An Encouraging Tale From A Small Independent Local Retailer

Being a keen guitar player I am a common visitor to a family run music outlet in the area. I became interested to listen to the owner chat about the challenges encountered by small town retailers and exactly how he confronted those challenges.

The owner has run the business for more than 15 years and, like a number of other people in his position, he likes to believe that there's not many (if any) new tricks that he could be taught that could considerably enhance his business.

As yet he'd always depended on an exceptional location together with a faithful (and well-heeled) client-base to supply a solid grounding for the business to succeed - the few advertising campaigns that he had got involved with (eg leafleting & regional media advertising) have turned out to be very frustrating and costly. However, he described how he was recently offered some temporary space in one of the most important shopping malls in his area which adjoins his business, and made a decision to pitch a 2 day display and marketing event manned by himself and one other employee.

They produced an eye-catching, appealing exhibit (reasonably straight-forward in their business!) and used a free prize-draw competition (acoustic guitar and accessories) to facilitate preliminary connection with passing customers. They also focused on marketing the numerous services that they offered (instrument rental, guitar and other instrument repairs, professional recording studio, guitar tuition, website with local links etc.) by producing a number of A5 sized leaflets which passers-by could take.

The promotion was held on a Friday and Saturday and, as they were exhibiting a lot of electric guitars, keyboards and so on at greatly discounted prices, he stated that he most certainly estimated much better than average sales for the 2 days….

Needlessly to say, their income was great - 3 times the average for the2 days - which, while very welcome, would in itself have been no more than a useful strategy to clear some excess stock at very low profit margins. What he did not expect (and this is actually the real bonus ) was that they would secure so many new clients out of this event - regardless that their marketing event took place no more 20 metres from their store. He was astonished by how many people they talked to who had no idea that they existed and have since been in to visit us and make purchases!

So, what could they learn from this?

What this happy experience has really driven home is that:

1) It doesn't matter how long your enterprise has been running and how excellent your location might be, the numbers of long-term nearby residents who sadly are totally ignorant of your store's existence is unquestionably much higher than you would imagine!

2) Standard promotional techniques such as paper advertising and leafleting are nowhere near as effective as 'coming out from behind the counter' and taking your business directly to the customer. Nowadays Town Centre Supervisors will bend over backwards to help individual (or groups of) small enterprises set up promotional days much like the one they did, and very often it will not cost a penny!