best customers. That extends, in many cases, to electronic marketing. Hiring customers can be useful because they understand especially well what the shop is all about. 1369 Coffee House, which has two outlets in Cambridge,
Mass., hired a regular customer who was a Web designer to do its site. "I think it really helped us because they got us," says owner
Josh Gerber. "They really understood—we see ourselves as a community coffeehouse, a place that's very intentionally warm and cozy, and I think he did a really outstanding job of capturing that on our website." Warm colors, landing pages that explain the fine points of products and barista training (and solicit job applications), and lively pictures of patrons and staff enjoying themselves all contribute to that warm and cozy image.
PAYMENT IN KIND One of the nice things about hiring customers is the
The first version of the webpage for Portfolio Coffeehouse
in Long Beach, Calif., was done on a barter basis, but the current design was paid for in cash.
KEEPING THINGS SIMPLE FOR THE SMALL SCREEN
One of the best things about electronic marketing is being able to catch people where they are. The proliferation of smartphones, iPads and other mobile devices, oſten with Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking, makes it easy to reach customers at a moment's notice. But almost all mobile devices have screens much smaller than a computer
monitor, meaning that not all webpages will look good on them. Caffé Medici, Austin, Texas, is having its website redesigned. Owner Michael Vaclav
says a big priority is establishing a version that's easily usable on a mobile device. "This guy that we're working with right now, he's going to fix it so that you
enter all your information to one place, and depending what the user brings it up on—whether they bring it up on their iPhone, BlackBerry, iPad or whatever—it comes up as a friendlier user interface," Vaclav says. "We're finding that just having the website be really good is almost a must for any business, but now it's turning more into the usability of it." The new, mobile device-friendly page will include a map function that will allow users with GPS-enabled devices to find which of Medici's three locations is the closest. Electronic marketing consultant Jason Falls says readability on a mobile
device can be built into a website. In essence, the page designer creates an alternative page just for mobile devices. Most modern webpage soſtware can recognize when a query is coming from a mobile device and respond with the appropriate content. "It might sound like it's completely duplicative, but it's actually not, if you think
about ultimately what you want to deliver to the user," Falls says. "Remember, a person on a cellphone does not want to see the bio of your CEO." As an example of a good mobile-device page, Falls cites pizza chain Papa John's, whose mobile-device homepage lists three simple options: find an outlet, order for eating in, or order takeout.
September 2011 • www.specialty-coffee.com | 15
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