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.
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| 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?
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Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.
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.