about that product.  These codes become very effective with smartphone users.   If you have a smartphone, you can scan them and be directed to a website automatically.  Instant information.
 
At the bottom of this Blog are three examples for you to try – If you have an app on your phone that does QR codes, scanning these barcodes will automatically take you to http://www.selbysoft.com/, my Facebook page (www.Facebook.com/SelbySoft) or the SelbySoft Facebook page (www.Facebook.com/SelbySoftinc) where you can also become a fan!

So, what does this mean for you?  Powerful marketing and tracking capabilities as well as the ability to direct your techno-savvy customers.

Some of you already know that we have the ability to print a custom coupon or offer at the bottom of the receipt.  Want to send people to your web store or online ordering site?  Add a QR code! 





This is a great way to both communicate with and market to your customers.  Utilizing this, you can drive trafffic to a web site or Facebook page quickly.  If you setup  a unique pagelink, you can even then judge traffic to the site by seeing how many visits came to that page directly. 

Really want to get creative? Once a customer scans a QR code, they are taken to a sign-up or registration page.  Once the customer provides their information, email them a coupon!

Creating a QR code?  There are a number of online sites that allow you to create this.  I used http://createqrcode.appspot.com/ to create the ones in this email.  I then simply pasted the image here.






Scan here to go to Mike Spence Facebook Page

Scan here to go to www.SelbySoft.com

Scan here to go to SelbySoft, Inc Facebook Page.






















Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Posted in Marketing, Order Entry, Uncategorized Tagged with: , , ,

Nov
11
2010
November 11th, 2010 by ssadmin
Coupons and Discounts

I thought I’d take some time and share some ideas on coupons and discounts.  Most of these are ideas that have been shared with us by our current customers over the years.
Reward Programs:
Our SP-1 software has a number of ways to handle reward systems for your store.  A couple of the ways are here.
Buy 10 get 1 free
Spend a $1.00 get a point  – This is great as it allows you to incorporate other items as well:
  • 50 Points gets a free drink or 50% off food
  • 100 points gets a free lunch (small size items only)
  • 250 lunch for two
Gift Card Programs
We have heard many different promotions with gift cards – some of these are designed to help boost gift card sales as well as other products.  Note that the values vary from store to store!
Buy a $25 card for $20
Buy a $25 card and get a $5 card free
Buy a $25 card and get a drink / app free (immediate gratification)
Buy a $50 (or $100) and get $5 – $10 extra and a 10% discount for the next 3-6 months.
Load money and get a 10% discount for one month
Discounts
Owner discount – track how much YOU give away or comp!
Waste discount – track what is dropped etc
Mis-made discount – track what was made incorrectly
Re-make – a discount to show that you re-made an item to a customers specification
10% off for senior, police, fire, military etc
Bring a friend discount – If 2 people order, get 10% off
Coupons
Beat the clock special – Item is charged by the time. . . $5.00 at 5pm, $5.25 at 5:15, $5.50 at 5:30 etc
Buy X get X 1/2 off – This is a great way to introduce new product to your customers.
Buy Combo’s are great for  providing quick ordering as well.
These are just a few of the different promotional ideas ran past us.  Hope they help!

Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Posted in Marketing, Order Entry, Uncategorized Tagged with: , ,

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