How to Promote a Retail Business Without Going Broke

Effective marketing is an essential survival tool for any business, and if you have a retail store you need to be creative in finding ways to promote it. Competition is stiff so you need to find marketing techniques that help you stand out from the crowd and keep you within your advertising budget.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Prizes to donate
• Engraving pens
• Phone directory
• Promotional flyers
• Gift certificates

1. Contact the promotions manager at a local radio station and explain that you love their station but can't afford to purchase advertising spots. Instead you would like to donate prizes for some of their promotions in exchange for having your store name mentioned every time they run a spot for the promo. They love getting prizes donated and you'll love hearing your store name time and time again on the radio for a fraction of what it would have cost to buy the advertising outright.
2. Partner with a local charity and designate a special night to donate a percentage of the profits to the charity. It will be up to them to promote the event and draw the customers into your business. You will sacrifice a little of your retail profit, but it will bring customers into your store that might not have otherwise been there.
3. Talk to the Landlord about decorating the front windows to promote your store. You'll get some additional exposure, and they will like having something in their empty windows.
4. Sponsor a window decorating contest for local schools and promote it by handing out flyers to teachers at all the elementary schools in your community. Every class that signs up gets a section of your front window to paint. After a couple of weeks, have a local celebrity judge the contest and offer the winner a gift certificate from your business. The window decorations will attract a lot of attention.
5. Offer free engraving services on valuable items customers purchase on a specific day. Buy or rent a couple of engraving pens and have two of your employees prepared to engrave names or initials on items such as cell phones, portable stereos or tools. Make arrangements to have a local police officer or insurance agent there to help with the engraving and give tips about how to keep their home safe from thieves.

Tips & Warnings

• Don't underestimate the value of word-of-mouth advertising. Take every opportunity to turn a negative into a positive customer experience, because people talk.
• If you don't have the time or desire to make your own, you can find professional looking gift certificates for sale at most office supply stores.