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TOBACCO BUSINESS INTERNATIONAL
MAY/JUNE 2015
trench marketing
from generations of customers passing
on the store’s traditional brand values
to the next generation, which has given
the store a strong reputation across all
relevant age and income demographics.
“We don’t have a typical customer,” says
Steinbock. “We get guys from college
all the way up to 90-year-olds, and they
come to us from all walks of life. So we
don’t have a specific target audience.”
Reputation apparently speaks for
itself, and according to Steinbock, it
does so much better than advertising
in a newspaper. “Online advertising has
clearly taken over from print, and we
haven’t done print advertising in any
form for years,” he says. “I remember we
used to spend a ton on advertising in the
Yellow Pages, and now we don’t spend
a dime on it because it just doesn’t pay.
We tried advertising in local media and
newspapers but we received poor results,
so we’ve moved past the old ways now.
The best method of marketing for any
store these days is to cultivate an email
list, create a Facebook presence, and
build a website.”
While Steinbock admits to being
far less than hands-on with today’s
technology, he is more than savvy enough
to know how it benefits his business and
is quick to empower his employees to
harness its power for the store’s benefit.
“Just because I own the place doesn’t
mean I have all the answers. Some of
the best ideas come from people who
are behind the counter, and we have
younger people here who have a lot
more knowledge about technology, the
Internet and social media than I do. So I
rely on them all quite heavily.
“We put a POS [point-of-sale] system
in place about four years ago, and it’s been
great,” he says. “Lots of the old-school
ways [in which] we conduct business