seasonalI have a small Christmas Tree reselling (from lots to consumers) business. Fortunately, I’m one of a handful of sellers around my area for a fairly desired product during this albeit limited season. Unfortunately, by the same token, there are a handful of competitors that fight for the very same customers year after year.
Assuming there are x number of consumers and y number of sellers on any given year, how can I effectively promote repeat business and client affinity?
My branding is fairly limited–I don’t run television ads or anything of the sort–and location plays a fairly key role. On the occasion that I ask a customer “where’d you hear about me,” the typical response runs along the lines of “well, I remembered seeing you when I drove by the other day so I decided to pop by.”
It isn’t always true, but assuming all locations being equal and consistent from year to year, how can I attract repeat business from last year’s customers?
I realize, of course, that it doesn’t really matter who’s buying from me, as long as enough are, but I think I have an opportunity here to really build my business to excel over others, if I could just change that mentality from “I drove by and saw it” to “we’ve been coming here for years!” That would mean all the business I get now, plus some more.
Are there any good approaches that a seasonal retail business such as my own might take to promote my brand, perhaps more even than my product?
Build a mailing list. When clients buy a tree, prompt them to fill in their email on an iPad, a piece of paper, or whatever. And add them to your list.
The next year, blast an email to that list immediately after black friday (= when they’re in a Xmas shopping mood), to ask how big a tree they plan to buy this year and if they’d like it delivered (and when). Link to a Google Form to collect the data – it’s trivial to set up. In addition, or alternatively if doing that makes no financial sense, remind the clients where you’ll be in the same email.
(Aside: use the same list, organized by segments, for your restaurant, pumpkins, snow trucks, etc. MailChimp, aWeber, GetResponse are all good for this kind of thing.)
I agree with Denis, an email list is a good way to increase the “touchpoints” with customers beyond the lone transaction of purchasing a tree. There are physical and virtual ways to do this.
(1) Some physical ways: If you cater to a particular neighborhood year after year, maybe it would be a good idea to invest in physical mail to local zip codes, flyers in local community centers / retail / coffee shops / etc.
You can help sponsor or orchestrate local holiday gift drives, food drives, Christmas events, etc. at local community centers, retailers, and churches. Can be as simple as donating a tree or a wreath or something.
(2) Some virtual ways: An email list as Denis suggested can be a good one. You can also create social media accounts and encourage people to “like” or “follow” your pages. Encourage them to leave reviews on Yelp and Google. Make sure your business shows up accurately and favorably on Google Maps, Apple Maps, etc., since I imagine this is how many people find local shops.
In communications you can offer promotions, coupons, and other means of “closing the sale,” of course. But there are more ways to add value in the long term: provide blogs, short articles, or simple shareable images with tips on how to choose a tree, how to decorate for the holidays, maybe some holiday baking/food ideas, holiday party ideas, and so on.
I don’t have experience in local brick & mortar business, but these are some things I’ve seen local retailers do. Hope some might be practical and helpful for you. Happy holidays :)
Have a think about how you are different or can be different to others. Do you have a site all year round that is only utilised at pre-Christmas time? I would look into a “crop rotation” system to attract and retain year round customers.
If you have a temporary site, do you get the same place every year? If this changes it would affect your approach.
What I would suggest is become popular through association. Think about the shopping centre with the arcade or the park with the cool slide. So you could be the Christmas tree place with the:
You can use the great response from Denis for the mailing list, but also gather what associated services/themes that they like. Think about what your customers do on their journey before and after selecting a tree. Do they buy decorations, present, something else? Can you add this to your site and make it more attractive and different?
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