Retailers possess an insatiable hunger for ideas. With the operative thought something-anything pounding in their brains, that’s what they are wont to do: something-anything.
But wait! Stringing together isolated ideas — no matter how innovative — in the absence of a solid -flexible marketing plan for sustained exposure are, well, ur, um, just something-anything.
That kind of action alone can’t help them make a sustained difference, except in fantasy.
At all times, good and bad, retailers of all merchandise stratas need to identify, cultivate and sustain constant, positive exposure based on adroit planning.
The more well-planned exposure the merrier. Right? Yeh, man! But say it is so, but in ain’t necessarily so.
And by exposure, I don’t mean those perfunctory weekly (weakly) something-anything promotions linked to raw price advertising that just doesn't push the sales needle as in days of yore. All the gimmicks can do is expose the nakedness of unsophisticated and mostly superficial tactics that people will typically reject.
Sophisticated exposure emerges from prudent thinking. It means answering the proverbial question: How do I attract people and keep them interested? That’s an easy and tough question.
One answer is going back to basics. For starters, do all employees have business cards? Yeh, simple business cards that they can distribute to everyone they encounter. This is economic marketing based on, omigod, personal relationships which is more credible than phantasmagoric price promotions.
Another old-new fashion method is market segmentation. If retailers know their markets, then they can segment it by aggregate: professionals, business leaders, civic employees and all other cohorts who can be reached with innovative messaging about living better and more comfortably with home furnishings.
For example, how about working with the legal community on frequent basis? Invite the county bar association (or area lawyer group) to develop a “comfortable” evening in the store. Give them a meaningful program on a provocative and important legal issue. Follow the presentation with the luscious dessert of substantive discounts for the legal beagles. Yum, yum.
Variations on the theme can work equally as well for medical, dental, accountancy, marketing and other professions. Get those groups talking and you are creating more positive, relationship-bulding buzz than more costly and less effective flashy advertising can deliver.
What about friends and family days? It's better than a phony tent sale circus. A time-tested tactic, the friends and family genre can be tweaked to modern perfection.
One way is deputizing all the area realtors who could become integral as an influential augmented sales force? And guess what?, they need to be exposed to your furniture, too.
Have you thought about a new version of the sleep-in. Yeh, a modern twist on a 1960s protest method, but with a comfortable home centric dimension. What to do?
Easy. Arrange a story telling sleep over with the girl scouts and their leaders. Yes, right in the store, create the indoor equivalent of camp fire story time. Develop the program to induce participation.
Every girl needs to see a perfect bedroom, don’t you think? Doesn’t each of their leaders need needs to see the rest of the merchandise assortment
Okay, the ideas presented here are just that. But they require planning. And the effort can, not promised but likely, positive publicity in local news media that is more inclined to cover soft news these days.
Stay positively exposed, and give meaning to the ending which is a perpetual beginning: And they lived happily ever after.
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