Selling cigars - all smoke and mirrors?

As regular readers might know, I like the occasional cigar. The last batch I had were Montecristo No 4 - a box of them provided by a friend who should know better than to bet against me!

I was in a shopping centre in a capital city today and happened to wander past a cigar shop. They had the full range of cigars - a great selection. They also sold a large number of cigar smoking accessories. It was a well stocked shop.

In I went for a look. After having a look around I bought a lovely cigar.

That 1 cigar cost me $39 ($28 US).

And here's the reason why I love having this web site and writing articles like this one. It goes something like this:

Mel (that's my lovely wife) is going through the accounts:

"What's this? One cigar for $39??!!!"

Me, sitting back in my chair, feet up on the desk, cigar smoke slowly rising from my mouth, lit cigar in my left hand:

"Research.... darling. Research," say I.

Mel: "And this.....$245 for a restaurant meal???"

Me: "More research. Gee I work hard."

Mel: "$345 for hookers, booze and use of the hotel jacuzzi...."

Me: "Um, errrr, ahhhh....oh yes, that was research. Lots of research...."

You see, easy!

Anyway, where was I? Okay, back on track....

I bought the cigar for $39 and the latest copy of Cigar Aficionado (another $12.95). Paid my money and left the shop.

The owner of that business could be doing it better. Here's some tips:

Following is a step-to-step guide to running a Cigar Store. I hope the guide is useful to anyone marketing any sort of business - the principles of the marketing below are what I'm trying to get across here, not really just the specifics.

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1. Finding your target market

Okay, let's start here.

Cigars are expensive. Cigars are not essential. Cigars are generally smoked by people with a higher than average income. More men than women smoke cigars.

Cigar smoking means different things to different people. And it's usually not about the cigar. It's more likely to be about the quiet contemplation that enjoying a fine cigar provides.

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So buyers of your products are probably going to be older (older people are more likely to a) have more money and b) enjoy the quite contemplation I was just talking about. And male.

Self employed people usually have the higher incomes.

A little more digging tells us that Cigar Aficionado has the highest percentage of golfing readership of any non-golf magazine on the market.

Now we have:

• guy
• mature
• own business
• plays golf

That will do for now. So our target market is a mature guy who owns his own business. He plays golf on the weekend.

How do we make him aware of our Cigar shop?

Magazine ads? Nope. Too expensive. Not targeted.

TV ads? Nope. Too expensive. Not targeted.

Here's what I would be doing:

• Sponsoring a golf hole at a local businessman's Golf Day
• Starting a PR strategy aimed at the business media
• Sponsoring a businessman's lunch

Here's another smarter thing I'd do...

I'd go around every seller of Cigar Aficionado magazine in my city and promote a FREE contest to magazine buyers. Everyone who comes into the store and buys the magazine, goes into the draw to win a great cigar-related prize.

The magazine seller receives a great prize directly related to how many entry forms they collect.

Hey presto! I now have a good percentage of the names and addresses of cigar smokers in my city.

They'll all be mailed the contest results, along with a leaflet on my cigar business, a FREE gift for entering the competition and a special offer, open only to contest entrants.

That special offer would be this:

• Reply Paid card (with entrants details)
• Brochure - "Cigars of the month club"
• Sales letter

The sales letter would say something like this:

Thanks for entering the competition. Although you weren't lucky enough to win the major prize, we appreciate your interest in our competition and, as a fellow cigar-lover, don't want you to go away empty handed.

As a Special Offer, we've put together what we think is a fantastic surprise. All you need to do is send back the Reply Paid card and you'll receive the following ABSOLUTELY FREE (and with no obligation whatsoever):

1 month's free membership in "The Cigar Club" - providing you with:

• access to all of our products at our special member's prices (save 10% on every product)
• 3 sample cigars per month - top quality cigars, provided with full notes and reviews
• a copy of our monthly newsletter "Cigar Monthly" - contains tons of cigar smoking tips, tricks and reviews (perfect for the beginner cigar smoker)
• 1 exclusive invitation to The Cigar Club's Member's next dinner (normally priced at $85 for non-members, you gain access at member's rate of just $55!)
• a copy of our exclusive book titled "Everything you need to know about cigars but were too afraid to ask!". Yours to keep.

All that's absolutely free and with no obligation whatsoever.

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If after the month, you'd like to join "The Cigar Club" permanently we'd be delighted to process your membership immediately so you can enjoy the long term benefits of membership.

And just to really make this free, no-obligation offer sensational, we'll discount your membership application fee by $25 should you choose to join! 

All you have to do to take advantage of this great offer is post back the Reply Paid envelope enclosed as part of your 'showbag.' FREE. No obligation. Did I mention those already??!! ;-)

Simply post in the Reply Paid card with this letter and we'll post back our bunch of goodies via priority mail. - so you can enjoy them sooner."

Different Places, Different Legal Issues

Now, apparently in some places there is legislation that makes marketing cigars a bit tricky. For instance, in many cities across the world smoking in poublic places has been banned.

And I guess having a cigar club would be a bit dull without being allowed to light up!

And, of course, there are many, many places where advertising and even sposnorship of tobacco products is also banned so some of these tips (and following tips) won't be relevant. It makes it hard for the cigar seller.

But because this article is meant as a prompt for ways to better market your business, no matter what you're selling, we'll press on.

So far we have this:

• We have identified the target market
• We have identified the best ways to grab their attention
• We have commenced a marketing strategy (and made an offer)

Read on for...

What are you selling? (And it's not cigars!)

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Brendon Sinclair