While having an ice cream shop is a nice business venture, growing it consistently amidst competition is the real challenge. There are a few articles available online on ice cream shop marketing strategies, but there is no single and comprehensive source to provide all the relevant information in one place. This article is therefore an attempt to provide all the productive and effective ice cream shop marketing ideas in one place. Let us start exploring these ideas one by one.
1) Get A Website Developed For Your Ice Cream Shop
Nothing is as fundamental in the online marketing of your ice cream shop as having a website. Creating a website is the first step toward growing your ice cream shop business. To boost your business through your website, list all the ice creams you sell along with their costs and any discounts you are currently offering. Also, make sure that every page has pictures. To give your website more credibility, don’t forget to include client reviews, awards, and media coverage (if any) of your business. Include your contact information on the main header so that visitors can get in touch with your business if they have questions about your products. Don’t forget to include a Q&A section where you may answer any questions that website visitors could have. Make the site quick loading and of adjustable resolution as per device type (laptop, tablet, phone).
2) Use SEO To Improve Your Website’s Ranking
Your search engine rankings and visitors will gradually rise with a well-defined SEO technique. As a number of factors go into determining the placement of your website in Google and other search engines (collectively called SEO), you either need to learn and implement SEO yourself or you need to hire any SEO proficient agency. Since the traffic and consequently sales achieved from good ranking in search engines is fairly long-term, adopting an SEO strategy is worth it for any business looking to increase its clients.
3) Grow With Content Marketing
By creating more content around the topic of icecreams on your website, your website will show up much more in search engines which will ultimately bring in more traffic and sales. So compile keywords related to ice creams and get content posted on them consistently on your website so that your website grows in the number of articles as well as traffic (and sales). Any freelancer can search and provide a list of 100’s of keywords relevant to the main keyword “icecream”. After this, you can hire any content writer to start creating articles around these topics.
4) Grow Much Faster With Paid Ads
Paid advertising of your ice cream shop on the right platform can work miracles for your business. The best performing medium for paid advertising is Google ads as the user comes across your ad only when he types the keyword set by you. Google ads have the highest conversion rates for most advertisers who know the basics of running ads on this platform. The next big ones are Bing ads and Facebook ads. You can learn the fundamentals of ad operation on these platforms or can let any PPC agency do the work.
5) List on High Ranking Directories
Type keywords like “ice cream shops near me”, “ice cream stores in [CITY NAME]” etc, and note down the name of directories (like Yelp, Nextdoor) that show up on the first page of Google. After that, make your account on these directories and add your business details there. By doing this, you will easily start getting some traffic and clients passively for doing a one-time task. However, periodically check these sites to see ratings and reviews done by customers and also to reply to questions and reviews. Enlisting your ice cream business in online directories is a clever and cost-effective method of moving your business forward.
6) Open New Avenue With Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing of your ice cream shop is a slow process initially, but it can send you customers passively after some time. All you have to do is to start sharing pictures and other interesting information periodically so as to grow the following size on such platforms. Once the number of followers reaches a decent size, people will be more tempted to join a big and growing group/page/profile voluntarily. You can also spread your social media handles on other marketing materials and platforms discussed in this article in order to make people aware of your social media presence. A cool trick to growing more followers quickly on your social media accounts is to incentivize people with coupons, rewards, contests, etc.
7) Email Marketing
Adopting email marketing is a great method to encourage visitors to return to your website and inform them of new menu/offers/discounts or to make direct sales. Make it simple for users to join your email list by placing sign-up forms for newsletters in areas where they can see them while visiting your website. Offer them enticements (such as free coupons) to sign up for your newsletter. By having their emails, you can be sure that you will always have access to reach your customers anytime which in turn provides a great opportunity to grow sales for your ice cream business.
8) Include Press Releases In Your Marketing Strategy
Press releases can be a significant element of your ice cream shop marketing plan since they can boost brand recognition and revenue. Your press release can also be picked up by reporters and journalists from your industry if it has an interesting news angle. The core benefits of press release distribution are that it will aid in getting the word out about your business, will attract backlinks from trusted sources, and will generate more traffic and leads. After writing a compelling press release, you must consider how you can effectively distribute it to major news platforms. For this to happen, choose any premium PR distribution service that has a track record of getting its clients content on high-end news sites.
9) Spread Your Content in Relevant Industries
Though your website is the prime area where you must keep on adding new content, you can also send guest posts on websites of popular, relevant and associated businesses. You can find websites of top snack businesses, bakery shops, etc in your area and can make a deal to cross-promote each other through content posting. Since the ideal demographic of such businesses is closely relevant to your business, you can increase your share of visitors and ice cream sales with this method.
10) Analyze Your Website Analytics to Unearth Valuable Insights
Install Google Analytics on your website so as to keep track of user behavior on your website. Look over your Google Analytics and Google Search Console information to determine which of your website’s pages are performing well. You will find ideas for many new keywords from your Google Search Console data using which you can create more traffic-attracting content.
11) Kids Contest
Since kids are one of the most suitable customers for an ice cream shop, catch their attention by hosting contests in schools, parks, etc. Print out coupons and hand them over to all the participating kids so that they would bring their parents to your shop in order to redeem coupons.
12) Reach Out To Popular Influencers
On social media, influencers are the people who have a large following of devoted fans. You can collaborate with these influencers to advertise your ice cream shop. Consider working with some culinary influencers who can share reviews of your ice cream flavors followed by sharing it on their social media profiles. Announce discounts through these influencers so that this can cause more sales for your ice cream business.
13) Home Deliver Your Ice Creams
Many of your potential consumers may not be able to come in person to purchase your ice creams; in these situations, a home delivery service would be quite helpful. Launch a home delivery option for your ice creams with a minimum order requirement to be eligible for home delivery. Be prompt with deliveries. The convenience of home delivery will entice more repeat orders for your ice cream business. For greater exposure, don’t forget to list your home delivery options and schedule on your website and social media profiles. Do not forget to carry your ice creams in a mini refrigerator for delivery, or else they’ll melt.
14) Grow Using Partnership With Associated Businesses
Partnerships with other businesses are a great option to give a further boost to your revenues. Ask if nearby cafes and restaurants would agree to install an automatic ice cream dispersing machine so that their customers can get self-serving ice creams. You can distribute a portion of the sale to the premise owner of the cafe/restaurant for allowing this arrangement. You can try out this method will all those businesses where the footfall of potential customers is high.
15) Referrals Are The Way To Go
Your ice cream shop marketing initiatives should always include word-of-mouth advertising. It’s a simple technique to increase your clientele while maintaining the loyalty of your regular customers. The simplest way to do so is to use referral marketing by offering rewards to clients who promote your ice cream business to their friends and family. You can give referring coupons with attractive incentives using which your customers can hand it over to their friends and relatives. This method can multiply your sales.
16) Add Extra Items to Boost Order Value
If you run an ice cream shop, it’s not essential to sell only ice creams. You can boost the average dollar value by upselling and cross-selling more items. In addition to selling ice cream, an ice cream parlor may also sell Milkshake, chilled yogurt, tea, and soft drinks. This will enable you to ask customers whether they would like a cool beverage or another item to accompany their order.
17) Host Challenges Regularly
Host free mega ice cream eating challenges regularly to draw in a big crowd. Announce this challenge in local newspapers and on your site, social media accounts, etc. Pick a few people from the gathered crowd (using a lucky draw) and start the contest. This is a fun and creative way to increase footfalls to your ice cream shop.
18) Collect Leads Using Stalls and Samples
You can put up a stall in a crowded place and can offer free mini samples of your ice cream in exchange for details like phone numbers and email addresses of people. Once you get these details, you can remain in touch with these people and can announce new menus and offers periodically. This will give you a free subscriber base and many potential customers.
19) Charities and Event Participation
The more your business participates in local events, the more recognition it will attain. Similarly participating/donating/sponsoring charity events is also a great way to make your business name familiar among people.
20) Free Low-Cost Merchandise Marketing
Giving away low-cost merchandise like balloons, pens, pocket diaries, etc with the name of your business printed on them is an easy and effective method to create a long-lasting memory in the minds of your customers. Further, all such people who come across this merchandise, directly and indirectly, will also get to notice your ice cream business brand name.
21) Indirect Marketing Through Reputation Management
For every potential customer that comes across your business online, he must get a good impression of the company in order to buy products from you. This is where the role of reviews and ratings comes into play. Make sure to provide the best customer experience so that your business doesn’t get any negative feedback. Constantly monitor for negative reviews online and address them as soon as possible. By having a good number of positive reviews, more people will be tempted to buy products from you.
This winds up our top recommended marketing tips for an ice cream shop. For anything related to this topic, use the comment box below.
