Small Budget, Big Ideas

Start-up retailers and restaurateurs typically don’t have excess funds to spend on elaborate promotions.

- Basil O ’Hagan

The good news is that you can harness the power of your community to draw your customers in. Here are just a few ideas to get you started...

Create a coupon book

Use this classic neighbourhood marketing technique to offer customers discounts to popular and frequently visited co-tenants, in addition to your own store. Try to get a minimum of five retailers offering R2000 each to participate in offering a strong buy-on get-one-free deal on selected items, in order to put together a book of coupons which can be purchased. The idea is to get as many retail partners as possible, with partners sharing the printing costs of the collateral material including posters advertising the promotional book. Grocery stores, chemists, music stores, dry cleaners, tyre dealers all offer different, necessary items that customers purchase on a regular basis.

You could also tailor your coupon books to suit particular annual holidays, and then target particular groups that these holidays may appeal to – Christian church groups may be interested in Easter or Christmas specials; the young and young at heart would go for New Year’s specials; women’s day would target the female audience; and Mandela Day specials could for example include a provision that part of every sale on a promotional item goes towards an underprivileged school.