4 Fast Ways to Grow Your Brand via Social Media this Holiday Season

We are constantly getting asked about quick ways to grow your viewership on social media sites like Facebook. While there is no golden nugget for fan building (you must build a relationship and create trust among your fans) there are several ways we recommend boosting fan viewership in the short term to help gain more attention for your page.

1)  Make your website social. Be sure that you’ve included social connect buttons on your site (like us on Facebook, follow us on Pinterest and Twitter along with the Instagram link button)

Don’t forget to place the links on the top header bar so they are constantly visible when people are reviewing multiple pages of your website at the same time. (Or try the new “pop-out” feature from the sides of your website that follows your viewers down the page as they scroll.)

2)   Ask for the like. Ask your fans, friends and family to share your social media pages with their circles. Make it easy to do so by highlighting the link to join and telling newcomers what they can expect to see going on via your social media pages (and how much fun it is to engage with your brand via social media)

3)   Cross-promote other local businesses. Use the hyperlink and #hashtag to highlight other local businesses and share to share information with their fans as well.  Developing these connections can help you get the word (and your music) in front of the right people. Social media is a very reciprocal medium so when you promote someone else’s music they’ll promote yours, too.

4)  Use Facebook Advertising. It works!  Facebook ad campaigns are relatively inexpensive and can grow your band’s fan base in a very targeted way quickly and efficiently. You can use promoted posts which reach more of your fans and their friends or you can create targeted ads by specific audience type and set a daily budget for advertising. Both work effectively and should be part of your holiday marketing strategy

Keep in mind: Not even these quick solutions will work if you don’t create a social media strategy that is engaging and that showcases your brand personality on a consistent basis. Successfully engaging customers with your brand includes daily engagement to create a message that sells your brand to your fans and engages them to walk thru the front door to make a purchase.  Need help with your holiday social media or marketing strategy? Contact CBCG today. lynn@cbc-group.net

Are your customers going to pay attention to your store this Holiday season?

For retailers around the world- it's holiday crunch time. By now, you’ve purchased the right products, you’ve meticulously merchandised them on the store floor, you have invested in staff training and ensured that the in-store experience will be a memorable one – but there's just one problem,  there are no customers paying attention.

It's time to wake up and kick your marketing into high gear!  Starting today, with the right marketing planning, preparation and execution, you can get customers to engage and shop at your store this holiday season. Today we highlight some quick (but critical) things to consider in your Holiday Marketing Planning:

1.       What is your marketing message? – As you organize, prepare and integrate the content and timing for all marketing materials (e.g. email, blogs, newspapers and postcards) to be sent between Thanksgiving and Christmas,, make sure you know what your key messages are and why they are important to your customers during this time of year.

       In order to deliver the messages effectively, plan on sending a minimum of one email per week during this busy time as a way to stay 'top of mind' with your customers. Notify them of your in-store events, the specific holiday products you are carrying, any extended store hours and highlight (with pictures/videos) the wonderful holiday displays you have set up.

2.       How will you use Social Media to engage your customers this holiday season?  In addition to your traditional marketing efforts, you must plan daily social media posts (e.g. Facebook, Twitter and Blogs) in concert with your store marketing activities. Social media will build engagement, provoke brand evangelists, and instill customer loyalty if utilized well.

3.       What type of In-store Events will draw customers to your store?  - The best time of year to engage your customers is during the holiday season. Work with your staff now to determine what type of in-store events you plan to host in November and December.  These in-store events should generate shopper excitement and lead to increased brand awareness and sales; plan to have one per week between Thanksgiving and Christmas. (Don’t forget to coordinate dates with Reps well in advance to secure primary dates go to your store!)  Some idea include - Vendor Trunk Shows, VIP customer events, specialty category events—cooking classes, collectors events (specific holiday collectibles) 

A well thought out marketing calendar will help to insure you meet your sales goals and that you highlight the merchandise you have brought in exclusively for the holiday season. Don’t leave these details to the last minute- or you may lose out on sales!  Need more help with marketing ideas? Contact CBCG today. lynn@cbc-group.net.  

Fortune Favors the Prepared Retailer

Christmas is rapidly approaching and for many retailers, it’s the make or break period of the year; the time when sales are high and when the majority of the profit is made for the year.  So how can you assure that your store is properly prepared for success - to maximize your profits this year?

Proper planning and preparation is the answer. The sooner you start contemplating and preparing to get ready for the critical Holiday Season, the more likely we will be to generate profitable sales - your preparation will pay off!

This includes not only what products you will buy, but how you will market those products, how you will display them in the store, how you can delight customers with service and ultimately, how your staff will convert your customers from browsers to buyers when they walk in your store!  Focusing on these five key areas will ensure that you and your team are ready to achieve your seasonal goals.

1.       Marketing - This is the key to all your holiday success. Spending ample time now to create a well thought out marketing calendar will help to insure you meet your sales goals and that you highlight the merchandise you have brought in exclusively for the holiday season.

2.       Inventory - Confirm shipping of all Holiday product deliveries with vendors now. You don’t want to find out that merchandise you were counting on is going to be late or worse yet, is not going to come! Make sure all holiday purchase orders have start and cancel date; you should plan to have orders arrive between 10/15 and 11/15.

3.       Display - Plan your store displays now (both inside and out). Decide what products you want to feature in weekly rotations of window/in store displays for November/December based on sales plans by department and the merchandise you have already purchased. Make sure you have enough fixtures on hand  and ample table assortments (for boxed/wrapped merchandise)

4.       Staffing - Determine how many selling hours you will need to achieve your sales plan for the season. Now is the time to recruit, interview and hire your new staff. Hiring in advance will help you to recruit the best candidates and will also ensure that you have ample time for training

5.       Sales -  Determine if you will have any additional holiday technology needs (now is the time to purchase or rent software/hardware if necessary such as additional registers or hand held check out devices that will speed up check out on very busy days. Thinking about how your store can use technology to improve your customers’ in-store service and experience will go a long way toward creating satisfied customers during the Christmas buying crush!

In order to achieve the maximum success during your holiday selling season, your planning must start well in advance of the season. You will be too busy in the dog days of December so the planning must be done well in advance.

If Cash is King, then Inventory is your Queen

Cash is King for any retail business, right?  Don't have enough and you can't fund your business properly. Have excess and we have to decide how much to re-invest to take the business to the next level. So if Cash is our King, then surely, you know who the Queen is, don't you? Your Inventory, of course.

The Queen is often shiny and regal, but sometimes, she can be wicked and betray you and your business if you don't pay attention to her.

If you're like many retailers, managing inventory is one of the biggest challenges you face. With all the other expectations placed upon you to manage your business, sometimes you forget to pay the most attention to the area that can have the biggest affect on your bottom line. Your inventory levels. Too Much. Too Little. Old Inventory. Unsold Inventory.

While many of you reading this have been in business a long time and are quite knowledgeable about what sells when in your store, making sure you have just the right amount of inventory can help you improve your overall sell thru and profitability on a consistent basis.

We suggest using an OTB program to help you track selling by department on a regular basis and to alert you to shifts in business - very quickly. Reacting or proactively pursuing these shifts can and will save you money and help you drive more sales and profits to the bottom line for your business.  

Whether you buy more merchandise because you react to a positive shift in sales, or react to slower sales by canceling or shifting dates on purchases, you can help your business drive more profitable sales in trending categories while reducing the inventory you spend on departments that are no longer selling by using the discipline of an Open to buy plan to manage your inventory.  

If it's all about the King - as in cash, then the next question you should ask is how much money can you expect to save if you use an OTB program? The typical results you should expect from running an Open To Buy will be an improved inventory turnover between 7-10% the first year and a reduction in purchases of between 5-10% for the the first year. These two things alone can pay for the cost of managing an OTB program and so much more.

And while there are tremendous benefits to using an open to buy program, it is not a silver bullet that fixes all that ails your store. You will need to spend time working on and with your open to buy to make it truly successful. You must not be ambivalent about your Open To Buy.  

For an Open To Buy plan to fully to succeed, you must be committed to following the plan you set in place and have the discipline to stick to the plan in the course of the year. The results will happen if you stick to the plan!

Need more reasons to bring an OTB plan into your business. Contact CBCG today.

Are you carrying too much retail inventory?

How much inventory does your business need to run effectively to make your sales plan and deliver the appropriate level of profit to the bottom line?        

This question one of the most difficult for retailers to answer- yet the one that holds the most value to the health and well-being of the business. Why not make 2013 the year you get a handle on your inventory once and for all- and stop spending money you don’t have to in order to deliver the sales you want.

Having too much inventory (or the wrong type) during certain periods can slow your cash flow and can reduce your overall profits (by taking too many markdowns in order to liquidate slow moving merchandise.  On the other hand if you don’t buy enough of the right merchandise (that is, the merchandise that your customers really want to buy) you will miss sales opportunities and thus not make the maximum potential profits from your business. One thing can help you get started- an Open to Buy plan.

A retailer can be sure to stock the right amount of the right products at the right time by using a well-planned as well as a continually updated and well executed Open to buy. (OTB)

OTB can be calculated in units or dollars. (Though our recommendation is to do it in dollars so that you can use the tool when going to market and working with your vendors on a daily basis) The calculations are relatively simple. An OTB is essentially the difference between how much inventory is needed and how much is actually available to be sold at any given time during the selling cycle. (OTB’s are most always calculated on a monthly basis then totaled to quarters, seasons and then finally a year total for the business.) This includes inventory on hand, in transit and any outstanding orders.

While the OTB to buy will tell you how much to spend, the key to managing it effectively is to account for trends- both up and down in a given time period and leaving yourself the flexibility to adjust purchase dollars when and if necessary. To do so, it will be best if you plan to hold a percentage of purchases back in order to take advantage of special buys or to add new products. This will also allow you to react to fast-selling items and quickly restock shelves that your store needs to keep sales moving forward.

You should set up your OTB plan with no more than 10-15 classifications that will roll up to total for your business. (We have managed OTB plans for multi-store national chains doing more than $100 million dollars with less than 10 OTB categories- so we know you can plan your business this way to!) Use the annual retail sales as a guide to setting up your OTB classifications/departments – this will help you reduce the number of classifications you need to plan.

In short, there are many ways to manage an OTB plan. The plan can be maintained on paper, in a spreadsheet or by purchasing one of the several retail software packages available that contain Open-To-Buy programs but the key is to start. Your inventory is the biggest expense you have in your business and managing it on a consistent basis can insure that your business is spending on the right products all the time.

If you need/want more help about how to manage your inventory, contact CBCG today. We can create and manage an annual OTB plan for your business to make sure that 2013 is a year of profit and prosperity.

It's TIME to start using social media for your business

Another survey came out this week talking about business owners not using social media as a marketing tool. The survey shows that more than 47% of small business owners are NOT using social media in their regular marketing efforts. (Hiscox Insurance) The number one reason why: Business owners suggest that they don't see the payoff for the time and energy they invest.

At CBCG, we couldn't disagree more. If we met to discuss marketing for your business, I'm sure we would probably both agree that the goal of marketing for any business - large or small - is to connect with customers and share insights and information about the business. The key to successful marketing is to deliver the message in the right forum where your customers will read it.

If that premise holds true, then I suggest that there-in lies the opportunity for small businesses to use social media as a marketing tool. If your customers are spending time on Facebook, or watching videos on YouTube or Tweeting on Twitter, than you should be there marketing your business and engaging with them WHERE THEY ARE.

Reaching customers today is no different than when you marketed your business 20 years ago. You used the newspaper, put ads on the radio or put an ad in the yellow pages to share because that's where your customers were. The difference today is that some small business owners are not as comfortable using social media as a marketing tool because they know less about it or feel behind the curve when it comes to adoption of social media practices.

That uncomfortable feeling is limiting your success at connecting with customers and driving sales for your business. I promise, the tools are not that hard to figure out and once you decide to jump in, there are many resources available to you to help you create a message using social media that will reach your customers effectively.

The time to start using social media for your business is NOW. Your customers already are.

The heck with the heat, let's go shopping.....

More than half the US is steeped in a serious heat wave this week. And it doesn't look like it's going to end any time soon. It's so hot in many places that spending even 5 minutes outside can sap your energy and make you want to crawl into a dark cool room and just hide.

But for those of us that are in the retail business, we've still got employees to pay and sales to make, even in this blazing summer time heat. So how can you get more customers out of the car and in to your front door during the heatwave? Try some of these and let us know what happens.

1. Have a "Hot, Hot, Hot" sale. Make a game of it for your customers. Let them know if it reaches a certain temperature, you'll give them a discount on their purchases for the day! The higher the temp, the more the discount. Send out emails, post on your social media sites and put a sign in your front window to spread the word.
   
   
2. Put an old fashioned lemonade stand outside your front door. If it's too hot to man the booth outside, let them know you've got a cold glass waiting for them in your air conditioned store!



3. Open the front door. Yes, you'll let out some precious A/C, but as they are walking by, they will feel it and most likely, be compelled to come in out of the heat and take a look around. Once you have them in the front door, the rest is up to your salespeople!
   
   
4. Offer free bottles of water to all shoppers who come in. If you don't have premade labels in the store, get some blank ones and put your store logo on the bottles. Keep your customers hydrated, and advertise your store at the same time.
   
   
5. Run a contest. Guess the high today and win a prize. This will be most effective via social media like Facebook or Twitter because you can get immediate results. Award the winner a gift certificate for a future purchase.

Whatever you do, you must do something. Don't let the summer heat take the sizzle out of your business!

Does your store compel customers to spend?

What do you do when vacation turns into a frustrating retail experience? Why you blog about it of course.

Admittedly, because of what I do for a living, I am hyper sensitive to retailers, the products they sell and the customer service they offer. Yes, it’s a hazard of my job, one that usually doesn’t cause such a problem at the same time!

But what I found on my visit to the retailers in Maine last week did not inspire me to spend money in the least. And the lessons for retailers out there who are in the same situation are worth talking about for all.

If you’ve not been to Bar Harbor, Maine summer is one of the best times to go. Visitors flock to the main attraction – Acadia National Park - during the very short season for a multitude of outdoor activities. And for those that don’t like the outdoor resources the park has to offer, there are plenty of shops and restaurants that are willing to help you wile away your time and spend your money.

This means that retailers must make hay while the “sun shines” in order to have a profitable season. With 8-10 weeks of prime time selling opportunities, the retailers need to be on top of their game to attract customers and get them to reach into their wallets and spend the almighty vacation buck.

And now the problems begin. After a morning hiking in the park, I set out for an afternoon of shopping hoping to find some mementos of my time in Maine. On a trip where I expected to be “wowed and wooed” to spend money in abundance, I wasn’t compelled to do anything of the sort. What I found – or should I say didn’t find from the retailers in town was concerning:

· Not one artistic or thought provoking window display that compelled me to walk in the front door of a store - on a very crowded retail street no less!
· No stores filled with one of a kind, unique, interesting products that inspired me to pull out my wallet
· Fair pricing on the routine items I forgot at home (I did without because of this)
· Not One – and I mean one - interesting marketing promotion geared toward making me pay attention to certain shops or products in any store
· A friendly merchant (or their support staff) that had a smile and a warm hello for me as I walked in
· A sign-up sheet for an email list or a facebook page so that I could follow store happenings all year round to remember the “fun” I had on my summer vacation.

Believe me, I know all the work it takes to make a retail store successful today. And I know that budgets are tight and costs are being cut everywhere just to try and stay in business for another year. But the simple take-away from my retail experience are reminders and lessons that don’t cost a lot to execute and ones that can differentiate your business to be the most successful it can be.
Wherever you live –and whatever you sell, every retailer must be vigilant about attracting customers and maximizing business opportunities where and when they occur. Forgetting about the 4 P’s of marketing are a critical failure to ANY business – no matter where it is. Especially in tourist destination stores across the country – Maine included!

Note to the Maine retailers reading this: I LOVE Maine – and I’ll be back –this isn’t about all of you- just some of your brothers and sisters who have forgotten the cardinal rules of retailing – that serve as a reminder to the rest of us. Customers WANT to spend money in your store. So please - give them a reason to spend!

Making Your Retail Business Social in 2012

People around the world are using social media for many reasons. They are meeting long lost relatives or high school classmates on social media sites, watching videos, reading blogs and most importantly for retailers, they are using social media to connect with brands they know and love.

And the numbers show no sign of slowing down any time soon. By the end 2011— more than 63% of Internet users will be using social media. (148 million people) and the number will climb to 67% by the year 2013. (Source: emarketer.com) That’s a lot of people spending a lot of time with social media to do a lot of things.

And while some retailers are just getting started in using social media for their businesses, the industry is steam rolling ahead at warp speed. New social media sites are being created every day and the ways consumers use social media continues to evolve. So the question is - How is social media evolving and how will retailers be able to use it for their retail businesses in the coming year?

Here we present 5 emerging trends in social media. Many of them will be perfect for retailers like you as they seek to engage and share word of mouth experiences with customers in real time across a broad group of users. When you read them, don’t think about where you are with social media today, think about where your business could be if you integrated some of these tools in the coming year.

Consumer content creation—It’s all about being in the stream. Yes, you need to have an engaging presence with social media on your own that inspires people to come back on a regular basis. Now taking it to the next level and getting your brand evangelists and social media community members to talk about your business in their posts will be critical.

Think of it as PR and word of mouth marketing from your best customers. You will need to create programs that inspire them to share what you are doing in their social media posts. When your customers create the content for your business, it's the perfect word of mouth referral- except that it’s on line and a lot more eyes will be on the message!

Niche Location—Niche location social media sites target the exact location of the user and tells others about it. This has a great connotation for retailers who can use location based sites like Foursquare or Gowalla to run contests or make offers to customers who check in when they shop.

Its like getting free advertising for your store in real time, from people who are shopping at that moment! Customerse check in and get discounts, etc and then their friends see on line that they are shopping in your store and may be intrigued to come in and get the same deal. If you want to see how some brands have implemented location based marketing programs, take a look at what Ann Taylor, McDonalds, Starbucks and Best Buy have already done in this area.

Group Purchasing—This trend continues to grow and will expand with more sites in 2012. Simply put, group purchasing is based on the premise that creating a sense of urgency around purchasing will incentivize users to act quickly and to share the information with friends in their circle to insure the deal happens.

For retailers, it’s a great way to get a tremendous amount of marketing impressions for your brand that you could never afford on your own. And while the group purchasing sites take a percentage of the sales generated from the deal (and yes, there is some profit erosion on this first deal and customer transaction), the goal for using a GP site will be to create a longer term relationship with the customer over time to recoup your profit.

Using group purchasing sites like Groupon or Living social or Daily Deals has become a hotbed topic for retailers because they are concerned these sites don’t attract the right type of customers that can be retained long-term. I would suggest that the key to successful group purchasing participation is how you structure the deal and how you prepare in advance to create a process for you to capture contact information from the customers as well as create marketing programs to speak to them after the Groupon is over.

Social Gaming - In 2012 more game applications will be integrated in to social media programs to further engage customers with brands in a fun way. More than 56 million people currently play games with social media on a regular basis and brands that connect with customers while they are using the game platforms are poised to form a meaningful connection with them going forward.

Mobile Marketing - More than 50% of all cell phones will be smart phones in 2012. Consumers understand the time saving benefits that a smart phone can deliver and the social media trends for 2012 call for more mobile marketing programs from brands to connect with customers where they are. Discount codes coming thru phones, interactions with products while in store and QR codes offering information, games and other relevant services will further engage customers with brands and stores in 2012.

Whatever trend you think is right for your business, one thing is certain. Social Media is the way of the future for retailers to connect with customers. Just like creating a website was important 10 years ago and email marketing they way to connect with customers 5 years ago, social media is a trend that is here to stay.

Social media is and will continue to be a way of connecting with customers for your store and if you plan on being in business in 10 years – you must continue (or start!) to integrate these new social media tools into your marketing plans today.

Are you ready to be part of the Group?

I’ve heard lots of dialogue (on both sides of the fence) about Group Buying Sites (e.g. Groupon, LivingSocial, PlumDistrict and BuyWithMe) and how they have negatively impacted small businesses. In fact, I’ve even heard a few stories about how they put small businesses out of business!

These stories include businesses who were overwhelmed by new customers, saw unplanned spikes in demand and businesses where group buying sites created surges in website traffic and need for increased cash flow to manage inventory capacity builds. On the surface, this might lead you to say that group purchase sites are not good for small business. This is one place where I completely disagree!

I'd like to suggest that in fact, it's not the group buying sites fault for delivering "too many customers" to a store that participates, but in fact, it is the unprepared small business owner who has created what I believe are problems that can be easily prepared for.

Oprah Effect
Think of the impact that product endorsements from the Oprah Winfrey show had on small businesses. Many a lucrative business was catapulted from the dark corners of mediocrity to the bright lights of notoriety by being endorsed by Oprah on her show. How did they ever survive? How dare Oprah promote their products…did she not know she could put them out of business?

In fact, most (if not all) of the businesses featured on Oprah had time to prepare for the impact that the show would provide. The benefit of this proper planning in advance created the positive opportunity that the Oprah effect delivered.

Be Careful What You Ask For!
Any promotion deployed in isolation without regard for the effects on business operations is a disaster waiting to happen. A small business owner must take into consideration the ramifications of a Group Buying Site promotion on all aspects of the business. The financial impact of the Group Buying Site’s offer on gross profits can be easily measured, but the potential investments required in other operational aspects (IT and IS upgrades, staffing, training, inventory management, onsite customer logistics, cash flow requirements, customer relationship management programs) are more difficult to predict. All must be carefully evaluated and considered BEFORE entering into an agreement with a Group Buying Site. Strategic preparation is critical to maximize the potential success of the promotion and mitigating potential risks to your business.

Long Term Value of the Customer

A key element of many of these Group Buying Site promotions is the immediate discount on the initial transaction. If the small business owner views this opportunity as a chance to drive one-time transactions, they are doomed to failure. The key is to consider the long term value of the customer; the promotion expense is merely the customer acquisition cost. If the new customer can be converted from a one-time discounted transaction to a regular consistent customer, then the true monetization potential of the promotion is acheived. All said and done, the small business owner may initially only break even on the Group Buying Site promotion, but they have been presented with a glorious opportunity to drive future sales and profit growth through customer retention.

Think long term and you have a chance for success. Deliver a great customer experience and you have a better chance for success. PREPARE with a focus on the long term and you will succeed.

Managing your retail inventory and managing the cash flow that goes into managing that inventory is one of the biggest challenges retailers face. While there are many software programs and templates that exist to help retailers manage the process of buying inventory, I can’t tell you how many retailers I meet who still don’t see the benefits of using one of these systems to help plan their business.  

In our never ending quest to help retailers small and large take more money home and not leave it on their store shelves, once again, we offer our rationale on why setting up and managing an Open To Buy program (of some sort) can be effective and why it should be used to help run your retail inventory.  

You know what an open to buy is, right? It’s a system used to help plan your purchases on a department or class level and to match your inventory needs with planned sales you expect to do in that time period. A successful open to buy plan will maximize the flow of inventory and improve sales and turnover so that as the owner of the business, you can keep more cash from sales in your bank account and not spend it on inventory sitting on your store shelves that you don’t need.  

And while many of you reading this have been in business a long time and are quite knowledgeable about what sells when in your store, there is still some fine tuning that can be done with the help of an open to buy program for a business of any size no matter how old the business is.  

Using an OTB program will help you track selling by department on a regular basis and will alert you to shifts in business - very quickly. Reacting or proactively pursuing these shifts can and will save you money and help you drive more sales and profits to the bottom line for your business.  

Whether you buy more merchandise because you react to a positive shift in sales, or react to slower sales by canceling or shifting dates on purchases, you can help your business drive more profitable sales in trending categories while reducing the inventory you spend on departments that are no longer selling.   So how much money can you expect to save if you use an OTB program? Typical results from running an Open To Buy are turn improvement of between 7-10% the first year and a reduction in purchases of between 5-10% annually. These two things alone can pay for the cost of managing an OTB program and so much more!  

And while there are tremendous benefits to using an open to buy program, it is not a silver bullet that fixes all that ails your store. You will need to spend time working on and with your open to buy to make it truly successful. You must not be ambivalent about your Open To Buy.  For an Open To Buy plan to fully to succeed, you must be committed to following the plan you set in place and have the discipline to stick to the plan in the course of the year. The results will happen if you stick to the plan!

Make Your Summer Inventory Shine

Next week brings the official start to summer. For retailers, no calendar needs to tell us that as we are already well into the summer selling season and working on marketing and promoting the seasonal products that go with this time of year.

But for those of you that are a little behind in your planning, or you need a reminder about how to maximize your seasonal inventory we offer a few tips on how to make your summer inventory sizzle and shine while making sure you are thinking about the profitable season end liquidation of those products.

By now, you probably have a great display of your seasonal merchandise right by the front door. Hopefully the display is set up in direct sight of customers when they walk in and full of seasonal products and geared to maximize sales. Make sure your display is fun and pull in as much merchandise as you can to showcase your all of seasonal products – and the other corresponding products that go with it in the store.

Don’t forget to include your store windows and any outdoor space (window boxes, benches, parking lots, etc) in your seasonal product displays. There is no better way to entice customers to buy like showing them how the products work and how much fun they are!

Besides a great display, one of the biggest things to help maximize sales of seasonal products is to create a fun and engaging marketing program for them. Summer is all about family, vacation and doing all the fun things we don’t get to do in the colder weather so make your marketing communications reflect the same attitudes.

Remember you have less time to sell seasonal products than you do with your average selling cycle so be sure to market often. Include seasonal products in at least 2 emails per month and use social media to talk about your seasonal products on a more regular basis. (Our suggestion is 2-3 times per week) With social media, don’t forget you can do fun things like picture contests, short videos showing people using the products in a fun way.
If you sell from the web, change your summer product images on the front page often.

A good plan for maximizing sales with seasonal products also includes a strategy for how to liquidate those products at the end of the season. It is critical to your success- and to your cash flow- that you plan the time you want to be out of the merchandise and then back in to when and how you will promote it to your customers.

A good rule of thumb is to plan to sell thru 75% of your merchandise at regular price (This assumes an 8-10% sell thru on a weekly basis for the preceding 8-10 weeks of the season) by 1 month before seasons end.

This allows you one month to take permanent markdowns and move it to a clearance section of the store or to run the merchandise as a POS markdown for the final liquidation.

Social Media and your retail business - the perfect combination

We've recently returned from a series of social media trainings for our retail clients and the question we got asked the most was how to improve engagement and performance using social media.

With the continued emphasis from clients that want to learn how to create the right type of engagement using social media, we thought we'd repost our 42 tips on how to improve your social media presence. We shared it with the group and they added some of their own. We hope you find it helpful too.

1. Be Remarkable - Somebody Worth Making A Remark About
2. Sharing is Caring. Become A Trusted Resource for your Fans and Followers
3. Have Your Own Unique Brand Personality
4. Be Vocal And Opinionated – Politely, of course - Within The Community
5. Don’t Flood Followers With Requests. Follower Fatigue is Not What you Want!
6. Invest Time Into Social Media – Have A Strategy And Stick To It!
7. Produce And Share Content That YOUR AUDIENCE Will Love
8. Listen To What’s Being Said. Monitor Constantly. Respond Regularly
9. Become A Real Member Of The Community
10. Ask and Answer Questions - constantly
11. Provide Value To The Community
12. Get People Thinking- And Talking. Be Controversial when Appropriate.
13. Create Your Own Voice. Me Too doesn't Work in Social Media.
14. Contribute Regularly. Schedule Posts If Neccessary To Remain Present.
15. Don’t Be Negative—Or A Jerk. Neither One Works In Social Media.
16. Make It Easy For People To Share And Bookmark Your Content
17. Listen To The Community
18. Make At Least One New Connection Every Day
19. Engage Yourself In Conversations
20. Become The Conversation
21. You’re There To Make Relationships, Not Hard Selling
22. Take Time To Focus On Building A Loyal Following
23. Give, Give, GIVE!
24. Treat Social Media Like A Cocktail Party
25. Be Supportive
26. Syndicate Your Content Across All Social Media Platforms
27. Encourage Others To Syndicate Your Content Onto Their Sites
28. Fully Research The Community To Understand Your Market
29. Be Fun
30. Get To Know The Unwritten Laws Of The Community
31. Create An Attractive, Unique And Professional Profile
32. Use A Cool Avatar/Picture
33. Use The Same Avatar For Each Social Media Service
34. Don’t Disparage Others ( No Trash Talking Allowed)
35. Know What Your Followers/Friends Want And Give It To Them
36. Form Reciprocal Arrangements With Others
37. Monitor Your Noise Level
38. Never Cheat The System
39. Help Others Unconditionally
40. Be Yourself
41. Gain Credibility. Establish Trust.
42. START TODAY

There are certainly more ways than we have time to list, but we hope it's a start. Do you have a tip that needs to be added to our list? No problem- we'll make room. Comment away on our Facebook page so everyone can see it!

Sharing love from your long term customers

 

Do you know who the brand evangelists for your brand are? Do you know the names of those customers who have been with you since the beginning and who have helped your store get to the level of success you have today?

Of course you do.

These satisfied customers are the backbone of your business. They have so many nice things to say about what your store carries and the customer service you have provided over the years. They tell all their friends to shop in your store and about how nice you are to them. But what happens if these loyal loving customers don't use the internet on a daily basis and can't help you spread the word by writing on line testimonials on Yelp or your Facebook Fan page - places where the "younger customers" of your business are looking for reviews and testimonials about businesses to shop at? How can you marry these two different groups of customers and share the most information you can?

It's Easy. Help your satisfied offline customers share their experiences online by setting up a computer terminal in-store where they can post comments about their experiences with your retail business. Ask them next time they are in if you could get them to take a few minutes and post a testimonial about their experiences at your store. Log in to your social web pages and show them exactly what to do in order to write an online review. Or better yet, ask them for a quote and ask if you can type it in yourself? Saving them time, but getting the genuine referral out for so many others to see!  

While some of your long time customers may not be as internet savvy as your newest customers, they do have the best stories to tell about your business over the years. Make sure you do what you can to help them share it!

Is your retail business social?

Today’s retail consumers are using social media in record numbers to engage daily with products and services they like. They are learning about features and benefits of brands, they are learning about brand personality thru contests and activities online and they are sharing testimonial information about brands they love with their online friends and family.

All this social media activity is great news for retailers who understand that they can now engage customers (existing and new) via their social media sites on a daily basis. In fact, today’s best in class retailers are now meeting consumers where they are by re-aligning their marketing methods and creating social media strategies that engage, inform and inspire their customers to participate.

So what steps must you make in order to make your retail business more effective with social media marketing today?

1. Strategy first. With social media, it is not a case of “if you build it, they will come.” With social media, you must begin with a strategy that defines your company goals and outcomes for using social media. Ironically, the social media tools are not complex it’s the development of a strategy and finding time to commit to it that sinks many companies starting out.

2. Abolish the fear of transparency. As you seek to engage your customers in your social media activities, you will no doubt receive some critical reviews of your brand. Do not hide behind your cyber walls. Acknowledge your failings in the public forum and try to right the wrongs as best you can.

3. Stand out from the crowd. Yes, you must have a strategy, but don’t forget, we’re talking about marketing here so you must create activities with your social media marketing that create differentiation among your peers and help your customers see the value in your company and brand.

4. Givers gain. Companies must learn that using social media isn’t just about constantly selling your brand. They must learn to have a shared communication with customers and give information that your customers find useful. Think about social media like a cocktail party- if you listen to someone constantly talk about themselves, you are looking for the exits in a hurry, but if they engage in a two way conversation with you, it’s much more interesting and potentially rewarding.

5. Abide by the 40/30/30 rule. Spend 40% of your posts talking about personal matters, 30% of the time sharing store or industry information that your customers would appreciate and THEN- and ONLY then, should you spend 30% of your time directly selling products your store carries. Maintaining this rule will help you build credibility and trust for your brand with your customers.

6. Create Value - it matters to your customers. Make sure you use social media to help your company showcase the value in your brand. It’s not just being there that matters, it’s about delivering value in the eyes of your customers on a consistent basis that separates you from your competitors on a consistent basis.

There is no doubt that using social media can be an effective tool for connecting with consumers of all ages. I know that finding the time to execute social media may be challenging at first, but when you make it a regular part of your marketing program, you will see what a wonderful tool it can be for your business to meet and market to customers on a 24/7 basis!

Where does the time go?

Yesterday, I had a meeting with a client where we were supposed to spend 3 hours brainstorming a marketing strategy for new store grand opening. Instead, we spent the time organizing her schedule. She couldn’t even “think about marketing ideas and strategy" until she had made sure that everything was going to get done on time.

This got me wondering how many of our retail clients and partners are in the same predicament. How cluttered are their minds with day-to-day tasks? And how does this clutter affect the long term strategic planning that business owners must do to insure a successful future for their businesses?

So I’ve decided to create a series of blog posts that will give you information to help organize your time and tasks in order to make you more efficient in your day-to-day business operations. Hopefully, you can use the “extra” time you gain to strategize long-term projects (marketing,operations, social media strategy) that can and will improve the overall performance of your retail business.

Today we start with a tip that can improve your efficiency and help you to create a replicable process to help you achieve all of your daily activities. I’m talking about a to-do list.

Why do I believe creating a well-organized to-do list will improve your businesses’ overall performance? Most importantly, because I believe that creating a to-do list will help the most important person in the business - that’s you - focus on what is important to your business on a daily basis.

When you, as the owner and visionary for your business, define success on a daily basis it will make you focus (with laser precision) on the tasks that are necessary and most relevant for you to achieve optimum performance from your business. Here we offer some quick and easy guidelines to creating, and maintaining a to-do list for your business:

1.Create a final to do list before you go home at night. This will clear your head at the end of every day and insure you remember all the tasks that must get accomplished the following day. (Note: putting your list in plain sight and adding tasks as you remember them all day long will go a long way toward making the end of the day list building much quicker.)

2.Organize your to do list in 3 categories. Allocate time for each priority on your list.
a.High priority – These are the very important tasks and the ones that if not finished, will have the most impact on business operations if not accomplished.
b.Medium priority – While important, these are tasks that must get accomplished on time, but not critical to the bottom profit line of your business.
c.Low priority - These are tasks that are not critical to business operations and bottom line, but none the less need to get accomplished. Think of them as tasks that you would like to get accomplished (if there was enough time in the day) Tasks in this priority are not affixed to a specific weekly or monthly deadline. (These may be great tasks that if left on your list for a few days running, may be candidates to be delegated to another staff member.)

(Note: If anything remains a low priority on your to do list for more than 2 weeks, we suggest you take it off your list. Clearly, it wasn’t important to the future of your business otherwise you would move it up the priority list and make sure you got it done!)

3.When writing your list, check the calendar for future events. What is going on the next day? And in 2-4 days that you need to do work for? (Pre-planning tasks that need to be completed will save everyone in your organization from running around at the last minute to complete it.)

4.Communicate and schedule time in advance. Make sure that you engage all of the necessary participants required to accomplish your task well in advance of your deadline. (If you need your manager, marketing director, or bookkeeper to help you finish the task on your list, you must request their participation in order to make sure you can finish on time.)

If most of these tips seem like common sense, it’s because they are. The key is that you must have the discipline required to set up and to complete to do list on a daily basis. No one can help you meet the goals you set up for your retail business if you don’t start with a good example. So start writing a to do list and start accomplishing the tasks you need to for your business!

Benchmarking your retail performance

As retailers, we’re always striving to do better. We have previously suggested that benchmarking can help give retailers the unique perspective they need to improve their overall performance. But the question remains, what value can be added to your retail business by benchmarking your performance against other like retail businesses? Here we suggest 4 areas where your retail business can be improved and made more effective from the use of benchmarks.

Sales Effectiveness.By measuring sales, you can determine if your retail business is achieving it’s optimal level of sales on a daily, weekly, monthly or annual basis. Using sales is an obvious measurement tool, but understanding how other retail businesses are performing versus yours can provide some future goals that your business can reach for.

Merchandising Effectiveness. Determining how effective your merchandise assortments are and measuring turnover performance will help maximize your gross profit to it’s fullest potential. Utilizing measurements for like industry businesses can showcase any room for improvement your business can make.

Marketing Effectiveness.Using benchmarks to measure the investment in marketing for your retail business can determine if you are achieving the appropriate level of incremental sales and profit with your marketing dollars. Spending money on marketing activity is critical to your businesses’ long term success, so understanding the return on investment you should expect can give you performance metrics to achieve.

Management Effectiveness. Benchmarks can help you determine if your investments in non-sales generating overhead are appropriate for a business of your size. Recognizing any cost savings that can be achieved or reductions in overhead that are necessary will help improve your overall expenses and improve bottom line profits.

Understanding that benchmarks can measure both internal and external company effectiveness, the next step in setting up a benchmarking practice for your retail business will be to determine what you want to measure. Determining which benchmarks to measure should align with your strategic and operational goals for the business and be appropriate for current stage of your business life cycle. Some possible benchmarks for your business to focus on include:

•Sales Per Transaction
•Customer Conversion Rate
•Sales Per Employee Hour
•Average Inventory Turn
•Average Inventory Shrinkage
•Sales Per Square Foot
•Average Gross Margin Percentage
•Sales Per Marketing Activities
•Sales Per Promotional Investment
•Overhead Percentage Of Sales
•Operating Margin
•Return On Invested Capital
•Sales Per Working Capital Invested

(Note: When gathering comparative benchmarking data, choose the industry figures that best fit your company descriptions. Unless you measure against your own industry standards, you won’t measure your business within the right industry context.)

Setting up a benchmarking process for measuring your business effectiveness can help insure the long-term success. Looking outside the walls of your retail business will help you to gain internal knowledge that can and will lead to improvements in your businesses’ bottom line results.

Are you connecting with today's connected Moms?

 

With Mother's day just around the corner, we can't help but think about all the wonderful Moms out there who are customers in our favorite retail stores. For many retailers, women- specifically mother's - are a core customer group. These customers are loyal and are the lifeblood of many retail businesses. Today's Mom customers are also very connected consumers who use the internet to find information about products and services they need.

Whether it's about speicfic features and benefits, pricing, or where to find the products they desire, Moms search the internet 80% of the time for information on brands.So how can you use the internet for your retail business to connect with thesse connected Moms? Here we offer a few examples:

1. Use social search sites like Yelp to create a testimonials for your business. Think of social search as a word of mouth referral, only bigger - and better - because more people can see it! 
2. Create a You Tube channel for your business. Add videos about specific products you sell, showcasing store events, or run video contests to engage customers with your business.
3. Use Facebook Advertising to target specific customer groups and products. Facebook ads allow you to target specific locations and key words that make it very effective as a tool to maret your business.
4. Post on Blogs where your customers participate. Blogs can be a powerful referral tool for any business. 
5. Advertise on relevant blog sites. Engaged bloggers make wonderful customers for your business.
6. Link blog posts, social media sites and videos in your company newsletters. Make your newsletters social to utilize all the wonderful content you've created across the internet.

Even if you don't use your cany webiste for selling products, there are many places to position your business on the internet today. Keying in on where your connected Mom customers are participating will go a long way toward helping you market your business effectively! 

Is your retail business a peak performer?

As retailers, we’re always striving to do better. Whether we’re looking for more sales, higher profits or better customer service. But do we really understand what doing better means? When we’re “judging” our businesses performance, what are we measuring our success against? And when we measure performance, how do we determine what results should be expected?

The answer is Benchmarking. For some of you, this may be a common occurrence, for others, a new concept that can be a game changer for your business. So, let’s spend some time here trying to explain what benchmarking is and how it can help your retail business profit on a regular basis.

For those who are new to benchmarking, let’s start with a definition. Simply put, benchmarking is the practice of being humble enough to admit that someone else is better at something, and wise enough to learn how to match and even surpass them at it. Benchmarking is a systematic and continuous process of searching, learning, adapting and implementing the best practices from within your own organization, or from other organizations, towards attaining superior performance.

Another way to define benchmarking is as a measured “best-in-class” achievement or a recognized as the standard of excellence for a particular process reference point or a standard against which other performance may be measured against.

There are many different ways to focus your benchmarking efforts within a business. Typically retailers will focus their benchmarking efforts on the review of key business drivers including market share and comparative data on sales and operations. Some examples of benchmarking for a retail business may include:
-Gross margin
-Annual sales per square foot
-Rate of customer complaint
-Annual sales per square foot
-Employee satisfaction rate

So why should retailers understand and utilize benchmarking? Most importantly, improving overall performance with the most up to date information can help any retailer improve their bottom line. Benchmarking can be used to help your retail business determine what optimum performance benchmarks should be from an objective source. These indicators can help your retail business define success more effectively and help you to determine any potential areas of weakness in your business. Benchmarks can also help you create realistic goals for improving your performance that is realistic and achievable. Some key benefits of benchmarking include:

-Understanding world-class industry performance
-Encouraging and stimulating company innovation
-Improving organizational quality
-Creating company buy-in for change
-Exposing employees to new ideas
-Broadening company learning
-Increasing employee satisfaction
-Raising level of potential performance
-Sharing of best practices

Obviously, there are quite a few areas where benchmarking can be applied to your retail business. Determining which benchmarks to measure should align with your strategic and operational goals for the business and be appropriate for current stage of your business life cycle. Then if you uncover opportunities for improvement, they can have the greatest effect on delivering results that align with your overall business objectives.

While benchmarking is not an easy task to undertake, the results can have profound results on your businesses’ bottom line. Is 2011 the year you look outside of your own company walls and utilizing benchmarking to determine if you are truly achieving the success possible from your business?

Your merchandise is NOT like fine wine.......

Like most retailers, you probably have a consistent strategy in place for pricing products when they come in. But do you have the same consistent strategy in place to review and determine the selling performance of those products? In other words, do you have a markdown strategy in place for slow selling products that is consistently executed in your store? If not, the time to talk markdowns is now. Retailers must develop a process for reviewing sales and determine if markdowns should be taken to move products out of stock. Doing this on a consistent basis is a key component to maximizing your inventory turnover and improving cash flow for your business. Let’s discuss some of the reasons that your business might need to lower the ticketed retail price of merchandise in your store. Price reductions typically come in 3 different categories: 1) There are buying related causes. This is where most stores need to address markdowns. Included in this category are reductions due to assortment errors. There are also timing errors that you didn’t catch such as late shipment or ordering too much. Or perhaps you ordered from a new vendor and you misjudged the quality of the merchandise. Another buying related cause could be a supplier error such as late, damaged or incorrect shipments 2) Another category where markdowns would need to be taken is selling related causes. In essence, the product isn’t selling at the ticketed price to an acceptable level on a weekly basis. A good rule of thumb for retailers to use is a minimum sell thru of 5% weekly during regular selling periods. If the merchandise you are reviewing isn’t selling at least 5% a week that should be a basis for determining to take a markdown. 3) And lastly, there are operational related causes that may require you to take a markdown. These include damaged or dirty merchandise, odd lots or consumer shifts for certain products you carry. Depending on the reason that a markdown needs to be taken, retailers must enact a strategy to finish the liquidation of the distressed product. How much of a reduction to take, and when to take the reduction must be decided. This is THE most critical decision after pricing that happens. When products sell, every retailer wins, but having a strategy for dealing with merchandise that isn’t selling, after everything you have tried (correct pricing, marketing activities) is where retailers can either maintain, or give away their ultimate profits. There is no single right answer for when any retailer should reduce prices in their stores. Whether retailers choose to enact a temporary markdown, or a permanent one, retailers must analyze each product as it relates to their overall pricing strategy. Here are some key factors to look at when reviewing when to take markdowns and how much to take them for: a. Type of merchandise b. Store image c. Length of selling season d. Nature of target customer e. Size of initial markup f. Availability of selling and storage space g. Retailer’s sales promo policies - “mini” sales vs. “big-event” sales As mentioned earlier, a general rule of thumb is that products should sell thru at a Minimum of 5-7% per week. When you get to a 60 percent overall sell thru, you should take a first markdown, usually a 25% reduction. This cycle should generally take 10-12 weeks. If you think about how many times you go to market (2 major markets- and perhaps 2 minor markets in between) this makes sense. Each time you go to market, you are purchasing a ‘season’s worth’ of merchandise, so after 12 weeks, if the merchandise sells well, is typically time to get marked down. If you have slower moving merchandise (a sell thru of less than 2-3% per week) you may want to consider taking a markdown with a greater discount- somewhere between 33-40% off. And you may decide not to wait the entire 10 or 12 weeks. Remember this: Merchandise is NOT like fine wine, it does NOT get better with age. If you customers have “spoken” and they don’t like the products you have chosen, no matter how you have priced them, they will not sell. This leads to a serious lack of cash flow and in some cases, can lead to a lack of new products flowing in because there is no money to pay for them! Remember, a good overall pricing strategy and a coordinating markdown strategy is a key component to your stores ultimate success. Take the time to choose a strategy that aligns with your business goals, and then continue to monitor how the strategy is working on a monthly basis. This effort on your part will go a long way to building your brand as a unique and important store in the marketplace, and one that keeps your customers coming back time and time again.