Marketing Advice By Business Type
Marketing a School Supplies Retailer
It's becoming more and more difficult for school supplies retailers to rise above the clamor of the marketplace. Innovative marketing strategies may be your best bet for out-promoting -- and outperforming -- the competition.
It's difficult to pinpoint a single marketing strategy that is capable of turning around a struggling business. However, great marketing strategies share a common characteristic.
Top performers habitually integrate sound marketing concepts with market demands.
Mailings
At some point, your school supplies retailer will engage in direct marketing. Direct mail has the advantage of delivering targeted messaging to qualified contacts within your company's market segment. At Gaebler, we advise small and medium-sized businesses to purchase mailing lists from reliable providers. Are vendor-provided mailing lists worth the investment? We think so. But the real value is that the quality of the contacts contained in a premium mailing list can be the catalyst for long-term customer relationships.
Geolocational Marketing
Smartphones have added a new wrinkle to small business marketing. Equipped with GPS components, today's smartphones give consumers the ability to perform navigation and other geolocational tasks. Since you're a school supplies retailer business leader, you can use that to your advantage. Exploiting geolocational capabilities requires sophisticated tools and marketing strategies. At a minimum, your business should be including on online directories that alert consumers to a school supplies retailer in their immediate area.
Marketing Expertise
Don't have a background in marketing? That shouldn't stop you from taking a larger promotional role in your company by educating yourself about today's most effective marketing concepts. Owners of school supplies retailers can't afford to invest large sums of money in untested strategies or first-time marketers. When in doubt, tap into either an internal or external knowledge base to design your company's marketing strategy.
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