I recently had an interesting discussion with the owner of a floral shop. She changed location during the past year and lost a number of her retail customers. Her business provides excellent customer service and has slightly increased the number of business customers. She needs to get people to try her floral services.

The problem? Like many businesses, this one is cash crunched. She needs to get attention and customers without spending money unless that money is going to produce results.

Take Advantage of Your Location

I asked her where her business resides? What other businesses are located close to her floral shop? Her closest neighbors included a dry cleaner, an insurance broker and a bakery. Excellent! Both the bakery and dry cleaner have lots of walk in traffic, customers who might become hers if she can get them to buy from her. She is also located across the street from a large university. In choosing her new location, she had done very well.

The university adds the opportunity to have flyers placed where students and staff can see them. Universities are often filled with bulletin boards and kiosks for posting flyers, so she can start raising awareness and drive traffic to her business by posting them. In any case, it’s important to find out what official policies are before posting flyers on campus or in a downtown area. She may have to submit them for approval before they can be put up. Good places to post include common areas like student centers and dorms and apartments.

Who are your customers?

I asked for further information about her customers and was surprised to find out that they were 80% men between the ages of 18 and 75. I would have expected more women in the mix. She enjoys excellent relations with her business neighbors which led me to suggest a low cost form of promotion for her.

Take Advantage of All Holidays

I suggested a special holiday season promotion with a price point of between $5 and $7.50. After considering her costs, she was able to specify an attractive small arrangement that would allow her to break-even or make a slight profit. For the purposes of this promotion, we’re looking at simply building her traffic, getting people into the shop and getting them to make a small purchase. That will result in building confidence and will bring them back for future purchases.

Working With Your Neighbor Businesses

She’s going to make up flyers and posters offering this special and ask her neighbors to give them to their customers. The flyers should boost her walk-in traffic and sales. We discussed how best to give the flyers to the customers. She was a bit hesitant to ask for anything beyond placing the flyers on the counters because she doesn’t want to add work to her neighbors. That’s a valid point and you never know how your neighbors will respond to a request like this unless you ask them. If it does not add significantly to their work load and, if you can make it rewarding for them, you may get a lot of help.

Keep in mind that you'll want to return the favor, and ask if you can carry one of their flyers in your business. Help create a community and share in the profit you can bring to each other!

I suggested that she provide each of her neighbor stores with a cheerful and imaginative holiday arrangement at a moderate price point as an example of her work. Of course, it should have a tastefully done sign and perhaps a display to hold flyers offering her special. Signage is also important on the display holding the flyers as well as signage outside her store and within the store suggesting gifts and arrangements. (Tip: clear plexiglas holders for flyers make an excellent display because all of the flyer can be seen easily.)

Another idea might be a contest, asking each worker at the dry cleaner’s or bakery to hand out flyers or coupons stamped with their names in order to get something fun, perhaps a dozen roses at Valentine’s Day.

Looking Forward

Valentine’s Day is coming up in February, and this business has enough lead time to use classified advertising to its advantage. I suggested that she develop some clever "personals" style ads to draw attention to her business. Classified ads can be extremely cost effective. They may not draw an immediate reaction since most people need to see an ad 5 - 8 times before they’ll start to recall having seen the business mentioned. The ad should intrigue people but must provide clear identification of the business and its location.

A possible story line for an ad campaign like this might be a lover’s tiff. Or it could tell a story of developing romance, similar to the Taster’s Choice coffee commercials that unfolded over a couple of years on U.S. television. The goal of this campaign is to be effective, intriguing and memorable. She will need to start this campaign within the next couple of weeks, because she’ll need at least 6 weeks of classified ads in order to have an effect on her Valentine’s Day sales.

If you have any questions on how to promote your business on a shoestring, send them to us. If it’s something you want to know about, chances are that we have other readers who’d be interested as well.

-Cindy Nemeth-Johannes