Hershey - 50 Marketing and Promotional Ideas

50 Marketing and Promotional Ideas

1. Gift Certificates – Sell in $1.00, $5.00 and $10.00 increments.  You get paid up front whether the consumer uses them or not.
2. Banana Tuesdays – Bring in your own banana on Tuesdays and get half off a Crazy Banana Split.
3. Crazy Hat Wednesday – Wear a crazy hat on any Wednesday and get your second scoop FREE.
4. Quart Club – Distribute Quart Frequent Buyer Cards. Promote a program where customers could buy 6 Quarts of Hand-Packed Hershey’s Ice Cream and get their 7th Quart FREE.
5. Sr. Citizen Discount – Show an AARP card and receive .25 off your order anytime.
6. Free Baby Cone – All children under the age of 5 receive a free baby cone.
7. PJ Weekend – Have a movie night.  Kids under 16 wear Pajamas and get a free kiddie cone.  They can’t drive so they will bring in the whole family for a night of fun and ice cream.
8. Seasonal Items – Promote seasonal flavored shakes, ice creams and cakes.  Menu fatigue sets in after just 3 months.  Changing your offerings regularly will keep customers coming back again and again.
9. Support your Local Team – Anyone who wears a team Jersey to the shop from 7-10 gets a discount.  They will bring their whole family and you will be making lots of money.  Give rewards for home-runs, goals or special achievement.
10. Trivia – Have a trivia night.  If the answer to the question is submitted into a hat one winner will be drawn and they will receive a prize.
11. Sundae Party on Sundae – Promote catered sundae parties with Ice Cream and all of the toppings.  Kids love to make their own concoctions. Great for birthday parties and other family gatherings.
12. Month of the Sundaes – Release a new fancy sundae every Sunday.  Give customers a discount on the day of the release to drive traffic to your store on this slow day.
13. National Ice Cream Day – Give free scoops or $1 scoops during a time period on national ice cream day.  A percentage from products sold between a certain time period would benefit your favorite charity.  This might help you get free press coverage.
14. Celebrity Scoopers Competition – Pick two Tuesdays while school is in session. Pull popular parents, teachers or principles to come in and scoop for a night.  Record your sales and the number of students that attend from the school.  The following Tuesday you could pick a rival school and invite their scoopers to come in.  The group that has the highest customer count and dollar sales gets 20% of the proceeds from both nights.  You help build school spirit, the kids have fun and you make more money.
15. Church Scoopers – Have a popular priest, rabbi or other religious figures come in as a celebrity scooper.  Promote it to the church.  They will do most of the advertisement.  You can donate a percentage of the sales to the church discretionary fund.  You will have loyal customers for life.
16. Birthday Club – Gather marketing data from you customers when they sign up for the birthday club program.  Mail a card to them near their birthday that can be redeemed for a free single dip cone on their special day.  
17. Movie Rental Cross Promo – Partner with a local movie rental company.  They are struggling with all of the new On Demand programs that cable is offering.  Work with them to cross promote and pass customers back and forth with a co-branded coupon.  (Also look into using other vendors as partners: Pizza Shops, Car Washes, Dry Cleaners, Mini Golf, etc.)
18. Movie Theater – Partner with a local movie theater.  Have a weekly drawing for free movie passes.  Again this is a great way to gather customer data for later use.
19. Name that flavor – Use one of Hershey Ice Creams best flavors but allow the customers to rename it.  Gather customer data on the cards for later use.  
20. Bounce Back Coupons – Always work to drive customers back to your store.  If you sell a pint, quart or ice cream cake it is a great idea to give a coupon for a future discount on another purchase of this product.  Want them to try something new?  Try giving out a coupon for specialty, high profit items or new products.
21. Scooper Bowl – Hold an event that is all you can eat for $1.  Give a significant portion of the proceeds to your favorite charity.  Lead up to the event by using the charities media connections.  Take ice cream to your local morning DJs.  They love to eat and they will talk about your product and promo all morning with thousands listening.  This type of advertisement is priceless. Get ready for a busy day because it will be packed.
22. Collect Competitors Coupons – Don’t turn customers away and send them to your biggest competitors.  Collect coupons and let you’re your customers know that you do!
23. It’s Raining, it’s Pouring – Give a free second scoop if it is raining at the time of the purchase.  You will take a slow day and get some sales out of it.
24. Rain Checks – Pre-Printed coupons that are given on a sunny day and can only be redeemed on a rainy day.
25. It’s Snowing! – Give a discount on coffee, ice cream or cakes when it is snowing to attract traffic on a normally very slow day.
26. Honor Roll – Offer a discount for students that make the honor roll.  
27. Cater to Dogs – Consumers are spending more and more money on their animals every year.  Offer special doggie ice cream treats to entice customers to bring their dogs to your store on a sunny summer day.
28. Be known for Annual Events – Hold events like Car Shows, Picnics, Snow in July, Carnival with Games, Holiday Parties, Movie Nights, Eating Contests, Charity Events to Sell Down Year-End Inventory, etc.  Your community will love it and you will be able to attract great press coverage.
29. Above and Beyond Program – Reward kids for achievement in school.  Have teachers and principles buy into your program.  A teacher could hand these coupons out as a reward for reading, writing, high test scores or other academic achievement. 
30. Above and Beyond “Safety Program” – The Above and Beyond program for adults.  This could be sold to Lowes, Home Depot, construction sites, manufacturing facilities or other places of employment.  The idea would be to get these workers to strive for safety or excellence in the work place.  If achieved they could receive a coupon from your store that would be worth $10.  You get your money up front!
31. Bravery Certificates – Use this stock Hershey’s Program, it’s easy and it works!  Speak with your local doctors and dentists where kids will frequent.  Ask the doctors to promote your coupon as a reward for brave children.  They can’t drive themselves so you will get the whole family visiting your store.
32. Hall of Fame, Artwork Contests, Town Heroes and Local Sports Stars – Create a collection of pictures, sports uniforms, artwork or local stories that can be posted in your store.  This will give customers a reason to come in, look around and feel like a part of the community.  
33. Bring a Friend – Mail out a coupon to your customer base.  Make the coupon a push for your normal customers to bring in a new friend to try the products in your store.  This is an inexpensive way for you to get new customers in your door!
34. Ice Cream Lottery – Use your customer database and create a mailing for a lottery program.  Create a random number system that is assigned to each person on your list.  Then assign a winning prize to everyone.  A select few will get a substantial prize like a grill, meal certificates from one of your partners, a bike, sports tickets or something similar.  Have your printer add this number set to the mail merge so it prints on the post card.  When your customers come into your store you can reference your list and match the numbers for the winning prizes.  Its fun, everyone wins and you create customer loyalty!
35. Menus for your Tables – Team up with local companies to build a menu for your tables that will feature logos and ads for your ice cream and other local partners.  Split the cost, it is a win-win for all involved.
36. Use Small Sports Team Helmets – Create plastic helmet “dishes” that feature local or regional teams.  Around big sporting events you can sell these as a collector’s item.
37. Single Page Coloring Sheet Contest – Create a coloring sheet that you give to kids.  Post them on your wall and have a time where your customers will vote for their favorite.  
38. Mark your Coupons – Tracking your success with coupons is crucial.  There is no sense in continually sending out coupons to the same place if your return rate doesn’t justify the cost.  Mark on the back where the coupons are going, this way you know how many you get from each location.  
39. Monster Sundae Eating Challenge – Make a GIANT sundae in a huge bowl or bucket that’s loaded with delicious nuts, candy, fudge, caramel and cherries.  Create a contest where one person must complete the sundae.  If they do you will post their picture on a wall of fame.  If they don’t you can recover your costs by charging the customer for the dessert.
40. Be a Collection Point for Canned Food – Support local charities and promote food drives in your store.  This is just one more reason for someone to stop by your store.  Traffic = sales = money in your pocket!
41. Ice Cream “Happy Hour” – The hours between lunch and dinner are typically slow.  Attract customers by offering a happy hour.  Think about it for seniors who don’t have much to do all day.  Teachers are another opportunity.  They get off at 3 and might not have anywhere to go until closer to dinner.  Offer games, discounts or other reasons to hang out and chat.  Just a few extra dollars each day will add up to big profits by the end of the year.
42. Support your Community – Support community churches, schools, clubs, organizations and sports.  If you support them, they will support you back.
43. Be a One-Stop-Shop – You are either going to attract the whole family to your shop or you will get none of them.  Offering a wide variety of items like smoothies, sundaes, creation station, shakes, food items, etc. will entice every member of the family to seek your store out as a one-stop-shop for their favorite treats.
44. Balloon Popping / Register Roulette – Pick a profitable item in your store.  Pick discount levels that you are willing to offer and write them on pieces of paper.  Stuff each piece into a balloon.  When a customer comes in they can pick a balloon and pop it.  This decides how much they are paying.  It’s a lot of fun!
45. Frequent Buyer Programs – Reward people for multiple purchases.  Use Hershey’s stock frequent buyer programs or create your own.
46. Bring in a Mascot – Announce a mascot visit at your store.  It will attract kids to your store for photo opportunities and ice cream.  Costume rental is easy and relatively inexpensive.
47. Save a Dish, Eat a Cone – This “Green” promotion will save paper and allow you to up-sell to a cone more often.
48. Fax Promotion flyers and / or Menus to local businesses – Stay in front of your customers.  Ask permission to send menus to local businesses and homes in your database.  There is lots of money to be made in corporate lunch purchases!
49. Tractor / Classic Car discount – If you are in a rural area it would be fun to have a discount when people drive their tractor to your location for ice cream.  If you are in the suburbs or city it might be more appropriate to have your customers bring their classic car.
50. Remember that marketing is crucial to your success.  Build multiple “pillars of marketing” that utilize different forms of promotions and advertising.  This will ensure that even if one or two of your plans fail you will still have other opportunities to drive customers to your store.  Also, marketing is an ongoing project.  You must continually get your name out in front of the consumers, or sales will slowly erode as your consumer bases goes to those who are advertising.

Good luck in your marketing efforts!  If you have additional ideas or great stories to share, we would love to hear from you!  

Send us examples and pictures to info@hersheyicecream.com