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Marketing Tip Of The Week: Stimulating Sales

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This week’s marketing tip is all about focusing on sales. The new year is upon us, therefore we need to focus on reinventing ourselves. Take the time to sit down and focus on what works and what didn’t. Your customers want to see something new and refreshing for the new year. It never hurts to create new marketing strategies for your company. It could help energize those sales!

Reevaluate Your Customer

Take the time to reevaluate your customer. Are they the same demographics? Do they still have the same wants and needs? So sit down and ask yourself these questions. Who are they? What do they buy? Why do they buy from me?

All great questions that you need to find out about your customers. Ask your customers that come in your store, through social media or maybe a poll. Figuring out these answers for your store will help you set new and improved goals.

New & Exciting Promotions

Marketing Tip Of The Week
Offering new promotions throughout the year can help you bring in new customers. It can also help bring in long time customers that haven’t been in for awhile. Offer special coupons to your customers. You can place them in newspapers, online or even on your social media page. Whether you are offering them 10% discount or a 50% discount, they are still saving and would want to use them. Those promotions spark a curiosity in your customers to come find out what products you have in your store. They might just see something that they want.

Keep It Fresh

Don’t stick to the same old thing. Keep things fresh and new. You and your employees should always be brainstorming of new ideas that you want to try to bring in customers. Create an idea board. All of you can post your ideas here so you remember them, plus it gives you a visual of this everyday. Try out these ideas on long-term customers and see what they think. They’ll tell you the honest truth. People get tired of the same things, so freshen it up a bit. Whether it be a new business logo, marketing strategy or a new form of advertising. A new idea that will help stimulate sales for sure!

Clean Up The Store

Of course, clean your store. Get rid of products that you don’t feel are bringing added value to your store. Focus on getting you and your employees on the same page. Have weekly or monthly meetings where you can talk about the goals of the company and what you’d like to see Continue reading “Marketing Tip Of The Week: Stimulating Sales” »

Marketing Tip Of The Week: Loyalty

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With the new year approaching, you are looking at the past trying to figure out what marketing strategies worked and what didn’t. You may want to try to implement new marketing approaches for the new year to build better customer relationships and sales. The beginning of the year is a great time to start new strategies, that way you can track them throughout the year. You may see better relationships or an increase or decrease in sales. Whatever you are looking into, the new year is a great time to start it.

So here’s one marketing tip that you may want to implement into your store. A loyalty program. This program can help increase customer loyalty and promote purchases. Which can in return, help increase sales. So start the new year off right with a unique customer loyalty program.

When starting up a customer loyalty program, you can either start big or small. You can be as creative or simplistic as you like with the program. Allocate your budget accordingly and go from there. The great thing about a loyalty program is that you can always build onto it. Start small and work your way up.

Marketing Tip Of The Week
Begin with a rewards punch card, buy 5 items, get the 6th item free. Create added benefits like letting them in on the new sale that will begin in a week. Start a loyalty card, if they spend $200 or 200 points, they’ll receive a 50% discount off their next purchase.

Start A Dependable Marketing Plan: Sit down and figure out what works best for you and your customers. Consider timing, value, brand, value, attractiveness, rewards and how you are going to market it. Look for inspiration elsewhere. Create new spins on loyalty programs that already exist. Do you have a business that comes to mind, like a department store or locally owned store? What about your competition? Go to other stores, check out what they have to offer. You must understand your competition so while you’re there, see if they have a rewards program.

Once you’ve understood all the in and outs of your loyalty program, create a schedule. Determine when you would like to have it implemented and around when you would like to start seeing some rewards from the program. Figuring out a schedule and keeping to it will help you get the plan in place and set up a time table on when you should start seeing some gains from it. Plus, it keeps you organized and on top of things.

Create A Loyalty Based Mind Set: Implement the customer loyalty program into your store starting with your employees. Let them understand all the rewards and benefits that it provides your customers. Your employees, including you, need to completely understand and be knowledgeable on the loyalty program. Whether it be a simple punch card or an actual store credit care that offers reward points.

Whatever you decide, understand it completely! When telling your customers about your reward program, you want them to actually believe that it is truly beneficial towards them. They will love the idea that you created this program just for them. Customers will continue to use it, share it with friends and most importantly, come into your store time and time again.

Implement The Loyalty Program: Make sure you have EVERYTHING you need in place before you implement your loyalty program to your customers. You don’t want any mishaps or misunderstandings along the way, especially in the beginning. Sit down and write out everything you might possibly need in order to have a smooth system running. Do test runs on employees. Make sure it is extremely efficient to have a great launch for your loyalty program.

Market, Market, Market: So you’ve got your loyalty program in place, now it’s time to market. Get this new and exciting program out there for everyone to see and use. Send out emails to your mailing list, mailing cards, social media and in-store recommendations. Think about doing an open house for your customers, to show off your new products within the new year, and introduce it to them then. It will be a great launching Continue reading “Marketing Tip Of The Week: Loyalty” »

Marketing Tip Of The Week: Develop A Marketing Routine

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Have you ever gotten tired of the same old routine? Do you find yourself starting something new only to fall out on that routine within months? Don’t let that happen with your marketing routine! We all know it can get a little bit old at times,  but what if you fall out of your marketing routine completely? You’ll lose customers and sales. Who wants that to happen? No one. Therefore, this weeks marketing tip is all about developing a daily routine that you’ll be able to stick with.

Marketing Tip Of The Week
First off, what form of marketing strategies are you using? Write down all forms of marketing forms that you have worked into your business. How often do you use it? Have you seen an increase in sales or customers since you started using it?

These are all questions you need to ask yourself in order to determine whether it is an important factor in your daily routine. Once you have figured this out, you can sit down and develop your daily marketing routine.

First off, if you haven’t developed a social media tool into your marketing strategy; you must. For now, lets say you are using Facebook. When you first get into your store and you’ve done all the opening procedures check Facebook. Update your page and let your customers know what type of promotions you have going on in your store for that day or week.

Get involved, ask customers questions. For example, ask what they would like to see in their store or what’s their favorite item. You more than likely will get questions on your page from customers who want information on a product. If you don’t, you have a risk of losing that customer. They’ll just find somewhere else to purchase that item. Updating and keeping in contact with your customers is absolutely crucial.

Are you interacting with your customers through blogs? Well, keep that up-to-date too. If you have dedicated readers, they want to see something. If you’ve started it, you must finish it. Keep them informed on all the new products and promotions. Keep it interesting. Just don’t neglect it. An up date twice a week will do if not three times. Just get in a routine so that your customers know when to expect your new post.

Do you send out a weekly email? Do it! Whatever you do to inform your customers, just do it in a regular routine. Therefore, your customers will be expecting it and it keeps them looking forward to it.

Next, keep up-to-date on all your products and new trends. Staying ahead of the competition is a must. Offering your customers something unique and the latest trends will have your store become the go-to store for all their needs. Study your products so you will know the added benefits or if there are any drawbacks. Therefore, you can market your products better and design new and improved print ads.

So your weekly marketing routine should look like this:

  • Stay knowledgeable on ALL your products
  • Send out your daily/weekly email or blog post
  • Check Facebook or other form of social media page daily
  • Develop new and up-to-date print ads – billboards, newspaper ads

These are honestly just a fraction of your marketing strategy. The key idea here is to stay current on your marketing routine. Develop a routine Continue reading “Marketing Tip Of The Week: Develop A Marketing Routine” »

Marketing Tip Of The Week: Exceeding Your Competition

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Last weeks marketing strategy we discussed a few tips on how to exceed your competition. Well this week I am going to continue that discussion with a few more tips to wrap it up. Hopefully you have found these useful and will start implementing them in your shop. We all know being ahead of the competition is a must, and something that stores strive for everyday. Here are a 4 more marketing tips that you can use to start exceeding your competition, increasing sales and helping your store out in the long run.

Appealing To Emotions

Marketing Tip Of The Week
Emotions are a part of all your customers. They are an important part of them. Therefore, selling to your customer’s emotions is a huge selling point. If you sell the benefits of the product towards their emotions, more than likely they will purchase it. They now have an emotional connection to the product.

If you know your customers well enough, you know them. Therefore, you can take that opportunity and truly sell them one of your wholesale products that you know will benefit them in their life. An added emotional benefit is just an added bonus and your customers will have a hard time saying no to it.

Benefits For Your Customers

When customers purchase from your store, do they receive any benefits for that? Why should they buy from your store? You may have some unique products, but more than likely you carry the same products as other stores too. So really, why should they buy from you?

Provide your customers with a benefit just for them from your store. Some examples are they’ll receive quick delivery service under a certain time or you’ll throw in free gift wrapping. Just provide something that they’ll receive from you, and only you to make them want to choose you.

Decrease Risk

You absolutely DO carry quality products in your store, but things happen. Whether there is a mishap or malfunction in your product, these things happen. And there’s nothing you can do about it either! Some stores provide a no return policy or even even sell at higher prices. What customer wants to take that risk? Therefore, provide your customers with a better risk free policy.

Provide a great return policy, price match, free trials or have customer testimonials in your store. Anything to let your customers know that you care about them and appreciate their business. Decreasing any risk that your customers might receive from you, even if it’s a small percentage; decrease it.

Superb Customer Service

One that truly stands out in a store is customer service. Honestly, you may carry the type of products they like. However, if there was no customer service, customers will remember that. You must always provide customers with the type of service they deserve and are looking for. They want to receive knowledge and friendliness from you.

You must always commit yourself and your employees on being on their A game within customer service. As long as you are a part of a store Continue reading “Marketing Tip Of The Week: Exceeding Your Competition” »

Marketing Tip Of The Week: Exceeding Your Competition!

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Yes, you have great products, amazing customer service and brands that bring your customers satisfaction, but is that enough? Sure these things are a great combination of gaining success, but you also need to learn how to stay ahead of your competition. Strategies against your competition will help you in the long run, therefore you will be able to long exceed your competition. Let your store blow your competition away with these 4 helpful marketing tips to get you started to a long and successful business.

Knowing Your Competition

Marketing Tip Of The Week
First off, you need to completely understand your competition is, inside and out. Study them, get out and review all aspects of their marketing strategy. What works for them, what is their unique marketing niche and does anything not work for them? These are all questions you need to be asking yourself when you are analyzing your competition.

What can you do to better your marketing strategy?  Understanding your competition thoroughly is the key starting component. You must know all the ins and outs of their business strategy to understand how to set yourself apart from them. Knowing your competition is a great way to start blowing them away.

Why Do Your Customers Choose You?

Why do customers contact you? Why do they choose you? This is an important question to ask yourself and research more. It may be that your customer service is excellent, you offer all the products they are looking for or it could be something you aren’t even aware of.

Ask your customers what brought them in. Once you’ve found that out, stick with it. Maybe even enhance that “wow” factor of why your customers come in. Knowing and understanding why your customers choose you will help you provide even better service to them.

Create An Added Value

Giving your customers an excellent product is a start, but blow them away with an added value they won’t be expecting. One example is if they’re a first time customer, offer them an extra discount. Maybe they’re a long time buyer and on their 10th purchase, offer them another discount. Whatever you choose, sales will increase and the power of word-of-mouth will be on your side.

Consumers love a good discount, especially if you acknowledge their loyalty to you. Creating an added value will create a great word-of-mouth that will help get new and old customers through your door and exceed your competition.

Determine Your Message

Determine what message you want to get through to your customers. You need an attention grabber headline, benefits of your wholesale product, as well as emotional benefits, added value, photo with a unique caption and a call to action to the customers. Don’t be afraid to test it on a test market or a few of your loyal customers who will tell you the honest truth.

The headline draws the customer in, the benefits tell what they will receive from the product, especially emotional benefits and the call to action will bring them in. Your message is what is going to bring customers into your store, therefore, you need a unique marketing niche that will set Continue reading “Marketing Tip Of The Week: Exceeding Your Competition!” »

Marketing Tip Of The Week: Get Your Name Out There!

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You have great products, yet no one is in your store. What’s the problem? You need to effectively advertise for your company and get your amazing name out there for people to see! You may be doing some sort of advertising, but are you marketing towards the right target audience? Are you effectively reaching them? Keeping this marketing tip in mind will help your company gain awareness and credibility, which is sure to help you succeed.

Marketing Tip Of The Week
Whether you are newly starting up or trying to grow your business, the key to getting your name out there is effective advertising. Combining old and new marketing strategies will definitely get your name out there and reach everyone across the board.

Combining both of these marketing strategies together will help you achieve productivity, sales and most importantly getting YOUR name out there.

Through an effective marketing strategy and integrating strategies together, you will build brand awareness, drive sales, gain name recognition and build your credibility.

Key Strategy

The key to effectively reach customer is by using an integrated marketing strategy. This strategy consists of all aspects of communication, including advertising, sales promotion, public marketing and direct relations. All working together to create a strong marketing force. By using this strategy, you are not only getting your name out there through all channels, but are gaining benefits too.

  • You are using all channels to get your name out – so you are reaching all target markets
  • Help increase sales for your business
  • You will be able to analyze which channel will work best for you so you can allocate your resources properly

Be Recognizable

These are the most important benefits that you’ll receive from advertising. Plus, by integrating all of your marketing strategies, you will properly get your name out there to everyone and your unique wholesale products. The key here is to create a cohesive advertising strategy.

You don’t want a different logo or slogan for each form of advertising, instead create a cohesiveness that will make your name recognizable everywhere. You want your current and future customers to be able to recognize you in all forms of advertisement and remember your name.

Being able to be recognized is a priority for you. People become curious and will absolutely have to check out your store from all the unique Continue reading “Marketing Tip Of The Week: Get Your Name Out There!” »

Marketing Tip Of The Week: The Power Of Add-On Sales!

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All store owners want to increase sales and have their customers coming back for more. We are always looking for new and improved ideas, but why not revert back to some of the marketing tip basics we may be forgetting. Some store owners may not remember the importance of an add-on sale. However, they are truly important in increasing sales, right? Even if it’s just a $5 item, it’s still $5 more than the beginning.

Reverting back to the basics is always a great way to reinvent old ideas and turn them into something successful. Even a small add-on sale can do your store wonders.

Would You Like More With That?

Marketing Tip Of The Week
Think about it, if someone purchases something electronic, don’t they have to have batteries? Normally they may want something to store their electronic device in too. If you sell gifts, customers may want a greeting card or cute gift wrap too.

Most items have a companion that will go perfectly with with your customer’s purchase. The thing is, you have to ask. Don’t be afraid or nervous, all they have to do is say no.

Pay Attention!

The most important thing is that you’re aware of your surroundings and knowing your customers. Watch their movement and what they seem interested in. Of course, don’t be obvious. You can pay attention without being noticed and without scaring your customers. However, giving attention is the key ingredient when adding on a sale.

If you have no idea what they’re buying, how are you going to add-on to their sale? You’re not! You should know your store through and through so if you know exactly what your customers are buying, you can create a great compliment to their product.

Be Knowledgeable!

So once you’ve asked your customers if they would like that add-on sale, tell them why. Why would that extra product be beneficial to them? If there’s no reasoning behind it, there’s no sense in offering it. You have to be knowledgeable about each and every one of your products to provide customers with the customer service they deserve.

Give them good reasoning on why this product will make a great compliment to the product they’re already buying. Will it help their product last longer? Is it an extra feature that will make it better? Whatever it is, there has to be reasoning behind it. In order to add that ad-on sale, you have to be knowledgeable about everything in your store.

Some people may forget about add-on sales, but don’t forget about this key marketing strategy! Even though they may be something small, it will still help your sales in the end. Every Continue reading “Marketing Tip Of The Week: The Power Of Add-On Sales!” »

Marketing Tip Of The Week: SWOT Analysis

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Alright, it’s back to basics with this one. We all remember our marketing classes (maybe), and the SWOT analysis. It represents strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. An ideal analysis when reevaluating your marketing strategy. The 2011 year is upon us and you need to determine what is the next best step for your company. You need to take a step back and learn exactly what your store needs to do to improve sales and using the SWOT analysis will help you through that process.

SWOT Analysis Basics

This strategic planning method is used when determining the goal of your business and identifying each favorable and unfavorable factor. Internal factors will be classified as strengths and weaknesses, while external factors will be considered threats and opportunities. This analysis helps match your resources and capabilities.

Marketing Tip Of The Week

Strengths: Your strengths are what you’re good at. You need to sit down and put them in writing so you focus on what are your strengths exactly. This way you have it right in front of you, instead of jumbled up in your mind, and you can start to develop your competitive advantage.

Weaknesses: Again, write out your weaknesses. That way you can see what they are exactly. As a store owner, you need to know these things so you can improve and will exist no more.

Opportunities: Take a look at products outside your normal realm. You may be surprised that there are new opportunities just waiting to happen, which in turn can help increase sales and build a better business. There may be new technologies, unique wholesale products or unfulfilled customer needs, which can help you create a long lasting business.

Threats: Of course, analyzing threats will help determine a better strategy. Knowing them will help you prepare to face them head on. This can be a change in consumer’s tastes or new substitute products to fulfill their needs. Whatever they are, you need to be prepared so you can stop them before they even begin.

Taking the time to determine these 4 things within the SWOT analysis will help you develop a better marketing plan.

So, What’s Next?

The next step is to determine the plan of action. What can you do to maintain your strengths, improve on weaknesses, take an opportunity and Continue reading “Marketing Tip Of The Week: SWOT Analysis” »

Marketing Tip Of The Week: Get Out!

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With the brand new year coming up, we should all be reevaluating our marketing strategy. Did my marketing strategy achieve what I wanted it to achieve? Did I target my customers correctly? Did I ever have any complaints? These are all questions you should be asking yourself when laying out a strategy for the new year. Of course, your marketing strategy may be working fine, but it’s always nice for a change to keep your customers on their toes and to reach new ones. So this weeks marketing tip is all about getting out and researching!

Get Out Where?
Marketing Tip Of The Week!

You’ve got to have competition somewhere, anywhere! That’s exactly where you’re going to go. Everyone has a little healthy competition in their town, whether it’s a local store or even the mall, it’s there. Remember not to focus on you, focus on consumers. They are the main goal for any store.

Be an observer for the day and focus on their actions, behaviors and even the stores actions. Observe what their store offers, whether it’s special promotions, loyalty cards, social media advertisement, store signage or coupons. Then watch the consumer’s reaction, are they interested, did they sign up, were they not interested? These are all questions that you’ll be able to answer just by observing the consumer’s expression. You can also focus on what types of products the consumers are more drawn to. All these little observations will help you determine new ideas for an improved marketing strategy.

Now What?

After you’ve made all these observations write down what you noticed. That way you have a clear view of exactly what you saw and it’s right in front of you. Think about if these changes would help you, did you observe your target market, are you willing to reach out to a new target Continue reading “Marketing Tip Of The Week: Get Out!” »

Marketing Tip Of The Week: Put Yourself In Their Shoes

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Today, the market is as competitive as its ever been and customer loyalty is on a downward slope. Consumers are focusing on what’s convenient and going straight for that. With so many choices available to them now, they can go just about anywhere and find what they need. So ask yourself, are you setting yourself apart and rolling out the star treatment for your customers?

Marketing Tip Of The Week!
With so many choices out there for your customers, you need to stop and put yourself in their shoes. As you being your own customer, are you receiving the quality service you deserve and the right products? Are you facing any economic pressures? Is this business standing out from the rest? These are all questions you need to ask yourself when stepping into their shoes. By figuring out exactly what your customers are going through and experiencing, you will be able to serve them better.

Economical Responsibility – More Bang For Their Buck!

Everyone wants to be more economically responsible, especially now. So consumers are going towards the place where they can get more for their moneys worth. Even though we tend to shy away from discounts, that may be just the thing to get them in your store. Something is better than nothing, right? Consumers want to get more with their money. They’d much rather buy 2 things rather than one at a similar price. Listen to what they say or make comments on, by doing this you can gain a greater understanding of what they actually need. Discounts may be the key ingredient in getting customers into your store and have them buying.

Standing Out In A Crowd

There is heavy competition in the market today, so customers are getting hit heavy with advertisements on why their company is better than yours. Do you differentiate yourself from the rest of the crowd? Offering your customer value is exactly what you need to be doing from now until the end. Now is the perfect time to put yourself in their shoes. Do you offer friendly customer service, are you knowledgeable and do you actually like the products you offer in your own store? Actually think if you would want to shop in your own store. If not, change your routine up. Review your marketing strategy and upgrade your strategy towards who you’re targeting.The most important thing is finding out if you’re servicing them in the right way.

This marketing tip of the week is all about customers again, but they are the most important thing to your store. Without them, you would have nothing but a store full of amazing product lines. Remember to put yourself in your customer’s shoes and see if that’s the kind of service Continue reading “Marketing Tip Of The Week: Put Yourself In Their Shoes” »