As an independent retail store owner, you must wear a lot of hats – including Chief Marketing Officer. Do you know what the #1 Marketing Mistake is? If yes and you’re avoiding it, Congratulations! If not, then read on.
#1 – Your Marketing is "All About Me"
If you had to pick the most common – and most deadly – retail marketing mistake, this would be it.
Everyone thinks that their products, their services, their promotions, and their store are far more fascinating than they really are. It’s only natural. You have approached these areas with what appeals to YOU. I hate to break it to you, but your customers really don’t care that much about you, your store or your products. What they care about is themselves.
The trick for you is to stop thinking about what you offer and start thinking about what your customers want. It’s the only way to build the kind of customer relationships that inspire strong loyalty and repeat business.
Your outbound communications should be about what’s interesting, useful, beneficial or entertaining for your customers. Think about what the customers want. Attend trade shows. Study trends. What are people buying? What were your best sellers during the past holiday season. (Hopefully you’re using Point of Sale software that makes it easy to gather this information). Thought and preparation are your best tools for bringing your customers back again and again.
For all of your efforts, you may still ignore the obvious. ASK. Ask your customers if they found what they were looking for. If not, what was missing. You may not get it right every time, but with practice and always looking through your customers’ eyes, you’ll be right more times than not.