It’s not reinventing the wheel to suggest that retail businesses also need promotion to grow. Since the competition is very heavy in the retail industry, most retail shops can’t allocate larger funds to marketing. They have to invest in other aspects of their businesses in order to keep up with the competition. Therefore, they seek more affordable marketing tactics i.e digital marketing.
The issue here is that many of those businesses fail to implement successful promotional tactics because of insufficient funds. However, in an age of technological advancement retailers should have no problem finding effective promotion tactics with a low budget.
We’ve made your job easier and listed 5 low budget promotion ideas for retails. Have a look!
1. Be Active on Social Media
Aside from placing offline advertisements, retailers can also use social media to run an official company page and promote themselves there. And, in the same breath, your competitors will have social media pages too. Hence, in order to beat the competition, your social media pages need to stand out.
The easiest way to have a properly working page is always keeping it active. Posting actively every day and conducting giveaways and contests will raise your brand awareness rapidly.
Your post ideas can be as simple as making users tag their friends or share on their pages. This will gradually increase your subscribers and increase your brand awareness.
You can also create contests for people to participate in by just subscribing to your account. Although some of them may later unsubscribe, that will still leave you with a lot of new subscribers.
Similarly, contests will enlarge your audience too. Your contests and giveaways can include sharing the post, commenting or liking it. Either way, you will get more subscribers.
2. Carefully Plan and Use Social Media Ads for Marketing
Social media is a great tool for promotion. It is especially practical for retail stores since most of the time their target audience is in a specific location. This makes it easier for them to take advantage of the targeting tools social media ads offer. Having the target location set, now they can create promotional campaigns that their audience will definitely see.
This is one of the most significant advantages of social media ads for retail stores. However, it is important to note that only effective targeting is not enough for a successful campaign. Retail stores need to show something unique and engaging to their audience.
Social media users see dozens of similar ads from different retailers every day. Thus, having a campaign that will stand out is critical. Otherwise, the campaign will just be a waste of money for the business.
3. Intrigue Your Customers
It is always a good idea to highlight that some items are low in stock. This creates a sense of urgency and hurry that drives customers to stores to make purchases. It alarms them of a possibility to lose out on a great chance.
When you run a discount next time, bear in mind that you can end it whenever you want. The same applies to special offers like two for the price of one. Mention a specific end date or days left to that date and the customers will be pressured not to skip the chance.
Most people plan what they need to buy and look for the best prices. Seeing a great deal and having a set timeframe to get it triggers them to act quickly. Don’t focus on the speed of the campaign, but the fact that it actually brings you, customers.
4. Send Personalized Special Offers
Text message marketing has been around for decades. Surprisingly enough, it still remains useful today even though there are lots of other alternatives. You can use it for various reasons based on your needs and budget.
When you have special offers for premium customers, it is a good idea to send them text messages. This will seem more personal to them and guarantee that most of them will open the message.
When sending SMS campaigns, you just need to be cautious of some details. Text messages are personal to people, so get their consent before reaching out to them.
Also, don’t overload them with your messages but instead send them when you have something special. This is one of the few cases when repetition won’t work in advertisements. They will just get bored and unsubscribe from your messages.
5. Cooperate with Influencers
You don’t necessarily need to work with Beyoncé or Cristiano Ronaldo to succeed with your promotional campaigns. You can choose influencers that will want less money and establish cooperation with them. If they are famous in your targeted locations, they will benefit your company a lot.
Influencers will add more credibility to your retail business. Their audience trusts them and they will be more likely to trust you too.
Influencers can grow to be the faces of your companies. If they enlarge their audience, you will too. By the same token, if they fail at some point, you are likely to lose customers too.
This is why you need to be careful of who you choose as the face of your organization. For example, Tour de France star and cyclist Lance Armstrong was the face of Nike for years. Their cooperation had increased Nike’s sales by around 20%. However, when he was pledged guilty of using doping illicit drugs, Nike experienced a severe decline in sales.
Conclusion: These are just a few promotion ideas for retail businesses: offering contests, promoting products on social media, creating events, and other ideas can all help small businesses keep their sales strong. Just try new things, test what works, and remember that your retail business needs to keep up with the expectations of your customers.
