Businesses are always trying to come up with new and unique ways to market to new customers, especially since the advent of social media. It's not that often that you find a successful marketing effort that works for all of the right reasons, especially a subtle one such as the one that I came across while having lunch at Coco by Le Metro yesterday. On the way out of the restaurant I found myself leafing through a number of postcards in a rack by the front door.
My initial reaction, after seeing the rack of postcards, was one of nostalgia. When I was young, postcards were a great way to communicate with friends and families, in order to show them images of the places that you had visited. This type of communication and marketing is a lost art these days, which is why I was so interested to see the restaurant promoting itself in such a throwback manner.
Because of sentimental reasons, the thought of sending an occasional postcard is rather enticing. Coco by Le Metro obviously understood that its customers would appreciate such as gesture, especially since the decor intentionally dates back to a bygone era. So they put some Coco-related images on the free cards, didn't muck up the back with gimmicky marketing ploys, and produced a series of true old world looking cards that diners could share with others, thus reverting back to a simpler time when people actually took the time to write a note, lick a stamp and walk to a mailbox.
Now I just need to figure out how much postcard stamps cost these days!
*Postcards in photo: Coco Chanel | Restaurant mural by Destiny Rogowski Art - Facebook
888 Main St.
Buffalo, NY
716-332-1885
The free postcard method of marketing was very popular in the first half of the 20th Century. Still very popular in NYC restaurants. Especially French ones. If not by the entrance, they can often be found in or near the restroom.