Need ideas on how to market to a remote location

My mother has a chocolate re-selling business and is having difficulties drawing customers from outside a 10 mile radius. She is effectively right in the middle of the main route between Portland and Mt. Hood (Major ski/recreation destination about 60 miles away), and would enjoy helping travelers recoup after a tiring day or send them up the mountain with some great treats to take mountain biking or snowboarding.

Her attempts at couponing and other promotions have not garnered any real traffic/sales increase (and often not even redemption of the coupon/promotion). Tweets/Facebook posts w/ "Free truffle for the next 5 people to mention this" have gone un-redeemed as well.

Any further ideas (or tweaks to the ideas listed above) would be most appreciated!

http://www.ditaschocolates.com

Thanks,

-Eric

Tags: Ideas, Location

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Permalink Reply by Brent Boutwell on September 13, 2011 at 1:51am

Hey Eric,

If she is doing well with walk-ins and neighbors, maybe a temporary sales location in a more active area would be beneficial. It could be a small scale version of pop-up retail.

If she could get a booth or cheap/small space in Portland or near the busy locations at the base of Mt. Hood, she could target the bikers/skiers she's after. The space likely wouldn't be cost effective long-term, but would be advertising with an immediate sales side bonus and could drive repeat customers back to her main location.

Sounds like you've got a good market for what you're selling, so getting in front of people should equal success. I will say, personally I wouldn't respond to discounts on treats if there was any work required. I think making it easy for people to access will be the most effective route.

Best of luck!