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It's something personal: tips for building loyal locals and establishing community roots

Technology and social media outlets provide opportunities to personalize messages, but showing the locals you care about their community is proving to be an effective way to target customers and build loyalty.

March 26, 2015 by Nicole Troxell — Associate Editor, Networld Media Group

How do restaurants establish a firm foundation in a community? Without the attention of a local audience, it can be difficult to stay in business. Technology and social media outlets provide opportunities to personalize messages, but showing the locals you care about their community is proving to be an effective way to target customers and build loyalty.

Engaging customers at the local level is quickly becoming a trend because of how effective it’s been at getting people in the door, and once that happens, “they tend to keep coming back,” according to Christina Coy, Marketing Director for Pie Five Pizza Co.

It’s called grassroots marketing, and it involves reaching and igniting a core group of people around a brand or message at the local audience level, said Content Marketing Leader and Manager of Social Media Anne Buehner at Red Door Interactive, a data-driven agency that provides business intelligence on marketing performance.

It’s not business, it’s personal

Grassroots marketing provides opportunities to partner with brands and other industries to collaborate and capture the personality of a region. Businesses can personalize their marketing efforts through local or regional events, so that the flavor of the area is recognized

“It makes people feel like they’re known and valued,” Buehner said. “

"Local marketing is very much a collaborative effort involving franchisees," Coy said. "Our goal is to educate consumers on who we are and what we do, and encourage a trial of what Pie Five has to offer. We're known for our amazing customer experience, and we want our ambassadors to bring that experience into the community."

Pie Five employees attend local events and hand out free pie cards to draw customers into the store.

Fast Casual Rubio’s Mexican Grill uses grassroots marketing on World Ocean Day, which works well with their brand, according to Buehner. For the past several years Rubio’s has used the day to hold local events at the store level, such as beach cleanups, to create a more loyal and engaged brand. Not only does it help the community, it inspires customers to share content on social media, where they talk about the holiday as well as the restaurant, ultimately getting the word out about Rubio’s.

Chipotle teams up with partners like the California Avocado Commission to host a festival with live music that features local foods. The company has traveled to various cities where with the commission, for example, locals can check out the growing process for California avocados and find free recipes. A sign at the event encourages visitors to text in to receive Chipotle’s guacamole recipe for free. It’s an opportunity that allows visitors to talk with someone actually growing their food, and at the same time engage with Chipotle, Buehner said.

Formula for success

A “huge trend” right now in the industry is to jump on something people are already passionate about, Buehner said. What does your demographic care about? What’s important to the community? Take that information, and turn it into something that puts both your brand and your customers in touch. Chipotle used education and incentives to draw customers to a festival in line with their passions.

For grassroots marketing to be successful, it must start with a main message or purpose, Buehner said, and involve those typically aligned with that message in order to target a core group of people.

But one issue is that a restaurant must prioritize its most important audience and build on what will resonate with them.

“Demographics might look a little different. If you think of a concentric circle, the core is who you want to reach,” Buehner said. “The peripheral is a little outside of the core. The best way to keep from alienating customers, especially if your budget is small, is to go for that core audience.”

“When it comes to grassroots, it’s local and in person. But it’s also important to have a social media engagement component to continue the conversation and provide your audience with content to share. You want to involve them in the creation of the message, and this warrants a community manager who understands the audience at the local level.”

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