So you run a cafe/restaurant/pub/whatever and there’s a pandemic going on. The government strongly recommends everyone stay home. The government also strongly recommends everyone goes out and spends money.
You’ve gotta open up because there are expenses and you gotta keep the business going because god what will you do after all this is over if the business goes under and you have people working for you what about them and god oh shit oh fuck everything’s fucked.
You’ve probably opened up again and got that pen and paper at the door so people can leave their details.
What are you gonna do if there’s an outbreak? Sit there and text everyone on the list? And with everyone using the same pen and porous paper, you’re asking for an outbreak.
Let me tell you, you’re missing out on a huge marketing opportunity here. Ditch that pen and paper, and join me in the 32nd century:
Get yourself on the Mailchimp signup app
You’ve heard of Mailchimp, right? It’s the email marketing program for every small business that could.
Well, they have an app so perfect for this pandemic I’m inclined to put on my conspiracy theorist hat.
Mailchimp Subscribe for iPad and Android was designed for in person signups at things like conventions. Instead of people writing down their details, they could plug them straight into your contact list.
The app just sits open and goes back to the signup form each time details are entered in.
Two iPads with this bad boy on them (because even now, what fucking lunatic eats alone) and you’re in business. The best kind of business, recurring business.
Not only do you have a list of everyone that came to your cafe, you can contact them faster in the event of an outbreak, and you can contact them whenever you update your specials board.
Email lists are the best form of marketing
Social media’s fucked. Everything’s gone algorithmic. You reach a fraction of your audience unless you spend a bomb in advertising.
Email has always hit customers right in their inbox. It usually takes a lot of trust to hand over an email address because the inbox is a much more intimate place than the social media feed.
Mailchimp’s got a free tier too. You tell me how much it wold cost to reach two thousand people on Facebook? You can get much better engagement reaching the same amount of people through email for free.
Plus the targeting. Most of the contact details you collect will be from locals. You send an email about the new slice you’ve got on the shelf and it may be the incentive for them to crawl out of their isolation hovels and stretch their legs.
Screens are cleaner
After every signup, just get front of house to lock the screen, wipe it down, and it’s good to go for the next one. Screens are nice, smooth slates of glass, any virus that gets on them will wipe right off.
You can even have a stylus available if people want to socially distance from the screen a bit further.
Have a more accurate record
Sure, pen and paper gives you a list of people who visited your cafe, but are you separating things out by day? Who are the breakfast crowd and who were the lunch crowd?
Is that a 6 or a 0? This guy’s handwriting is atrocious.
A signup form will record people’s details down to the second they came into the system. Want to contact people by day? You’ve got that information right there.
Just the lunch patrons on a specific day? You can do that too.
Sure, these signup forms can give you a more accurate readout of who to contact if there’s an outbreak, but with a bit of smart setup you can also segment your audience down to some fine details.
Is it compulsory?
Some people are convinced COVID isn’t a thing. Others are more reticent about giving a cafe their contact details. Do people have to sign up to your mailing list?
Well, like everything with this fucking disease, the government is strongly recommending businesses record contact information.
So if someone really has a problem with giving you their details, they don’t have to. If they’re an anti-COVID conspiracy theorist, they probably won’t come back anyway.
If they recognise the Mailchimp app, they should be able to appreciate how deftly you’re capitalising on a crisis.
Here’s the thing; you stick an iPad in people’s faces and ask them to give you their contact details, most people will just do it. They’ll just hand it right over, it’s that simple.
What if people hit unsubscribe on a newsletter, and then there’s an outbreak I need to notify them of?
You still have their contact details. I’d take down both phone number and email address. Email people with your specials, and export phone numbers for one of those mass SMS apps if there’s an outbreak.
Even if you emailed someone that hit unsubscribe, I’m sure being notified about a potential COVID infection doesn’t count as spam.
For some I use a different email program that doesn’t have this bomb-arse signup form thing and frankly is a piece of shit. Can I still run this genius contact details scam?
Yes. You could either start a Mailchimp account (it’s free) and import the list every night, use something like Google forms, or some other survey program.
There’s the extra step of importing, which is simple to do.
But the real question is, why are you fucking around with a different email program? This isn’t an endorsement of Mailchimp, more I haven’t come across an email program that promises to do things faster that works.
Thank you, Tom. I emailed people about my takeaway Macha Scrambled Eggs in a cone and now I have a line down the block because of social distancing
Good problem to have. Quarantine is all about staying indoors. Return business is all about getting people to go outside repeatedly. Until some state currency issuer reconciles these contradictions, you’ve gotta work double time to get arses on seats.
The government is using this pandemic to cut support to university degrees it doesn’t like, pump up its business mates whilst average people flounder, and start a trade war with China that resonates with the racists that make up its base.
You should be able to capitalise on a crisis every now and then, too.