We currently own 2
fish and chip shops in Barnsley, South Yorkshire under one brand -
Woody's. During national chip week in February 2009, we gave away free portions of chips... customers didn't have to buy anything else and could ask for as many portions as they wanted. (Shock horror!)
We're now doing the same during the whole of Christmas Week (Christmas is a time for giving after all!) Giving away free chips has:
1) Allowed us to gain exposure through
free press covering the 'story' in the paper and on the local radio.
2) Suppliers are more than willing to support us by giving us stock for free.
We have promoted this event in the local paper, put posters up all over town and placed ads on various free advertising websites and social networking sites including Facebook.
We started the marketing towards the end of November and dozens of new customers started coming in from day one of the posters going up. Our message was to "help spread the Christmas cheer" and to say thank you to our loyal customers for their support this year and to hopefully inspire other businesses in Barnsley to show some appreciation to their customers also.
I understand that this is only on a relatively tiny scale as the shops are simply two local chippies and that in these times most businesses would struggle to give away freebies. However, there is no doubt that this has already improved our sales considerably, new customers are returning every week and we will attract customers who will never have come to us before and will hopefully carry on coming to us.
My message is basically this: usually... "You don't get owt for nowt" but showing some appreciation and giving a little away certainly gets people talking... and ultimately SPENDING!
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