If you have a small business, you may find marketing and advertising a daunting task. Marketing is executed most famously by big corporations, but it’s something that small businesses can take advantage of and utilize effectively fairly cheaply. The difference between corporate marketing and small business marketing is that for small businesses, the target audience tends to be local and hence the budget tends to be much more affordable. Here are four easy techniques you can use to market with your storefront.
Giveaways
Giveaways are the perfect way to draw attention to your business. Who could resist a sample of your product, or even something that’s not relevant but a symbol of goodwill like cookies? Giving a small gift to those who enter your store is a great way to increase traffic, and you should consider that the more people entering your shop means that more people will see your products and find something they like. It’s that simple. Some ideas that aren’t food include branded items like keyrings, USBs or something simple like a badge or a patch. Alternatively, a hot drink on a cold day or a cold drink on a hot day can be a nice welcome.
Window Displays
This one may seem obvious, but few people utilize them well enough. If you’re proud of your products you should display them in the window, with a bit of pageantry around them like drawing on the window with non-permanent markers. If you sell foods or drinks you can display them in a display fridge or freezer and make the display unit part of the storefront decoration. You can even them in many different sizes depending on the decoration you’re going for; click here for more information on sizes and options.
Distractions
What better way to increase attention to your store than distract people that walk past? You can do this in all sorts of ways, but make sure it’s not annoying. Some nice examples of eye-catching non-annoying distractions are drawings on the pavement in chalk, bubbles flying out of your shop door, even amazing smells of vanilla or freshly baked something can catch somebody’s attention (many advertisers use smells this way).
Sandwich Boards
A very easy and cheap idea that just requires a lot of activity. You can set up a sandwich board on the pavement and communicate a message that’s in line with your brand's values and persona. Try to make the content you display engaging and relevant to cutting edge pop culture (be careful with this as if you get in on a trend too late it can look a little stale and uncreative). If you get your sandwich board right, people will likely take pictures and post it to their social media, they’re a great way to get organic online attention in a way you wouldn’t typically manage to. There are even whole Pinterest pages dedicated to funny sandwich boards.
These four techniques are easy and very affordable; the most they require is some creativity. If you’re stuck, you shouldn’t rush your ideas. The best ideas take time, so if you really can’t think of anything then take some time away thinking about something else and an idea is likely to come.
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