It’s almost the most awaited season, summertime! Which means that soon enough, everyone will be craving ice cream. People are more than willing to stand in line in the hot sun just for a cone and ice cream stands are often starving for extra staff to serve guests on the hottest days of the year. This is also the perfect time to shift your marketing strategy to help your ice cream shop and gelateria stand out from the rest.

Here are three simple yet effective marketing ideas you can use to gain customers in your gelateria or ice cream shop:

1. Increase sales with those who are there.

This simply means trying to upsell each and every customer on another product. You can see this in almost every ice cream stands even though the lines are long, and customers need to be served. You can just ask simple questions like:

• Would you like a drink with that?
• Do you want to try one of our bestsellers, special caramel-filled waffle cones?
• Do you want to add whipped cream and hot fudge to turn that bowl into a sundae?
• We also offer iced coffee, to go with all those kiddie cones.
• Hi! We are offering a free sample for a new flavor we have. Would you like to try?

There are times when customers are still deciding on what to buy so this will come in handy. You should be able to upsell at least once per customer.

Aside from this, learn how to diversify your menu as well.

2. Create unique ice cream flavors.

It is important to have your bestselling ice cream flavors, but you may also venture into something new. There are a lot of successful ice cream shops where they always have unique flavors to offer their customers and customers loved it. Try to experiment with different flavors you can think of. You can try purple potato, spaghetti and cheese, codfish and garlic-flavored ice cream and so much more. Be creative and let the people decide.

3. Host a contest.

Most businesses are hosting these kind of events, and they work fairly well. You can have customers taste your menu, as many flavors, and then make a final selection of the flavors they like.

You can also make use of the area at the front of your store to put up maybe a giant ice cream cone so people can take photos of it. This gains attraction and they will eventually try your products.

You can also provide a large selection of lactose-free and guilt-free options. This might be uncommon but because health concerns are rising, more people are looking for options with less fat. You can also try incorporating an all-natural ingredient for your ice cream. If you want to make it organic, you may have a few more steps to take but this not impossible to do.

Get into soft serve, where you offer hundreds of flavors from a single machine. Be creative and use this to your advantage.

DOWNLOAD OUR CATALOG BELOW: