Customer loyalty programs help to encourage your shoppers to keep up with you. They help your customers to stay informed of promotions, notified of new arrivals, and keep their interest in your boutique. People shop for a wide range of reasons, but boutique shoppers are largely interested in having a unique and personalized shopping experience. Creating the right customer loyalty programs can help you to give your customers that experience at little or no cost to you.
A simple e-mail list is a good place to start. Offer customers a discount on their purchase if they sign up for your monthly newsletter, or agree to receive promotions, coupons and announcements from you in the form of e-mail. Generally, people don’t want to have very many e-mails from a company, so you should probably consider only sending out one per month. Make announcements, personalize the feel of the letter, and have coupons that people can print out and redeem in the store.
When people receive your newsletter, it should be colorful and full of pictures. Learning a little about designing a template for your newsletter can help you to keep your customers’ interest while sticking to your brand image. If you’re not comfortable, consider hiring a professional for this part of the job. Beyond that, everything else should be free.
You also need to let your shoppers know what’s going on and what’s coming up while they’re in the store. Place advertisements on your outdoor sign, in your display windows, and on top of your clothing racks. Place signs at eye level so that they are easy to spot and read. You can also have your sales people personally tell people about your promotions and upcoming sales. Boutique shoppers are intrigued when you let them know that their favorite brands are going on sale or that new merchandise is coming in soon.
Boutiques are often small, independently owned businesses that do not have a lot of money to spend on advertising. So, keeping up with your customers on your own can be very effective and rewarding. Start a social networking site account to notify your customers of sales and new arrivals. Have them share your link to participate in contests or other promotions. This type of word-of-mouth advertising is very powerful and doesn’t cost you a thing.
If you don’t think that you have time to keep up with a daily social networking site or the production of a monthly newsletter, you can hire an internet marketing company to do it for you. However, keeping in touch personally, using a sign atop your clothing rack, or even hanging some merchandise outside of your store is a great way to let people know what’s going on. Give them something to talk about and share with their friends and you’ve got yourself an effective marketing strategy.
About the Author: John Garvey is on the staff of Only Garment Racks, a leading online source of clothing racks including garment racks. Find a high quality clothing rack or garment rack at http://www.onlygarmentracks.com.