There’s a local chain of bakery shops in Australia called “Bakers Delight” (I believe they’ve expanded overseas but trade under a different name…a Canadian correspondent recently informed me of her first experience of Vegemite at one of their shops!).

Anyway, they are currently running a promotion with the theme of…

…”That’s Entertainment” (as part of this the staff are all wearing “Blues Brothers” type hats…yeah, it’s dumb).  When I stopped off yesterday to buy some bread they handed me a set of recipe cards featuring snacks and quick meals such as “Crostini with smoked salmon” and “Chunky eggplant dip”.

Now, of course, each of these “recipes” featured a “Bakers Delight” product as an integral component (their “Hungarian Parmesan Roll” and “Pasta Dura Loaf” in these examples).  And this is a nice example of the old idea of teaching customers how to “consume” your product.  By encouraging consumption, increased sales will result.

Might sound an odd idea that you need to teach your customers how to use your product but remember you know vastly more about it than they do. What might seem obvious to you is not at all obvious to your customers.

New and different ways to use your product are a good example of how to encourage consumption and increase your sales. And a good way to introduce these new ways would be through some kind of “product launch” campaign or promotion.

Me, I’m off to try the Eggplant Dip and the Hungarian Parmesan Roll!