Marketing help please
- Thread starter gayle94
- Start date
There are plenty of article to help you on the internet. This is a random sample
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/241953
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/241953
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M
Modern Retail UK
Here are a few ideas for you from one of our independent Retail marketing articles:
Social Media:
The new weapon in the small retailer’s marketing arsenal is of course social media. It’s a great way to build your brand and reach customers locally. Spice up your social media feeds with content that engages customers by being useful.
And think beyond Facebook; platforms with smaller user bases can actually pack more marketing punch. Location-based network Foursquare offers creative ways of running promos based on people actually hitting your store, for example.
Lowe’s, the US home improvement chain, ran a series of videos on the Vine platform showing fixes for common irritations. The videos were only a few seconds long but invited engagement and sharing.
Other online advertising:
Can you offer know-how in your area? You could be writing a blog or guest posting elsewhere to attract interest. Does your website DO something, rather than just being a static business card? Even if you aren’t offering products online, are you allowing customers to interact with you, leave their details or get more information?
In-store events:
In-store events get locals through your door. An author signing at a bookshop or a repair class at a bike shop generates local interest and brings people in that might otherwise not have visited. A promotional event can attract attention from local press, giving you free advertising. Think about how you can surprise people or create a spectacle to attract attention.
In 1952 fish and chip shop chain Harry Ramsden’s held a hugely successful penny-halfpenny day, causing huge queues, street blockages and national news coverage. 60 years later the chain repeated the dramatic stunt, raking in the press attention all over again.
Who do you want to attract? When is the best time of day for an event?
How will you encourage conversion from footfall to sales?
How will you retain details of the people who attend an event?
Team ideas:
A source of great marketing ideas is often right under your nose; your staff. They’re on the floor talking to customers all day so there’s no better person to know what will appeal to your target audience. Ask your staff for marketing ideas – you could set up regular ideas meetings, or introduce a suggestion box.
Guerrilla marketing:
Guerrilla marketing is low-cost marketing that uses surprise and humour to make a big impact. It’s often location-specific, which makes it perfect for a small or medium sized retailer. How could you surprise and delight your local customers, perhaps in a location away from your premises?
This public art window display made of thousands of post-it notes by the New York collective Illegal Art is a great example of how a simple and cheap idea can have a startling impact.
Useful Marketing Material:
How about marketing material that people actually want to keep? Think beyond branded pens –can you offer something that aligns with your customer’s lifestyle?
This bike shop’s business card doubles as a tool for tightening bolts. It’s likely to stick around in a bike-lover’s wallet far longer than a standard card.
Partnerships:
Building a relationship with a complimentary business gives you access to their customer base in return for access to yours; a wedding florist partnering with a wedding photographer, for example. If you run an email newsletter you could swap advertising space with another company, offering a plug in your newsletter in return for a plug in yours.
Love Local:
Explore local groups that relate to your area – can you set up an official link with them, securing marketing in return for a discount? This could be as simple as putting up a poster, or a more formal arrangement of becoming a recommended supplier. Getting involved in the local community raises your profile. Taking part in local events, whether it’s providing sponsorship or more practical support, gets your brand out there.
Creative Competitions:
The key to a successful competition promotion is to make it engaging to your target customer; does the format and the prize fit with their lifestyle and aspirations?
Dove’s Real Beauty Should Be Shared Facebook competition invited people to post a photo of a friend. The prize was to be the next face of the Dove brand. The campaign offered no monetary reward but built on brand values, encouraging fans to spread the word on social media.
4 Key Marketing Practices:
Get your branding right: marketing should align with and promote your brand values.
Track your efforts: there’s no point in doing it if you don’t know how effective it is. Set KPIs (key performance indicators) and record the impact of each idea.
Nail down your goals: what do you want your marketing to achieve? Increased footfall? Improved conversion rates? Greater brand awareness?
Identify your target audience: who should your marketing reach? Will it appeal to this demographic
Social Media:
The new weapon in the small retailer’s marketing arsenal is of course social media. It’s a great way to build your brand and reach customers locally. Spice up your social media feeds with content that engages customers by being useful.
And think beyond Facebook; platforms with smaller user bases can actually pack more marketing punch. Location-based network Foursquare offers creative ways of running promos based on people actually hitting your store, for example.
Lowe’s, the US home improvement chain, ran a series of videos on the Vine platform showing fixes for common irritations. The videos were only a few seconds long but invited engagement and sharing.
Other online advertising:
Can you offer know-how in your area? You could be writing a blog or guest posting elsewhere to attract interest. Does your website DO something, rather than just being a static business card? Even if you aren’t offering products online, are you allowing customers to interact with you, leave their details or get more information?
In-store events:
In-store events get locals through your door. An author signing at a bookshop or a repair class at a bike shop generates local interest and brings people in that might otherwise not have visited. A promotional event can attract attention from local press, giving you free advertising. Think about how you can surprise people or create a spectacle to attract attention.
In 1952 fish and chip shop chain Harry Ramsden’s held a hugely successful penny-halfpenny day, causing huge queues, street blockages and national news coverage. 60 years later the chain repeated the dramatic stunt, raking in the press attention all over again.
Who do you want to attract? When is the best time of day for an event?
How will you encourage conversion from footfall to sales?
How will you retain details of the people who attend an event?
Team ideas:
A source of great marketing ideas is often right under your nose; your staff. They’re on the floor talking to customers all day so there’s no better person to know what will appeal to your target audience. Ask your staff for marketing ideas – you could set up regular ideas meetings, or introduce a suggestion box.
Guerrilla marketing:
Guerrilla marketing is low-cost marketing that uses surprise and humour to make a big impact. It’s often location-specific, which makes it perfect for a small or medium sized retailer. How could you surprise and delight your local customers, perhaps in a location away from your premises?
This public art window display made of thousands of post-it notes by the New York collective Illegal Art is a great example of how a simple and cheap idea can have a startling impact.
Useful Marketing Material:
How about marketing material that people actually want to keep? Think beyond branded pens –can you offer something that aligns with your customer’s lifestyle?
This bike shop’s business card doubles as a tool for tightening bolts. It’s likely to stick around in a bike-lover’s wallet far longer than a standard card.
Partnerships:
Building a relationship with a complimentary business gives you access to their customer base in return for access to yours; a wedding florist partnering with a wedding photographer, for example. If you run an email newsletter you could swap advertising space with another company, offering a plug in your newsletter in return for a plug in yours.
Love Local:
Explore local groups that relate to your area – can you set up an official link with them, securing marketing in return for a discount? This could be as simple as putting up a poster, or a more formal arrangement of becoming a recommended supplier. Getting involved in the local community raises your profile. Taking part in local events, whether it’s providing sponsorship or more practical support, gets your brand out there.
Creative Competitions:
The key to a successful competition promotion is to make it engaging to your target customer; does the format and the prize fit with their lifestyle and aspirations?
Dove’s Real Beauty Should Be Shared Facebook competition invited people to post a photo of a friend. The prize was to be the next face of the Dove brand. The campaign offered no monetary reward but built on brand values, encouraging fans to spread the word on social media.
4 Key Marketing Practices:
Get your branding right: marketing should align with and promote your brand values.
Track your efforts: there’s no point in doing it if you don’t know how effective it is. Set KPIs (key performance indicators) and record the impact of each idea.
Nail down your goals: what do you want your marketing to achieve? Increased footfall? Improved conversion rates? Greater brand awareness?
Identify your target audience: who should your marketing reach? Will it appeal to this demographic
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0
N
Nochexman
Would be useful to know a little about where you are (city centre, by the seaside, etc.) and what sort of people your existing customers are. Generally speaking the easiest place to improve your outreach is with the kind of people you are already supplying.
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Local SEO might be helpful in case you already have a website. It is one of the ways you can attract potential customers. Or at least go for listings, can be helpful as well. Here is a blog post about local SEO we wrote on our company's blog, maybe you will find it useful.
Another idea is to make a creative event to let people of the local area know about your shop. Launch a day of making gifts to each other (just a random idea), engage people to participate, and let them meet at your shop to celebrate it. It won't make you a lot of sales, but it will make people know that you exist.
Hope it is helpful!
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Be careful, you can waste a lit of time and effort trying to market a small local shop with online - and off-line - media. 99.9% of your customers will find you by walking passed, so you prime method is your shop window. Focus on getting that right.
It'll take time for people to get used to you and if you haven't got the footfall or demographics right, it'll fail.
It'll take time for people to get used to you and if you haven't got the footfall or demographics right, it'll fail.
Upvote
0
R
Root 66 Woodshop
Let me give you an example
I use to be the manager of a retail company - who employed X number of staff at my branch. Until my arrival all staff had never worked the window displays... they'd always just "filled it"
Halloween came up, I filled a corner of the display area in the window with Black bin bags - cut up cardboard and and made black boards with bin bags and black electrical tape, I then placed specific products (halloween party stuff) and used the lighting boards we had to make it look "spooky"... I then stood in the window for hours on end dressed in black wearing a Scream Mask that we were selling... every time someone walked past, I would press the little button in my hand and the mask would bleed.
Some people thought it would be funny to go "booga wooga" at the window... directly at me, some of those people got a shock of their lives when I did it back to them... I don't think they actually realised that I was a real person in the window...
We sold over 40 of the masks at £10.99 each - I ended up having to travel to other branches to get more in the end!
Not every shop needs an online presence - it's what you do within your confines of space that you can bring footfall.
The company didn't have an online shop presence nor an actual presence online other than a store finder.
Another trick - price everything on the back... (I've been doing this for years)... people tend to pick things up to read the back of packaging, let them feel the product so they can sense the quality rather than seeing a price first.
I use to be the manager of a retail company - who employed X number of staff at my branch. Until my arrival all staff had never worked the window displays... they'd always just "filled it"
Halloween came up, I filled a corner of the display area in the window with Black bin bags - cut up cardboard and and made black boards with bin bags and black electrical tape, I then placed specific products (halloween party stuff) and used the lighting boards we had to make it look "spooky"... I then stood in the window for hours on end dressed in black wearing a Scream Mask that we were selling... every time someone walked past, I would press the little button in my hand and the mask would bleed.
Some people thought it would be funny to go "booga wooga" at the window... directly at me, some of those people got a shock of their lives when I did it back to them... I don't think they actually realised that I was a real person in the window...
We sold over 40 of the masks at £10.99 each - I ended up having to travel to other branches to get more in the end!
Not every shop needs an online presence - it's what you do within your confines of space that you can bring footfall.
The company didn't have an online shop presence nor an actual presence online other than a store finder.
Another trick - price everything on the back... (I've been doing this for years)... people tend to pick things up to read the back of packaging, let them feel the product so they can sense the quality rather than seeing a price first.
Upvote
0
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