how to market a butcher's shop

[dawn123]

we're a long standing traditional butchers shop, third generation. Never advertised. Haven't got a clue to be honest. Have employed a marketing company to design logos and basic templates for ads, and we are going to work with them on a website.

But really, how would you market a butchers??? flyers? loyalty cards? I SO don't want to cheapen our brand (we are quality). Everything i think of ends up sounding desperate!

Any ideas?

 

[Minuteman Press]

OK, let's get started.

What makes you guys unique? If not unique....outstanding?

I note the word quality...

 

[patientlady]

Perfect opportunity for a sales agent calling in on Pubs, Hotels & Rest. Another headache is chasing money and getting paid tho!

 

[SearchBlogger]

How about taking your products out to a busy street or shopping area and letting people taste the quality for themselves? That way you can also get the chance to talk to them about their shopping habits and ask them what would make them come to your butchers rather than buying from a supermarket.

 

[dawn123]

thanks guys do keep it coming i haven't got time to read and answer til tonight but will do so then

Busy flogging welsh dragon sausages for st davids day

 

[KernowQueen]

have you thought about selling online? seems to be popular at the moment, i'm happy to pay a premium price for quality, especially if it's delivered to my door. also, the main 2 shopping channels (IdealWorld & QVC) frequently have this type of service on offer.

 

[Billmccallum]

It's difficult to market a butchers shop, most people will think "it's only a bit of beef (or lamb or pork, etc) so what's so special about it?", what you need to do is add value to your core products (which you already do with sausages, burgers, etc), for instance adding some herbs and spices and a few chopped veggies to diced beef to have a ready to cook stew/chilli/curry.

 

[Fresco_Creative]

Immediately market yourselves on quality,

Also, get in touch with wedding caterers and also wedding companies as they will deal with caterers.

If possible try and get in place highly secure contracts to supply people. Also try and see if there may be a way of getting into corporate banqueting; this is an area where A LOT of money is spent.

Seperately, have the company vehicle wrapped with the logo on the side and contact details. A butchers near where I am based does this already and generates a lot of business from this.

 

[popunder]

I think marketing a butcher's is easy - most people like meat and buy it regularly, and they know what at butcher is, so that's a good start!

Certainly focus on quality but every butcher says they are "quality", it's a meaningless word by itself, the question is how are you going to justify it? Ask regular customers to write something nice about you and why they keep shopping with you, use these testimonials on all your marketing and website. You might have to incentivise them with some freebies but the feedback will be hugely valuable and will prove the quality you're talking about, and probably the "great service" and "good prices" etc. Frame the best ones and hang them on your walls. Testimonials rule.

A loyalty scheme is a great idea, I'd love it if my local butcher rewarded me for my weekly repeat business. Some free bacon every now and then or an extra pork chop would be appreciated and would be a talking point - I'd be telling friends about the scheme, driving new business via word of mouth. You'd make far more than you'd ever give away. Use your scheme to collect customer emails or addresses and then you'll be able to contact them with offers to keep them coming back.

Could you also tie up with a (good) local restaurant to run some cookery demonstrations, you provide the meat, they provide the chef. Get a wine shop to bring some free wine too! The chef can rave on about what great quality your meat is, and at the end everyone will sign up for your loyalty scheme. The restaurant and wine shop get nice exposure too. Try to invite some other business owners as they are generally well-connected and can create openings for you with other businesses perhaps.

 

[I Love Spreadsheets]

Even if you are local only, an online ordering and delivery service would be a great tool. It allows you to capture contact information and prompt your customers for orders when you notice their orders dropping off.

I did see an odd one for a butcher on the TV the other night. Vic Reeves was on about how he writes reviews for his local butcher. The butcher uses it in his marketing (local press, A-boards outside his shop etc) and I think Vic gets free food. Do you have a local celeb you could get involved with in a similar way?

How about cooking demonstrations? Team up with a hotel to host it and a green grocer to supply the veg etc. You can share the costs and the marketing.

Local craft fairs would also be a good way to promote

 

[Consultant sea]

I see some Butchers offering good gourmet foods and deli products. These are a great accompaniments in my opinion.

 

[dawn123]

fantastic ideas. We supply a few local restaurants so maybe there is an avenue to exploit this.

How do you get onto qvc??

loyalty cards sounding good then.

We did welsh dragon sausages today and gave freebies on the counter which is something we've never done before! little welsh flags in em and everything

The customers loved them although it was unfortunate st davids day fell on a tuesday as this is a quiet day. We put up some welsh flags and got a display of leeks and daffs going. Wrote in welsh on our blackboards. I have to say, even though it was an unpublicised affair I thoroughly enjoyed the feeling of difference it gave the place. Bit more interesting than just hanging the carcasses in the window as per usual. Do you think this is worth doing, this sort of thing? It's very small but at least it's a start and cost next to nothing. Am thinking about doing St Paddy's day with free stout. What do you think? WOuld you be interested in free stout? Or does noone drink the stuff? Should it be a free bottle of irish wiskey haha. If so how much would you be willing to spend in order to get said free bottle of stout?

Please keep the ideas coming. Small medium and large scale - all appreciated as i very much lack imagination..

 

[dawn123]

we did supply some meat for a friend of ours who did a cook in on 'this morning'

we begged her to plug us but she didn't manage it. would it be out of order to put 'as seen on itv's this morning' on our boards

I don't dare!

 

[KernowQueen]

QVC vendor info

http://www.qvcuk.com/vendorrelations.html?nonqiclink?cm_re=Footer-_-Corporate-_-VendorInfo

 

[HFE Signs]

Do it, if you're telling the truth you're not doing anything wrong... this is a good statement to make ....as seen on this morning..... date and so on... don't let this kind of opportunity go without notice

 

[patientlady]

For St Paddys day
Get lots of green ballons blown up and give a free one to the children with every purchase from mum. It will brighten the shop very cheaply and maybe coax some new custom. Have some recipe sheets for Irish stew and have the casserole beef on special offer

 

[Highland Park]

Good idea to help mutton / lamb sales

 

[PortalMarketing]

we're a long standing traditional butchers shop, third generation. Never advertised. Haven't got a clue to be honest. Have employed a marketing company to design logos and basic templates for ads, and we are going to work with them on a website.

But really, how would you market a butchers??? flyers? loyalty cards? I SO don't want to cheapen our brand (we are quality). Everything i think of ends up sounding desperate!

Any ideas?

Website, The web is the single most powerful tool to market your business. I currently own my own online marketing business and i have worked with butchers before. Get your web designer to use unique templates and get the content professionally written by a qualified SEO copywriter (your web designer should have some).

If you want any more information on a website just give me a shout.

 

The term USP has become a bit tired, but you do need to considder your differentiator. 'Quality' and 'family' are a bit over used; areas you might like to exploit are

- Provenance
- Specialities (home made pies, barbecue packs etc)
- Delivery

I'm sure there are many others, but try not to spead yourself too thin (Ie concentrate on one or 2 differentiators rather than trying to grab them all).

I have a lot of involvement in a country club Including, but not limited to leaning on the bar talking rubbish) and they struggle to get quality meat supplies. Their original supplier was bought out & service went down the pan - this market is crying out for RELIABLE, suppliers of local produce - plus you can almost certainly get away with COD terms, as they are cash-generative businesses.

Get somme direct marketing to independent pubs, hotels & restaurants n your area!

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Our local butcher buys prize winning animals and displays the rosett's and a brief history of the animal on display to help prove quality you could also qualify your goods as local from xxx farm

BBQ packs for cooking now or freezing for later summer days

Give out printed recipy for some unusual slow moving cuts, and explain how the cuts are best cooked, pass on your knowledge whilst serving them

 

[popunder]

Give out printed recipy for some unusual slow moving cuts, and explain how the cuts are best cooked, pass on your knowledge whilst serving them

I'd like this, I'm often tempted by less obvious cuts but unless I've gone there with a specific recipe in mind I usually stick to the mainstream (on the other hand have just stuck a slab of pork belly into a salt & black treacle brine - mmm home-cured bacon... have to wait about a week for it though!).

This is more sales than marketing though perhaps, you have to get them into the shop first.

 

[helipad.me]

Want an out of the box idea?

Vending Machines.

If you're in a sleepy town or relatively safe area, it would be very unique and would certainly grab the interest of the local media and residents.

See an example of a Spanish butcher doing exactly that here

 

[popunder]

Love it, probably worth doing for PR reasons alone, but no doubt Health & Safety would shut it down in 2 seconds flat over here - hopefully after you got in all the papers!

ps: Springwise is awesome for business ideas.

 

[helipad.me]

Love it, probably worth doing for PR reasons alone, but no doubt Health & Safety would shut it down in 2 seconds flat over here - hopefully after you got in all the papers!

ps: Springwise is awesome for business ideas.

I'm sure there are H&S implications, BUT, a good local council should be supporting such innovation. Such a simple innovation could paint a small town in a good light in a small way.

In addition, it's probably not in the council's interest to get the negative press of closing it down. "Young entrepreneur denied innovative vending machine due to health & safety madness" etc.

Finally, there's a great PR opportunity for say a firm who makes refrigerated vending machines, who probably already know the ins and outs of regulation with regards to fresh produce in vending machines. Perhaps they would even be willing to do the legal legwork under the proviso they can roll it out for other businesses.

In a nutshell: if you don't ask, you don't get

 

[dawn123]

That is SUCH a fabulous idea! I don't know if I'd dare!!!!

Our butchers is just down the road from a nightclub and loads of drunks go past at about 2am so I could see it getting a kicking...

But even so.....


How much d'ya reckon it'd cost?

 

[helipad.me]

That is SUCH a fabulous idea! I don't know if I'd dare!!!!

Our butchers is just down the road from a nightclub and loads of drunks go past at about 2am so I could see it getting a kicking...

But even so.....


How much d'ya reckon it'd cost?

I'm not sure on cost, but I suspect a vending machine would hire it out instead of buying it outright. They'll likely maintain it. These guys offer refrigerated vending machines with double toughened glass apparently.

Besides, you see vending machines in train stations etc that have a protective guard meaning you can't get to the glass.

As I say it'd be good PR for the vending machine company too. Suggest to them they use it as a case study and in their own media circles.

Keep us updated.

 

[popunder]

In Amsterdam I remember they had lots of hot food vending machines dispensing savoury snacks, they'd be great for the night-club crowd; burgers, hot dogs and other salty, stodgy things that everyone craves after a few drinks...

 

[allington-marketing]

Hi
Just a thought, but if you source your meat from farmers that are getting a fair deal, you should shout about that!
I'm sure it was today (or yesterday...but maybe tomorrow; they're all a blur) that farmers were marching on Parliament that they're losing £10 per piggy sold. That's the large brand supermarkets for you.
Other ideas are that you can trace your meat to source, it's all 100% UK grown, supporting local farmers. Not shipped to China, filleted and shipped back (as appeared in the news last week about some fishies).
"Know where your food is from" - scare them if you must (but be careful not to name any large companies who may be 'conning' farmers and/or consumers!).

Good luck!

 

[Ishablue]

Get yourself on Google Places.

If you put:
butcher [your town]
or
butcher [your area]

into Google then you'll see several results with a red teardrop beside them. Those are Google Places results.

When people do that search then you want your Google Places entry to come top in the Google search results. If you're already at the top of those results then you're doing a good job already.

And get yourself a site all of your own if you haven't already.

 

[Ishablue]

PS Creating a website can be done really cheaply - you can get a free business website at gbbo.co.uk

 

[Consistency]

we're a long standing traditional butchers shop, third generation. Never advertised. Haven't got a clue to be honest. Have employed a marketing company to design logos and basic templates for ads, and we are going to work with them on a website.

But really, how would you market a butchers??? flyers? loyalty cards? I SO don't want to cheapen our brand (we are quality). Everything i think of ends up sounding desperate!

Any ideas?

Focus on being British if that is what you sell and so long as your meat is not Halal or Kosher, start letting people know. Meat eaters, some of them, are concerned as to where our meat comes from and do prefer to eat meat that has not been slaughtered while fully concsious.

 

[cjd]

You don't market a butcher's shop. You absolutely do not waste money on websites, flyers, local ads and other bullsh1t.

YOU, your PRODUCTS and your SHOP FRONT market your shop. A butcher makes his/her reputation by word of mouth and the shop window for passing trade. Footfall passed your shop - ie a good location - is the first step, after that it's up to you.

I suggest you take some time out and visit the butchers that win the awards. There is a fantastic butcher in Grange over Sands, it was just an ordinary shop but over the years he built it up into a huge business. Study the best and copy what you can - and take your time.

See:

http://lancashire.greatbritishlife....range-over-sands-award-winning-butcher-17744/

 

[Highland Park]

Apologies to the last poster but is it only me who finds it totally hilarious to read a post on this thread by that username?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creutzfeldt–Jakob_disease

 

[popunder]

The OP says they are "a long standing traditional butchers shop, third generation. Never advertised." but I'm guessing they're finding times are difficult, like many local businesses, many of whom are going out of business every week. If their income is going down they'd better start doing something new don't you think?

I've spoken to plenty of excellent and reputable businesses who've never had to advertise before, now they're finding they need to do something other than just wait for word of mouth to make their phone ring. Doesn't really make sense to just keep doing the same things and hoping for the best.

 

[allington-marketing]

I've spoken to plenty of excellent and reputable businesses who've never had to advertise before, now they're finding they need to do something other than just wait for word of mouth to make their phone ring. Doesn't really make sense to just keep doing the same things and hoping for the best.

The majority of my new clients are those which have been in business for ten years plus, but suddenly sit back and realise there's no orders / clients. It's a simple sink or swim situation, the problem being that they then have to look for something with a quick turnaround.

The OP has potentially acknowledged there's a problem and now wishes to become proactive. Sitting back if business is in a downturn won't solve anything, although I agree that perhaps there's a few things they can do (such as window advertising etc) in their own shop. If times are hard, the cost of moving to a store with a larger footfall is also perhaps not a viable option.

Sorry popunder, I'm trying to say I agree with you, but this seemed to come off as an argument!

 

[dawn123]

You don't market a butcher's shop. You absolutely do not waste money on websites, flyers, local ads and other bullsh1t.

YOU, your PRODUCTS and your SHOP FRONT market your shop. A butcher makes his/her reputation by word of mouth and the shop window for passing trade. Footfall passed your shop - ie a good location - is the first step, after that it's up to you.

I suggest you take some time out and visit the butchers that win the awards. There is a fantastic butcher in Grange over Sands, it was just an ordinary shop but over the years he built it up into a huge business. Study the best and copy what you can - and take your time.

See:

http://lancashire.greatbritishlife....range-over-sands-award-winning-butcher-17744/

We know these guys, yes they're great, and we are just as good if not better. We've had a huge turnover for a butchers shop. People have copied us, not the other way round....

 

[cjd]

So it looks like you have a different kind of problem. Are your sales down across all product lines or just some? Has a new competitor arrived - maybe a supermarket?

What's changed?

 

[dawn123]

Since 2001 we have had 4 supermarkets pop up within 500 yds. Sainsbury's and M&S in early part of new millenium, (didn't touch us . In fact when m&s opened our sales went up, because people would park go there for some food and then walk down to us for meat!! )

then more lately, Aldi . Aldi just popped up when the credit crunch took hold two years ago. In the second half of 2008 sales just dropped. they stayed steady but 20% down until asda and opened not too long ago, when they fell further. This new year sales have gone into freefall.

We cannot compete on deals or price. We must gather the same cult following that we used to have, but just further afield. I think. But I don't know..

Thoughts please !

 

[cjd]

Do you supply to restraunts/pubs? Is so have those sales also fallen?
(Higginsons have managed to create a brand locally so that its Cumberland sausages are sold in pubs using their name - the pubs benefit from the perceived quality and Higginsons gets further promoted.)

Have all sales fallen or are some lines holding up?

What products do you sell? - if you're like Higginsons you'll have a very large range of home made cooked meats and pies as well as the usual fresh meat stuff; are sales of that declining to the same level?

I totally agree on price, you can't compete on that so it has to be quality and provenance.

 

[dawn123]

Do you supply to restraunts/pubs? Is so have those sales also fallen?
(Higginsons have managed to create a brand locally so that its Cumberland sausages are sold in pubs using their name - the pubs benefit from the perceived quality and Higginsons gets further promoted.)

Have all sales fallen or are some lines holding up?

What products do you sell? - if you're like Higginsons you'll have a very large range of home made cooked meats and pies as well as the usual fresh meat stuff; are sales of that declining to the same level?

I totally agree on price, you can't compete on that so it has to be quality and provenance.

Yes, we supply to pubs and restaurants. a couple have closed and sales are down 30% there too. We're famous for our sausages and home made pies locally, particularly pork pies. It's the high end stuff that's not selling;the stock where the most profit is - beef joints and steaks, the weighty stuff.