Rarely I’ve seen a new supermarket opening in my area, and especially from a brand who has never been in Italy before. I’m talking about a new ALDI supermarket based in my city, Somma Lombardo.

Yesterday it was the opening day, and today I’m here to let you know their techniques used to fill the supermarket with people, and to keep them coming for the next days, weeks and months.

They opened in front of the biggest supermarket available here in Somma Lombardo, and they did that with an open-mind, offering products with lower prices and that allow people to save.
Their target are probably families who want to save some money on food and shopping in general, but this is a great move.

On the opening day they were serving a 30% discount on fruits and vegetables, so a good entry point for people who wanted to test the new supermarket. Savings in a single area of the supermarket.
You can apply this technique by offering people who visit your site for the first time a discount coupon on a single serie of products, for example. The discount could be 10%, for example.

Then they offered a coffee with a chocolate donuts, and this called in a lot of people. In offline marketing we could replicate this by offering a good quality gift for people who comes to our shop for the first time.
It could be a free product with a purchase of at least $50, or a free test of a new product.

Then, at the cash point, they gave 4 coupons with €5 to discount on a shopping of at least €30. These four coupons could be used once a week for an entire month.
On your shop you can offer the same, coupons to use once a week giving a little discount on a set amount your customers have to spend in your shop. A great gift.

And on the exit they were gifting a coin for the carts, a very cheap but useful gift for their customers.
You can do the same offering a cheap gift to new clients, just for the fact they came in in your shop.

If you add the fact there were a lot of products with great discounts, many of which never seen before in Italy, this is the perfect plan to grab customers of other supermarkets with small actions.

These are the ideas this big company like ALDI launched when opening his first store in Somma Lombardo, Italy. Offline marketing techniques like these work for small businesses, and you can elaborate a plan to resell to these companies to get good payments and to guarantee them they will have more customers on the long run.

And I’m one of the people who has been convinced by Ali, and that will visit the supermarket often.