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Ways to get foot traffic to your retail store

By Jeff Wuorio

Computer mice may click, letters may be addressed and stamped, but there's still only one time-tested way to help ensure the success of your retail business.

Get customers to walk through your front door.

Driving foot traffic to a bricks-and-mortar store may seem something of a lost art, but it's no less critical to the health of your business than it ever has been. Here are seven tips to get your front door swinging.

Have a grand opening. Planning on opening a business in the near future? Make Day One as big a deal as possible. But first have a “Soft Opening” open for family and friends and even the general public up to a week before the “Big Day” This allows you to fine tune procedures, practice sales techniques and use your point-of-sale system. Pick an appropriate day, perhaps Saturday for an “Official Grand opening” Provide food, offer door prizes, and serve up other enticements and entertainment to make the day memorable. And, while you're doing it, keep tabs on who shows up. "Nothing is as powerful as a grand opening to attract customers," says Robert Smith of Robert Smith and Associates, a Rockton, Ill. , public relations concern. "But, once they arrive, your drawings and guest book should collect their names and addresses or ask for their business cards."

Plan on holding other promotional events. Just because your business has been up and running for a while doesn't preclude celebrations that attract foot traffic. Any promotional event that draws attention can be effective. Look into an in-store raffle or giveaway, and advertise the event as widely as your budget will allow.

If yours is a business that can somehow connect with a local celebrity — say, an author or sports figure — having him or her on the premises can bring in clientele. But, no matter what you do, make it sufficiently fresh and appealing. "Promotional events have to be really exciting and different; otherwise, people just won't come," says Rick Segal, author of "The Retail Business Kit for Dummies."

Make your business newsworthy. Foot traffic on the day of an event is one thing. Attracting business beyond that 24-hour window is something else again. That's why it's important to leverage media whenever possible. For instance, donating a portion of the day's take to charity can win a flattering article in your local newspaper. Taking a completely different tack, investigate whether a radio station would be willing to broadcast live on the day of your promotional event. The key is to grab the attention of customers who can't make it in at that particular time. That drives foot traffic in the future. "The more creative the event, the more likely that a newspaper will write about it," Segal says. "And that makes it all the more likely that customers will read about it and come check it out."

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Have a sale. Old fashioned? Maybe. Still, nothing beats the lure of something that's less expensive for a limited amount of time. And, while the idea of a sale may seem a bit blasé to some, technological advances have made sales events more potent than ever before. For example, if you maintain a database of customers, contact them via an e-mail newsletter to let them know of upcoming sales events and other promotions. To further boost foot traffic, urge them to pass along your e-mail to others. That's not only effective but exceedingly cost efficient, as you're not dropping money on mass mailings that only saturates the uninterested. "Offers that come with a sense of urgency are always effective to get customers to come to stores," says Irene Dickey of the University of Dayton 's School of Business Administration .

Host a seminar or workshop. Boosting foot traffic doesn't even have to involve a direct effort to sell a product or service. These days, education is every bit as important, as consumers want to know how to get the most out of what they buy. And that makes in-house seminars and workshops powerful weapons to build foot traffic. To illustrate: If you own an accounting firm, offer free tax-cutting workshops. Sporting goods stores can consider a variety of events, from strength training clinics to nutrition seminars. But, no matter the actual event, publicize it to the hilt. "Promote the event via in-store signage, fliers, ads and press releases," says Segal. "Home Depot does it and so does Williams-Sonoma. And look at how successful they are."

Follow up with your contacts. Even the best-planned promotional event is of little import if you fail to leverage the initial contact. Keep encouraging foot traffic by staying in touch with customers. Let them know about events that may otherwise attract little attention. Encourage them to pass along the news with friends and neighbors. "A great event is only half the battle," Smith says. "If you want consistent foot traffic, you have to follow up, then follow up some more. Send them offers, special announcements or anything you can think of to get them into your store." (For ways to market your business inexpensively, see this page .)

Emphasize customer service. One advantage that a bricks-and-mortar store has over mail-order and Internet competitors is a personal relationship with customers. Special events can be terrific in building foot traffic, but what keeps customers coming back — and spreading the good word as they do — is the product knowledge and enthusiasm that can only be conveyed face to face. Things may be cheaper on the Web or via the post office, but getting to know your customers and what they value can trump those handicaps. And, in turn, can build a steady stream of foot traffic for the long haul.

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Half Dozen Ways to Get Your Customers E-mail addresses

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7 things never to tell your customers

By Jeff Wuorio

Sometimes, it feels like I live in verbal snafu central — at least when I'm in earshot of some business owners.

Recently, I stopped at a local hardware store for a new bolt for a wheelbarrow. The only metal pin they had was too long and a clerk gladly volunteered to cut it down to size. As he was sawing away, one of the owners waddled past, scowled and snapped: "Doesn't he have a hacksaw at home?"

Granted, we've all been treated to these sorts of remarks, comments and faux pas at businesses of all types and sizes, but that doesn't mean we should. Here, based on my own stumbles down the rocky road of verbal miscues, is just a sampling of things that a client or customer should never, ever hear at your business:

1. "Why are you doing that for him?" This is pretty much what the hardware store owner's flip remark meant. It may seem ludicrous to say it, but service for a customer — be it run of the mill or beyond the call of duty — should never be questioned in front of the person with the credit card in hand. Not merely rude, but also indicative of a businessperson who either doesn't know what customer service is or doesn't give a hex nut whether her employees provide it or not.

2. "Are you sure you can afford this?" On a visit to a nearby greenhouse, a manager cajoled an employee to "make sure he knows how expensive that is" before she unraveled a roll of garden liner for me to inspect. That sort of remark effectively questions a customer's capacity to pay for a particular item, not to mention showcasing a laziness to display wares that may end up back on the shelf. That's not to say you shouldn't do customers the courtesy of letting them know something is expensive, but don't do it with the connotation that it's probably beyond their means.

"What an idiot that last guy was!" Said by one grocery clerk to another as I stood ready to pay for my kids' Cheez Poofies or some other such vile snack. Needless to say, not every client or customer is cherubic in word and deed, but commenting on them to another employee — or, even worse, a customer — is gossipy and grossly unprofessional. If you or any employee ever bad mouths a customer out loud, scarf down the nearest bag of Cheez Poofies. It'll likely never happen again.

"We don't have it." However succinct, this is a repeat offender, said most recently when I asked a pharmacy clerk if they carried a particular brand of toothpaste (after her four-word reply, the clerk stared past me glassy-eyed as though she were looking for ships on the horizon). Of course, businesses run out of stock or may not offer a certain service or item, but just hearing "no" or words to that effect is tantamount to adding "And stay out!" Don't leave things hanging like that. Instead, make sure you offer customers alternatives to what they want. You may be able to sell them on an equally useful substitute. You can even sow some goodwill by referring them to other stores or competitors.

"What a ______ name." (Choose "different," "funny," "unusual," "bizarre," etc.) Don't misunderstand me. I know I have a, shall we say, esoteric last name. But I don't adore the attention I get when an insipid nitwit callously editorializes about my family moniker. Not sensitive in the least. Not me. But not everyone is as thick-skinned, so make it a policy never to remark on a customer's name, as even well-intentioned curiosity may come across inappropriately. Instead, it's far more politic to ask how a person's name is pronounced correctly.

"I haven't a clue about what I'm talking about, but I'll ramble on regardless." This is the Brand X version of any number of ill-conceived remarks, ranging from the bank clerk who loudly gives a customer her mutual fund recommendations ("I hear you can make money in them!") to the doctor's office receptionist who tells a patient that she may need a biopsy. Don't strangle your employees' eagerness to help clients and customers, but urge them to stick to topics and advice with which they're familiar. And, if they don't know something, make certain they refer customers to an employee who does.

"I only work here." This cliché — most recently uttered to me by a waitress after the wrong meal was delivered for the third time — should be forever buried beside zoot suits, no-pest strips and other Byzantine relics of the past. In four wretched words, an employee conveys a complete absence of enthusiasm or involvement, let alone a willingness to address a problem. Instead, make certain your people know that there's likely someone else available who can tackle something that is beyond their means.

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Half Dozen Ways to Get Your Customers E-mail addresses

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Harness the sales power of e-mail

By Joanna L. Krotz

Got a couple hundred bucks?

That's about all you need to send 1,000 highly personalized e-mail messages to specially selected customers. And that's both the good news and the bad.

When done right, e-mail marketing is not only breathtakingly affordable but also extremely effective. Depending on how you plan to measure (by opened messages, click-throughs or conversion rates) and your targets (whether new, existing or best customers), e-mail marketing can yield response rates that range from a satisfying 5% to a heady 50%.

But the cheap cost of entry has generated a sea of spam and that's obviously made consumers wary and annoyed.

You must make sure to gain opt-in commitments from your prospects or customers before sending any e-mail marketing. That can be in the form of online registration, prior contact or express emailed permission from each recipient.

With that in mind, here's how to launch an e-mail campaign.

1. Define Your Goals

No marketing can succeed with an unlimited or shifting horizon. You must set goals that define your success. For e-mail marketing, campaigns tend to get better results when there's a clear call to action, perhaps with the added urgency of a time-sensitive window. Typically, e-mail marketing can:

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Announce special deals, sales or discounts

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Invite customers to events, VIP parties or conferences

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Offer news or information that drives performance or decisions

At the outset, carefully define what you want from the campaign. Then focus on the messaging and distribution that will achieve it.

2. Connect with Customers

Different designs and messages will yield different results. The idea is to customize batches of messages in order to emphasize benefits that speak to specific customer needs. Electronic tools make it much easier to segment customers and sales leads according to key characteristics.

You can quickly group customers into byte-size market chunks of similar demographics, purchasing history or other qualifiers by using a business contact management software such as ACT!, Goldmine or the new software as a service SAS, salesforce.com

3. Manage the List

If you're developing your own campaign, first create your mailing list. Then select the style of your e-mail publication.

You can avoid hassles by relying on the free (for up to 250 emails) and fee based internet service, internetemailmanager.com to help make the process easier and more cost-effective. This service creates and sends out your e-mail campaign and then automatically tracks your opened and click-through rates, as well as any opt-out customers.

Industry analysts, such as Jupiter Research, estimate that the cost of e-mails that are sent but not delivered will nearly double from $230 million in 2003 to $419 million in 2008. That kind of forecast prompts many business owners to rely on outside experts to distribute and measure delivery rates.

Don't forget to keep updating customer information. When a new customer contacts you, create an entry for them in Business Contact Manager. Business Contact Manager enables you to consolidate all interactions with a given customer in the Contact History section, including e-mails, tasks, appointments, notes, and documents. If you send out your e-mail campaign to your Business Contacts in Business Contact Manager, this activity will be captured automatically in each recipient's Contact History.

4. Personalize. Personalize. Personalize.

Recipients more readily sign up for e-mail marketing when offered a prize, entry in a sweepstakes or the like. They're also more inclined to register and input personal data when they're already customers of the sponsoring company.

So the more you reward customers for giving you access to personal information and the more familiar they are with your products or brand, the better your responses tend to be.

To get customer buy in, try using name-personalization messages. Make sure you test several subject lines, and message copy and landing pages before the launch.

If you want to use attention-grabbers like video or animation or audio, costs will rise. But you can still do quite a lot with text and links to a Web site or special landing pages.

Some message dos and don'ts:

•	Make it short and compelling. Don't include detailed product descriptions or windy stories about the company's history.
•	Use lots of short titles and bulleted points or highlights, so customers can take in information at a glance. You may want to set up a summary at the top and jump-link to information that follows, so users can quickly access what interests them.
•	Always set up a way for customers to easily update their information or unsubscribe.
•	Check messages from time to time to make see that the information is still timely and up-to-date. (Need I mention proofreading?)
•	Never spam — not anyone for any reason.
•	Match your format and message to your customers. Try to include some point of difference or attitude or special service that makes you stand out.

Finally, support your campaign. Don't simply send out your messages and sit back. Plan specific follow up, say, by sending automated bounce-back replies or by integrating the e-mail campaign with other channels, such as phone calls or direct mail.

The last thing you want to do generate customer interest and then be unprepared to act on it.

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Half Dozen Ways to Get Your Customers E-mail addresses

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Half Dozen ways to get customers' e-mail addresses (legitimately)

By Monte Enbysk

If you're like most small-business owners, you need a generous supply of potential customers' names and e-mail addresses to effectively market your offerings online.

The good news is you don't have to deceive or spam people into getting them. The bad news is that too many others have already taken that route, giving online marketing a shady reputation.

Unlike the offline world, where consumers get junk mail daily and simply toss it into the recycling bin, unwanted e-mail messages offend people and trigger nasty replies. People are more protective than ever of their e-mail addresses.

"Spammers have made it bad for the rest of us," says Derek Scruggs, founder of Escalan.com, a Boulder, Colo.-based marketing consultant. So you shouldn't be one yourself; there are enough already out there.

Scruggs is an expert on permission-based e-mail marketing, and has written a separate article for Microsoft Small Business, "10 rules for successful permission-based e-mail marketing," which I refer to in this article.

So, after following Scruggs' permission-based rules, how do you build your database of names and e-mail addresses? Here are a bakers half dozen (seven) tips to consider:

1.	Be upfront: Put an e-mail sign-up box prominently on your home page. Why not just tell customers what you want? In return, "offer something of value, earn their trust, and build the relationship," says Jeffrey Graham, vice president at Dynamic Logic, a New York-based online research company. The offers could include free tips and advice, news alerts, newsletters and/or new product information. Be creative, but allow people to opt-out of these e-mails anytime they want. Two online retailers that follow this strategy effectively are Health4her.com and BabyCenter.com. The latter site asks prospective mothers simply for their e-mail address and the date their baby is due. With that information, BabyCenter.com is ready to roll — it can offer pregnancy and child-rearing tips as well as cribs, car seats and other products up until long after the baby is born. Similarly, Health4her.com, which sells health and beauty products for women, can directly reach the consumers who want to be reached, with recipes, health and beauty tips and special product offers. "It has been very successful; we get from 2% to 4% of those visiting our site to sign up," says Louis Jay, Health4her.com president. Putting a sign-up box on your home page, he says, "should be the first thing on anybody's mind when they start an online business."
2.	Make your promotions and special offers worth the click. Contests for cash prizes or free trips will always attract lots of sign-ups, whether the offers are made through banner or e-mail newsletter ads. Make the offers worth the trouble. Yet also know that the jury is still out on the effectiveness of this strategy, because those signing up are often not long-term customers. Still, an incentive-based offer is a way to gather hundreds of names and e-mail addresses, which are especially viable if your site is frequented primarily by your target customers -- such as adult women for Health4her.com. "We give them a chance to win something, like a free cruise," Jay says. "It's a way to gather names and build relationships."
3.	If you rent lists of consumer names, be forthright about it. I am talking here about marketing or industry lists where consumers have given their consent -- not the many other lists of names obtained deceptively or without the consumer's permission. Scruggs discourages buying even the opted-in lists in his e-marketing rules, though many other online marketers don't. That's because the potential for spamming still exists. Not every consumer who agreed to sign up for the particular list you bought will remember doing so, and certainly won't know where or how far his or her name is being spread. Complaints are all but guaranteed. If you abide by this risky practice, make sure you indicate in your e-mails that you obtained a consumer's name from a complementary list and that you offer products and services you believe he or she would want to know about. "If you are not upfront with them about why they are getting your message, you're going to have a bad relationship," Scruggs says. One other note: The effectiveness of obtaining customers this way is also dubious. Your homegrown lists are a more solid investment, says Graham.
4.	Put ads and links in specialized e-mail newsletters. What newsletters reach the audience your business wants to reach? By targeting your ads and promotions in specialized e-mail newsletters, you may get more promising sign-ups. "It builds credibility for you and your business," says Debbie Weil, a Washington, D.C.-based e-mail marketing consultant.
5.	Do your own free newsletter too. So you hadn't thought of this already? Regular e-mail newsletters provide an incentive for people to stay in touch with you and your business, if you provide worthwhile content. What tips, advice, resources and other information can your newsletter provide — beyond simply touting your services? (Yes, that you could do in places throughout the newsletter.) A bigger question may be: Who could you get to write your newsletter, if not you? An employee? A spouse? A friend? A professional writer? Be creative. And don't be afraid to start small, Weil says. By following tip Nos. 1, 3 and 4, you can build traffic and acquire customer names. Even peaking at a subscriber base of 500 may be worth your while in terms of customer loyalty and industry visibility.
6.	Think geographically (and think beyond ads). A common mistake among many small businesses today is that they fail to realize their best online customers are generally nearby. To that end, what are the online publications and Web sites that serve your geographic area? What are the e-mail newsletters that are geographic in nature? Here is where playing up your physical location is most helpful. "Think local, not global," Weil says. "Know what publications people locally read, where they hang out online." Besides placing ads in these publications, write articles, submit letters to the editors, and send posts to discussion lists -- all including your business name and Web site address, Weil says. (Even a catchy blurb in your signature line will help people remember you.) Here is an inexpensive way to gain visibility and acquire names. If you have something thought provoking and worthwhile to say, you almost always will trigger a reaction, she says. "It can be a great tool. But you have to be tasteful as well as compelling."
7.	Partner with other complementary businesses in e-mail and ad campaigns. Exchanging e-mail and online ads with other businesses in your industry or geographic region is often an effective way of targeting your customer acquisition efforts. The trick is to find such businesses that aren't your competitors, says Tim Choate, president, chairman and CEO of Aptimus, a Seattle-based online direct marketer. Co-registration pages, where those who sign up for an offer are then presented with a complementary offer from the partnering business, is one strategy proven effective, he says. Another is cross-promotion in each other's e-mail newsletters.

Alas, you still may be tempted to buy or rent that cheap list of names of people who haven't given their permission to be e-mailed. Resist. Think about the junk that comes into your inbox -- and whether your business should be regarded that way.

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