Cold Conversation Marketing in Vina Del Mar Restaruants

My post for this week has to do with the people that often stand outside of restaurants in Vina, and ask passing strangers if they would like to eat at the establishment that they work for. I think that in such a subtle job, there are many different questions that could be asked. For example: What kind of people will these workers target most often? If three foreigners walk by will they do more to try and lure them in, or less as they figure it will be very difficult to convince somebody in another language. In addition what sort of tactics do these people use once they have got somebody speaking with them about the restaurant. Two nights ago I went around and spoke with two different people selling their restaurants outside and tried to listen to what they said to convince me to eat. Each time went a bit slow because I could not understand everything that they were saying, even though they were able to repeat the same things in some broken English. The first person that I spoke to was outside of a Mexican style restaurant. She was young, dressed-up and good looking obviously put in that position because of her youth. When I approached, she flashed a big smile and immediately motioned for me to head inside. When I began to ask about the menu, she quickly went through some of the specials and then again asked if I would go inside. It was interesting to me that she took such a direct approach, essentially assuming that I was going to go in. When I inquired further about the menu and showed a bit of disdain about the prices, she moved to offer a free pisco sour with my meal if I ate there. This "free drink" policy must be a commonplace thing for restaurants here, as it has happened an additional two times since I arrived to Chile. When I said "Sorry, but thank you", she flashed a short frown and then moved on. I am assuming that she must go through rejections dozens of times a night. She also seemed to have formed a script on what to say to potential customers in order to make here job a bit easier. After leaving her, I watched three more groups of Chileans walk by. The woman only mentioned something to one of the groups, whom consisted of a younger working class generation, and left the other two be. After time in that job, one probably learns which groups most often eat there and which to target most frequently.
The other restaurant that I went to had a man working outside the front door. He was very similar to the girl, in that he was young and dressed well. In addition he presented a very similar script of asking me to enter immediately, and when I asked about the menu he rushed through the items and asked if I would go in again. However, he did not offer a free drink. This second place was more of a hole-in-the-wall and thus probably could not afford to give many free drinks away with meals. Overall I thought that this sector of marketing was very interesting and often overlooked. There were many small sales tactics that the people engaged in and it was very clear that they selected passerby's carefully. Anybody looking to further their career in sales should look into getting this job as rejections come a dime-a-dozen and convincing people to choose your specific restaurant takes a careful marketing negotiation.

Do marketing strategies exist in farmer's markets?

During my time here in Chile, I have been to the Wednesday/Saturday farmers market here in Vina Del Mar, on three separate occasions. While this twice weekly event seems to be a pretty standard type of local food market, I have begun to wonder if there is any type of marketing that vendors use in order to try and attract customers to their stalls. Many of the stands sell the same types of fruits and vegetables so they must have some tactics to try and differentiate themselves from the others. The first and most prominent type of marketing that I observed was a type of relationship marketing. On more than one occasion, I viewed customers pass several stands and bee-line towards a particular one that did not seem different from the others. When the customers approached, the vendors smiled and greeted these people as if they had known each other for years. I could not make out what they said to each other but I can imagine that it went somewhat like: "Hello Mr. and Mrs. Smith! Your in luck today because I just picked a fresh batch of strawberries especially for you. You have got to try them." These vendors seem to have created a relationship with the customers and they market their products specifically to these people, possibly at a discount. In return for the kindness and fresh products, the customers show their loyalty by constantly returning. The fix their "marketing", what they say, specifically for whom is showing up at their stand and what they have previously learned about these people. This is by far the best type of marketing for these vendors.
The second type of marketing that I noticed was a simple hawking of goods to the general public. In the middle of the market, one can hear ten different people shouting prices, products and discounts to nobody in particular. While this is not nearly an effective type of marketing, it doesn't have a target customer base, it is free and extremely easy to implement. A vendor can shout all day long and perhaps gain a a few customers from this, but most often people know where they are going and won't be attracted by a vocal advertisement. In fact, for some foreign customers this may even scare them away as people will become nervous by the aggressive sales tactics.
The final marketing tactic that I noticed in this market, was the set-up of one vendors stands versus the others. The organization, cleanliness and clarity of each of these stands helped to determine how many people would purchase something there. If you look at the two pictures below, you can see that they are organized well, the prices and the names of the fruits are clearly shown, there are scales available for people to weigh products and the colors of the produce simply make the stand look good. This stand had people purchasing things constantly while some surrounding stands had only a few stragglers purchasing minimal amounts of produce. The best stands marketed themselves as being "fresh" and "locally grown", while still keeping the look and ease of shopping as a large grocery store.








In conclusion, I have been to realize that even the most informal and unofficial markets have some sort of sales and marketing techniques implemented within them. This farmers market included three distinct types that I noticed and perhaps there are several more. The type of marketing and organization of it greatly influenced the amount of customers that purchased goods at a particular stand. I believe that any vendor with even the slightest amount of marketing knowledge could create a great advantage for themselves and thus see sales and customer relationships increase greatly.

Creative Marketing for Foreigners Through Hostels

Today I returned from a 5 day trip to Buenos Aires during which my friends and I spent our nights at one of the local hostels. What I noticed there was that many of the surrounding companies and stores would find ways to market their services and products to those who stay at the hostel. Since nearly all of the clients at hostels are foreign clients, these firms have found and easy and cheap way to market directly to foreign clients. The first thing that I noticed in our particular hostel was a large wooden table, on which rested hundreds of different informational packets ranging from information about restaurants to adventure tours and massages. It seems to me that most of the local businesses have discovered that this is one of the easiest and most cost effective way of attracting foreign customers. Most all of the information described a certain discount or special that guests in the hostel would receive if they frequented the business. This is a simple win-win situation for both the local businesses and the hostel. First the hostel can provide, free of charge, tons of informational resources about the surrounding area. In fact, our group found our favorite restaurant through one of these packets. Secondly, these local firms have a direct entry point of marketing to a huge group of potential customers. All they need is to print up some literature and ask for the hostel to put it in their informational resources. The next thing that I noticed was that the desk clerks, when asked about a  tour group or local restaurant, would nearly always give the same answer. In a sense then, the people who work at these hostels are the most important marketing tools that any local business can have. A marketer would be wise to befriend these workers and ask or convince them to point tourists toward their specific companies. When I asked the desk clerk about a place to get great pizza, he recommended a place that his buddy owned. I am sure that he must have recommended the same thing to thousands of other tourists before us and that his friends pizza place has benefited greatly because of it. As I mentioned in a previous post, word-of-mouth marketing is easily the most effective for tourists and many people are using this fact effectively to market their products and services.
The final marketing tactic that I saw within our hostel, was that outside companies have made deals with the hostel to have their services shown and recommended directly to the guests at the hostel. For example, at the front desk was a sign that advertised laundry services to guests at a special discount. Upon checking in, the clerk mentioned that if we were to need any laundry to be done (perhaps for Easter Sunday) that we should ask him and receive a discount. I am certain that the local laundromat set up this agreement and instructed to the clerks to recommend their services. This was probably done in exchange for a small fee paid to the hostel or by some other form of compensation. It seemed to be a good tactic because during our stay I witnessed at least 3 people use the service. This, to me, is an ingenious tactic as these firms will have hundreds of potential customers shown their services every week.

In conclusion, I believe that many small businesses have caught on to the fact that hostels are a very good way to cheaply attract customers from all over the world. Then perhaps, customers will recommend or write online about their experiences and spread the word. Smart marketers will always find a place with plenty of foot traffic to do work. In addition, foreign clients who have little knowledge of the area, will most likely choose services advertised in the hostel. They, as we did, believe that the hostel would not allow a poor business to advertise there, thus creating a form of trust that the guests can rely on to pick which goods and services in the area to purchase from.

Word of Mouth Advertising

In my short time here in Chile, I have been exposed to numerous types and amounts of advertising. Advertising through T.V. ads, posters, people outside restaurants asking me to try something and finally word of mouth, which has by far been the most powerful. I understand that in traditional marketing knowledge word of mouth is the most powerful thing people will encounter. However, nearly everything that I have ended up trying, from restaurants to night clubs, has been passed to me through word of mouth. So I have to ask: Why here, amongst the extranjeros, is word of mouth such a powerful thing. It could be because we are not familiar with the culture and environment, or that we can't speak the language and some of our most basic questions need to be answered by somebody who lives here in Chile.

To give an example, my favorite place to get completos, (of which I am now addicited too) was recommended by one of my teachers. I never had the desire to try one at the millions of places that I passed, until a person I trusted, said "They're good. Try one". That was all I needed. In contrast, a person in the United States would have to be much more convincing for me to follow through. In my country, I could simply find my own place for completos or get enticed by other forms of advertising. Liquor stores are also places here that run on word of mouth advertising. The other week, a Chilean friend here told me of a liquor store that was better than the rest, both cheaper and quicker. I doubted it of course, because every liquor store I had seen had been exactly the same, except for a name and storefront. However, when I arrived there on a Friday night, the line was out the door. What was interesting was that the store did not seem any different than the others I had seen. There was no large sign signaling a sale, nor a person trying to get people to purchase there. It seemed that everybody simply knew that this was the place. Somebody told them to go here, to this specific hole-in-the-wall, to purhase their liquor. What was even more intriguing, was that the customers consisted of as many Chileans as interchange students. More likely than not, the extranjeros were told to come here by somebody else. This liquor store, in addition to lower than normal prices, was able to achieve more through word-of-mouth advertising than any other way. Especially to get the extranjero students to shop there. This is why places in the tourism industry always do best when they get featured on websites and travel guides with people validating their business. If I were a small restaurant, or liquor store or travel guide looking to bring in more business, I would focus hard on trying to pick up word-of-mouth advertising. They could make promotions where if you bring a friend or recommend somebody, you will receive some sort of discount.

In conclusion, I have come to believe that the single most powerful from of getting foreign students to try something is word-of-mouth. I do understand that word-of-mouth could be considered outside the realm of marketing, something inevitable that could help or hurt a business. However, it is such a good form to get people to shop, that any marketing or business plan should include strategies to develop word-of-mouth exchanges.

Marketing and Tsunamis

Sitting here on Tuesday night in the midst of all of the craziness surrounding the earthquake and possible ensuing Tsunami has got me thinking. Marketing is not always about selling a product or service to somebody. Marketing can be simply put as "the need to get an idea across to a target group of people". Whether that idea is to go out and buy a I-pod or to run for the hills because of a huge wave, both must be pushed to the public. Now, most everybody you ask would probably not perceive breaking news stories about a Tsunami as marketing, but in a sense it is. The government and media want to convey the idea that people in some areas should evacuate and that others should remain calm and stay where they are. Watching CNN Chile right now, they continually bring on experts in Seismology or other government officials to give their opinion on the topic just as company would hire a celebrity or expert to put their stamp of approval on a certain product or service. People don't want to be told by some news anchor what to do. They want expert opinions. However, it seems that the media also it attempting to "scare" people into evacuating or worrying about this. More likely than not, nothing will occur in Valparaiso, yet, at least within my group of friends, people are rather scared after viewing the news. I believe you can relate this to product marketing well. Firms will produce commercials and other types of advertisements that attempt to force the consumer that they only have a limited time to purchase something or to get in on the hype. Stock market makers will push investors to a certain stock before it is too late, or a car company will say that there is only a limited time to get in on a deal before it is too late. In addition, social media and technology were so prevalent in the news of this earthquake. I think that one of the craziest facts about this, was that I found out that there even was an earthquake through something that my friend posted on Facebook. Not through the news, or a phone call from a relative, but just a simple post on Facebook that said "TSUNAMI!!". I think that simple fact goes to show the power of social media in marketing anything. These days I will often find a new product or service through Facebook or other social media outlets, not by traditional commercial advertising. If I read a news article that said there was an earthquake in the North of Chile, I might not have been so interested, but once my friend went crazy about it, I got involved. I think that marketers of products and government agencies who need to get news across to people must look deeply into social media as the trend of the future.

To conclude, I simply thought that there were some interesting similarities between what a company would do in order to, say, sell a car, and what the news does to warn people of a pending Tsunami. Both want to sell an idea to people and both will use varying tactics to do so. It may seem only necessary and moral to warn people of a natural disaster, but marketing penetrates all parts of our lives and there is always a strategy behind it.

Real Esate Advertising in Vina Del Mar

The topic that I want to discuss in this post is not necessarily something that I noticed, but rather a lack of something. In Vina, all around stand large apartment buildings with presumably tens of thousands of units between them. Now I could assume that every single apartment is being occupied, but even in a perfect world, that is near impossible. Thus, their must be some units that need to be rented out. Yet in the month that I have been here, I have seen very little marketing effort for real estate. The most prominent of any advertisements is a simple "se vende" sign on the side of a building. I think this lack of marketing brings up several key questions about the real estate market and how it is sold here in Vina.

1. With all of this available real estate, where would one first go to look into renting or purchasing an apartment?

2. Why does it seem that the marketing for these buildings is so under-funded or simply not there? Is there such a high demand that they do not need to market?

3. What would be the best marketing approach to try and sell real estate here?

To answer the first question, I don't really know. A quick internet search of "Vina Del Mar Chile Real Estate" only provides three distinct  areas to search for available apartments, but even those websites seem outdated and don't market well to the consumer. I understand that searching in English will not provide many results, but that just goes to show that little if any of the marketing is done towards foreigners. Even a search for real estate offices here did not prove to be useful at all.

The only two explanations that I can find for why the marketing is so weak for real estate, are that the demand is at a point where they do not need to, or that they simply do not yet know how to. I understand that the real estate market in Chile is not like that in the U.S. The real estate is often semi-ubiquitous and serves a need, rather than a want to the people. Different firms don't often know how to try and push their specific real estate against another.

Finally, if I were to come into today as the marketing partner for a real estate company here in Vina, I believe that my best approach would be the marketing concept. I would focus intently on market size, market segments and what the people in a specific segment need. An elderly couple would not need a 3 bedroom flat and four young students probably could not get along in a 2 bedroom area. Real estate is more specific than people here think and I believe that a marketing concept strategy in Vina could work wonders for any firm that is trying to sell it's vacant space.

Overall, in terms of real estate here in Vina, I believe that the marketing is trailing the production of buildings and new homes. Firms may know how or where to construct something, but I believe that their attempts to "sell" these properties are too miniscule. A good marketer could do very well in the real estate market here.

Alcohol advertisement differences

The other night I was watching t.v. when a commercial for a Chilean wine came on the air. This got me thinking about the differences between alcohol advertising between the United States and here. In the U.S., nearly every channel, every day, have commercials for beer, liquor and other ways to inebriate oneself. These commercials are normal and it is completely fine to have a commercial representing young adults drinking to the hilt. However, here in Chile, I have noticed that advertisements are geared toward the pleasure and quality of drinks here. Only the finer, well known wineries seem to advertise as well as some of the imported beers such as Stella Artois and Corona. And while there are commercials for beers, such as those of Corona, they are all geared towards the pleasure of the drink itself, not it's effect and the crazy party that will come around if everybody drinks enough of them. The mass consumption of alcohol, especially among students and young adults, plays such a large role in the United States and it shows through advertisements. On the other hand, here the idea of drinking is much more subdued, and only the finer, more sophisticated parts of the enjoyment of drinking are shown through advertisements. This difference is very simple and can seem trivial, but I believe that it shows a great difference between our cultures, through the way that these products are advertised.


Here is a take from one of the Corona ads shown here in Chile. It is simple and stresses more, the enjoyment of your vacation with a Corona beer, instead of the enjoyment of your vacation because of a Corona beer.

On the other end of the spectrum, here is a Keystone ad (a terribly cheap beer) from the U.S. The only true thing that you can take from this, is that Keystone is a beer you can drink excessively for little money. It is most certainly directed towards young adults and students.

After reading a section of the textbook, I understood that certain companies must decide whether to expand their marketing and production to other parts of the world. There are always environmental and firm-specific drivers that push a company towards one part or another. There is certainly a cultural reason as to why Corona is able to market and sell it's product here in Chile while Keystone beer would not last a month.  People here simply do not accept drinking alcohol for it's effect only and the ads reflect that idea.