You love your business and you treasure your customers. Maybe running your establishment is even a dream come true! But there are plenty of challenges too, like getting more people into your store to spread the love or share your amazing foods and beverages.
If you’re running a tea program and trying to boost your bottom line, how do you get more tea lovers to come? Well, after years of working with amazing clients, we’ve learned a few powerful strategies that can bring tremendous results and more happy tea lovers to your establishment.
Read on for four of our favorites!
New always wins.
There’s something about “new” that’s fun, exciting, and imaginative. It makes things fresh and dynamic, which also keeps your customers engaged and up to date.
Even if you have had the same tea program with us for years, offering a new take on your existing selection could be a game-changer for your business.
For example, if you prepare tea with hot water, try unveiling a cold-brew tea, which offers a smoother, fuller flavor with less tannins. Or blend them with milk to create innovative lattes like a matcha latte or a London Fog latte.
You could even blend an espresso shot with tea! Try mixing in London tea with your espresso shot to add a fun twist on your espresso drinks (cappuccinos, lattes, etc.).
Once you start to use tea as a versatile ingredient, you might find more customers knocking at your door.
Want more ideas? You can also…
Take advantage of the seasons.
Another way to go “new” with your tea is to embrace the change in seasons. As the calendar shifts from spring to summer or fall to winter, use it as an opportunity to revitalize the way you look at tea.
Let’s say you offer a lot of fruit teas and with a crisp flavor. That will be perfect for spring and summer, but when autumn rolls around, try pairing those flavor notes with something with chocolate and spice to complement the season.
We also recommend cycling your tea selection for more liveliness and energy to what you offer. For example, if you currently offer 10 teas, use 8 of them as staples and keep the other 2 as “seasonal.” Let people know when they’ll come back and your customers might just mark their calendar.
Offer cross-selling opportunities.
For our wholesale program, we offer TONS of handcrafted, organic, and high-quality teas in bulk — but a lot are available to put on your shelf too.
We’ve found that the cafes that also sell their tea products retail get an added benefit because one hand tends to feed the other. People love making it at home, but they’ll ALWAYS come back to the establishment where they first enjoyed it. (Products always taste better when someone else makes it for you.)
Also, don’t forget that tea has a very long shelf life. Better still, at Art of Tea, your teas aren’t sitting around when you purchase them: we blend your teas fresh to order and pack them fresh to order so you get the most vibrant flavors and aromas possible. That way, if you offer teas retail at your store, whoever buys it will enjoy that same invigorating quality whenever they bring it home!
Ask your tea rep.
We totally understand that every establishment is different: different customers, different services, different obstacles, and different possibilities.
If you need an extra boost, we encourage you to call your rep at Art of Tea. Tell us, “Here’s what I offer and here’s what I’m doing — what can we do together to really drive sales?”
We offer a TON of marketing materials from infographics to posters and signs that can be posted at your establishment to get the word out and bring in more excited tea drinkers.
Together, we’ve seen these ideas make a massive difference for our clients. Give them a shot and, as always, we can help you with anything, don’t hesitate to ask! We love to help.
Art of Tea is an award winning purveyor of specialty and organic teas, based in Los Angeles, CA.
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