Niche Marketing Tactics
Marketing an Umbrella Retailer
A profitable umbrellas retailer is about more than supply and demand. It's about designing ways to entice new customers to engage with your products and to encourage existing customers to increase the frequency of their purchases.
Need to improve the effectiveness of your marketing channels for your umbrellas retailer? You're not alone. More than ever before, the industry is populated with ambitious entrepreneurs eager to make an impression on would-be buyers.
In a growth-oriented business, marketing has to be seen as a core business activity. The good news is that good marketing is achievable by any umbrellas retailer willing to adapt its strategy to the demands of the marketplace.
Loss Leaders
Like many businesses, umbrellas retailers are willing to sustain a slight loss or breakeven position on certain products and service offerings as a way to attract customers. Although you may lose money on one product, you can make up for it buy selling a higher volume of other products. A classic mistake of loss leader marketing is to create pricing without researching the competition. In a worse case scenario, you could be counting on pricing that is higher than your competitors. For the majority of umbrellas retailers, the real benefits of loss leaders emerge through the careful marketing of other products, usually offered at a much higher margin. Whenever possible, piggyback a loss leader approach with the purchase of bulk merchandise that can be bought at a discount.
Improving Customer Loyalty
Savvy entrepreneurs target customer loyalty as a cornerstone of strategic planning. In umbrellas retailers, sorted and updated mailing lists obtained from top-tier providers are effective tools for customer acquisition. However, customer acquisition will only get you so far. To achieve revenue growth, you'll need to combine customer acquisition channels with strategies and mechanisms designed to transform new customers into followers and hopefully, brand advocates.
Generating Buzz
Never underestimate the value of good buzz with consumers. You've heard it said before: Word of mouth is the best form of promotion for products and brands. For an umbrellas retailer, meaningful brand conversations have the ability to transform the impact of your marketing efforts. The process begins with developing communication vehicles and mechanisms that invite discussion. Social networking and other online strategies can play a foundational role when they are performed in tandem with face-to-face interactions and industry networking.
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