Marketing Strategy | Welcome to FGmarket Buzz

Who Are The Millennials?

May 8, 2012 by Kelly Curtis Leave a Comment

As a store owner, you are always keeping up with the latest news and what’s going on within the economy. This is important stuff for you to know. You want to understand your customers and their buying habits. So, one thing you may have noticed is a new target market called the millennials. Who are they, what do they buy and how can you reach out to them are all things you want to know. FGmarket has the latest information and breakdown on the millennials that may help you reach out to them.

Who are the millennials? They are also known as generation y and are 56 million strong, according to the Gifts and Decorative Accessories March/April issue. This target market is composed of individuals that were born between 1981 and 2000, the age that is coming into the new millennium and considered the second largest group, behind the baby boomers. Baby boomers have long been the main focus, however, it’s now shifting towards the millennials. Their age group is in the range of 18-30, more educated, some have moved back home with their parents to help pay down their student debt, a generation that may is more likely to put off marriage and children and are focused on their careers, networking and personal fulfilment first.

Why target this consumer group? This group has high expectations in life and are out spending. They are more involved in buying decisions. It is found that they have great power to launch and help sustain brands. They definitely have an input in the economy.

How do you reach the millennials? So, how do you begin to reach and target this consumer group? This group is known for multi-tasking, having short attention spans, constant need for stimulation and technology savy. They definitely are social media friendly, keen on online shopping, constantly connected to the Internet and cell phones. Therefore, technology is key in reaching them. Also, since they like to be stimulated, you need something captivating in your store, the simple store sign isn’t going to cut it with this group. You definitely need to focus your marketing strategy on social media like Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Pinterest and YouTube. You need to gain their attention. This group also relies on referrals from their friends, they tend to shop where their friends shop and what’s on trend. Incorporate unique features in Continue reading “Who Are The Millennials?” »

Marketing Tip Of The Week – Analyzing Your First Quarter

April 27, 2012 by Kelly Curtis Leave a Comment

The first quarter is behind us. Have you sat down to analyze how your business did? If not, now is the time to do it. You must review everything in order to know what’s working for you and what’s not. This is important to know. So, this week’s FGmarket has a few tips on what to analyze and what to do with the results. You may find out everything is working out great or you need to change a few strategies within your business.

First off, how did it do? Have you closed your books and are you ready to start analyzing the numbers? Start with your sales. Break it down into ways that are useful for you and your decisions like geography, product line, etc. You need to review your sales and see what worked and what didn’t work. Maybe you had a certain product line that you did well with, you may want to consider expanding that line. However, you also may have products that didn’t do so well, so you may want to evaluate and see if they have the right fit in your store.

Next up, take a look at your gross margin. Did you make any revenue after all your costs? If yes, then you are doing something right. However, if you took a dip in numbers, start taking a look at your business strategy and see where you can cut back and what’s working and what’s not.

Also, don’t forget to take a look at product line profitability, job level profitability, inventory and cash flow. For your product & job level profitability, you should understand and know the profits for each service or product you offer. Do you know how often you are stocked with a certain product? It’s great to know what your best sellers are and what’s not. This way, you find out what products you need to buy more of and what you don’t have to focus much on. You definitely don’t want to have a years worth of supply of an item that isn’t one of your top sellers. Another important part to look at is your cash flow.

So, did you meet the goals that you set for yourself? If you did, that’s wonderful. You have a great strategy in place, however, don’t forget to always re-evaluate to make it better. However, if you were unable to reach your goals, there could be a lot of factors on why you did not. Start analyzing and Continue reading “Marketing Tip Of The Week – Analyzing Your First Quarter” »

In The News – Do You Feature A Daily Deal?

April 24, 2012 by Kelly Curtis Leave a Comment

Within marketing, strategies and tactics are always changing. New and innovative ways are always being developed. Do you keep up with these changes and see how you can implement them into your store? Do you think they will even work? These are all things to consider before you even start to plan out a strategy. The latest craze to hit markets is the daily deal. Have you thought about incorporating this into your store, will it even work? FGmarket has a few tips on the daily deal that may or may not work in your store.

Gifts and decorative accessories recently did an article on the daily deal in their March/April 2012 issue, which brought up some interesting points. Here are a few things to consider before implementing it into your store.

New & Seasoned Businesses – Daily deals are great for new businesses. This definitely helps get your name out there and makes customers want to check it out, especially if they are receiving some sort of discount from your store. According to their recent article & ForeSee, 55% of daily deal purchasers were new or infrequent customers of the business and more than 90% of the shoppers reported that they had already make a repeat transaction and 12% of customers had never heard of the business before seeing the deal. So, this is definitely great for newer businesses. However, if you’re a seasoned store and notice that your traffic is somewhat lacking, this can get you noticed again. This can help increase traffic and get your store’s name noticed.

Daily Deal Sites – Where do you even begin and who do you even use for your daily deal? Of course, there is Groupon & Living Social. The best thing is to research and see what consumers in your are use more. The best way to see what they are using is to simply ask. You can do this through your social media page or for customers who walk into your store.

Challenges You May Face – Like everything else, there may be challenges you face when using the daily deal. Consumers are going to see this deal. This will be their first impression of you, for those consumers who have not yet heard of your store. Therefore, you want to work with a site that is good for you and your customers. The challenge is seeing if it will even work, finding a site that will do your business justice and getting your Continue reading “In The News – Do You Feature A Daily Deal?” »

Generating New Content

April 17, 2012 by Kelly Curtis Leave a Comment

Within your business, you are constantly thinking of new ideas to promote your business. Your content should always stay fresh and exciting. Consumers can get tired of seeing the same stuff over and over again. Therefore, always thinking of new content is a must. However, how do you constantly try to think of new ideas? FGmarket has a few tips that can help you generate new content.

Gather Ideas – One of the easiest and best ways to find new content is to gather ideas from blogs, magazines, books, television or even other stores. You may see things that pop out to you at other stores or in magazines. So, take that concept and see how you can apply that to your store. Think about how your customers will react to that certain form of advertising if you incorporate it into your store.
Listen To Your Customers – Listen to what your customers are wanting. They may come into your store and discuss other stores, different products that they are in search of or struggles they are having within different areas. If you see a trend and notice that a few of your customers are discussing the same topics, and consider offering certain advertisement or products that can be a possible solution for them.
Review Questions & Comments – Your customers might ask you questions or make comments about certain products or even within your marketing strategy. Take note of those and consider incorporating these products or strategies into your store. Your customers are who you’re trying to reach out to, therefore, taking note of their comments and questions is truly helpful.
Watch Out For Trends & Reports – Of course, monitor what the latest trends and reports are within your area of business. Keep a close watch on the latest products trends and business reports. You can determine if the latest trends are right for your store. Will they suit your demographic and do you have the resources?
Brainstorm – Take an hour or even just 30 minutes out of your busy week and sit down and just brainstorm. You know what goes on in your store, you take notice of every little detail that is going on. Therefore, think of all these things that you see that happen in your store and think of ways you can improve on them.

When it comes to generating new content or products for your store, always be on the lookout for new and exciting inspiration. Take into consideration how it can apply to your store and then start working out a strategy on implementing it. Generating new content is simple, just look for inspiration all around you.

Stand Out Art From Iron Art Glass Designs
Having stand out products in your store can definitely get you noticed. Consumers like finding unique items that they can display in their homes that they can’t find just anywhere. They like being unique and displaying their own personal style. This carries throughout the entire home and into their outdoor living space. Read More About Iron Art Glass Designs

Fast Dogs – Made To Last
Offering products for every member of the family is a wonderful idea. It makes shopping in your store a family affair. Your store can be their one stop shop for everyone. Yes, this includes adults, children and you may even want to include items for the family pet. Yes, even pets need items and love too. When it comes to finding great products for pets, choose Fast Dogs. Read More About Fast Dogs

Chris Brogan – Every event is a chance to make an opportunity happen. The trick, however, is that we have to be diligent and open to such opportunities, and we have to have a sense of what we’d like to see happen.

Full Sail University – Social networks have become the primary source of new content for many professionals trying to stay current in their field or to discover the latest insights. This is especially true for Internet Marketing professionals: we must constantly seek new opportunities for improvement while maintaining a thorough understanding of current tools.

Brial Solis – Social Media forces us to find comfort outside of our comfort zones by listening, learning, and collaborating with peers, prospects and influencers engage today. As such, with social media comes great opportunity for those ready to embrace change from the inside out.

Complete Your Look With The Man Can LLC It’s important to feature great products in your store. You focus on finding quality items, yet products that are on trend. Your customers look to you to stay on top of the latest trends. When they walk into your store, they want to find items that feature style and quality. Read More About The Man Can LLC	Remember Your Loved Ones With Kathy Bernu Design Featuring beautiful products in your store get customers into your store. It also makes them come back for more. With so much variety and so many unique things, what do you feature? You can have jewelry, home accents, housewares, garden & patio products and even clothing. Read More About Kathy Bernu Design
Wake Up With AromaRidge What’s the way to your customer’s hearts and loyalty? Of course, you want to feature wonderful products in your store. However, what product lines do you feature in your store? A great place to start is with gourmet food. Read More About AromaRidge	Cotton Adds A Beautiful Accent To Any Floral Arrangement Whatever type of store you may be, you are always on the lookout for unique items to feature. Keeping your customers engaged in your store comes with great customer service, as well as products. Both of these are truly essential. Read More About Floral Cotton
Texas Basket Co. – Beautiful Baskets With So Many Uses Finding products for your store is an everyday task. You want to find wonderful products that will make a statement and be useful for many different things. One great product to look at is basket lines. Read More About Texas Basket Co.	Add A Smile To Your Customers With Sally Williams Fine Foods LLC Finding the right products to feature in your store is a hard task. With so many items to choose from, where do you even start to begin? Why not begin with something that you know your customers are going to enjoy?Read More About Sally Williams Fine Foods LLC
Get Colorful With Top Trenz Having stand out items in your store is always a plus. Along with having stand out items, you also need to satisfy all ages in your store. They may not be your target market, but you want to please everyone within one product line or so.Read More About Top Trenz	Keep Cool With Hot Girls Pearls Do you research the vendors that you are going to feature in your store? Is it important to find wholesale vendors that offer great, quality pieces that your customers will enjoy? Read More About Hot Girls Pearls

Your Store And The Community
When it comes to your store, you think about great products and pleasing your customers. However, along comes customer service. There are many forms of customer service and one way is getting involved with your community. The community that you work in is the one who supports your store. Therefore, it’s nice to think of them as well. The main way is to get involved and show them how much you love and appreciate the community you work in. Read More About Your Store And The Community

American Flag

Get Creative With The Red, White & Blue
Staying on top of the trends is a must. Also, you want to plan for the holidays and stay on top of the trends for them as well. So, do you plan out the holidays and what type of products that you would like to offer? Do you know what your customers may like or what they may not like? What holiday is coming up next? Are you ready for Fourth Of July? Read More About Getting Creative With The Red, White & Blue

Spring Cleaning For Your Store

March 20, 2012 by Kelly Curtis Leave a Comment

When planning for a new year, you look at new products and business strategies to implement into your store. Since it’s a few months into the year, now is the time to see what products and strategies are working. Are the new products you’ve lined your shelves with not selling as quickly as you hoped or is the new marketing strategy not working out? This not only goes for strategies and products, but just generally getting rid of clutter, old files or the dust off the shelves. So, it’s time to get in the mood for spring cleaning.

Your Store’s Environment – Not only does this apply to your store’s strategies, but just cleaning your store in general. Get rid of old files that you have piling up in the back or organize them by date. Old files can include business files and old client files, however, remember to shred any papers with personal or confidential information on it. Also, if you have clutter just lying around your office, shelves or front desk, make sure and organize them. Having your store organized makes for a more efficient business.

Out With The Old, In With The New – Focus on your relationships. Are there relationships out there that you are no longer active with or it’s no longer serving you in a positive way? Take a look at business, vendors, associates and even your client relationships. Ask yourself if both of you are benefiting from each other? If not, move on. It will benefit both of you.

Difficult Situations – Do you have clients that owe on their accounts or maybe you and your business partner didn’t see eye to eye on a situation? Clear the air and take care of everything. This is a great way to start with a clean slate.

Take Care Of Old Habits – It’s hard to break old habits. There are a variety of habits that you may maintain. So, whatever it is, if this habit is hampering your business or slowing down your work day, now is the time to try to break them. Make it known to your employees that you are wanting to break this habit, who knows, they may even have picked it up. By letting everyone know what you are trying to break, everyone can work together to help. It can definitely be a team effort.

Woman On A Whim – Great Products With A Unique Twist
What do you look for when buying products? Do you look for unique items that will set your store apart from your competitors? Also, do you think about what your customers will like to see in your store? Both of these are important factors when buying products for your store. Read More About Woman On A Whim

Create Beautiful Outdoor Spaces With Clear Pond
Spring is just around the corner, so it’s time to start looking for wonderful outdoor products that will be a hit with your customers. Now is the time when consumers are looking to get outdoors and work on their yards. Of course, you want to offer them great outdoor products like, plants, flowers, decorative accents, outdoor furniture and accessories & supplies that will make their outdoors a great place to be. Read More About Clear Pond

Go “Green” With Your Home With Ecoaccents
Offering your customers the best products that you can find is what keeps your customers coming back into your store. It’s important that you find quality products that have style in everything that makes your store stand out. This goes for gourmet food, gifts, home textiles and home accents, just everything that you feature in your store. Read More About Ecoaccents

Seth Godin – If you need to find out how your audience is receiving your work, it’s worth considering how you’ve structured the interactions around criticism. Sometimes a customer has a one-off problem, a situation that is unique and a concern that has to be extinguished on the spot. More often, though, that feedback you’re getting represents the way a hundred or a thousand other customers are also judging you.

Chris Brogan – Remember that praise and criticism are the same: other people’s thoughts that shouldn’t sway your overall mission. (We tend to accept praise but loathe criticism. Learn to loathe it equally.)

Angela Maiers – You have to get over the fear or criticism and ridicule in order to take a stand. That takes work, it takes courage.

Spledipity – One Great Product With A Variety Of Uses Purchasing products for your store is apart of your everyday routine. You are always on the lookout for new and exciting trends, but for who? You focus on adults, however, do you focus on great items for children and babies?Read More About Splendipity	Package It Right With S. Posner Sons Inc. What type of products do you feature in your store? Do you offer wonderful home accents, floral supplies, accessories or great gift items? No matter what you offer, you need great packaging to go along with your amazing products you feature in your store.Read More About S. Posner Sons Inc.
Complete Your Look With Jennifer Massey Designs What is your target market for your store? Do you have a variety of women and girls of all ages that shop in your store? What type of products can you offer in your store that will suit all of their personalities and styles? Read More About Jennifer Massey Designs	Shine Brightly With Lite Source Inc. When it comes to products, you focus on making them eye-catching, visible and appealing. How do you achieve this? Yes, you create attractive displays, however, isn’t lighting essential as well? This applies to your customer’s homes as well.Read More About Lite Source Inc.
Start Reading With Ideals Publications How big is your children’s line in your store? Do you carry a lot of great products that children can enjoy? If not, you should. There are great items out there that serve as educational items, playtime toys, supplies & accessories and gift items.Read More About Ideals Publications	Let Your Fashion Accessories Make A Statement Products that make a statement are always an essential in your store. Why? Customers love walking into your store knowing that they can find the latest trends and not find these products anywhere but your store.Read More About Relative Jewelry
Always Receive Beautiful Botanicals From Sourcing Northwest When choosing your products for your store, what do you look for in your products? You want products that are made of quality and stand out in your store. This goes for each and every one of your product lines.Read More About Sourcing Northwest	Multi-Functional Vase From FlowerPower Vase When it comes to any type of store, you want stand out products on your shelves. Every shop wants wonderful products in their store so they can keep their customers coming in and always attracting new ones. Read More About FlowerPower Vase

Ever Changing Fashion Trends
With every season, comes new trends. This goes for every category. Consumers taste changes, patterns evolve, colors change and technology is ever revolving. Something that really sticks out in everyone’s mind when it comes to change is fashion. You’ll find that fashion changes every season and with this year’s New York Fashion Week coming to a close, now is the time to start looking at what items to feature in your store during this fall. Read More About Fashion Trends

Sweeten Up Your Store
When you think of your products, what’s one type of line that is surely to win over all your customers? There’s one line in particular that can definitely win your customers over through their stomach. Of course, featuring gourmet food in your store is always a wonderful idea. It serves many purposes in your store. Whether your customers are in search of a unique gift item or would like to indulge themselves, gourmet food and candies are always the way to go. Read More About Gourmet Food

Marketing Tip Of The Week – Finding Business Ideas

February 17, 2012 by Kelly Curtis Leave a Comment

When it comes to your business, you’re always on the lookout for new and fresh ideas. Of course, you want to stick with the basics and foundations, yet you need to switch it up a bit. This helps attract more customers and give your current customers something fresh and new. However, how do you find new ideas? Are you always in search of them, yet not exactly where to find them at? This week’s marketing tip from FGmarket will focus on finding great business ideas for your store.

News – Basically, when you’re on the hunt for new ideas, it’s going to be right in front of your face. You can always find great ideas on the news. They are always talking about new and innovative products and what other businesses are doing within the job market.

Competitors – You always need to keep a watchful eye out on your competitors. It’s important you stay in the loop for what’s going on with them. Of course, you don’t want to copy their exact moves. However, you may see an idea that they are doing and you can put your own little twist on it to make it better for your store.

Websites – Of course, searching the web is a great source for information. There are a lot of different marketing bloggers out there and websites, like Continue reading “Marketing Tip Of The Week – Finding Business Ideas” »

Marketing Tip Of The Week – Communication

February 10, 2012 by Kelly Curtis Leave a Comment

When it comes to marketing, running a business and interacting with your customers all have communication in common. Communication is an important part of your everyday life and getting across your message. It is extremely important in everything you do. So, are you being effective and getting across the message that you are wanting your customers to get? This week’s marketing tip from FGmarket focuses on a few tips on great communication.

Trust – Establishing a trusting relationship is always the beginning of a beautiful relationship. It’s important that you trust one another and very important that your customers always trust you.

Clear & Concise – When it comes to speaking, make sure everyone understands you. If you speak too low or in a jumbled up mess, consumers won’t want to buy from you. Try practice speaking in the mirror or even try it out on someone you’re close with. You need to feel comfortable when speaking with your customers, which is a great way to earn their trust.

What Are Your Problems? – It’s always important to identify your problems. How will you ever work on your problems and improve if you don’t know your weaknesses? Improving on them will only make you a better communicator with your potential customers.

Tone & Body Language – How you talk and what you do with your body all have an impact on communication. You may sound rude or impatient due to the tone of your voice. Also, you may look like you don’t care if you have your arms crossed. Think of these things when you are communicating with your customers and engage them.

Assumptions – Assumptions get you no where. Never assume anything! Your customers will be aggravated at the fact that you assumed that they wanted to buy something or they thought a certain way about a product. How do you like it when someone assumes something wrong about you?

Business Conversations – There is a different between how you talk with a friend and how you talk with consumers. So, learn how to talk more Continue reading “Marketing Tip Of The Week – Communication” »

The Buzz On Twitter

December 31, 2011 by Kelly Curtis Leave a Comment

Staying on top of all the latest trends for your store is a must. Not only do you have to stand on top of product trends, but also know what’s going out in the world. This means, staying on top of what marketers are saying about what’s going on in marketing. This week, FGmarket has pulled the top quotes on what these bloggers had to say about Twitter.

This social media platform is a great tool to reach your customers, yet are you working it properly and representing your store properly? These are all great things to think about and these quotes make you think about all these things.

The challenge of Twitter and any of the social networks isn’t in figuring out how to gain bigger numbers than the other guy. The challenge is to get more active and clicking numbers, the kind of people who take the plunge when you mention something is happening. The kind of people who respond when you ask questions, and who hopefully you can respond to, from time to time, as well. – Chris Bogan

The connections that employees make through their personal social media accounts with others–colleagues, vendors, suppliers and customers–through LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook will forever become public. – Ilana Rabinowitz

Twitter itself is not a strategy. You should be thinking in terms of how it integrates with the rest of your communications and marketing strategies and how it will help you attain your business goals. – Scott Monty

What do you think of these quotes on Twitter? Are you using Twitter to your full advantage and reaching out to potential clients? Do you have a proper marketing strategy or employee guide instilled in your everyday routine? Designing a proper routine for your social media platforms is a must. Knowing the best strategy and routine will help you develop great followers.

Marketing Tip Of The Week – Increase Sales Now!

December 23, 2011 by Kelly Curtis Leave a Comment

Are you doing everything you can to increase your sales throughout your daily work routine? Increasing the sales of your business is a concept you think about daily. You want to improve and of course turn a profit. So, are you using your day properly? Are you doing the right things to help increase sales? Well, FGmarket’s marketing tip this week will focus on a few simple steps that will help you increase sales now.

Cutting Back – In times of economic turmoil, you may start thinking about what to cut back. However, don’t let marketing cross your mind. Some think that cutting back their marketing budget will help. You should think about increasing your marketing, since other shops may cut theirs back. It will definitely get you noticed. If you’re concerned about the money, there are some easy ways to market that are budget-friendly. For example, start-up an email campaign, take up social media or host an open house at your store.

Everyday Routine – Yes, everyone has a daily routine that they do when they get into the store. Make it a point to incorporate marketing into your everyday routine. It could be as simple as posting on your Facebook page, write a blog post or contact customers who haven’t been in the store in a while.

Balancing – Of course, you can’t stick to the same routine everyday. Business picks up and you start slacking off on marketing, but when it’s slow you market like crazy. Keep it consistent. Don’t slack off and then pick up and hit your customers over the head with marketing. Keep it consistent, that’s Continue reading “Marketing Tip Of The Week – Increase Sales Now!” »

Marketing Tip of the Week – Types of Videos

December 16, 2011 by Kelly Curtis Leave a Comment

When marketing your store, it’s best to think of great ways to reach your target market. Not every market is approached the same way, therefore, you always need to think of the best possible way to target your potential and current customers. One way that you may be able to reach customers is with videos. However, there isn’t just one type of video. There are multiple ways to use videos when marketing. So, which one do you choose?

Intro – This video is just what it sounds like, it’s an introduction to your company. It’s best when placed on your website or even if you’re having it featured on the news. All you do is say something short and sweet about your company and capture what your shop looks like. Be personable and think of a few sentences that captures your store’s mission, statements and most importantly, what you have to offer customers.

Product Demo – If your store has been around for a while, you might want to think about offering up production demonstrations for customers. This is a great way to get customers in to try out a product that you firmly believe in. You can even do a live recording of the product demonstration and turn it into an open house for your customers.

Spotlight – Similar to an introduction video, however, you focus on everything your store has to offer. Talk about your store’s accomplishments or feature an employee of the month video. Your customers will be more familiar with your store and see that you have a lot to offer them.

Video Blogs – Video blogs are great for your customers. You can honestly talk about anything that you would like related to your store and what it has to offer. This definitely lets your customers get to know you on a more personal level. It gives your store some personality and becomes more relatable. Incorporate these videos into your website or your blog. Don’t forget to place your website link on business cards and anywhere else your store’s name may be.

Interviews – If you have star customers, ask them to do a little interview for you. It means a lot whenever potential customers hear good things about your store from other people. Sure, you’re going to say your store is amazing. However, other people have no obligation to say that about your store. Ask your repeat customers to give video Continue reading “Marketing Tip of the Week – Types of Videos” »

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