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How Planet Smoothie’s LTO Menu Strategy Drives Customers to Stores

Planet Smoothie franchise owners engage new and current customers alike with limited-time-offer menu items that we market to create local and nationwide excitement

Planet Smoothie customers always have new and exciting reasons to come try “The Best-Tasting Smoothie on the Planet™,” thanks to our Limited-Time Offer menu strategy.

Smoothies have gone mainstream over the past 20 years, and the teens who discovered Planet Smoothie in the 1990s continue to come and bring their kids. The demographics of smoothie customers are evolving and bringing more potential customers every year. / LTO Menu

Smoothies have gone mainstream over the past 20 years, and the teens who discovered Planet Smoothie in the 1990s continue to come and bring their kids. The demographics of smoothie customers are evolving and bringing more potential customers every year.

We launch exciting new products several times a year, and with each new item, Planet Smoothie rolls out a national marketing campaign to spread the word about that product to new and existing customers.

“The ingredients that we selected for this year’s LTOs were chosen based on product trends and on the choices reflected in our 2014 Planet Smoothie customer research study,” says Donna Smith, Vice President of Marketing for Planet Smoothie. “Our first-quarter promotion featured coconut water, cucumber, açai, and a number of other ingredients, while our current ‘What’s Your Passion?’ promotion focuses on the passion fruit — which a majority of those polled selected as one of their most-desired ingredients.”

Trending ingredients attract new customers to Planet Smoothie

Planet Smoothie hosts an annual flavor camp where smoothie franchise owners and area developers from across the system get involved in creating recipes based on the ingredients that were the hottest in the customer survey or were trending in research and were ideal candidates for our product line.

If the new recipes that result are a hit with our customers, they could earn a permanent spot on our menu.

“Our ‘What’s Your Passion?’ campaign began on March 30, and if it’s a wild success, our customers could be enjoying passion fruit, chia seeds and other high-antioxidant ingredients in our blended smoothies year round,” Donna says.

To get the word out to new customers, we launch a social media campaign that is designed to be fun, informational and engaging, so that our new menu items generate significant buzz. During each LTO campaign, we also produce a newsletter that is sent to each store and includes information about the new ingredients, the reasons we are offer the item, and how the product might fit our customers’ healthy, active lifestyles. In addition, we engage our public relations firm to communicate our message about the products across the country.

“Having an LTO strategy helps to set us apart in the smoothie industry,” Donna says. “For us, the strategy is working for a number of reasons. It gives us relevant messages that reach potential and current customers. It also helps us understand what our customers are looking for.”

LTOs are a simple, fun way to keep things lively

Our LTO promotions are not only fun and lively, but are simple to execute. Our marketing team sends imaginative, colorful promotional materials to each participating Planet Smoothie franchise location. And the majority of the ingredients are already in the stores, making the promotions easy to execute for the Planet Smoothie franchisee and their team.

“The new products help attract customers to our stores, and they also keep the environment lively for Planet Smoothie team members,” Donna says. “The employees are in the store the majority of the time, and we want them to be engaged and excited about their jobs and the ingredients their customers want.”

Learn more about Planet Smoothie and our LTO Menu here!

Planet Smoothie is a smoothie franchise that sets itself apart by offering great-tasting smoothies that use healthier ingredients. In a side-by-side comparison, our smoothies generally have less sugar and fewer calories — a big competitive advantage as Americans actively seek healthier options. We are led by a team of veteran franchise executives who have helped build other iconic brands, including Mail Boxes Etc., and we leverage more than 100 years of combined franchising experience to provide outstanding support to franchisees.

For in-depth details about the Planet Smoothie franchise opportunity, download our free franchise report. You can also learn more by visiting our research pages.