Friday, November 30, 2012

Restaurant Gives Discount with Church Bulletin

Well, I think Prudhomme's Lost Cajun Kitchen should come up with a fresh promotion...

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/govt-gives-pa-restaurant-a-choice-give-10-sunday-church-bulletin-discount-to-atheists-too-or-discontinue-it-entirely/

One of the perks and quirks of having a small business is that you can offer flash discounts for any reason whatsoever. For example, "Discount with a printed copy of this advertisement or advertorial" is one that seems to work for a lot of people. Local lurkers about whom I've written advertorials have received copies of their write-ups from out-of-state visitors and even foreign visitors, and they have, of course, given them the discount discussed in the write-up. If you want to find out who's reading your ads, I naturally recommend this option.

When managing stores or booths I've thought of all kinds of creative discounts to advertise. One year a fellow from a local high school was playing in the Super Bowl with the Chicago Bears, so on Super Bowl weekend my store became "The Bears' Den" and offered discounts to anyone wearing or carrying a Bears souvenir. College towns are accustomed to stores offering discounts to people wearing college gear, and in Kingsport, Tennessee, in July, all kinds of nice things can happen to those who wear "Kingsport Fun Fest" T-shirts...the older the better.

Another gimmick I've used in more than one year, which helped raise awareness of the "Black Friday" shopping event (I grew up calling it "Thanksgiving Friday"), was a discount on any black object...black sweaters, cell phones, books with black jackets...I've offered other discounts on merchandise in special colors, too, like a discount on red, green, and white knitwear in December.

When I became a certified massage therapist I was surprised to learn that advertising "Police Specials" was legal, was considered ethical, and was recommended by the National Certification Board. I was an adult and had heard of storekeepers who felt at risk offering "Police Specials," but I'd never considered doing it before. On consideration, I see nothing really wrong with "Police Specials" as long as other members of the community get their "specials" days too. I've offered Teachers' Specials, Bus Drivers' Specials, Young Parents' Specials, Veterans' Specials, and so on. Nobody's ever complained, but if they did I would probably whip out a calendar and say, "Right, your special sale will be..."

Even big-chain stores have often offered Senior Discounts. In the 1970s my father used to grumble that this practice was discriminatory. Hah! Anyone less scrupulous than Dad figured out how to work the system by paying a senior citizen in advance to buy whatever you, the hard-pressed young parent, might need. In Washington and its suburbs the Ames chain stores offered good prices all week but really excellent prices on "Senior Tuesday." There aren't a lot of retired people in Washington but on Tuesdays you could always see a half-dozen or more, waiting on the bench at the front of an Ames store for younger friends to summon them to the checkout counter. I would have expected some effort to be made to pretend that the hired "grandparent" was shopping with the family, but this was not the case. People who weren't physically able to hike through a big crowded store would hobble up to the cash registers and buy carts full of children's things. I asked a store manager whether this bothered him. He said, "Why? At least it gets people to visit their old, disabled friends."

If you don't want to ask who your customers are and what they do, another gimmick that moves a fair amount of retail-priced merchandise along with the sale items is the Tag Sale. Stores that use this system write prices on tags in different colors, and advertise a discount on anything with a red tag on Monday, green tag on Tuesday, blue tag on Wednesday, etc.

So I have no problem with the idea of a Church Bulletin Special. (Don't go to church? Duh...ask a friend to save a bulletin for you.) But I think that, having been reported last summer, for this restaurant, the Church Bulletin Special is getting stale. They need to think of a fresh gimmick to bring in a whole new demographic group.

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