Mee Pok, one of Singapore’s and Malaysia’s top favorite local food that has sustained many generations and taste buds. To market, this food would be easy as it is known to everyone but also difficult as there are many competitors out there.
In Singapore, this dish can be found in almost every hawker center or food court. It has become a staple food in many Singaporeans’ lives. Therefore, I was on a hunt to find the Best F&B Marketing there is and I chanced upon this particular stall selling Mee Pok…
Background
This stall has a famous Mee Pok and its stall name is Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle. They have gotten a Michelin-Starred for its Bak Chor Mee (aka Mee Pok) in Singapore. (I always thought that only high-class restaurants would receive Michelin-Stars)
Before receiving the Michelin Star, the stall always had a long queue and you had to wait around 45 mins to 1 hour to receive your bowl of noodles.
It has received quite a lot of hype ever since it received its Michelin-Star, increasing its number of customers and foot traffic to the stall. (the wait for a bowl of noodles now averages around 1-2 hours).
Furthermore, the price of the bowl of Mee Pok has increased and now it ranges from $5 – $10 for a bowl of noodles depending on the size of it you choose. For context, a usual bowl of Mee Pok in a hawker center cost around $2.50 – $4.5 AT MOST.
This must be a very good bowl of noodles to have to wait 1-2 hours and to pay $5 – $10 for it.
How does this relate to Marketing?
So how does this relate to F&B Marketing you may ask? Well, if we were to break down the process of how it became popular and how it priced its bowl of noodles, we can actually learn a lot from it. So let’s start from the beginning.
Good Product
At the start, the owner/chef of the stall already created a very good product. One which people would queue for and buy. He has experimented and came up with the perfect recipe that suits most Singaporeans Tastebuds and thus, creating a good product that people love.
Similar to Marketing, creating a product that solves your target audience’s pain points and provides value to them would be much easier to sell as compared to one that doesn’t provide much value to them.
The Michelin-Star
After receiving the Michelin Star, there has been a huge increase in the number of customers going to the place to eat, and the waiting time increased by 2x.
This effect can also be seen in the Online Marketing Space. When a business gets featured in media publications on well-known websites, it increases the traffic to the business website. It also increased the credibility of the business as people would trust these media publications since they recommended it.
Therefore, if you want to increase the amount of traffic to your website, you can look for opportunities to be featured on these media publication websites or do a collaboration with famous websites and feature each other.
Pricing is Higher than Average price
This is where it gets interesting! In order for it to be priced so high compared to other stores, it has to be:
- An Environment that is worth paying to eat at
- The Perceived Value of the product is more than what you are paying for
The latter is what Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle chose. By providing extra value and keeping rental costs low, it helps increase the profit margin for the business.
How does a Noodle Store provide Extra value?
By adding more ingredients! Tai Hwa has increased the perceived value of the famous Mee Pok by adding additional ingredients when you order a larger bowl.
Extra ingredients like additional Pork Liver, Pork meat, and Extra Wanton are added when you order a larger bowl.
In the eyes of the consumer, it will feel like, “Oh, this bowl is worth it, by waiting a few hours, I can get to eat a good bowl of Mee Pok and also get more ingredients for the price I pay.”
(Feels like customers don’t want to feel like they wasted their time and money on a bowl of noodles)
It makes the customer feel good as they feel like they have gained something more than what they pay for by the additional expensive ingredients. (But in reality, the additional ingredients only cost less than $5)
Conclusion
So yea! That is how an F&B store can create an offer and also provide much value to its customers by charging a much higher price.
By having reliable publications to increase credibility, to have a good product, and also to create the perceived value of the food more than what they are paying for.
Thank you for reading this short article on F&B Marketing & offer creation. I hope this will help you gain some insights into increasing the traffic for your F&B business. Do check out my other articles on Marketing and dating as well!
If you are an F&B owner and would like to learn more about Digital Marketing especially Facebook marketing, do drop me a message on @zachchiadotcom! I will be more than happy to help you along the way! 🙂
Till the next article!~
