Bringing in new business.......soon

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meena

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Feb 28, 2007
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:confused:
Business has been up and down for the last 9 months or so. First time in about 15 years. I know it's tough for everyone but the last 2 weeks I've had nothing basically. I'm wondering what ideas any of you have to boost sales and bring in more business quickly. I'm getting nervous.
 
I've never found a way to do it "quickly". There are ways to increase business but most of them take time and work. I've added photography and digital graphics but it takes a while for it to get rolling. I'd find something that would work for you and start now. The sooner the ball gets rolling the sooner it builds speed.
 
one word....................network,network,network. or is it two????????
I belong to BNI, business networking int. I have been in that group for 2 1/2 years. Yes its paid off joining. There are chapters all over, see if one is around you. or even going to local chamber events.
 
One cannot force people to buy or spend money. But enticing them sometimes work.

A couple of ladies in this small town started an initiative to entice the people to shop locally. They started something called I.B.L.A.S.T (I Buy Local and Shop in Town) card. It works this way:

Free for merchants but The customers buy the card ($25 one time fee from the IBLAST initiative) and the merchants offer xyz% discount.

Now it seems everybody in town has the card and they get discounts at all participating merchants (almost all shops have joined), from Pizza to....framing. They have a website and a newsletter highlighting all the merchants offers and promotions.

We had a decent number of new customers because of this card and people really like it.

Have a look at their website: www.iblastcard.com it might be worth looking into to start something similar in your area.
 
While business is slow, build a web site. There is no better single form of advertising that will bring you business than a good web site.
 
Direct mail postcards with a good offer to your mailing list. Email would be better/quicker/cheaper. If your mailing list isn't huge then direct mail 4 miles surrounding your store, more expensive less % return but higher possible return. This is the best perform an action/see a result quick thing I can suggest. But also work on that website.
 
If you have the ability to do so, pull a list of every customer that has spent $500 or more in the past six months to a year. Send each customer a letter (very easy to do with a word processor's mail merge function) thanking them for their patronage, and offering them a special "customer appreciation sale" -- give them 20% off or something like that, and put an expiration date of July 20 on it. Keep it urgent -- you want them coming in now. Anything more than two weeks out and they will fuggedaboudit.

Another thing you might do is send each of those customers a "customer referral certificate." The certificate should state that when they send you a new customer, the new customer will get X amount off their first order, and you will send them a gift coupon for X amount off their next order. One of the trade mags in the past 2 months had an article about this, I think by Ken Baur.

Then there's always the bikini car wash...
 
I'm just going to reiterate what everyone else just said... :bdh: ...

Networking will bring in the highest quality of customers for you. They're loyal, known, and will continue to advertise for you for free. But, this group also takes the longest to get going.

We have a similar discount card in our area, although we have to pay to be in. Our main advertising is between that card and using one of the largest direct mail distributors (rhymes with HalPack ;) . As a result, most of our customers come in with either one of those coupons.

Newspaper and print yellow page advertising is declining. Our new phone book is an 1/8-inch thinner than last year, and we don't have a big book to begin with!

So, take your print ad budget and spend all you can on internet advertising. You can get a lot for free too. Feel free to PM me if you have questions.

I've also had surprisingly good success with our own mailing list to current clients. Again, sending coupons and invitations. A bit more costly to do this tho. Try throwing a party!

Bottom line, you've got to spend money to make money. Time to dip into savings and open another credit card. The people will come back, just give them time.
 
PaulSF said:
Then there's always the bikini car wash...
Click to expand...

suhweet idea, Paul! Your store and mine, we can co-op this venture, maybe next weekend? Although I don't really have my bikini figure back yet...



-Doug
 
customers tomorrow

You want a customer tomorrow? Send a very short hand written "thank you for your business" note and state that this is good for (no coupons or discounts please) $50, or 100 --how good of a customer is/was he/she? If their average framing job is in the hundreds I would adjust for that. Send out 10 a day and see what you get--it worked everytime for me. nothing less than $50.

Vivian
 
Buy a ticket for a last minute cruise. I guarantee business will get so good you won't be able to leave.

framer
 
Make me laugh outloud!

UzZx32QU said:
Buy a ticket for a last minute cruise. I guarantee business will get so good you won't be able to leave...
Click to expand...

I assume that this comes from the voice of experience, Bill? :D

John
 
One suggestion is to market to your POS system's database/mailing list. That list is gold, and most of the popular systems will print mailing labels directly - or export to a file that you can use for a mail merge.

We mailed out a newsletter two weeks ago, with a promotional coupon inserted. The last two weeks have been busier than December. Postcards have always worked well, too.

Granted, this isn't reaching out for new customers but it gets qualified leads in that you know will appreciate your services. (repeat customers) In some cases, they pass it along to a relative.

Like Kirstie said, the WEB can be the absolute hands down best form of marketing. It works for you 24/7, giving more info than you can fit in a traditional ad. More than 70% of our new customers come in from the web, where the yellow pages and newspaper ads represent less than 5%. The best part? A website costs only about $5 per month! (after it is designed)

We took Kirstie's lead today and set up a wordpress blog on our site. I'm not done tweaking the content or design yet, but will give it a try to see how it changes SEO. (hopefully it wont dilute/weaken our targeted keywords.) Being the traditional slow time of year, this is the perfect time to experiment with SEO. A blog can get people coming back once in a while, to see what's new. It gives you a place to add some "personality" to the website, to write about gallery or staff happenings, new lines, featured artists, etc.

Good luck with the marketing, and have a great and profitable summer

Mike
 
Time to email your customers

I did the samething a couple of weeks ago. Sent out an email with a dollar off amount and asked for referrals. The response was amazing! Got really busy and am still busy but maybe things have bottomed out. When people get back to work watch out!
So just put a little time everyday for mailing a card or a letter or an email or just call them to ask how they are enjoying the art piece.
The bottom line is communication with the customer.
Good luck
PF
 
jim_p said:
I'm sending personalized $25 gift cards ("Customer Appreciation Rewards") to my top customers. I figure something that looks like money will be more motivating than a discount coupon... we'll see how this goes!
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I do this too, once a year, every year, with the caveat that the gift card is for MY store, but it's good on anything I have. Works like a charm! Each of the last 2 years I have had a response rate of over 50%.
 
I would suggest a ""sandwich board" style sign on the street.

Make the offer a good one!

The city hates this stuff and you may get a warning... but it works!
The property managers hate this stuff and you may get a warning... but it works.

If you have a local Crazy Day going on use the terminology but start your sale two weeks early and run it two weeks after. The Chamber may not like it.... but it works.

Try not to get arrested or fined :shrug: but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Doug
 
Mike Labbe @ GTP said:
We took Kirstie's lead today and set up a wordpress blog on our site. I'm not done tweaking the content or design yet, but will give it a try to see how it changes SEO. (hopefully it wont dilute/weaken our targeted keywords.) Being the traditional slow time of year, this is the perfect time to experiment with SEO. A blog can get people coming back once in a while, to see what's new. It gives you a place to add some "personality" to the website, to write about gallery or staff happenings, new lines, featured artists, etc.


Mike
Click to expand...

The other perk to having a blog is that writing a few entries a month can give you ideas for your newsletter, and vice versa. I find that once items are in blog format with photos housed on the web site, it is a snap to write a newsletter because all the work is done.

Mike, when the blog is up can you please send the URL?
 
vivian said:
You want a customer tomorrow? Send a very short hand written "thank you for your business" note and state that this is good for (no coupons or discounts please) $50, or 100 --how good of a customer is/was he/she? If their average framing job is in the hundreds I would adjust for that. Send out 10 a day and see what you get--it worked everytime for me. nothing less than $50.

Vivian
Click to expand...

Vivian,

As usual, this is a brilliant idea. Not having to deal with sending hundreds or thousands of postcards at once is a great way to approach mailers. $50. would be a real incentive to get people in the door. Do you put a minimum order amount on the deal?
 
jim_p said:
I'm sending personalized $25 gift cards ("Customer Appreciation Rewards") to my top customers. I figure something that looks like money will be more motivating than a discount coupon... we'll see how this goes!
Click to expand...

My June member's coupon was $32. off to celebrate our 32 years in business. I do this every year. It was the first time that this type of offer did not bring in a lot of business. A sign of the times, I guess. A gift certificate for a fixed dollar amount really works in December.
 
DVieau2 said:
I would suggest a ""sandwich board" style sign on the street.

Make the offer a good one!

Doug
Click to expand...

Doug,
What is your sandwich board constructed from? I am thinking about buying one on rollers with a weighted bottom. We have had two A boards stolen, so I will have to chain it to a tree.

Sorry for so many answers. I can never figure out the multi-quote option and this thread is about one of my favorite topics!
 
Kirstie said:
Doug,
What is your sandwich board constructed from? I am thinking about buying one on rollers with a weighted bottom. We have had two A boards stolen, so I will have to chain it to a tree.

Sorry for so many answers. I can never figure out the multi-quote option and this thread is about one of my favorite topics!
Click to expand...

my sandwich board is made of aluminum frame with faces made of white colorplast and using vinyl strips ( sign shop) to hold 3 rows of changeable letters on each side...it is on wheels and is brought in every night..easy to change msg on it in 5 minutes.
 
WOW! So many great ideas! My favorite is the cruise so I'm working on that right now. I KNOW that will work. Thanks for all your ideas and I'll be starting this week with them. Have a great weekend.
 
When I have a slow week, or even a slow-ish two weeks, before I get too bent out of shape about it I take a long look at the calendar. You have been in business long enough to have noticed trends of slowness then seem to fall withing the same time frames, I know I have in my 18 years.
You may not have anyone graduating in your family , but your clientele may have. It becomes priority for families and extended families to be preoccupied with the event. The graduate needs the right shoes ( shopping),there are parental meetings9 events ), there is rehearsal( hassle errands), there is baccalaureate (fancy dress event) on and on. Lots to do that has ZERO to do with framing. The schools stagger the events in each city, so you may see sluggish ends of Junes every year, worse on bumper crop kid years.
My answer to you was slightly off topic, but I am meaning to be encouraging. :)
 
I just used Constant Contact to prepare an e-mail blast to those customers who have provided me with their e-mail. I'm declaring July "Customer Appreciation Month," and providing a coupon worth 20% off any full custom framing order. It expires at the end of the month, and does not apply to my poster package or jersey package. It's set to go out Monday morning, after the holiday. Hopefully, it will motivate the normally-inert people around here to bring in some stuff to frame. The cost to send it out is minimal, less than $50.

Before uploading the e-mail list, I made sure to delete the e-mail addresses of anyone that has picked up an order in the past 2-3 weeks, as well as anyone who has an order in progress. Otherwise, they would come in and demand that I apply the 20% retroactively. It took me about 30 minutes to set up the e-mail and the mailing list.

This is quick, easy, and cheap. If you haven't tried Constant Contact, I strongly suggest taking a look at it. Also, you should be capturing customers' e-mail addresses at every opportunity. When taking down a customer's information when they place an order, always ask for the mailing address first, then the phone number, and the e-mail address last. E-mail addresses are the most sensitive information (in the customer's mind, even though a quick peek at the 20,000 messages in their spam box should tell them it really doesn't matter), and you should ask for that last because at that point, they are already somewhat invested in providing you with information.
 
all good tips
I send cards out one a day.
 
meena... not sure where you are. But some simple things make a big difference.

~ Open your doors. Put your mud rug outside. Invite people in.

~ Put something on the sidewalk. A clapboard sign. Artwork. A mirror. If you are young and beautiful... show some leg... just kidding! I couldn't do that anymore myself.

~ Make sure you have appropriate music playing in your shop.

~ Call or email or send a note to customers to let them know you are thinking of them. Any outreach is good. If you haven't set up social media, do it NOW! It's free and and post everyday if you have something to talk about.

~ Make sure you get every customer's email address. Gold in them hills.

~ Cold call. Tough to do, but essential when biz is down. Call artists, museums, galleries, rich people (doctor's wives, attorney's wives, business owners wives...etc.)... no I am not chavisnist, but these are the ones that control the purchasing of home furnishings.

~ Service the H.E.L.L. out of your clients. Go to their homes before or after hours and do installations, etc. What else are you doing with your "free time". Now is the time to build relationships. It all comes back to you and you will reap benefits ... maybe not immediately but soon. New client referrals.

~ Contact your local colleges and universities and get on their preferred vendor lists for both their purchases, faculty and students.

~ Join a service club in your community. Rotary, Lions, Kiwaniis, etc. You'll serve mankind, feel better about life in general and make contacts that will last a life time.

When times are tough it is difficult to motivate. I know! But you will survive if you focus on things and take what you can from the list above and what others have suggested.. Motivating yourself will open many many doors and make business fun again.
 
Even more pertinent now.
 
Would be a good topic for a fresh thread. We have some people who have closed in this one so some advice may not be as valuable as what people are doing today.
 
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