The Most Proven Way to Market to your Customers

Perhaps one of the most important aspects of any successful business is keeping in touch with your existing customers. Your existing customers are your best source of revenue because they already believe in you. Your job is just to remind them that you exist and that you are their favorite place to buy premium cigars!

Don't believe us as to just how important it is to constantly reach out to your customer base? Well here are some fascinating statistics that will make you a believer:

• The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60 – 70%. The probability of selling to a new prospect is 5-20% – Marketing Metrics.
• A 2% increase in customer retention has the same effect as decreasing costs by 10% – Leading on the Edge of Chaos, Emmet Murphy & Mark Murphy.
• It costs 6–7 times more to acquire a new customer than retain an existing one – Bain & Company.
• Typical retail spending for new customers is on average $24.50, compared to $52.50 for repeat customers – McKinsey.

So get started today. There are many ways to reach out to your customers. Start making a list and you will be surprised as to how many you can come up with. Here are some of our suggestions to get your premium cigar smoking customers back again and again - spending more and more...

1. Start an email list. We will talk more about this in an upcoming blog post but this a huge one! We personally use MailChimp and we love it. Plus it's free for the first 2,000 subscribers so you have no cost to get up and running until you are already successful. 
2. Advertise within your store. Create posters to hang around your store advertising that you carry cigars. We'll even help! Just email us your logo and anything specific you'd like it to say about your new selection of premium cigars and we'll create a cool poster for you and email it to you. You can have them printed for 99 cents each at Office Max or a similar competitor. Just print them at 11 x 17" for the best prices.
3. Use that same poster image and start promoting on your social media outlets. But don't just do it yourself, ask your employees to share all of your posts on their own pages too. Do this consistently for 4 weeks and watch what happens!
4. Create a punch card or any type of loyalty program you want. This will encourage existing customers to come back time and again.
5. If you're a liquor store, create shelf talkers that cigars naturally pair well with. We can help with this too! But basically a simple little shelf talker that tells your customers that darker cigars will work great with some of your bourbons and Single Malts and some of your lighter cigars work great with Irish Whiskeys and Ports, etc.
6. If your business has a menu we will gladly create a cigar menu for you. Make sure your customers see this menu regularly!

Contact us today for your wholesale cigar needs at MDC Wholesale Cigars and let us help you build your business!

The Official Guide to Pricing your Cigars to Sell & Profit!

Pricing cigars correctly for your establishment depends on 3 variables: Business Type, Demographic, Cigar Cost. I will break down all three of these to give you a better idea.

BUSINESS TYPE

• Convenience Stores: These are store where people generally expect a bargain so you should expect to markup cigars around 2-2.5x from what you paid.
• Liquor Stores: 2-3x
• Golf Pro Shop, Bars & Restaurants: 2.5-3.5x
• Steak Houses & Strip Clubs: 3-5x

DEMOGRAPHIC: If you cater to more budget conscious consumers then use the lesser markup above. So a restaurant for example, would markup their cigars 2.5x. And respectively, use the larger markup for more affluent areas.

CIGAR COST: Less expensive cigars can marked up higher than more expensive ones. For example use the larger markup on your less expensive cigars, and the smaller markup for your higher priced ones.

And if you still have questions you can always call us directly for more guidance toll free at 844-63CIGAR