Tweet

Marketing your Retail Store on a restricted Budget

Guest post by: Nilesh Shah

Article Overview: Festive season is around and some of our retailer friends are worried about marketing their business.

Marketing your Retail Store on a restricted Budget

Here are a few simple yet powerful low-cost ideas that creates both personal and professional image and brings reasonable revenue through marketing campaigns.

1. Create a Marketing Plan

We all know that nothing runs without a plan, and a plan cannot run without having its objectives set. That applies to any kind of plan and for any kind of business. Setting milestones is of crucial importance for any planning activity and is the core of its success, or failure.

2. Create and manage a database

Keep capturing personal and business information of you esteemed customers. These information over a period of time becomes a huge database with fair breakup of geographical and demographical detailing. This information helps you in customer profiling and profile specific campaigns.

3. Achieve results through direct mail

Never under-estimate the power of mails. Letters and Post cards are still alive and small thank you notes or invitations leaves a fine impression in your customer's mind. Bulk emailing solution is one of the most convenient way to reach mass in smallest amount of time.

4. Develop an in-house telemarketing campaign

Using a customer profiler, create profile specific tele-marketing campaign. Personal call is another powerful tool like direct marketing for pulling crowd. Make sure to share the benefits derived using the products offered by you.

5. Provide focused customer service

Indirect but one of the most powerful marketing tool is customer service and support. A satisfied customer becomes your salesperson and there is no better marketing than mouth-to-mouth publicity. Imagine one of your customer is suggesting a prospect to buy your products or enroll for your services.

6. Get high-profile publicity at low or zero cost

Use technology to the fullest extent. Make web-presence of your brand or store on social media and networking sites. If you're dealing in specialized product or service or catering to niche group, make sure you highlight it. Pitch the local community papers or write a small compelling story.

7. Create a low-cost high-return advertising campaign

Buzz, Buzz, Buzz.... This is all about an advertising campaign. Idea is to be present everywhere where your customer moves. Expand your horizons, get on Local FM, send promotional text messages, cross-promotions or road-shows. It doesn’t take a big budget to look professional and get media attention.

Related Articles
  Essential Steps Needed To Start An Online Retail Store
  Social Media for Retail Marketers
  Tips For Running A Retail Giveaway
  Are Retail Store Managers the next Entrepreneurs?
  Product Giveaways For Retail Marketers
  Beat the Recession with a Retail Franchise
  Using Free Samples To Lift Retail Sales
  Store Operations
  Marketing - Organizational and Employee
  PoP (Point of Purchase) Visual Merchandising
  Raymond eyes 40% rise in retail biz revenue in 2 years
  Should You Start a Retail Business, Stay with Retail Management or Look at a Star Business Online?
  Are You Settling For Something When You Shouldn't?
  Leveraging Video Surveillance and Security for Customer Benefit
  Retail Coupons and Retail Product Sampling Strategies
  Use Your Off Season - How To Get Ready For The Shopping Season
  LSM Is Catching Fire
  Key Steps to Buying a Retail Franchise
  How Much Profit Are YOU Innocently Leaving On The Table
  Retail Store Operations

Article Tags: budget, festive season, retail store



Related Forum Posts
Happy Worker as of Dec 31 2007 - Here's mine... I'm now off to make an offering to the business planning gods for their help in getting to these goals & beyond. To the combined success of Prophets 2 Profits! ----------------------------------------- 1) Corporate a) Retail - Sales reps covering all major markets (1M or more) - Retail product launch plan - 1 more retail release (TBD) b) The Toy Agency - Systems for: o Creative process o Pricing o Manufacturing o Logistics - Marketing agency strategy in place - 1 new customer every 2nd month (5 new customers); 1 of which will be rev of >= 500K/year c) Business - Creative talent pool management strategy & process - Outsourced and/or weekly bookkeeping - Monthly budgeting & forecasting - Better banking organization (Line of Credit, CCs, automate billing for appropriate vendors) - Team total of 5 - Larger office d) Web site - Daily updates - Start of separation of Blog/TTA/Retail 2) Personal - Most weekends “off”! - Entirely separate personal finances; basic personal financing plan - Family….?
Re: MLM Marketing, youtube, and buzzirk mobile. - I have experience with MLM too. My initial reaction to the business was "snake-oil salesman" but once I got to understand the "overall business model" I am now an advocate to it. MLM (Multi-Level Marketing) is also known as Network Marketing. I realized an MLM business is no different than any other business. One needs to focus on both words "Network" and "Marketing" and give both equal respect. Some people focus heavily on the Networking part but forget "Marketing". I've started to use Building on a Budget and Magnetic Sponsoring concepts in my NM business and have found that people don't get involved so much because of the product but more because of what you bring to the table as far as marketing systems and support. I have both products listed in my signature. you don't have to buy it as the link to the free videos itself provides you a good understanding of what is required to position yourself as my above paragraph. If you do plan on purchasing it I can tell you that the measly $40 will open your eyes BUT your upline will not be too happy (atleast in the short term) beacuse the system is not duplicateable. I wrote this post as a polar post to Bulmer's reply as I have exhausted the friends and family networking and realized i never really focused on marketing. My leads now are more qualified and open to hearing about my opportunity than the other way around. my 2 cents if you plan on growing an MLM or Networking Marketing business.
Typepad & Membership Sites - So, in conclusion, I decided rather reluctantly not to proceed with Typepad. If you are looking for a professional blogging platform that allows you to focus on blogging then I would certainly recommend it. If you are thinking about converting your blog into a membership site, Wordpress offers more options at present. I'd be interested to see if Typepad respond to that challenge in any way... Meanwhile, I discovered that my webhost, Bluehost, allows me to set passwords for individual members to restricted parts of my site. So it looks as if I'll be shifting the members' page of my PLR service from Host4profit to Bluehost. and running it either from a Wordpress site or from a password restricted HTML page. DH
Re: iPhone Apps: Biz Idea! - San Diego, California – Got an idea for a killer iPhone app? With more than 1 billion applications sold since its launch last July, Apple’s iPhone App Store has become one of the fastest-growing tech enterprises in recent history, and gained a reputation as something of a developer’s goldmine. Success stories such as that of Ethan Nicholas, whose iShoot app has earned him $900,000 in eight months, have only added to the App Store’s appeal for would-be iPhone entrepreneurs. “The runaway success of the App Store has created the legend of the iPhone millionaire,” says Ian Maskell, principal of iPhone App Freelancer, a company aiming to make it possible to get your idea into the App Store without technical knowledge and minimal financial outlay. “Everywhere we went people would say: ‘I’ve got a great idea for an app.’ We saw an opportunity to level the playing field and allow anyone the ability to become the next success story, regardless of their ability to program or write code.” So Maskell launched iPhone App Freelancer, a website offering the ability to turn great ideas into apps with little or no programming knowledge. Rob Shoesmith, a 27-year-old garbage collector from Coventry – England, submitted one of the first ideas to iPhone App Freelancer for development. Shoesmith says he has only had an iPhone for a few months, but has been following the growth of the App Store since its launch. He wants to keep the specifics of his app under wraps until its launch, but describes it as a user-generated advice service.
Re: Selling my business.... - i am actually very restricted in my location(convenience store).. Thanks..


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

3 Competencies of Leadership

RULE YOUR BUSINESS LIKE A SHINE STAR

Convening a focus group for a niche product

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.