We’ve probably all had one of Taco Bell’s crazy inventions, including a Cheesy Street Chalupa, Doritos Locos Taco, Nacho Fries, or Baja Blast. A recent Wall St. Journal article shares that Taco Bell’s Chief Food Innovation Officer, Liz Matthews, often spends years creating a single new item for the menu. (Read the full WSJ article here.) Sometimes these items are available for a brief time only, aka they’re a limited-time offer (LTO). 

This article made me wonder, “What are Shop Local’s LTOs? Why are LTOs important?”

The reason restaurants offer LTOs is to make the restaurant unique. You can only get a Doritos Locos Taco at Taco Bell. Plus, if it’s an LTO, you must act now. Alex Hormozi, who penned $100m Offers and is an expert on sales, appears to be a health nut, but even he probably goes through Taco Bell’s drive-through to admire their unique sales offers.

On Shop Local's home page, we show 6 features that make Shop Local’s service unique. These are essentially our Doritos Locos Tacos. We need to continue launching new exclusive 'menu' items because this draws in new customers and encourages prospects to choose us over competitors. We promise these six unique features:

1. Preventing a retailer from losing $36k in website labor costs.
2. Preventing a retailer from losing 12% on an order.
3. Increasing a retailer’s Google ranking by 500%.
4. Increasing a customer’s likelihood to buy by 400%.
5. Ensuring they are selling the best-selling wedding gifts.

6. Giving them the best wedding registry management software.

    

I understand that not every feature can be unique. For example, a basic taco—or a burger—is not unique. Nearly any restaurant can offer that. In this case, one has to try to be the best at offering that commodity. “Best” is usually measured in terms of best quality, price, or delivery speed. Minetta Tavern, a famed NYC restaurant, may offer the best quality burger via its Black Label burger, McDonald's the most affordable burger, and McDonald's the quickest burger. Notice how McDonald's meets two out of the three criteria for best, and this explains why it’s a household name. Trivia: years ago, McDonald's even tried a hat trick: it offered a quality burger at a premium price, but it canceled that because consumers had a hard time expecting all three value propositions from one business.

I believe we’re the best in the wedding registry space at:

• Getting wedding registries found in Google.
• Getting a wedding registry shared with friends and family.
• Getting a customer to complete a purchase.
• Getting a bride to add gifts to her gift list.
• Getting a bride/registrant to add a link on their official wedding site linking back to the indie store’s website.
• Giving a shower gift.

It Helps When Customers Know Your Menu Before Walking In

People can quickly recount that Ferraris are fast and Volvos are safe. They know McDonald's offers affordable and fast burgers. We likewise need our customers to know that Shop Local is the biggest seller of wedding registry gifts for indie stores. We can’t expect them to visit our website and read this. We need to message brands and reps with this message again and again.

In our messaging, we want to include the why and how: We’re the leading seller of wedding registry gifts because we have 30+ unique and crucial features that no one else has, and we make the best shopping cart for gifts.

Add Menu Items the Restaurant Across the Street Has

Our B2B registry competitors do offer some unique things that we don't. How do we react? We have to neutralize our competitors by taking away their uniqueness—even if we don’t like their unique feature. We thereby devalue them. For example, our tech team is working on a browser plugin akin to a competitor's and more Shopify integration. 

We want customers to come to our restaurant instead of going across the street. We don’t want to be the steak restaurant when someone wants a salad. Let’s offer a steak salad.

Don’t Make the Menu Too Big

Gordon Ramsey hates a long menu. Taco Bell’s Cheeseburger Crunchwrap failed. We can’t be everything to everyone, but I think we have room to expand our menu to take some of our competitors’ lunch. We’re not expanding into another industry or sector; we’re expanding in the wedding registry space to offer more solutions in it.

(Side note: Taco Bell even has an upscale chain called Taco Bell Cantina that serves alcohol and higher-priced items. This makes me wonder if we need an enterprise wing. On our sales site, we could offer a page with higher-priced enterprise services.)

I want us to eat the registry market.

Homework:

Part 1:

What are four more unique features that your company or organization offers (vs. other providers)?

What are 4 things that you're not unique at but you're the best at?

Part 2:

One has to promote their unique and best features on their sales site; otherwise, they're leaving money on the table, and their competitors win.

For the answers to your Qs, are you promoting these things on your sales website?

Part 3:

How are you letting prospects know about your unique and best features? What can you do to let prospects know about your unique and best features? 

The success of an organization rests on its ability to acquire new customers. 

If you asked a prospect, could they name one thing you're unique at? The best at?
 
 

P.S. ~ We assessed Taco Bell in an earlier post: https://bridge.myshoplocal.com/news.cfm/23960/Taco-Bell-wether-

P.S.S. ~ Some Taco Bell trivia:

• The creator of Taco Bell had owned a hamburger stand, and put his first taco on the menu in 1951 for $0.19.
• TB is the 4th largest chain in the U.S. Globally, it has 8,800 locations  (vs. just 800 in 1978, when it was bought by Pepsi).
• The target market is 18 - 30 years old.
• Baja Blast soda is a variant of Mountain Dew--only sold at Taco Bell.