How To Promote Your Store Before Launch Day
Starting a business from scratch is no easy feat. So when it finally comes to launch day, it’s only natural to want a large crowd excited and ready to buy your products. But Rome wasn’t built in a day, and nor is any other business. Successful businesses don’t just appear out of nowhere with customers already lined up outside your store. It takes months of meticulous planning and carefully created marketing materials to reach your target market, even before the doors open.
According to a 2020 report by Fundera, 20% of small businesses fail within their first year of opening, with the most commonly cited reason being down to poor marketing. However, being a new business owner doesn’t mean you have to fall into this trap. Start strategizing months in advance — build customer awareness, post product teasers, and push out promotions and ads ahead of launch. Making a great first impression isn’t just for job interviews. It’s equally important when it comes to building customer relationships and will form the basis of a long-lasting and thriving business.
So how exactly do you promote a store opening and what do you need to do? In this article, we share a few different tactics on how to do this for your own online business. From social media marketing to influencer endorsement, read on for all the tips and tricks to help you generate big leads and drive traffic to your website on launch day.
Need more reasons to start a business? We’ve got you covered! Check out our articles below for more ideas and insights on ecommerce.
- 6 Reasons Why Now Is the Best Time to Start Your Online Business
- Finding the Market Gap: How to Choose Products That Sell
- Business Ideas for Every Type of Entrepreneur in 2021
How to promote with intention
Before you start posting product teasers on your Facebook business page, ask yourself: Do I have a marketing strategy ready? Do you know who your customers are, where they are located (offline and online), what they want, and what they value? If you’re unable to answer these questions, then you’re going to have to do some research. Start off by looking through various social media platforms for insights into customer behavior. Read up on current trends, conduct surveys and interviews, and analyze your competitors’ own followings. This will all help you pinpoint the customer groups who may potentially make some purchases on your store and allow you to further optimize your advertising for your target market.
Before we get into the details of how to promote your store, here are a few tips to get started on your marketing:
1. Set a marketing budget
With so much happening around you, it’s easy to get sidetracked and let your ad spending get out of hand. Keep in mind that you haven’t profited off your business yet, so be reasonable and stick to the allocated marketing budget outlined in your business plan.
2. Be consistent with your message, design, and schedule
A brand identity with a consistent image (both visual design and messaging) aided by regular posts will help you build better brand recognition.
3. Identify your unique selling point (USP) and write naturally
Customers these days are more discerning when it comes to pushy sales tactics. Detailing your products or services’ key features with clickbait buzzwords will only work if you’re interested in making a quick profit. Figure out what makes your product better than the others and create product descriptions with your customers’ best interests in mind. Inform customers of how your products will benefit them, rather than using big words to prop up your company’s image.
4. Research keywords and optimize your SEO
When it comes to online advertising, people tend to forget about the power of keywords and search engine optimization (SEO), whether it’s just for a paid ad, an article title, or even a hashtag. Most ecommerce platforms provide SEO features for product descriptions. Keywords, on the other hand, are important in optimizing your products for marketplace search engines like on Lazada or Shopee, or even when searched organically as a hashtag on Instagram or Facebook.
Generate leads before launch day
If you’ve dabbled in marketing before, then you’ve probably heard the term “generating leads.” Simply put, lead generation is the process of attracting prospective customers who have an interest in your products or services. Creating these leads is the first step in creating customer awareness, which in turn creates interest and desire to purchase goods or services once your store is open.
And while there is a whole host of factors that can influence consumer purchasing behaviors, most studies have shown that buyers are most responsive to a certain handful: reviews and social recommendations, sales promotions, positive experiences and associations, and price. Below, we’ve put together some of the best offline and online marketing strategies that employ the aforementioned factors to attract potential customers.
Provide value: Self-promotion through content marketing
Content marketing is essentially the act of acquiring customers online through the creation and distribution of valuable information. Writing guest articles, conducting webinars, and creating YouTube videos around your product or service are all examples of content marketing. Using these channels, you’ll be able to get hold of customer email addresses so you can create further promotions and notify your customers of discounts on launch day.
Reach and engage customers: Social media marketing
These days, having a social media account for your company is as important as registering your business. Since global internet usage has increased dramatically due to the pandemic, having an active presence online to engage with customers is now more important than ever. So if you haven’t opened a Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter account (or wherever your customers are located online) yet, now would be a good time to start. Create a catalog of posts or a “content calendar” and schedule content to be published for a good 3–6 months before your store is due to launch. Doing so will help you gain followers, increase trust, and get recognized over time, even before releasing your goods or services. Some of the best practices for social media content include creating a countdown for your store opening, teasing new products, greeting customers on holidays, and holding contests online.
“… having an active presence online to engage with customers is now more important than ever.”
Promotional strategies: Discounts, giveaways, and contests
There’s nothing a customer likes more than a good deal. Giving away products for free and sending discount coupons are some of the fastest ways to get a customer’s attention. Here are some of the most popular strategies you can use to optimize sales:
- Increase customer numbers for your new store: Issue discount coupons (10–30% off) for every first purchase made so customers will return or make a purchase again.
- Increase sales for new products: Feature new products prominently on your storefront and offer a “new product” discount to customers who have an account, therefore rewarding loyal followers and generating reviews for newly released items.
- Increase returning customers: Issue free shipping or birthday coupons through SMS text messages or emails.
- Increase sales for a specific product: Avoid slow-moving inventory by using the “Buy X Get X Free” strategy, or offer a discount or free item with every purchase to increase a product’s desirability.
- Increase awareness before launch day: Start a giveaway contest on your social media accounts and reward customers if they follow your accounts, pre-order products, or share your site on their feed or stories.
Other ways to generate leads online
There are many other ways to create awareness and be found. You can reply or comment on blogs and link your store, be active in forums like Reddit for your niche, or you can even reply to questions on Quora and upsell your services. Don’t limit yourself to the usual marketing advice found online and try whatever works best for your business.
All about influencers
One of the biggest problems facing new businesses is the lack of credibility and trust in the brand. After all, customers have no way of knowing whether the products or services you are selling are genuine or of good quality, especially when you don’t have the reviews to back them up. One way to boost the perception of your brand is to enlist the help of influencers. Influencer marketing uses endorsements from online personalities or “influencers” who have a relationship with their audience to help increase sales. Most influencers are authorities in their own niche and can therefore sway the buying decisions of their followers, making influencer marketing a cost-effective strategy. By employing the help of an influencer, you can create a positive voice and generate hype around your products or services through social proof.
So where can you find an influencer? Well technically anyone with a dedicated online following can be called an influencer. Your average multi-faceted content creator will generally have a day job while moonlighting online. Most influencers will have multiple accounts across different platforms, so look for influencers where your potential customers are most likely to be. It’s also important to choose the right influencer for your brand. Employing an influencer with a 100,000 strong male demographic following will be no good if you’re trying to sell women’s clothes. Instead, look for an influencer who even with just 1,000 views could net you 100 orders. Start looking for influencers in your niche by doing your own research or contacting media agencies that represent them.
“Influencer marketing uses endorsements from online personalities or “influencers” who have a relationship with their audience to help increase sales. Most influencers are authorities in their own niche and can therefore sway the buying decisions of their followers…”
Examine your marketing plan again and measure your goals and targets with regard to hiring influencers. Are you strategizing for increased awareness for your store or to push certain products when you launch? Research your target audience, ask influencers for their demographic data to see if you’re a fit, and track their reach by using codes or unique URLs for marketing campaigns.
While influencer marketing can sound great, not everyone has the budget for it. Aside from paid endorsements, you could also contact influencers privately and send your best-selling products or samples of your upcoming releases. If they’re something that they think their audience might like, they might give you some free promotion and some additional feedback.
Check out the Influencer Rewards app to track your store traffic and reward influencers for marketing your store.
More ways to promote your business
There are many other creative ways to promote your business offline and online. If you have a physical store, you could set up a Google My Business account and list your business there, as well as on small business directories, Waze (navigation software), and other map and location apps. Continue innovating your business and utilize whatever tools and mediums you have at your disposal. Some other promotional strategies you could use include:
- Traditional marketing (print and media) — Flyers, billboards, radio, mail, newsletters, magazines, television
- Event marketing — Networking events, industry events, trade shows, community events
- Paid online advertising — On Facebook, Google, Instagram, Tiktok, and other sites
Promoting your story is easy with a plan
There are free and paid options for every marketing budget. From using ads and promotions to influencers and endorsements, an ecommerce business thrives when you have a growing online following and an invested customer base. While you take care of your customers, let Cafe24 take care of your business. Cafe24 is an ecommerce platform where you can build an online store from scratch with no sign-up fees or upfront costs. You can easily promote your store with our Event Banner V2 app, sell products through the Facebook Channel app, and connect with your audience with the Social Share Buttons app. There is no substitute for a good deal and a good plan, so sign up today and promote your online store with ease.
