This comes to us from Jenn in Denver. It's a really good example of how to think through reaching out to companies and other groups for events, how to stand out from the competition and how to begin a personal relationship with new prospects.
This outline is just one example. Your will be different and may be easier or more complex depending on your situation. So, use this as a starting point to create a campaign that is customized for your needs. If you have questions or need help, just ask.
Sample Direct Marketing Outline
Budget: Denver $2,000 direct marketing budget for Q1
Identify your target market & set goal: Make a realistic goal because you will be getting out to all of these places meeting these people face to face which will take some time. My goal for Denver is between 50 and 75 businesses that have 15+ employees. Pull these businesses from a couple different areas:
• Sales force leads
• Local businesses within a square mile of the pub. Spend a couple hours driving/ walking around your pub, in & out of office buildings to help build this target list. Hair Salons, banks, architecture firms, law offices, doctors offices etc.
• Reunion planners – Great Reunions.com find the planners in your areas
• Party/ wedding planners- Google planners in your area
Once you create this list you will start off with a simple phone call: Hi my name is Jenn, I am a manager at Fadó Irish pub down the street and I am trying to find out who is in charge of putting your office parties together? Whether it is holiday parties, happy hour parties etc. Once you are connected with that person ask if there would be a good time for you to stop in to drop off some info as well as a small gift and some treats for the office. This initial phone call will help you to weed out the people who don’t want to be bothered or that aren’t worth your time. Once you define your list of contacts you can log them all into sales force and get started putting your packets of info and gifts together.
Come up with your gift: Now that you have your list narrowed down you can figure out what you have to spend per person. For example in Denver my budget is $2000, I have a list of 75 contacts in which I have roughly $25-$26 each to spend. Come up with a gift that is creative, falls within our concept and something that people would use and enjoy. I have a 3 part plan for this, below is a list of gifts (main contact at the business)
Part 1: Gift for the planner
• Wine bottles/ customized labels
• Irish coffee kits
• Irish beer trios filled with chocolates
• Coffee/ tea mugs with Irish blends
• Homemade Irish cream bottles
• Hot cocoa with Irish cream bottles
Provide all the right information: You want to put an informational packet/ folder together for you to give to the main planner of the business. This is part 2 of the plan. Below is a list of items you will want to include:
• Special Event menu
• Business card/ contact info
• Private events booklet
• Pub spaces with seating bookmark
• Testimonial page- You will need to put this together. Include on there the YouTube link for the video we have.
• Complimentary happy hour offer with a couple pint cards
Bundle all of this info together in a folder or packet so it looks like you are organized and actually have some good info and content to give them! This will be given to the “planner” along with the small gift.
Part 3 of this plan is to come up with a gift that the entire office can benefit from as well. During your initial phone call you will need to find out how many people are in the office on a daily basis. Below is a list of ideas you can bring in to set up in the break room, keep in mind we want this to signify Irishness as much as possible:
• Irish Cream Cupcakes- I would make these, talk to your KM because it is super inexpensive to do it yourself. I typically will do mini chocolate cupcakes with the bailey’s cream cheese frosting we use for the brownie bites on our event menu.
• Guinness cake pops
• Bread pudding mini mason jars
• Personalized Irish chocolate candy bars (make the labels and wrap dairy milk candy bars…)
The idea of doing something for the entire office gives you more of an opportunity to reach out to the employees as well as the planner. With each of these little gifts include your business card, and a pint card to try and bring them into the pub individually outside of an office party. Simply punch a hole in the cards and tie them onto whatever you decide to do. I like the idea of the mini mason jars with the bread pudding and whiskey sauce because you can put a lid on it that you can spray paint with chalkboard paint and write a little message on. Or if you decide to go with cookies or cupcakes take some of the brown parchment paper in the kitchen that is used for the fish n’ chips and stamp the Fadó logo all over it so people know where the treats came
This is obviously going to take you a little more time than any of us really have but I think it will be worth it in the long run. Get help from some of your servers, bartenders and other managers.
Set up a time to drop things off and meet in person: Once you have everything together you want to set up a time to take it down and meet with the planner. Be organized and have your shit together as well as a little spiel to present to the planner. Try and get them to commit to a complimentary happy party then and there. If not make sure you make a note to log into sales force to follow up a couple weeks later regarding a date for their complimentary party and a time for you to show them the pub.
Log your info & follow up: Just like everything else we want to take these initial leads and convert them into contacts as well as keep a history of what they actually bring into the pub business wise. The ultimate goal is to build relationships and get them in for their holiday parties when they actually have somewhat of a budget to spend and happy hour parties to fill our pubs on Thursday, Friday nights.
