Promotions are a great way to get customers to come to your store. Everyone likes to get a free gift or feel like they are helping someone. You can give away free gifts, rebates, or offer customers a chance to make a donation.
- The standard “free gift with purchase of…” promotion is always a great way to get someone into the store. The free gift should be nice but also cheap. The gift could be an add on to an item they are purchasing or just a special product only for this promotion.
- A great way to make customers feel like they are helping out the community is by running a donation promotion. You can say you will donate a certain percentage or amount to a local charity or organization. This is also a great way for you to give back to the community. You can also give away an item for items purchased. For example, for every 10 pounds of cookies sold you can donate one pound to a soup kitchen for the holidays.
- Rebates are another great promotion. After a customer purchases a particular item they have to go online and fill out a form to receive the rebate. However, this takes more time for you and the customer. You will need to have the rebate directions ready to hand out. It is also a good idea to have a list of codes to give out so people cannot submit the rebate multiple times for friends or family. You will also need to go through the submissions and mail out the rebates. The advantage is that many customers will likely forget to fill out the rebate so you will be giving away less.
Written By: Stephanie Dunaieff, August 18, 2014