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Business Basics by S ar in a Prabas i How to make your shop famous A ttracting media coverage can be key to the growth of a café, and it's a phenomenon I've experienced myself. Along with my husband, Elias, I run two businesses: Buunni Coffee, an online company focusing on fair-trade and organic coffees from Ethiopia, and Café Buunni, a coffeehouse we opened last September in our neighborhood of Washington Heights in Manhattan. The shop has only been open eight months, but already it has garnered articles in publications ranging from local papers to blogs and, most recently, the Wall Street Journal. While we are certainly not experts in media or public relations, we do have practical experience and have learned some important things along the way about how to get media coverage. Here are five lessons that we hope will be useful to you in getting more exposure for your own business. LESSON 1: THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR DEMAND. Buunni. Before and after opening, the café generated a lot more media interest than our online coffee business, even though the online business has been around for two years. This tells us that people still get excited about physical spaces, and the coffeehouse is clearly a place that people want to write about. In order to generate excitement about our brand, we had to open a physical space where journalists could visit, customers could be interviewed, and our coffee and pastries could be photographed. LESSON 2: PEOPLE STILL GET EXCITED ABOUT BRICK AND MORTAR. LESSON 3: KNOW YOUR STORY, TELL YOUR STORY. If you take a look at the press page on our Web site, you'll note that all the coverage we've received has been focused on Café When you get the (sometimes fleeting) opportunity to connect with the media and a journalist contacts you to cover your coffee CAFÉ BUUNNI/B. CAMPOT People really wanted a coffee shop in our Hudson Heights micro-neighborhood of Washington Heights. There was no independent coffeehouse in the neighborhood, and the closest Starbucks is about six blocks away. In Manhattan, six blocks may as well be six miles. As soon as the "Café Buunni Coming Soon" sign was posted in the window of the former shoerepair store that we rented, buzz started up in the neighborhood. The forthcoming coffee shop was a subject of conversation on the playground, at the bank and in the supermarket. People told their friends. People have friends who are journalists. And journalists respond to demand. Many of the stories and blog posts written about Café Buunni came about because people in our neighborhood thought this was news worth reporting and told their contacts. If you can connect to demand in your community, your business will be perceived as being newsworthy. continued on page 30 28 Fresh Cup Magazine freshcup.com