Small Business Marketing Highlight of the Week: Tavola Restaurant, The Woodlands, TX

The owners of Tavola Tuscan Bistro in The Woodlands, TX do a great job of marketing to their existing customer base to encourage repeat visits, word of mouth, and general customer delight.  They never consider a customer coming to the restaurant as a single, one time event.  They reach out to create a relationship with everyone who walks in the door, and they do it without being pushy or intrusive.

They have a comment card that includes newsletter sign up.  It's done a great job in helping them to build their opt-in email list.  They use this to market their weekend menu specials as well as new menu additions and special events.

These "events" could be special wine dinners by reservation only, or they may be things that everyone who happens into the restaurant that evening can enjoy.  For example, one Saturday evening, Tavola hosted an American/Italian wine challenge, where diners could purchase a flight of tasting glasses.  Two of the wines poured were American, two Italian.  Guests got to learn about the traits of the two, share their knowledge, and a couple of lucky diners even went home with a bottle of wine as a prize. I'll bet almost everyone who was in attendance that night mentioned the event to someone they knew.

How can you get creative in your business to make a customer mention you to a friend next week?  It's not just about being great at what you do (although that's important too - I wouldn't suggest a friend eat at Tavola if the food weren't also fantastic).  It's ALSO about adding a little something different to the mix.

Small Business Marketing Assets

A note to all small business owners:  take the extra few minutes to keep your marketing assets (logos, ads, web graphics, etc) organized.  Get yourself a small external hard-drive and set up files for whatever's relevant of:
- Logo
- Business Card
- Ads
- Website
- HTML Email
- Other graphics

Back up your customer database while you're at it. 

Just put new things in there as they come in.  Don't let it build up and become a project.  Let me tell you, the time will come when that external hard-drive will be worth its weight in gold. 

A Great Small Business Tagline

Today, I ran across a guy whom I found fascinating.  His name is Garrett Maddox, and he goes by the tag "The Singing Financial Advisor."  That's even his website url.

We were introduced by a mutual friend, another small business owner in the area.  She told me she was going to connect us and referred to him as "Garrett Maddox, the singing financial advisor."  When he called me, he used the same line.  "Hi, this is Garrett Maddox, the signing financial advisor."  Now, if he'd just used his name, I'd have been lucky to remember it.  But as it was, it's impossible to forget.  It's easy to share. 

Now, that's not for everyone, but it's worth remembering - when it comes to small business, a UNIQUE and MEMORABLE name or tagline can be more valuable than a precisely accurate one.