It’s the last day for us here at South by South West in Austin.
Last night we made the trek for some real Texas Barbecue. Choices, choices. Stubb’s, Iron Works or Salt Lick? Damn!
As Ben mentioned:
Yes, you can have a burrito where ever you live. But Austin is a food town. And people, no matter who they are, love food. LOVE IT! You know what makes them love it even more? An invitation. Go to Champions on 4th and talk to Jason the bartender. He’ll tell you where the best BBQ in the state is (hint: it’s Salt Lick).
We had an incredible meal of brisket, sausage, and ribs. NOTE: this is real Texas-style barbecue, in the Texas hill county.
So what does BBQ have to do with marketing? It is not so much barbecue, as it is how Salt Lick has created a business of simplicity, quality service, and cultivated relationships built around a quality product.
3 Things You Can Learn From Salt Lick:
1. Keep it Simple:
The paradox of choice is not an issue at Salt Lick. You have a handful of choices for your meal and one no-brainer, “family style”. It is B.Y.O.B., cash-only, and you sit at a picnic table.
Beautifully simple. For the customer, choosing a meal is painless, and there’s no sense of buyers-remorse.
Can you simplify your product offerings? Do you have so many products, bundles, packages and variations that you are making choosing your product stressful for your customers?
2. Make Service Personable:
Our server Ian was nice, funny, and damn good at his job. He even educated us barbecue noobs on the different types of brisket. Lean, deckle, burnt….3 distinct choices which he tried to find which might be a best fit for our taste. Who knew?
He sat down to talk to us, he talked about his kids and asked about ours.
He gave us perfect directions to a diner where we could pick up a piece of pie, as they had sold out of their legendary cobbler that evening. He made sure we had a great experience and provided a great service… and we tipped him well.
Do you have any Ian-types working in your customer service department? If not, find them.
3. Cultivate Your Evangelists
Ask folks around Austin where to go for the best barbecue and it is a nearly unanimous response. In fact, if you ask, don’t be surprised if you get a look like you just stepped out of a vehicle equipped with a flux capacitor. “Seriously? It’s Salt Lick, get there!”
Before deciding to head to Salt Lick, we stopped in one of the watering holes and asked a couple members of their staff. They recommended Salt Lick, described the setting, made sure we knew it was B.Y.O.B and cash-only. Then they helped us with detailed directions to get there.
If you’re in travel and tourism, are you building relationships with the “front-line” folks in your area? Bartenders, gas station workers, toll booth workers….anyone that has contact with the public that may be interested in you.
Reach out, cultivate those relationships, offer them FAM-trips so they know what you do, how you do it, and most importantly, so they know you.
How to get people to your door?
