STEAL THIS CAMPAIGN

Leverage the selling power of not-so-secret secrets

Editor's note: This article is part of a series, Steal This Campaign, wherein we highlight creative, achievable, and unique ideas that you can steal or replicate parts of in your own marketing campaigns.

We’ve all heard of the In-N-Out & Starbucks secret menus. Ironically, the fact that we have negates the very notion that they’re ‘secret’ at all.

However, secrets are sexy. It’s nice to leverage the exclusivity of a secret to get something others don’t really know about. It’s exclusive. It’s special.

In today’s entry of ‘Steal This Campaign’ I’m going to teach you how to create your own secret menu and get the secret out there… and spreading fast. Resulting in extra revenue and free PR for your business.

How Does It Work?

People share secrets. Even when they’re not supposed to — especially when they’re not supposed to.

“Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead.”

— Benjamin Franklin

As Jonah Berger writes in his book Contagious, “secrets are social currency.”

People in the know like to show off their prowess. As a customer, ordering from the secret menu broadcasts your status above other standard menu customers.

Create a Secret Menu, Fast

In e-commerce terms, the secret menu is a category page. For instance, if you’re selling clothing, you’ve got sections for T-shirts, jeans, jackets — the secret menu will be a collection/category page just like these.

To create an e-commerce secret menu:

1. Create a new category/collection page and add the products you want to feature only to that category.

That’s it, you’re done. Just make sure you remove the secret menu collection from your website navigation menu and search bar.

Bonus: Are you a pro? You can also edit the robots.txt file to ‘no-index’ your secret menu page. This means it won’t show up with a Google search.

This isn’t necessary for all customers and I personally appreciate the immediate sales from those who successfully find the page on Google.

If your business is physical like a restaurant or cocktail bar, you could feature your secret menu in other ways, for example:

• Do you have a loyalty or payment app? Put the secret menu in the app for app-users only. It’s an incentive for new customers to download it.

• Feature a cocktail on your socials that isn’t available without a password. Maybe they need to sign up for your weekly newsletter to get the new password before each weekend?

• Randomly place physical secret menus inside each menu for 25% of customers for a month. Let them tell their friends and not everyone had it, so it’ll feel special.

5 Ways To Promote Your New Secret Menu

1. Send an email with dead-links (the links and buttons don’t work or go to your homepage) saying that a new or special product is available exclusively via the secret menu. You’ll create a frenzy.

2. Export a list of your top 100 customers and email them a link to your ‘secret menu’ so they’re incentivized to buy — and start spreading it. Don’t actually ask them to share it, instead, trust in the power of secrets.

3. Host a YouTube live and ‘accidentally’ give everyone who attends the link to your secret menu. Only they have it now.

4. Create a physical invitation and post it to local or top customers. Ask them not to tell anyone about it — and they’ll do exactly what you want… the opposite.

5. Share posts on social media of your secret menu products with captions like “only available on our secret menu” and let customers go looking for it.

The Results

I’ve personally used the secret menu campaign as a continuous tool to engage customers for various clients. If I had to estimate the dollar value now I’d say it’s generated well over $100,000, if not hundreds of thousands in around three years.

If there’s a special gold edition coming out, or I have a limited pre-release, it goes on the secret menu first.

Don’t get tempted to spoon-feed customers on social media who are begging for the link. Let them find it on their own. They have to put in the work to find it. That’s what makes it valuable.

The selling-power of this marketing tactic is massively underrated and it’s my hope that you’ll immediately implement one of your own. Just remember, it only works to create hype if it remains exclusive.

I’d show you an example of what’s on mine, but it’s a secret.