Vic Smith, owner of independent beds retailer Vic Smith Beds, talks about advertising and why it’s important to embrace the digital world.
Advertising – we’ve all got to do it – but I don’t know about you, but where we are, we have lost a lot of the local paper deliveries – the curse of the digital world!
For us, that was big as a huge proportion of our customers aren’t digital friendly shall we say. But as part of the trust process (they have to trust enough to spend money with us) they need to have a constant reiteration/confirmation of you as a business (holding their hands and reassuring).
So, it’s about how you do it! Over the years – we’ve had to become inventive and creative with our marketing. It’s not just looking within your own industry for advertising ideas. And, yes, just like you guys have approached me about using items in my articles, we too have ‘borrowed’ ideas. For example, on our ceiling tiles in our showrooms, we have customer testimonials printed – it’s all forming part of the positive reaffirming.
The idea – it came from sitting in the dentist chair. We are conditioned to think we need to look within our own industry for ideas – but that’s wrong. In a minute – it’s going to sound as though I spend a lot of time in the dentist – but that gave us another idea too! They have an automated reminder for my appointment via text message – so we’ve gone one further with this as everybody uses their mobiles these days.
We use it as a delivery reminder on the day, as you tailor the sender’s name to your company – and if they choose to opt in at the time on the paperwork – we can send them special exclusive offers too! And it’s there on the phone to remind them – rather than last week’s paper off in the recycling. We have found, just like our branded gin give away – it’s a talking point – and word of mouth is invaluable.
Have a look around – do you have a local radio station? Speak to them about adverts – even if it’s not a broad customer demographic, the parents that listen to it, might tell their adult kids about you. Local community groups – these often have a Facebook recommendation page. When you’re closing the sale, ask them to leave you a review – it all helps.
Look at three different businesses in your neighbourhood – what’s their form of advertising? How can you adapt it to your business? Take an extra 10 minutes one day to see what’s around, and use that cup of tea in the morning to get the brain cells fired up to see how you can make it work for you. If you’re not sure, split test – put different codes for the different methods and see what gives you a better return.
And speaking of the digital world – we shouldn’t be afraid of it changing and evolving. There are some changes and benefits we can all embrace – it’s a lot easier these days to add ‘marketing/graphic designer’ to our different hats we wear!
There are packages out there that don’t cost as much as they used to, and they can help you react quicker to the current environment. So, stick the kettle on and do your research!
