Where to focus marketing efforts for B&M store

[pen2670]

Hi

First post in this section, but was hoping for some pointers as we only have a small marketing budget - which has all gone, but I feel we need to do something to drive more footfall to our door.

The business is a baby shop. After lots of delays we are now, finally, fully functional - maternity products including clothes, baby goods, nursery furniture, prams pushchairs, car seat fitting.

We have a Facebook page (around 200 likes) and are on page 1 of Google, but don't sell online and while I believe these to be helpful they don't really drive people to our door. Plus, not sure what we're doing wrong, but Facebook only really seems to show new posts to 30-70 of our fans nowadays so only get a few comments / likes.

Just paid for a yell listing for our town and neighbouring ones that don't have baby shops.

People who come in often volunteer positive feedback / comments, but it's mainly people buying gifts that are spending money rather than parents / parents to be and those that do come in are often too late and wander around the shop saying oh I didn't know you sold those, I just bought one, had to travel to x, would have come here if I'd known, etc.

So, i've been focussing on putting together a brochure (75% complete) with our products and services, plus something about our prices - competative on most, but add in petrol and conveneince and I think we match up.

But, they'll be expensive to get to print and I 've no way to get the brochures to the newly pregnant couples we'd like to target as they're not on our mailing list. Tried to work with places who do have access to them (offered giveaways, etc) and there not allowed to promote businesses. So wondered if doing an A5 flyer and saturating the local area would be better, or would they all end up in the bin. Would a mail shot be better, or??????

Tried advertising in the local press without much success. High cost and limited circulation. Plus seems to be more the grandparent age generation who read it who are already trickling in for their new baby gifts.

Any advice greatfully received. Don't want to waste more money doing the wrong thing or miss sales by not doing anything.

Thanks!

 

[10Yetis]

A few quick thoughts, not hugely well thought out though, so i guess, more rambling than anything else.

- ditch advertising in paper/don't pay any more to yell
- get a freelance marketing/PR person to help you generate a marketing/PR plan
- i.e. who is the parenting/health ed of your local paper. Find out, get to understand what they write. Try and meet them/go for coffee etc and get them to come to you for reaction to breaking baby gadget/equipment news/products etc
- What about a stunt in your local catchment area? e.g. 50 mums with buggies doing a spontaneous dance in the city centre all wearing tshirt with your branding on, invite the local rag etc (caveat, this may be a shite idea)
- Partner with another brand that targets the same demographic as you (new parents etc) and share marketing material, eg Baby swimming class tutor, pre birth spa treatment places etc
- (we have twins, so I am down with the baby world) there are hundreds of damn awful mummy clubs you could get involved with, maybe to showcase new products and trends etc as an "expert" giving talks on XYZ?
- Why is your online shop not converting if you are getting good search rankings? What is the domain, will have a look
- Do you have a loyalty scheme, ie. get a £10 discount when someone makes 5 individual purchases
- When people are in your shop, do you get their contact details when they make a purchase? Do you mail out to them regularly?
- Where are you buying your mailing data from? Why not get a database of new parents in your target areas?
- I would ditch an expensive brochure for now, until you have more marketing budget and instead go with the flyer. Go and carpet bomb the car park of the next baby expo that is near you. Not sure of the legalities of doing this but I would do it anyway

I did warn you that this was more of a ramble than a thought out considered reply... sorry

 

[Young Recruit]

I am not a parent yet but we have bought gifts for my friends babies. We became aware of our local baby shop simply by driving past it when we were out and about. If your shop is in a decent location and you sell the right products, this will act as it's own advertising and people will eventually come.

In your situation a flyer is a good idea but I would add an incentive to it.

Putting my customer hat on again, I think a good incentive to get me into your shop would be to offer me to pop in for a free coffee for an 'opening day' or 'come and meet us' type promotion. A simple flyer will suffice, distributed by any means you can, coffee shops, put into customers bags, door to door, whatever you have time to do. You'll then have a chance to promote how lovely your shop is when people come in. People look for things to do sometimes so why not give them something to put in their calender.

People buying gifts will be your perfect route to making parents aware of your shop. They are obviously buying gifts for parents and will probably have lots more parents or potential parents as friends, if you can make these people happy they will recommend your shop to your target market. I would suggest offering a wrapping service and use some subtly branded wrapping material so your customers gifts act as advertisements.

When they come into your shop hold a raffle whereby your can collect customer information and use it for future marketing efforts, segmentation, customer profiling, etc, if your into that kind of thing!

JA

 

[pen2670]

Thanks Both, to reply...

- get a freelance marketing/PR person to help you generate a marketing/PR plan
Sounds expensive and wouldnt know how to pick a good one.... any tips?

- i.e. who is the parenting/health ed of your local paper. Find out, get to understand what they write. Try and meet them/go for coffee etc and get them to come to you for reaction to breaking baby gadget/equipment news/products etc
Unfortunately our local paper is rather small and has just undergone lots of cuts / policy changes. One of which is that any press releases from businesses get handed straight to advertorial to try and make money out of.
We did manage to get an agreement to do a photo piece on our launch (after they majorly messed up a paid advert on it - 4 bad misprints in a 10cm x 10cm ad ). But it was going to be all warm and fuzzy and put us firmly in the independant camp. Said the only way they'll print business stuff is to have a human interest angle ie to make it about me! Now I think independants are great, but to have the widest appeal all our branding is mainstream with exceptional service. So I declined....


- What about a stunt in your local catchment area? e.g. 50 mums with buggies doing a spontaneous dance in the city centre all wearing tshirt with your branding on, invite the local rag etc (caveat, this may be a shite idea)
Sounds fun, BUT have enough difficulty trying to get them to interact on our Facebook page....

- Partner with another brand that targets the same demographic as you (new parents etc) and share marketing material, eg Baby swimming class tutor, pre birth spa treatment places etc
Yes, we already link up to some extent with the local softplay, shoe shop, etc and looking to expand on this.

- (we have twins, so I am down with the baby world) there are hundreds of damn awful mummy clubs you could get involved with, maybe to showcase new products and trends etc as an "expert" giving talks on XYZ?
Wow, twins are cool, but twice the everything, respect!
Yes, that was the original plan for most of our marketing, but where we've hit the biggest brick wall. 95% of the activity focusses around the local Children's Centre and the staff there are lovely and want to have us in to do talks / support us, etc, but arent allowed due to council policy. Cant even display a poster or mention our services. Not even allowed to have talks on Hypnobirthing anymore even though Mums said it really helped with their labour as the woman who did them ran a business...

- Why is your online shop not converting if you are getting good search rankings? What is the domain, will have a look
Sorry, don't sell online just have a presence, meant that if all the people who "liked" us on Facebook came and shopped here regulaly takings would be well up!

- Do you have a loyalty scheme, ie. get a £10 discount when someone makes 5 individual purchases
No, thought about it, but people who shop here do tend to come back so would just be further cutting our margins. Just don't get enough through the door. Do occasionally give samples to try with some success.

- When people are in your shop, do you get their contact details when they make a purchase? Do you mail out to them regularly?
Need to do more of this. Have a small mailing list, but need to be more proactive.

- Where are you buying your mailing data from? Why not get a database of new parents in your target areas?
Havent bought any, just what we've gathered from market research and events. How would we go about this?

- I would ditch an expensive brochure for now, until you have more marketing budget and instead go with the flyer. Go and carpet bomb the car park of the next baby expo that is near you. Not sure of the legalities of doing this but I would do it anyway
Thanks, have thought about leafleting the car park on antenatal / baby group days, but not sure if it would annoy more people than attract. We're just in a town rather than a city so no baby expo's. Also, can't help but think it's the newly pregnant we need to target, but not sure how, other than leafleting every home (cost???) - tried midwifes, Children's Centre, Boots (bounty pack distributors) with no luck and can't think of anyone else who has access to this group of people as, off the top of my head, our regulars who have babies or are in late pregnancy probably spend around £25-50 per month whereas the newly pregnant will spend between £400 and £1500 before baby's born, then, hopefully, become a regular.

We became aware of our local baby shop simply by driving past it when we were out and about. If your shop is in a decent location and you sell the right products, this will act as it's own advertising and people will eventually come.
Yes, that's were most of our business seems to come from, people see the shop (on the main street, but not the most popular part) and come in for a new baby gift and leave with one.
Keep alternating between thinking feedback's good, locations good, all shops take a while to reach potential, just need to conserve money and give it time AND we've had a slow start, lots of delays (mainly out of my control) so need to do something to try and kickstart. Hence asking for advice so I don't make an expensive mistake!

In your situation a flyer is a good idea but I would add an incentive to it.
Putting my customer hat on again, I think a good incentive to get me into your shop would be to offer me to pop in for a free coffee for an 'opening day' or 'come and meet us' type promotion. A simple flyer will suffice, distributed by any means you can, coffee shops, put into customers bags, door to door, whatever you have time to do. You'll then have a chance to promote how lovely your shop is when people come in. People look for things to do sometimes so why not give them something to put in their calender.
When they come into your shop hold a raffle whereby your can collect customer information and use it for future marketing efforts, segmentation, customer profiling, etc, if your into that kind of thing!
We've tried that sort of thing, but to be honest it hasn't worked out all that well. Had a launch, well 2 a mini one when we first opened and bigger event when we had more stock in! Gave away goodie bags, vouchers, etc and it was very busy compared to a "normal" day, but attendance was pretty pants for an event - cost more than we made. Took details for mailing list and some research and most return, but bizarely only one of the vouchers has been used.
Also had a coffee morning and talk from one of our Suppliers. Feedback was excellant, pretty well attended, everyone enjoyed the refreshments, no one bought anything (well apart from a couple of packs of baby wipes, but you know what I mean) so again well out of pocket.

I would suggest offering a wrapping service and use some subtly branded wrapping material so your customers gifts act as advertisements.
Good idea - we are often asked if we have wrapping paper. Maybe some nice paper and a sticker on the bottom with our details, thanks.



Thank You!

 

[Lightningjack]

Yell=waste of money,I always laugh when I see yell stickers on vans and shops,yeah let's go to yell and find another baby shop!

Anyway sell online as well as shop,ebay,gumtree there are a multitude of places to sell online.
Ask your local maternity ward if you can leave flyers with a special 10% off flyer exculsively for them.
Do you have a video on your site of your products,no,get one,do you have a tv in your window displaying products via video?(tv in window catches peoples eyes).Mother and toddler groups,nuseries,fairs,fetes, I could go on and on.

Online sales may give you a wider catchment,I wouldn't have a website that doesn't sell.

 

[deniser]

It is a really tricky question because there has been such a shift in attitude away from the independent. We had a baby shop many years ago and it became apparent that the vast majority of young mothers would not even set foot inside an independent shop regardless of what you do to try to tempt them.

The generation who is having babies now shop online and in large/chain stores.

Your best bet is to target the grandparents who still like independent shops and the personal service that they provide. They are also quite often the ones making the big purchases such as prams and cots.

Sorry that's not very helpful but don't focus all your efforts on the parents.

 

[pen2670]

It is a really tricky question because there has been such a shift in attitude away from the independent. We had a baby shop many years ago and it became apparent that the vast majority of young mothers would not even set foot inside an independent shop regardless of what you do to try to tempt them.

The generation who is having babies now shop online and in large/chain stores.

Your best bet is to target the grandparents who still like independent shops and the personal service that they provide. They are also quite often the ones making the big purchases such as prams and cots.

Sorry that's not very helpful but don't focus all your efforts on the parents.

Thanks Deniser, that does help validate my feelings about our branding - some people thought I was mad to turn down the offer of free publicity from the paper, but my rational was that people who like independents know that's what we are and visit anyway, whereas it would be a shame to firmly put ourself in that camp with a warm and fluffy article about me opening a baby shop and risk alienating some of the people who prefer big stores for their (incorrect) perception of better value and a more peaceful experience. A couple of whom quite obliviously come in here.

Any more advise from your experience would be great....

 

[pen2670]

Yell=waste of money,I always laugh when I see yell stickers on vans and shops,yeah let's go to yell and find another baby shop!
Ok, wont renew, just thought for £60 it was worth a punt to advertise in our and neighbouring towns that we've had a few visitors from.

Anyway sell online as well as shop,ebay,gumtree there are a multitude of places to sell online.
Online sales may give you a wider catchment,I wouldn't have a website that doesn't sell.

Thanks, but, it's not that simple I'm afraid for two reasons....

1. Our website currently costs just £15 per year, plus my time. To upgrade to be able to sell online would cost a lot and need an expert to set up.

2. Our prices are competative on many things + we have lines that we are contractually not allowed to sell online. Add in sellers fees, p&p, wastage due to DSR / delivery problems and we just don't turnover enough volume to be able to get cheap enough prices to compete online.

Our website might be basic, but if fulfills a function. Our best source of referrals is from our suppliers websites where we are listed as a stockist - the site gives people something to check out before deciding to visit. Also, via cpanel, gives me an idea of where traffic is coming from (mainly Facebook / one of our highest profile suppliers) and which of our services people are most interested in. This should become more prevailent as more our suppliers update their websites to include us as a stockist.
It could do with some work, but as with the original post, deciding which marketing avenues are best to spend my time on is my current dilema.

Ask your local maternity ward if you can leave flyers with a special 10% off flyer exculsively for them.
Again, that's our problem, they're not allowed to accept business promotion - although if I could would leave them at clinics rather than maternity as it's not local - 1hr away along with nearest big chains.

Do you have a video on your site of your products,no,get one,do you have a tv in your window displaying products via video?(tv in window catches peoples eyes).
Worth a thought...

Mother and toddler groups,nuseries,fairs,fetes, I could go on and on.
Did the local big Fair, think there was supposed to be around 100k people, but our little space was a bit out of the way so didn't get a fraction of that and people were more looking than purchasing. Got some good publicity out of it, but didn't really justify the cost.
Got some good results from face to face promotion at toddler groups (even though out of my comfort zone). So should maybe put more effort into that and nurseries, but can't help but think it would be better spent trying to get to the early pregnant, particularly first time parents who don't already have stuff from the first child, but how?

 

[Lightningjack]

You could do a blanket flyer with a free "my first baby scan" photoframe,they are required to enter an email address(to which you market) and of course you brand the photoframe.This of course would require a suitable website,it's not a major job adding a new page for it and setting up an autosponder to market to the emails.

The size of your town can be a factor,is it big,small etc?

 

[justbought.it]

Hi pen2670,

If you're #1 on Google then I would recommend opening an online store.

You can setup a Shopify store for as little as $19pm and it's very easy to do.

In terms of social media, our merchants find that when their customers share a product they've just bought onto twitter and facebook it's far more effective than a 'like'. Here's a quick intro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzmid30vErA

I hope this helps.

 

[Billmccallum]

Hi

First post in this section, but was hoping for some pointers as we only have a small marketing budget - which has all gone, but I feel we need to do something to drive more footfall to our door.

The business is a baby shop. After lots of delays we are now, finally, fully functional - maternity products including clothes, baby goods, nursery furniture, prams pushchairs, car seat fitting.

We have a Facebook page (around 200 likes) and are on page 1 of Google, but don't sell online and while I believe these to be helpful they don't really drive people to our door. Plus, not sure what we're doing wrong, but Facebook only really seems to show new posts to 30-70 of our fans nowadays so only get a few comments / likes.

Just paid for a yell listing for our town and neighbouring ones that don't have baby shops.

People who come in often volunteer positive feedback / comments, but it's mainly people buying gifts that are spending money rather than parents / parents to be and those that do come in are often too late and wander around the shop saying oh I didn't know you sold those, I just bought one, had to travel to x, would have come here if I'd known, etc.

So, i've been focussing on putting together a brochure (75% complete) with our products and services, plus something about our prices - competative on most, but add in petrol and conveneince and I think we match up.

But, they'll be expensive to get to print and I 've no way to get the brochures to the newly pregnant couples we'd like to target as they're not on our mailing list. Tried to work with places who do have access to them (offered giveaways, etc) and there not allowed to promote businesses. So wondered if doing an A5 flyer and saturating the local area would be better, or would they all end up in the bin. Would a mail shot be better, or??????

Tried advertising in the local press without much success. High cost and limited circulation. Plus seems to be more the grandparent age generation who read it who are already trickling in for their new baby gifts.

Any advice greatfully received. Don't want to waste more money doing the wrong thing or miss sales by not doing anything.

Thanks!

Where is your shop? What is it called?

Whenever you discuss your business, these are the two most important things to get across, even if it's only in a forum like this., you never know who will become a customer.

 

[pen2670]

Where is your shop? What is it called?

Whenever you discuss your business, these are the two most important things to get across, even if it's only in a forum like this., you never know who will become a customer.

Hi Bill

tbh I prefer to be annonymous on here as some of the info I've posted is quite personal / identifies me as the bumbling amatauer that I am :redface:. Not really in keeping with the image I'm trying to project for the business.

Happy to pm you the details if you think you can better advise....

thanks

 

[Billmccallum]

Hi Bill

tbh I prefer to be annonymous on here as some of the info I've posted is quite personal / identifies me as the bumbling amatauer that I am :redface:. Not really in keeping with the image I'm trying to project for the business.

Happy to pm you the details if you think you can better advise....

thanks

Without knowing specifics, all anyone can do is offer generalist advice, but some of the advice given by other posters is spot on, Yell is only best used as part of a well thought out and fully funded advertising campaign, although many small businesses don't get value from it, it does clearly work for some, lots of people will still search yell for a plumber, but how many will search for a baby shop?

If your budget is low, then a catalogue does not seem practical at this point.

As with most retail businesses, location can be the critical factor, particularly how visable the shop is on the high street.

Selling on the internet does seem to be one way you can improve things at a relatively low cost, a good ecommerce site can cost, but starting out on ebay is cheap enough.