August, September, and October are crucial months for most bike retailers. In many parts of the country the "ding" of your door counters is becoming less frequent, transactions and sales tend to follow. After a busy summer you have inventory that didn't move and you have a long winter ahead of you before you business ramps up again in the spring.
As your marketing partner, our job is to help you get your business in front of qualified buyers so you can motivate them to shop with your business.
Of course you want to remerchandise your website to put seasonally relevant information about new product on your website. You'll want to feature all of the exciting new product you are putting on your floor.
You will also want to make it very easy for your site visitors to link to your on sale bikes, summer apparel, and accessories. Leverage email marketing and social media to drive direct traffic to these pages as well.
Even though so much of your business and ours is digital, I'd encourage you to consider whether a small investment in direct mail can help you move through your aging inventory even faster than a purely digital strategy.
We have several direct mail options design and ready to customize for your business.
You may want to frame up an end of summer promotion that communicates broad details. The customer knows that you have deals, and in fact, you are willing to give them a special coupon incentive in order to encourage them to visit. But you don't want to identify specific items to promote, you just want customers coming in and shopping your aging inventory while you show off the latest arrivals. Like all mailers, this design can easily be customized with your brand colors, logo, messages, and images.
Shoppers respond to the message of clearance. You see mainstream retailers leveraging this message with each change of season. Make sure you customers know you have deals for them so they buy from you. If they don't buy from you, you know they will click on the links from any number of online and national sellers that are promoting clearance events. This design makes it easy for you to change out product images to show specific items a customer can expect to find when they visit. We can easily help you combine this direct mail campaign with an email strategy to help promote end of season clearance.
You can achieve your business needs and have fun too. This design will surely standout in your customers' mailbox and get them to take a look at what you have to offer. Catching their attention is an important first step to getting foot traffic and sales. This design helps you create a broad sale event with a fun, eye catching, and customizable design.
Did you have a great summer? Did you move through your 2019 bikes? That means you've got a lot of exciting new bikes on your sales floor. Don't wait for customers to wander into your store, and certainly don't let those bikes gather dust over the winter. Let your customers know that you have new bikes ready for test ride. Is your local competition marketing right now? Probably not, they're soft-pedaling after a long summer. This is your chance to finish your summer strong and outpace your competition. It is easy to change images and headlines on this design to match your business priorities.
Are you looking for a more mellow way to drive foot traffic at the end of the summer? If so, consider sending a simple thank you message to your best customers with an exclusive coupon that they can use in the store however they want. If you can get your customers into the store, then you can trust your well-trained sales team to show off the latest arrivals and must-have gear to get the order value up.
The SmartEtailing marketing team does the strategic thinking and creative work for you. If you are interested in using our direct mail service then you can trust that I'll be here to help you identify the right customers to target, set an appropriate budget, and advise you on how to customize a design to help you achieve your business goals.