What’s the most effective way to market your store?

Our store development last summer gave us the opportunity to take on a new branding.

As I've mentioned before, my wife Mandeep and I decided to use our own initials, MJ’s as our store name while adopting the Go Local Extra fascia.

Our brand is hugely important to our business as it is a statement to our customers about how we value being part of their community and daily lives. For me our store name is not just part of its street address, I see it as a point of focus for how we operate the business.

One of the key aspects about brand is how we use it when we communicate with our customers, both current and potential. With this as my base line I want to ensure that all the advertising and marketing we undertake not only has the MJ’s logo on it, but is produced to the highest quality that I can achieve.

We use Twitter, Facebook, shelf barkers & posters and a 75” media screen. These different channels present a great opportunity to get the MJ’s logo and our strap line seen by as many people as we can. I use a graphics program on my laptop that provides a good selection of stock images like the Christmas tree I used on some of my adverts in December.

Social media enables us to add video to our marketing campaigns and in the run up to Christmas I posted a short animated film as a humorous seasonal greetings to our customers on Twitter and Facebook.

While I am comfortable creating posters and adverts for social media I know that I don’t have the skill set or the time to create high quality animation. My solution is to hire a freelance artist who I found on People Per Hour. I have also use Fiverr in for previous projects.

The important first step for employing a freelance like this is to have an idea of what you want and then to put the design brief into words. My short video cost me £12, which just goes to show that you don’t have to invest a fortune to get and use a unique animated advert.

From the very positive feedback I receive from our customers about the way we market our brand I know that they notice us and value what we are doing for them, success!