Why a Valentine’s Day Special?

Once we make it beyond the great buying and gifting extravaganza that is the Christmas season, local retail stores tend to hit a low point in retail sales. It can be a very low point, and even if you’ve pulled in a great amount of business over the holidays, you still have to keep paying bills and, well, making money. So, local business owners, don’t forget that the other holidays coming up on the calendar – even the minor ones – can be an excellent way to promote sales and increase slow winter business.

Options for a Valentine’s Day Special

1. Get a partner.
Valentine’s Day is all about romance, remember? So emulate the love by starting up a business partnership with another local business. Business affiliation for particular events and special deals can help you pull in a new crowd of customers, and give your current customers another reminder of why they want to give you more business. Contact local business managers and owners and start a conversation about promoting a Valentine’s Day event together, putting together a special Valentine’s Day package, or promoting each other’s businesses in some other way revolving around the Valentine’s Day holiday. If things go well, you can extend and work that partnership for other events and specials.

2. Promote what you need to sell in a Valentine’s package or deal.
Unwrap and repackage that older inventory you need to move by including it in part of a Valentine’s special deal or package offer. Not everything sold as part of a Valentine’s Day special has to be heart-shaped. And if you need to move inventory, you can use it to add value to the specials you do offer for this heart-shaped holiday.

3. Host or participate in a Valentine’s Day event.
This option is perfect for local restaurant and retail shop owners. These type of brick-and-mortar small businesses lend themselves readily to a Valentine’s Day theme. Restaurant owners can host a special Valentine’s banquet, offer special meals, desserts, and wine tastings. Retail shop owners can showcase their Valentine’s merchandise, have special shopping hours, and offer gift wrapping and delivery. Don’t forget the option of partnering with another business for a Valentine’s event, as well.

4. Offer 2-for-1 Deals and Couple’s Packages.
Play up the romance of Valentine’s Day by offering tailor-made discounts and packages for the holiday, and the days leading up to it. Restaurants, event venues, specialty shops: come up with 2-for-1 offers (2 appetizers for the price of 1, 2 tickets for the price of 1, or buy one item, get one free..) and packages for couples along the same lines. Make them exclusive, time-limited offers and promote them with all your online and offline advertising options.

Put your heart into it, and you’ll be able to see a boost in those slow winter sales.

Image by clevercupcakes.

In this week’s marketing strategy, we’re going to explore how to give customer rewards (customer loyalty rewards) in return for customers sharing your business on popular social media sites.

iMingle is a fairly new player in the social networking scene, and it brings in an element most people don’t associate with social networking: insurance. It works by rewarding people for networking and purchasing insurance; when individuals network, and get a group together to purchase insurance, they can get a multi-policy deal and garner big discounts that otherwise they’d have no way to access. The insurance companies get more customers, and the purchasers get a better bargain on what they pay.

So far it’s working pretty well, and it’s a new concept that small businesses can grab onto and use in their own way. Here’s how:

Putting the Strategy to Work in Your Locally-Owned Business

To apply this strategy to your own small business, ask yourself two questions: what do customers want most from you (what can you provide) and how can you give your customers what they want with your social networks? Let’s break that down a little bit by looking at a hypothetical case: a small-town restaurant owner with a good business and the desire to expand with online sales.

So our restaurant owner – let’s call him Jerry – thinks about what his customers want most from him. That means both his local customers and his (potential) online customers. Jerry wants to use his online presence to connect with local people and to increase his customer base for Internet sales of his packaged gourmet foods. He knows what his local customers want: they want to get great deals and discounts on meals at the restaurant. He’s asked them in various ways, and that’s always the most popular response.

Jerry’s not so sure about his Internet customers, because he’s still getting into that world of online sales. So he takes a guess that they probably want great deals on the stuff they’re going to buy from him, too. They want high-quality, unique gourmet food items and they want to get deals and discounts on those items.

In both cases, what Jerry needs to provide is a better deal or the opportunity for a discount: a way for his customers to get an insider’s bargain on his meals and gourmet items. The second question he thinks about is this: how can he use his online presence to give his customers what they want, in a way that rewards them for interacting with him (i.e. his restaurant) online?

Jerry comes up with these ideas:

• He can give a coupon every time someone refers a friend who becomes a fan of the restaurant’s Facebook page or a follower of the restaurant on Twitter.
• He can offer group discounts; when a fan or follower gets X number of people to make a purchase (in the restaurant or via the online store) they all get a certain discount. He can use coupon codes for this.
• He can give a coupon for any type of social interaction online which promotes his restaurant; customers can “earn” a discount by sharing a link to his webpage, his Facebook page, or his Twitter account, or by blogging about his restaurant, reviewing his products, or getting a friend to sign up for his e-newsletter.

What ideas do you have for your business to expand your reach to new customers while rewarding the loyalty of existing customers?

Image: One Laptop per Child

The Ritz-Carlton is known for luxurious hotels, great amenities… but most of all, it’s known for customer service. Great, astounding, personal, friendly, immediate customer service. Customer service that actually keeps the customer in mind. If you want to stand out among your competitors, take these Ritz Carlton customer service lessons to heart.

1. Acknowledge and apologize for your mistakes.
Then do something nice to make up for them. Stacey Hylen, a business coach, recounts an experience at a Ritz-Carlton hotel: they forgot her wake-up call, and when she let the front desk know about it, they immediately apologized and offered to send breakfast to her room. Hylen declined, as she had other breakfast plans, but when she got back to the room she found a basket of gourmet food and a handwritten note of apology waiting for her.

When a customer is wronged, even in the slightest way, don’t make excuses or get defensive. Instead, be bold and sincere enough to admit your mistake (even if it was inadvertent) and then apologize. Then take it up to the Ritz level by doing something nice to make up for the mistake. Send a card, a gift certificate, buy them dinner, give a freebie, make it better. Be memorable for your great response, not for your mistake.

2. Be proactive.
Don MacAskill, founder of SmugMug, talks about an anniversary visit he and his wife took to a Ritz-Carlton. The outstanding part of his story was that several days before they even left, he got a call from a member of the Ritz staff, asking if there were any special preparations they could make to help make their anniversary stay even more special.

What can you do to stay top-of-mind with your customers? Reach out with amazing proactive customer service to make every experience they have with you special, unforgettable, unbelievably good. Don’t wait for an unhappy customer and then pull out the stops. Make an advance phone call, send out birthday cards, remember names, greet people at the door, be proactive.

3. Make it a top priority.
In order for great customer service to happen on a regular basis, you have to make it one of your businesses’ top priorities. And you have to pass that attitude on down to your employees. That means that you need to give them authority to extend amazing customer service. If you’re getting upset with a waiter who comps a dessert to please an unhappy customer, you’re sending the wrong message. Set up any system you want, but be sure that message your employees get – every single day, every single shift – is that customer service matters.

And it does. If you don’t pay attention to customer service, you may get by, but most likely you won’t stand out. The personal experience and the friendly connection created by superb customer service will make you memorable – in the best of ways – with every person who walks through your door.

Image by Paul Lowry.

This is a post in the “How to Create a 2011 Local Business Marketing Plan”* series. Some of it will be shared here on [resultsrevolution.com]. The rest will be shared via my free newsletter. Sign up now to get the newsletter so you don’t miss a single tip in the planning series.

As you look forward to 2011, if you’re a local business, here are four tips to help you embrace your inner “local” and to help your small business stand out in a BIG way this next year!

1. Be local.

You’re a local small business with a brick-and-mortar storefront in your town. Maybe you have more than one location. Maybe you’re the oldest business in town, or maybe you’re the newest one. Whether you’re small or big, you’re the only store offering your service or product in the area, or you’re in the midst of many competitors, your local edge is a brand advantage and one you should use wisely.

Don’t try to be something you’re not: a national, faceless, anonymous business. Sure, those big boys have larger budgets and more resources, but they don’t have the local roots and the local connections you do. Put a local spin on what you do. Celebrate being local, Take part in the community. Highlight local products. Promote other local businesses. Advertise in local publications. Get involved with local organizations, charities, and business groups. Meet your neighbors, both personal and business. In short, position your brand as the local business option.

Highlight your strength as a local business and use your knowledge and relationships to offer what the local people want. Embrace your local-ness – love being local and use it to your advantage in marketing and customer retention efforts!

2. Have a specialty.

How do you stand out if you’re a single, locally owned restaurant in a town with five other great local restaurants? Find your niche, your specialty, and play it up. Maybe you’re the King of Cajun Cuisine, or you have a big-city wine list in a small town. Perhaps your dessert is out of this world, or you offer great seasonal specials that highlight the local produce, or you know that customers order your soup just to get those amazing garlic breadsticks on the side. Whatever your specialty is, find it and magnify it. Make it a prominent part of what you offer. Talk about it and market it. It’s not a specialty if no one knows about it.
While we’re on the topic, here’s a great case study on niche positioning and related customer experience that might be helpful to you as you pursue this idea.

3. Give amazing service.

No matter where you are or what your product or service is, giving consistently superb customer service will cause you to stand out amongst your competitors, both local and national. When you treat customers like your friends, that’s what they will become. When problems do arise, as they inevitably will, deal with them promptly and courteously.

A key element of this tip is the word “consistent.” We’ve talked about this before, but it stands repeating. Consistency is critical – especially in customer service.

4. Offer what the box stores can’t.

Big box stores and huge, national chains have advantages over local, small businesses, sure. But local, small businesses have advantages too; as part of a locally owned small business, you can make your own policies, create personal relationships, follow up on a personal basis, set your own hours, take special orders, and do custom work. You may not have the inventory capacity of the big store down the road, but you have the small business capacity to listen to your best customers and adjust the inventory you offer to meet their needs. If you find that your busy times are in the afternoon and evening instead of morning, you can open later and stay open later. Take advantage of the freedom you do have as a small business to relate specifically to your customers.

2011 is the year for local success. Please let us know how YOU benefit from your “local-ness” in your marketing and business efforts – drop us a comment below!

Image by Cameron Cassan.

A customer loyalty program, sometimes known as a rewards program, gives your small business an easy way to reward your customers for doing what you want them to do: coming back and giving you repeat business. You already have a base of loyal customers, and creating a customer loyalty program helps you strengthen those relationships. For newer customers, or those who are still deciding how much they like you, a loyalty program can be just the right incentive to keep you front of mind and keep them coming back to your brick-and-mortar store.

Need convincing that customer loyalty is critical to your business? Try reading these posts on customer loyalty and the value of customer retention.

Elements of a Customer Loyalty Program

Implementing a customer loyalty program is a pretty simple matter. You need to make it easy for people to sign up, preferably in several ways: a short form to fill out when they’re shopping or checking out in the store, an easy form to fill out online via your Facebook page, blog, and/or website. (You can do it in conjunction with growing your e-mail list – we explain step by step how to do this here.) Once people sign up, you need to have a system for keeping track of those in your loyalty program; you want a single place with all the information on each customer who has opted in. That way, when you do special mailings or offers, you have your mailing list right there.

The third element of a successful customer loyalty program is the rewards that customers can “earn” by continuing to give you repeat business. Rewards programs can be simple, and are usually very low cost to the business, but they need to be measurable and tangible. Your customers need a tangible reason to opt in to the loyalty program, and you need a measurable way to see what you’re investing in the loyalty program and what kind of return you’re getting on it.

Types of Customer Loyalty Programs

Points system: this is what airlines and credit card companies use. In simplest terms, a point is awarded for every dollar spent, though the ratio may vary (1 point for every 1.50 dollars, for example). When a customer accrues a certain number of points, they can be redeemed for a product or service offered by the company or, often, by a partner company.

For small businesses: this system is simple in theory but can get a little complex to keep track of without an electronic system. Be sure you have an accurate way to track the points earned by your customers and to track when those points are used for rewards. You’ll also need to set up a rewards scale with specific prizes or options for certain amounts of points.

Discount system: many retail businesses use a discount system for loyalty programs. This works well for both retail shops and restaurants. For every purchase or for every dollar amount spent (could be $10 or $20 or whatever level you choose to set), the customer receives a credit. Once the customer has earned a certain number of credits, he gets a discount, perhaps a dollar amount or percent amount off on their next purchase.

For small businesses: this system is easy to implement and track. Generally, businesses use a punch card type system and customers simply show their card when it is full to receive their discount. Another bonus of this system is that the reward actually brings in even more business.

Freebie system: similar to the discount system, the freebie system is often used by cafes and coffee shops. When a customer makes a sufficient number of purchases or spends X amount of dollars, she gets a freebie. A coffee shop might offer one free coffee drink for every ten cups of coffee purchased, or a free pound of coffee for every ten pounds of coffee purchased.

For small businesses: this system is also easy to implement and track using a punch card set-up, and customers love the idea of getting something for free. It’s also easy for small businesses to track the amount of money they’ll invest for each customer, and it’s usually minimal. Retail shops can always offer freebies too, and it’s a good way to get rid of excess inventory.

Image by Easa Shamih.

Here’s a marketing strategy to save for next year – or maybe just for two weeks until you put out the Valentine’s Day merchandise… Hopefully, you change your retail stock with the seasons, or perhaps you have special services that change with the time of year. But how do you market for the holidays if your products or services aren’t seasonal? Here is an easy three-step process for your idea file:

1. Create a Holiday Environment

What’s your brick-and-mortar store like? It may be plain Jane for much of the year, but spend some time and money on decorating for the Christmas season (or any other holiday, for that matter). Remember, this is the biggest shopping season of the year; even if your products and services don’t appear on many wish lists, you can participate in the season by being festive in-house.

2. Create Holiday Specials

So perhaps you offer a professional service: CPA, lawyer, electrician, marketer, house cleaner, anyone? Those aren’t services necessarily oriented with the holidays, but you can still offer a holiday package and promote holiday specials. Your services may not be changing with the seasons, but the packages you offer and prices can shift to reflect seasonal deals.

3. Promote Your Heart Out

With your store decked out and your holiday specials created, all that remains is to promote your specials as part of the holiday shopping season. Go ahead and advertise in the local paper, put up a sign in the window detailing your holiday deals, promote via social media and update your web site. Participate in community holiday events such as open houses and festivals and promote to your e-mail marketing list.

Remember that holiday shopping is often just as much about the experience as it is about the product. If you’re offering a great service, a fabulous product, but they aren’t associated with Christmas gift-giving, start working to change that status quo.

Image by WTL Photos.

The busiest time of the year for most retail businesses starts with the dawn of November. As you reflect on 2010′s holiday season, there’s never a better time to plan for next year.

Next year, when the official busy season rolls around again, you’ll be ready. There’s a lot you can do to boost your retail sales beyond playing Christmas music and hanging a few lights in the windows. While creating a festive atmosphere is always a smart move, creating holiday specials, which keep customers coming back, is an even smarter move. (For other holiday marketing ideas, check out these posts.)

Holiday specials are not a new idea. Local business owners have been creating seasonal menus, gift baskets, packages, and holding special sales and getting good results from these seasonal strategies. But incorporating a few new ideas into your holiday specials this year could help you boost your sales even in a slow economy. Remember that people are still going to be shopping for gifts; they’re just going to be a little choosier than usual with tighter budgets. That’s where your holiday specials come into the picture.

Strategy 1: Create Holiday Specials for Every Price Point

Marketing research is showing that shoppers enjoy having options. A lot of options. (Read Chris Anderson’s fascinating book at www.longtail.com, for a discussion of this research.) So give your shoppers plenty of options by creating not just one or two holiday specials or packages, but 5 or 6… or 10… or 12. If you’re a higher-end establishment, go ahead and offer a higher price point selection of holiday specials; but expand into a lower price point and offer options there as well.

Use the same principle if you tend to sell more items at a lower cost; offer several lower cost options, but offer some higher price point selections as well. Create multiple displays throughout your brick and mortar store. You want your customers to be seeing this amazing selection – and the great prices and products you’re offering – several times as they move through your retail space.

Strategy 2: Create Limited Availability Holiday Specials

Have you ever thought about why people love seasonal specials? Because they’re only here for a limited time. Think about candy corn; is it really that great? And if it were available all year ’round, would people ever get very excited about it? But people do, because it’s only around for a short time out of the year. That limited availability makes the product more desirable and more valuable.

Use that limited availability concept with your holiday specials. If you’re a retail establishment, you could create several custom, one-of-a-kind gift baskets; once each one is gone, it’s simply gone. Or offer a great deal on a special product, but only through the next week. Don’t feel like you have to extend your holiday specials all the way through the holiday season. Instead, create value by placing time limits or quantity limits on particular specials.

Strategy 3: Introduce New Specials Through the Holiday Season

This strategy works hand-in-hand with the concept of limited availability specials. As you phase out one holiday special, phase in another. Not only will the limited availability increase the perceived value of each special, but your customers will want to keep coming back to see what’s new this week. Remember: shoppers enjoy options. They also enjoy the feeling that they’re getting an “insider’s” special.

Strategy 4: Collect Customer Information with Each Holiday Sale

Let your customers be insiders by offering to keep them informed about new, exclusive holiday specials as they become available. Collect customer names and contact information with each sale, and make the offer as well to customers who aren’t yet making a purchase. They can still sign up to be on the list and find out about new specials.

If you’re planning to hold a special holiday event (such as an open house or one-day sale), then this list is your first step in the marketing for the event. Send out an exclusive invitation to those folks on your holiday list, inviting them in an hour or two before the general public. They get to enjoy a privileged shopping time, you get to interact and build relationships. It’s fun for everyone.

Strategy 5: Promote Holiday Specials via Website, Facebook, and Twitter

Whatever presence you have online should be part of your holiday marketing. Put up notices about your holiday specials, big and bold, on your website’s front page. Send out an email to all your online subscribers. Send out regular updates via your Facebook and/or Twitter accounts, letting your customers know about new holiday shipments, specials, coupons, events, deals, and so on.

Ask for feedback, too. What kind of holiday specials are your customers looking for? Ask specific questions (“What’s the best Christmas present you ever received?”) and interact with those who respond. Have an online contest or giveaway, with the prize being one of your holiday exclusive specials.

Remember that you have to give shopper a reason to choose your product, your store; over the other options they have available. Using some creativity with your holiday specials can create a powerful appeal, and offer value to both your customers and your business.

Image by Sister72.