Guest post by Mandy Becker, owner of Swagger in Cary, North Carolina
Do your sales slump a little during the summer months? Maybe since “no one is around” you slack off on your marketing efforts. Sound familiar?
I used to do this. I was a major summer slacker. We would be having such great May sales numbers, but I would be depressed, because I knew June, July and August were right around the corner, and our sales would slow down.
Thank goodness I finally kicked myself in the rear and said “you, Mandy, are in control of your own destiny.” Well, it went kind of like that, but you catch my drift.
I realized that our summer sales were slow, because I made them slow. How did I make them slow? Well…
- I wasn’t sending out our store newsletter as often during the summer. Why bother – people weren’t around to read them anyway – right?
- I didn’t order as much “new” stuff to come in during the summer months. Why bother – people weren’t around to buy the items – right?
Um – WRONG! Yes, people do go on vacation, but not (usually) for the entire summer!
I finally realized that:
- Our customers still had friends and family who had summer birthdays.
- Our customers still needed summer hostess gifts for parties or gifts for the people they were visiting on vacation.
- Our customers still “needed” little summer pick me ups for themselves!
So I changed my entire attitude. Summer was going to be a time for new items, new promotions, and new energy in my business!
First off – new product!
Keeping new product rolling in all summer long is key. Even if it is new colors or patterns in best sellers – that’s NEW to your customers. New merchandise gives your employees fresh stuff to talk about with customers and reasons for the customers to come back. Think about your busy seasons. Do you tell your customers “Ooh – come in next week too – we will have these really awesome new things coming in”? It works in December and it will work in July – you’ll see. People love new, and they LOVE to be in the know! Entice them and they will come back.
Your monthly (e-mail or print) newsletter is a great way to “get the word out” about your new items and store events, so is your Facebook Page or your blog. And the latter two can be done so easily! New product comes in, picture is taken, picture is posted to Facebook with witty saying and VOILA – 30 minutes later the world knows you have “new stuff”! I am a big fan of Photo Albums on Facebook. Create them for new product lines or do a “snapshot of your store right now” album. We have sold a lot of products out of photo albums!
New promotions
This one is my favorite because it’s fun! There are lots of ways to promote your store – giveaways, contests, and more – be creative! Your customers will love it! This year, we decided to do a summer Facebook photo contest “Where have you Swaggered lately?” We believe it will help us reach our goal of 2000 fans by November and our customers are basically promoting our products to other customers! I’ll let you guys know how it goes, but we have already created quite the buzz in our store and online! Just yesterday a customer wanted the “baby mat” from the photo contest!
And finally – New Energy!
Our new energy comes in the form of cause-related marketing events during the summer. We team up with local charities and have trunk shows or other types of events that are promoted to our customers and the charity’s supporters. We give back to the community, and we get exposure to new people – it is a win-win for both parties involved! Be sure to promote the events both online and off.
I hope this helped get you motivated for a great Summer Selling Season! What are some of your summer promotion ideas? I know we would all love to hear them!
Thanks!
Mandy
