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Marketing Your Business

Sara Lindquist

Baby [b]oomers have changed every market we entered, from disposable diaper market to the stock market to the job market. We like to be marketed to.

Lynn Lancaster, Author, When Generations Collide

What if you opened a store and nobody came? It’s a nightmare all retailers have in the days, weeks and even months before they open their doors, [a]nd for good reason: how can customers find your store if they don’t even know it exists?

That’s where marketing comes in.

In retail, we have a saying: “Good ideas are a dime a dozen. Great ideas are slightly less plentiful.” It’s simple but true. We have another saying: “If it works, even if you didn’t come up with it, use it.” Retailers steal each other’s ideas all the time, [s]o if we’re all using the same ideas, why are some stores successful and others not? The difference between a successful retail store with a great idea and an unsuccessful store with exactly the same idea boils down to how well the idea is implemented. In the end, it’s not great ideas that make the difference, but great implementation. My favorite saying […] is, “Retail is detail.” It applies not only to how well the store is run, but also to how efficiently, creatively and energetically your marketing ideas and campaigns are carried out.

The successful retailer must be an expert in just about all phases of the business, and marketing is no exception. You must know at all times what you, your staff, your customers and even your competitors are doing, [s]o comparison shop, read competitors’ ads, study the trade magazines that cover your area, go to trade shows, read relevant books, listen to lectures by experts, pick manufacturers’ brains—be and remain a true expert in your chosen field. Before any marketing campaign is launched, make sure you know the answers to the following questions:

Marketing: Timing is Everything

There has never been a better time to be an independent retailer. Rather than having to deal with rigid policies dictated from a home office that may be halfway around the country (and well out of the loop), as an independent retailer, you have total flexibility to address local marketing and promotional opportunities, to develop personalized customer service policies based on the needs of your customers, and to participate in and take advantage of the events, feelings and traditions of your local community. More than ever, a local storeowner can gain a huge advantage over ever-larger and more-impersonal megastores by being a known quantity to his customers, by building a personal reputation for integrity and service, and by becoming a leading citizen of his community. Customers know the difference between a true community leader and a hired gun who pulls dollars out of the area and sends them off to some home office to line the pockets of greedy executives and stockholders. The local retailer can attract local loyalty by making a significant economic impact on the community. He is keeping the money he collects from the community in the community where it belongs.

Nevertheless, local retailers do not all succeed—some fail. The reason for this often lies in the local retailer’s unwillingness or inability to change. To succeed, retailers must be forever vigilant for the next great marketing idea to promote their business. The storeowner must be ready, willing and able to make any changes necessary to keep his store competitive. Resistance to change and the fear of failure are the greatest inhibitors to business success.

Above all, to succeed, you must banish the fear of failure. You will fail only if you do not change. Like any winning sports team, you have to make constant adjustments to stay ahead. You must closely follow all the trends and changes taking place both in your local community and nationally.

Independence: How Much is Too Much?

No matter how good you are, it is not wise for you to market your business totally alone. There are going to be times when you would be well-advised to market with fellow businesses. Sometimes, you may even want to cooperate with your competition to develop strategies and programs that will ensure a vibrant, pro-small-business environment in your trading area.

Unfortunately, independent retailers have frequently failed to work together in the past to create a unified front, [a]nd, because of this failure, municipal, county and state governments have bowed to pressure from big-box and national retailers, granting them all sorts of concessions such as tax breaks, improvements in traffic flow, new streets and better access to major highways—all because the independents were too independent to organize and fight off the well-financed public relations and lobbying efforts of the chains.

[D]on’t ignore the power of banding your businesses together for the good of all. Certainly you want to run your own store [and] be your own boss, but sometimes, cooperation with others, even with your competitors, is for the good of the whole group, including you.

This leads to the first great promotion I’m going to discuss, […] one in which all the small businesses in town get together and hold a small-business (retail) day or week. By pulling together, independent retailers can get free support from local media [and] free PR. For example, the mayor can proclaim the importance of small retailers to the community. Participants run their own specials in context with the promotion, but they share the cost of promotional flyers and, possibly, radio or television advertising, [a]nd, of course, they all place signage throughout their stores announcing that they are proud members of the local retailer community.

The beauty of this promotion is that it kills two birds with one stone. On the one hand, the power of a large number of stores offering specials is bound to attract more buyers than any single store could, thus providing a business boost to all. On the other hand, the community will realize the value of keeping small retailers in business—and perhaps of keeping the huge stores away—and that is of immense importance to the survival and growth of every independent in the area.

Competitors: Friend or Foe?

No doubt you’ve heard the adage famously uttered by the young Al Pacino in The Godfather: Part II: “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” It certainly rings true for retailing. By knowing what your competitors are up to, you will be able to better choose your products, establish your margins and please your customers.

Of course, your competent competitors are just as interested in you as you are in them, [a]nd, since ideas are easy to duplicate, you want to keep the competition at arm’s length and share as little of what you are doing with them as possible. […] Here are some techniques to help you keep on top of what your competitors are doing (and to keep them from finding out too much about you):

Promotions

When beginning a marketing campaign, don’t forget that no promotion can replace the basics: good merchandise, fair pricing, convenience, service and a caring sales staff. Now, as you start developing your promotional campaign, you should consider the following:

Retail Versus Theater: One and the Same?

In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative original thinker unless you can also sell what you create. Management cannot be expected to recognize a good idea unless it is presented to them by a good salesman.

David Ogilvy, Former CEO of Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide Ad Agency

When I ran a major department store branch, I used to pretend every morning that the curtain was going up on a brand-new show and that everything in the store had to be perfect so the audience would give us a standing ovation.

Retailing is like theater in that people like to be entertained when they enter your store. If they find your store exciting and your competitors’ merely routine, you will gain their loyalty. You can generate this sense of entertainment through many touches, including, but not limited to:

Minding the Calendar for Marketing

When it comes to marketing, the calendar is your friend. The holidays that fall throughout the year, the four seasons, and significant local and national events can set the tone for exciting […] seasonal promotions.

Whenever running a promotion, you need to carry out the theme you have chosen throughout the store, in your advertising, on your website and in all the publicity you generate. In-store decorations should tie the entire store into the event, holiday, celebration or season. Store windows need to reflect the consistent theme. Salespeople’s dress or accessories or buttons should reinforce it. Nothing should go unnoticed in presenting a unified, thematic front. Most important[ly] of all, of course, the merchandise you choose to feature must tie into the theme and seem more desirable and [salable] as a result.

In developing promotional plans, always remember that you need to be thinking at least one quarter—[if not] six months—ahead. The following sections describe some of the major (and minor) themes that may work in your business.

First Quarter

The first quarter of the year is known as “the sale quarter,” because stores are selling […] leftover Christmas goods and may run “white sales” and Presidents’ Day sales. Because this is not a big gift-giving quarter, I would recommend taking a conservative approach to how much you spend in promotions. Use that money to mark down and clear out overstocks of leftover Christmas products. Often, suppliers will help by providing markdown allowances.

That being said, here are some great opportunities for unique, inexpensive and creative ways to celebrate holidays and other special events that occur in the first quarter:

Second Quarter

This is the second strongest gift-giving quarter, because it includes Mothers’ Day, graduation[s] and Fathers’ Day. […] Here is a [full] list of sales-inspiring festivities for this quarter:

Third Quarter

This is a tough promotional quarter because of summer vacations and summer activities that tend to lure customers away from your store. Consequently, you’ll need to reach deep into your bag of special events to drive traffic into your store. Here are some great places to start:

Fourth Quarter

Ready, set, hut! This is the quarter when retailers make most of their profits, so pull out all the stops for your biggest selling season of the year as you gear up:

In-store Special Events

Customers love to be entertained while they shop. The promotions mentioned above provided an energizing “What will they think of next?” beat to your business. In doing so, they attract new customers and keep your existing customers coming back; [h]owever, before you go to all the extra time and effort needed to create special events, you must first ask yourself this critical question: “What promotions will actually appeal to my current and potential customers?”

If most of your shoppers are harried and pressed for time (for instance, if they are office workers out during their lunch breaks), you should avoid special events that slow them down. Ask yourself, “Will my event take up too much floor space or hide merchandise so that I lose more sales than I gain?” or “Will the event create too much noise and distract too many shoppers from their appointed task of buying my goods?” [T]he most important question that sums it all up, [though, is], “Will this special event bring in enough additional revenue to cover its cost?”

[…] I am […] going to list a number of events that I have seen work especially well. I hope they spark your creativity and help you develop the right events for your business:

Sales That Drive Traffic

The easiest sale to run is putting everything in your store on sale, but easiest is rarely best. The smartest sale is to focus on one theme and make it meaningful to create excitement and traffic, not only for that product, but also for the entire store. That way, you will be cutting your margins on only part of your inventory but selling a lot of your other merchandise at full profit.

For instance, if you are overstocked in one category—say, housewares or junior miss—that is what you put on sale, [o]r if you want to promote a department you feel has more potential than it is realizing, that is what you feature. You can even turn a sale into a treasure hunt by giving a percentage off everything of a specific color or with an identifying label.

Here are just some more ideas of sales that will build traffic:

Contests: Everyone’s a Winner!

Everyone loves a contest, and when it comes to marketing your business, carefully planned contests offering meaningful prizes can build excitement and added store traffic. There are basically two different types of contests:

When deciding whether to run a sweepstakes or a contest, consider this: sweepstakes attract more entries because they don’t require a purchase; [h]owever, for exactly that reason, they may not build sales. Contests, on the other hand, attract fewer entrants (and maybe not enough to justify your time and expense); [h]owever, at least you know each bought something and you have collected their names for your mailing list. […] The best thing to do is to experiment with both approaches and repeat the one that works best. In order to keep costs down, have other merchants or your suppliers provide the prizes free or at least at a favorable price. After all, they are getting a lot of publicity when you make their product your main prize; they should be pleased to supply it for little or nothing. Here are some more great sweepstakes and contest ideas:

Building Customer Loyalty

Gaining repeat customers—the essence of retail success—depends on their satisfaction in seven respects:

  1. The quality of the products you carry
  2. The selection you offer
  3. Your pricing
  4. The treatment they receive from your personnel
  5. The store’s ambiance
  6. Its location
  7. The hours you are open

If you cannot satisfy your customers in these respects you won’t keep them; [h]owever, if you do […], you can—and should—still develop ways to accelerate repeat business. The best technique is through a customer rewards program. The customer wins by getting better deals, but the retailer really wins, because it costs less to keep a customer than to attract a new one. Thus, a business with a core of repeaters will almost always be more successful than one that has to rely on constantly attracting new customers. Of course, every retailer has to do both, [b]ut the higher the ratio of old customers to new, the more profitable the store is likely to be. Here are some great options for customer reward programs:

Using PR to Get Your Message Across

Whether you decide to buy advertising, you can (and should) add to your exposure with a creative publicity campaign. The media is always looking for newsworthy story or photo opportunities. You can often get free exposure by providing products for contests sponsored by the media. Don’t limit your thinking about media to only dominant papers and TV stations in your market. By all means, include alternative weekly newspapers; cable television; ethnic and foreign-language media; local magazines; high school and college newspapers; free publications; union publications; tourist publications; and literature from all kinds of business, civic, religious and nonprofit organizations. Each has some readership, and, not infrequently, the relatively small number of people who read these local media do so with intensity and are strongly influenced by them—[a]nd even a few new customers are important to your business, [s]o go after every medium, however small.

If you have the budget, you can hire a public relations agency; [h]owever, unless you can afford to handle what is usually a pretty hefty fee, you will probably do better handling the publicity yourself. You may develop an internship program with a local college and get a public relations student to help out, but let’s assume you need to do everything on your own. Here are some effective, simple ideas for getting local media coverage:

Parting Words

Marketing is vital for your survival and growth. Fortunately, there are almost as many ways to market your store as there are customers to frequent it. I hope that this sampling of ideas both assists you in keeping your store crowded and inspires you to develop and implement even more successful ideas of your own.

As you grow in experience, you will grow in creativity. As you learn ever more about your customer base, you will come up with more personalized, powerful and exciting ways to market your store.

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