Launching a store is like watching a baby bird learn to fly. When it finally comes time to push your baby out of the nest (launch your store), you hope it’ll take flight instead of fall to the ground.
Well, your store isn’t going to “learn to fly” unless you prepare it. In the business world, that means promoting your big launch to ensure people show up and support your business. Think of customers as the wind beneath your baby’s wings!
Even in 2022, people want to shop in a brick-and-mortar store. Studies show that 82% of Millennials still prefer in-store shopping! That means all you have to do is get the word out, and people will come.
To get your store ready to be pushed out of the nest, here are a few tips to promote your store’s big launch in your neighborhood.
1. Build a website
The key to any successful business launch is a killer website. Just like your new store location is your business’s physical home base, your website is your digital home base. And, in 2022, that’s just as important!
Most marketing efforts these days are based online, and they all need to tie back to something. That something is your website, which is why it needs to look flawless. According to studies, 38.5% of consumers judge a business by their first impression of the website.
Before you start any sort of marketing efforts, build a business website, and make sure it looks good with colorful graphics, user-friendly menus, and plenty of information about your business.
Also, make sure you include your store’s address. That way, search engines like Google can tell where you’re located and promote your website to local customers.
Once you have a killer website, you can focus on driving local traffic to your website.
Every single one of your marketing campaigns should send potential customers back to your website. If you decide to create event posters, for example, make sure you include your website URL.
Your flyer won’t be able to tell potential customers everything about your business, so make sure they have a way to find the information they need by visiting your website.
Plaster your website URL on all your marketing campaigns. It should be the cornerstone of all your promotional efforts.
Also Read: What Are The Benefits Of Telegram Advertising? Telegram Channel Marketing
2. Use online local directory listings
Remember way back when people would look in the phone book for local businesses? Well, the actual phonebooks might be gone, but the idea still exists. It’s just online.
Instead of paying for ad space in a phonebook like in the old days, most businesses use online directories to promote themselves to local customers. The more of these directories you use, the more local people you’ll reach about your store’s grand opening. Even better, most of them are free!
Here are just a few of the most popular online local directories:
- Google My Business
- Yelp
- Foursquare
- Yellowbook
Use these platforms to update your business location(s), hours, phone number, and email address. Your business will exist on these directories anyway, so you might as well take advantage of them!
If you decide to sign up for any local directories, Google My Business is generally the most important. When people search for local businesses, your Google business profile is likely the first thing to pop up in the results. Around 70% of online traffic comes through Google. That’s how you’ll capture the most local online attention to promote your store opening.
3. Take advantage of social media
Almost two-thirds of the entire population uses social media. It’s a great way to get your store’s grand opening information in front of a ton of potential customers. Best of all, it’s free!
Create business pages on as many social media platforms as you can:
- Nextdoor
Facebook and Nextdoor are both ideal platforms for promoting local events and businesses.
Once you have your social media profiles set up, it’s important to keep up with content. Schedule regular posts to keep your followers interested and really hype up your grand opening.
But remember, social media isn’t just about promoting yourself. As the name might suggest, it’s all about being social. There should be a back-and-forth between you, your followers, and the community as a whole. Interact with your followers and other local business pages to build a community relationship.
You can also create social media posts and boost them to local customers. Boosting a post does cost some money, but it lets you push your event promotion beyond just your followers.
You can target specific demographics and areas to reach the exact customers you want to show up to your grand opening. It’s a perfect way to promote your store’s grand opening!
4. Get the community involved
Digital marketing is great and all, but it has the potential to reach people all over the world. For your store’s grand opening, you don’t really care about reaching people in another state or country; you just want to reach people nearby.
If you want to market to your community, that’s exactly where you need to go. Here are some ideas to get the community involved in your store’s grand opening:
- Work with other businesses – Other businesses in the area already have established local customer bases. Why not use them to help promote your store opening? Find other businesses that complement yours and ask them to hand out flyers, coupons, promotions, or any other marketing materials you want to promote your store. For example, if you’re opening a tire shop, ask the auto body repair place across the street to come to your grand opening and invite their customers. It’ll make your grand opening more of a spectacle, and you might be able to capitalize on their already-built local customer base while supporting both businesses.
- Reach out to local influencers – Social media influencers are people who have a large online following. They literally influence people’s purchasing decisions. Reaching out to a local influencer and either paying them a fee or offering some free products in exchange for posting about your grand opening is a great way to boost your local reach.
- Participate in or sponsor local events – Customers like supporting businesses that are a positive part of the community. Show your community support by participating in and/or sponsoring local events. Not only will it get your name out there to promote your grand opening, but it’ll also boost your reputation in the area. Win, win!
Also Read: TikTok: Social Media’s Latest Gift To Business Marketing
Ready to create your marketing materials?
No matter how you decide to promote your store’s grand opening, it’s essential to use high-quality marketing materials. Whether you’re creating vibrant flyers to hand out around town or engaging social media posts to send to your followers, PosterMyWall has everything you need to design outstanding marketing materials.
We have thousands of event flyer templates to make promoting your grand opening easy. Just choose a template, customize it to fit your business using the simple drag-and-drop editor, and it’s ready for print or send out via social media or emails. Hand out your flyers around town to ensure your new store opening goes off with a bang!