Marketing to customers – Academy in Action with Hi! Street Digital Media

The facts

• Name: Tariq Majid
• Shop: Brookside Filling Station
• Location: Hungerford
• Size: 800sq ft
• Staff: Three full-time

The IAA’s Jennifer Hardwick and Hi! Street Digital Media’s Jonathan Daniels joined Tariq Majid to explore how he can effectively market his shop.

Tariq’s challenge:

Tariq wants to do more to draw people into his shop but isn’t sure of the best way to reach them.

Tariq says:

“I know I need to do more marketing in the area. We do advertise in the parish magazine but I would like to do more online, although I worry about the expense of it. It’s really great to have the expert advice in the shop and get new ideas. I’m always looking to bring more shoppers in and just need to decide how to go about it.”

IAA advice:

1. Attracting passers-by in-store

The layout of the shop could be improved to maximise sales. Jonathan says promotional items provided by Tariq’s coffee company look great outside the shop, including a model coffee cup and large banner. But thinks Tariq should show off his other points of difference as well.

He suggests asking for new signage from Mace advertising hot food to go, and his frozen and chilled sections, such as a picture of ready meals. “It would be great to have food to go advertised by the door. People are coming on a particular shopper mission but that’s when you can capture their attention and get them to add to it.”

As well as changing the window adverts, he suggests Tariq could advertise on the shop door itself.

Action: Request new signage from Mace and place an advert on the shop’s front door.

2. Communicating your offer to your target shoppers

Tariq already advertises in his local parish magazine, which Jonathan says is great for a rural area. He suggests a good next step is to set up a shop Facebook page. This could help inform customers about promotions quickly and easily, as well as advertise new products in stock.

“You could ask a tech savvy staff member, family member, or friend to help,” he says.

“There’s bound to be a community Facebook group locally. You could use that to tell people about your page.” Jonathan adds that within a small community, Facebook is an effective platform to communicate with local customers.

Action: Seek expertise from tech savvy family member to set up a shop Facebook page.

3. Promotions and loyalty schemes to encourage spending

Jonathan says another great tool for a village shop with a lot of repeat business, is to accumulate data about customers, so that promotional messages can be sent to people who will be most interested.

“If you know that a customer comes in and always buys a coffee, you can offer a free coffee the tenth time they buy. By recognising shopper patterns and habits, you can also make suggestions for additional complimentary purchases.” He suggests a long-term action for Tariq would be to introduce a loyalty card that requires an email to sign up. This would allow him to collect customer data and eventually create bespoke promotions to drive sales.

Action: Research ways to introduce a loyalty scheme and begin implementing the best one.

Partner advice:

“It’s been great to visit Tariq – what’s been most enjoyable is the fact I can see there’s a lot of “easy wins” which shouldn’t take long to implement. 

“It’s already a really good shop, I love the ranging and the way it is set up already. It’s brilliant to have come in and be able to give ideas which should be quick and inexpensive.”

Jonathan Daniels, Managing Partner – Sales & Marketing, Hi! Street Digital Media

Your action plan:

• Go to betterretailing.com/IAA to download the free tools to improve your shop
• Call 020 7689 0600 (Option 3) to find out how you can take part in a future visit from one of our partners

• To benchmark your shop, download your free digital copy of the IAA’s Retail Profit Guide.

Our retail toolkit is packed with useful tools and resources to help you grow your sales and profits, including the Retail Profit Guide.