When I recently co-hosted an online chat with Jim Kukral for NFIB, one attendee asked about how to get more people to come through the doors during the holiday season. It’s a great question and I have some tips that can help.
 |
| Want more people to come through the doors? Dress up your external space and put up great window displays. Photo by Rennett Stowe. |
1. Make sure you have what your customers want. All the promotion in the world won’t drive customers to a business that doesn’t offer what people want. This includes setting the hours that your customers want, even weekends. They can’t get through the doors if the doors are closed.
2. Connect with your potential customers where they are, whether that is online on offline. I don’t mean just connect, like a friend request. I mean really connect, like two people sharing stories. Share your business’s story with them. Connect to local traditions.
3. Make an actual plan for your marketing and have a theme. Too many of us (retailers) lurch through the season with no plan or reusing old ideas and old ads. That’s the easy way out, but it doesn’t bring any more people through your doors. Find a retail-minded friend, sit down and brainstorm some new ideas.
4. Clean up your external selling space. If you want more people to come through the door, don’t let a dirty outside space turn them off right outside! Create attractive window displays. More on that in Small Town Retail Ideas.
What are you doing to bring more people through your doors this year?
New to SmallBizSurvival.com? Take the Guided Tour. Like what you see? Get our updates.
- Getting local businesses to cooperate with you: Shop Hopping Around Brownsville - December 16, 2019
- Survey of Rural Challenges 2019 results - December 5, 2019
- Shop Indie Local adds a new twist to tired Buy Local campaigns - November 11, 2019
- Better entrepreneur training for small towns - November 4, 2019
- Culture is the intersection of people and place - August 19, 2019
- For easier social media marketing, fill in the blank - August 5, 2019
- Need a downtown business idea? Try a Cookie Crawl - July 22, 2019
- Need funding for the next step in your business? - July 17, 2019
- Youth business idea: phone clinics - July 8, 2019
- Chain link is everywhere in downtowns. Here’s how to dress it up. - June 30, 2019
There is no royal, flower-strewn path to success. And if there is, I have not found it. For if I have accomplished anything in life, it is because I have been willing to work hard. – C.J. Walker
Take a brief walk through any of the big box retailers and you’ll notice they have no concept of item #1. It appears that they’re throwing everything and anything out on the sales floor in hopes that something will sell.