Nine winter marketing ideas for newsagents and other retailers

Now, in in the middle of Winter and between major retail seasons, it is easy to coast, waiting for the calendar to click over and lift traffic and sales. That’s for retail used to operate, especially small business retail. We let the calendar drive traffic and sales. Retail today is different. Now, more than ever before, we have to get our chasing traffic and sales.

Coasting in the middle of Winter is the last thing any of us should be doing. Here are nine easy and cheap to implement ideas for promoting your business this winter:

1. Run a HIBERNATION SALE – themed for winter. Offer products your customers can hibernate with at a discount. It doesn’t have to be much. This sale is more about getting them to look at items you have that they would not usually buy. This type of sale lends itself to magazines – cooking, quilting etc.
2. Become a collection point for a local charity working with homeless and housing challenged people. Collect tinned goods, bedding and the like. talk to the charity. The underlying message here is that yeah it’s winter and people are doing it tough so we’re going to help.
3. Run a best sunshine themed art competition for kids. Get kids drawing bright pictures and making bring art objects with a sunshine theme. Offer prizes – not too much though. The honour of winning is enough. promote it to the schools and kindlers to get them engaged. Put the entries on show … to attract traffic.
4. Find out what produce is available direct from the farm gate nearby and if it connects with cookbooks you sell consider inviting the farmer in for an in-store produce promotion.
5. Contact local businesses and offer FREE DELIVERY for all stationery orders for the next two months to introduce them to your competitive range of stationery. promote it as a SAME DAY DELIVERY SERVICE – this is where you can compete with the orders they get shipped in from Staples, Officeworks and the others.
6. Contact any local quilting, knitting and sewing clubs – invite them to do a craft display. If you execute this well they will tell their friends who will come in and check out what’s on show.  Maybe even invite your customers to vote – this could drive more traffic.
7. Cook soup from one of your recipe books and offer cups of FREE SOUP. Promote this in the window. Limit the hours and maybe the days.
8. Run a SHARE THE WARMTH PROMOTION where you encourage customers to send a card to a friend, loved-one or a family member just because … to share warmth with them. Warm a heart this winter.
9. Give your employees what I’d call WINTER THANK YOU COUPONS. These could be, say, 10% off. Each staff member could give away a set number each day to someone they help on the shop floor to spend above a pre set trigger point. The goal here is to get your team engaging with shoppers and rewarding shoppers who respond by buying more.

None of this is brain surgery or all that innovative. many of the ideas have been pitched here before at different times. My point is that right now, in the middle of Winter, we need to act to drive traffic, to make our shops warmer and more appealing … to get our communities talking about us.

For not much effort we could see a nice lift in traffic and sales.