As I have been writing, most retail stores acheive 40% of their annual revenue in the holiday season. With the current economy, many stores have cut back on their marketing. That is a huge mistake! It furthers the downward spiral, since your potential customers don’t hear more about your store. It also allows others, who maintain or increase their marketing, to get a much better exposure rate.
The final week of October provides a last opportunity to start or add some marketing for the holidays. We have been working with several clients to add targeted direct marketing efforts to their marketing plans. For it to be effective, any campaign should plan for three or more mailings.
With only four weeks to the busiest shopping week, Thanksgiving week, the rush is on! Most retailers have placed their advertisments in the newspapers, bought their TV and radio time, have put their signs in the grocery carts, are having flyers distributed, and have scheduled multiple mailings. If you haven’t done this for your retail store, this week may be your last chance to get any of it done.
In order to put your marketing in motion, decide on a highly targeted sector of your customer base. Then figure out a specific message or offer to send them. Finally, find a professional to complete the project. At this late time, even if you have the skills, knowledge, and capabilities for this project on your own, chances are you don’t have the time to get it done.
Be sure to find a professional with expeirience in marketing, finding the target market, and capablities to get the work completed. Once you find a professional, be sure to take his/her advice and make decisions quickly. By trusting the professional and making quick decisions, your marketing wil bring new clients in to help you acheive a great reatail sales season!
These final tips for a great retail sales season are for those stores, and their owners, that either haven’t started their holiday marketing or want to ensure their best season ever! Using these in the next few days or weeks will help you create a profitable holiday sales season.
Once you follow these steps, see what the response is and continue. If you have the time, resources, and inventory, continue the process with other customer segments. Bringing in your current customers, along with new ones, will ensure you have a great holiday sales season!
As a follow up to the “5 Tips to Increase Holiday Sales” post, here are more details about why a retailer should invest in marketing this season.
This year may be no different from any other. As a retailer, you should want to make money. To make money, you need to sell your products. To sell your products, you need customers. To find customers, you need to market. These are the basics of any business. This year the basics still apply.
If, as a retailer, you are thinking of cutting your marketing budget, your competition already has. You could cut yours and you’d both be investing the same amount and be on equal footing. Or you could maintain your marketing budget, or even increase it, and get more exposure.
If your main direct competitor cuts its budget by 50% and you maintain yours, your exposure is now 66%, 33% more than your competitor. If you doubled your marketing investment, your exposure would grow to 80% and be four times your competitor.
So, if you could get four times the exposure of your primary competitor for only twice your previous investment, doesn’t that seem like a good deal. Oh wait, is it starting to sound too good to be true? Well, this assumes you only have one competitor and you have both invested the same in marketing over the years.
The principle still applies. If most of your competition cuts their marketing, and you maintain or increase yours, your exposure is dramatically affected by their changes.
So, my advice to any retailer is, at a minimum, maintain the same marketing investment as last year. OR, if possible, increase it to take advantage of the increased exposure. The increase can be to expand your current and previous marketing tactics, or to try something new.
I’ve mentioned it before, the classic phrase in marketing is “I know I’m wasting half of my marketing budget; the problem is I don’t know which half.” It never hurts to try something new and different. At worst, you find a method that doesn’t work. At best, you discover a way to bring in more business than you every thought possible!
If you’ve been reading my blog, you’ll see the emphasis on retail stores and the upcoming holiday season. I glanced back and found I forgot to mention anywhere that many retailers see up to 40% of their annual revenue in the 2 or 3 months leading up to the holidays. This year, some are worried about what may happen. Here are some tips to help reach and surpass last years revenue.
While these seem simple, many retailers have forgotten the basics of marketing. I’m currently helping a few retailers who have received the final shipments of their inventory make sure they sell most, if not all, of it this holiday season.
Marketing has always been part art, part science. The art component is the gut feel before anything is tried. It’s the mix of colors and shapes; the choice between abstract images and those of real people or items.
The other part of marketing is the science. For every marketing campaign, you should test and track every aspect. One of the easiest changes to track is the offer. Earlier this week, I highlighted the top 5 offers to include on your direct mail marketing materials. Here is a case study of one of my customers:
The client owns and runs an automitive mechanice shop. They do the typical oile changes, service maintenances, and diagnostic checks. On two of the mailings, we tested two offers. The first was a $25 off any service. It could be used for an oil change, so the total due would be $10. The second offer was a $50 off $300 service. The offer doubled, but was limited to a larger repair.
So, which of the two did better? What’s your thought?
Think about it. Would someone want $25 or $50 off their service bill? Would someone want to spend $300 on a service to get $50. Or, look at it as 72% off a $35 oil change versus 16% off a major repair.
So, have your opinion yet? $25 off any or $50 off $300. Which works better?
Would it surprise you to know the $50 off drew more customers? After thinking through it, and asking a few customers, it appears that more people were willing to fix a big problem for $50 as opposed to getting a more routine service, like an oil change.
So, even a single offer, like a fixed dollar off, can be tested against its own variations.
So, does that mean that you have to try every variation to find the best? No, not necessarily. The way to approach marketing is to use your best judgement, talk with your clients, as trust your gut. As you continue marketing, you’ll learn what works better. Each campaign, whether next week, next month, or next year, should be modified, even slightly, to see the affect on results.
And, it may help to consult a professional about where to start, so you can ramp up the learning curve.