Know-How Exchange : Strategy

You are going to have to create people a reason to visit-- cause they may not be thinking "gee I need some cheese". This isnt' your customer, cause the local grocer provides "cheese".

Partner with cooking schools and restaurants do do wine and cheese dinners, or courses on cooking something fun and unusual with her products. Attend the school/restaurant and do presentations on the cheeses, much as a vinter does with their wines. Travel clubs are another source. This will help build the brand. You will be giving away product, but at wholesale costs. And tap the suppliers to underwrite.

Do cheese gift baskets, market to realtors-- they are always looking for unique housewarming gifts. I have shipped cheese baskets -- my clients loved them.

Arrange the store by country.

A very successful cheese store I knew increased their income by marketing to restaurants and built their wholesale biz up to a point the retail end was dwarfed. You will find the restaurant supply companies don't stock the unusual, they must buy larger quantities and they only deliver twice a week.

Sell quiche by the slice, salad capprese, an olive bar that dwarfs the local grocer, olive oils, gourmet crackers, pastilles, spanish nuts. Gosh, I'm getting hungry.

I cannot stress how important sampling is. The same store I mentioned above sampled so heavily we'd call it our brunch. But I also spent a crazy amount of $ there and always felt it was $ well spent. I could have bought a stilton at Kroger's, for less, but this tore just sampled me and gave me an idea for the new beau coming over for an app before he takes me to dinner. I paid more and knew it and liked it. I tried and bought things I'd never have an opp to try before. Your supplier should help or absorb totally the cost of sampling. After all, you are helping them sell product.

You don't want to be a cheese provider. You want to be a resource to your customers. Give them a reason to come in, again and again.

Things to consider:

Free tastings. Cheese of the month club. Cheese master classes where your client partners with local high end eateries to have comparison tastings. Gourmet cheese by mail. A stand at local craft, food, and folk fairs. A presence on social media. Links and comments from the client's blog TO other blogs (and back). Partnerships with other blogs. An online store. Exposure on local TV as THE cheese expert of choice. A partnership with any and all local or regional magazines and food writers to win editorial coverage.

I hope these ideas help.

Gary Bloomer
Princeton, NJ, USA

Can you bring in some of the cheese makers to show how they craft their cheeses (perhaps with videos of the whole process)? Having a face to connect to a cheese will make the shop feel much more like a farmer's market than your usual cheese shop.

Sampling/Taste test at every local fair, convention, concert, etc.