Are you maximizing events and promotions in your retail store? The successful strategy I’m about to share with you just require 2 simple steps. But before I share it, let me set it up with this story from back when my son Christopher was in high school:
“Mom, I need a morphsuit.”
“What? What’s a morphsuit and why do you need it?”
“It is kinda like a body suit. It covers your entire body even your head and hands and feet. And at school it is Blue Day tomorrow. I want to get a blue morphsuit so I can be ALL blue. Come on, you know me Mom, I am going to put myself all the way out there!”
My son’s high school has many traditions during the week of homecoming. One day, each class dresses in a different color. Blue was for freshmen this year and Christopher was not satisfied with just wearing a blue T-shirt and shorts, oh no! That’s just his personality – he always wants to max out the experience. So he invested $50 of his own hard earned money to buy it. (When I asked him when he would ever wear it again, he said that it would be good to have in his closet for later… Ha?!)
So why am I telling you this story? Because there’s a lesson here for every retail store owner: Maximizing events and promotions means taking them ALL. THE. WAY.
There are 2 ways to do that…
- First, if you are spending the time, energy and money to do a promotion for your customers, commit to following through entirely. Think about how you can extend the experience for your customers.
- Maximizing events and promotions also requires you to add your personality to the message. That can completely change the impact of it.
Maximizing Events and Promotions
One of the clients I work with shared with me a mistake that he made – now this is one of the best retail store owners I know, so if you’ve made this mistake too you’re not alone! But maximizing events and promotions you do in your store means learning from it.
My client’s sweater sales weren’t up to plan for the month and at the last minute, he decided to do a 20% off promotion to get those sweaters moving. He shared the promotion on his Facebook page and sold a few sweaters.
His staff asked if they should offer it to everyone and he told them that no, this promotion was only for their Facebook followers. Now this isn’t a bad idea if your purpose is to test your Facebook audience. But he forgot his purpose – the ultimate goal of this promotion (reaching his sales goal for the month) – and didn’t go all out! Sweater sales needed to increase and so he should have extended the promotion to everyone! His email list, social media followers, in-store shoppers should ALL know that he was offering his magnificent assortment of handpicked sweaters at a lovely discount for a limited time only.
So how could he have maximized this promotion and go all out?
- Adding signage in windows and in-store (on the sweater displays and inside change rooms)
- Social media posts and emails featuring photos of the staff’s favorite sweaters with before and after prices
- Every customer walking into the store should be told that they were here on a very special day
While complaining to me that sales still weren’t improving I asked him if he had done any of this, and he realized his mistake.
Sprinkle in Your Unique Personality
The second part of this strategy is to add in your unique personality to any events and promotions. Our client Terry has
a toy store and decided to have her team do a sale while she was gone to a trade show. She sent out an email about it and posted it on social media. Then she decided to step up her in-store signage, and instead of the regular sign, look what she did! 😆
This small touch adds a big impact to the event. Everyone smiles when they see it. It adds her personality to the event.
Another client changed up the color of envelopes used in a very successful holiday promotion to match their logo (green because that’s in their store name).
This client sprinkled their unique personality over a promotion that grew sales 10x!
So before jumping into your next event or promotion, commit to going ALL. THE. WAY.
Put on the blue morphsuit! Give your event or promotion a theme to match your store’s personality.
Ask yourself two questions:
- How else can I commit to following through more?
- What can I do to add my personality to the message of this event?
Print those out and put them in front of you. These two steps will always increase the impact and the cash of every event that you do!
Commit to Playing Full Out and going ALL. THE. WAY!
For more strategies for retail success, join us inside our RETAILMavens Coaching program – a 12 month program that will help you grow sales consistently and sustainably – so you can pay yourself and your staff!