Learn more about local amenities, organizations, businesses, events and more with the E-Town Mobile App!  The ETown App is a joint project among Emporia State University, Flint Hills Technical College, USD 253, The Emporia Gazette, the City of Emporia, the Emporia Convention and Visitors Bureau and Emporia Main Street.

 

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Create a list of items that, when discounted, don't put the item in the red.

Popular items "on special" may encourage more people to shop, but you must encourage the sale of other complimentary items.

People that buy an aquarium typically buy fish.  People that buy knitting needles buy yarn.  People that buy pants usually buy a top.  People that buy a gun need ammunition...  Think of items you can sell that encourage the sale of other items by looking at your customers buying history.

Peak traffic marketing encourages you to increase your foot traffic by assuming that you can draw others to heavy traffic times.  Finding when you are busiest can help with certain media buys and social media strategy.

Sometimes you want to offset slow times by offering unique deals to encourage traffic and sales during non-peak hours.  If trends persist, you can look at staffing or other variable expenses that you can change during slow times.

We didn't ask "do you collect customer information?", because you should be collecting information!  But, is your collection electronic at your point of sale?  Are you collecting business cards?  Do you have a drop box for customer information at your counter?  How are you grabbing information so you can reach back out to your customers independently?

Do you reward customers for saying good things about your business or posting positive stories about your operation on-line?  Do you have a way to say "thank you" to customers that draw other customers into your business?

Lead strategies are typically used by "big boxes", but the theory can be adapted for small businesses.  Essentially, lead promotions find products that consumers are excited about, purchase often or are price conscious of and sell those items at a deep discount.  They make the discount up on everything else you purchase.  So, the store that sells diapers at cost generally has higher margins on groceries and toys with the knowledge that most people won't simply buy diapers on their trip to the store.

This strategy encourages the consumer to buy multiple items, or above a certain price level, in exchange for a discount or some other reward.  Unless you work in an hourly service industry, most people say that businesses truly start achieving profit when they sell more than three items to a customer during one trip.  Getting people in the habit of buying multiple items from your business can pay long term dividends. 

Saying the "phrase that pays", bringing in a coupon (electronic or paper), using a special rewards card or other types of reference based specials can help create an exclusive communication relationship with your consuming public.  It also serves as a good way to test the effectiveness of some of your media strategies.  If consumers know they get a reward of some sort by absorbing your advertising message, they are more likely to listen to what you have to say.

The most common use of timed pricing is the "happy hour" concept.  Restaurants may use timed pricing to get people buying high margin items like soft drinks during slow times.  Other places, like bars, will use happy hours to get people to their business immediately after work so they can capture a susceptible crowd.  But, other types of businesses can use timed pricing to either bump up their traffic during busy times or increase volume during slower time frames.  The key to a good timed pricing promotion is consistency.  Using the same hours or days every week to promote a timed pricing concept will eventually decrease your marketing costs to promote the timed strategy and create word of mouth.  Everyone knows Sonic has a happy hour, but they rarely promote it...

This one is a little trickier.  Some businesses (especially retailers), mark items up to mark them down.  While we don't suggest doing that for a sale, we do suggest that you look at the value of items to determine the consumers perceived value instead of simply using a formula to price items.  If you simply double the cost of every item (a process known as keystoning in the retail industry), you may get burnt on shipping costs, leave potential profits on the table or not give your business additional room to absorb losses on slow moving items.  From a promotional standpoint, you can run a special on a "dollar bin" or "$30 Rack" that doesn't include discounts in the form of percentages or dollars "off".  By taking the "discount" out of the discussion, you can maintain customer perceptions of value without subconsciously encouraging the notion that consumers only should shop you for discounts.

Bundling items together can make it harder for consumers to ascertain the true value of a product group.  Thus, you can put higher margin and lower margin items together to create a more balanced profit profile for a sale.  And, in this era of "showrooming" (using store fronts to view items that you then buy on-line) group packaging makes on-line comparisons MUCH harder to accomplish.

When we tested the Shop Hop concept, we needed a driver to encourage people to stop into stores prior to the event to pick up their passports.  Our method of choice was artificial scarcity.  Buy producing "only 100 tickets" and letting people know "once they are gone, they are gone", not only did we generate interest, but people told their friends about the event to ensure that they wouldn't "miss out".  Exclusive recognition has some of the same psychological components of "not missing out", but through the lens of recognition.  Businesses like Green Door Recycling often recognize their best customers simply saying "thank you", but their thanks has the residual impact of encouraging other "like" customers to become intrigued by products or services offered.  Notice, no discounts were offered, but the impact is the same as a "special".