Free food
It's been two months since Jason Upton, a Domino's Pizza operator, gave away 1,500 pizzas in his Guntersville, Ala., community. And the four-unit operator still gets "thank yous" from customers for helping the town celebrate the high school football team's 4A State Championship.
"Last week, I probably had five people tell me thank you," Upton says. "For the employees, it's a daily thing. We just wanted to show the community we were local and part of them."
Before the giveaway, Upton says, sales were flat and now, they are up seven percent. During the week of free pizza, food costs were 70 percent of total sales, but the price was well worth the publicity.
"The ABC and CBS affiliates ran numerous stories on us, and newspapers across Alabama covered it," he says.
Saladworks recently enjoyed media attention, too, when several local papers and a radio station covered its free soup offer. Because of this publicity and the general buzz about the product, the stores "reported seeing new customers coming into the store, and soup sales system-wide have increased over 13 percent since the free-soup promotion in January," says Jena Feret, marketing manager for Saladworks. "Some stores gave out as many as 400 soups a day, but the return on the investment—the additional customers and the product awareness—was well worth it."
Feret believes free product is more valuable than the traditional couponing.
"We really make the product more valuable in our customers' eyes as opposed to devaluing our brand," she says.
Free car for franchisees
Free stuff works on franchisees, too.
Since 1975, Chick-fil-A has rewarded franchise operators for hitting their sales goals with the use of a car. If they hit their mark two years in a row, they earn the title.
Spokesperson Jeff Johnston says the award, "Symbol of Success," is Chick-fil-A's highest honor.
For 2006, 164 operators will receive the cars and "some will get the title," Johnston says. "This program is just a nice motivational tool for operators," especially since they make no car payments for a year. Who wouldn't love that?