Wholesale Fashion Buyers

A place for boutique owners to learn and share!

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How to Create a Marketing Strategy For Your Shop That Builds Authority

How to Create a Marketing Strategy For Your Shop That Builds AuthorityCreate A Marketing Strategy

There are many different triggers that convince prospects to become customers. One of the most significant buying triggers is authority. We buy from people and companies that we consider to be experts. Your marketing strategy can and should ideally include building a reputation as an industry expert. Here are a few tips, ideas, and tactics to create a marketing strategy that positions you as an authority.  When you work on creating a marketing strategy, you have to think about it from your prospect’s shoes.

Make a Difference in People’s Lives

There are actually three steps to the authority process. The first step is to make a difference in people’s lives. From the perspective of building a marketing strategy around this step you can turn to both content and to your products or services.  You can image the wonderful word of mouth marketing that you will receive as part of helping others, even beyond the intended response of helping one person.

-Make sure your products or services are valuable and that your customers receive the intended benefit

-Provide consistent value in the form of content. We’re talking about providing valuable tips on Twitter, sharing information, news, and ideas on Facebook and your blog. Write articles for notable publications and strive to use your content to provide consistent value. Whether you’re emailing prospects, connecting with them on social media, or reaching out on your blog, make sure that the information you’re providing has the power to change lives for the better. Provide value, build authority.  Answering questions and providing help is just one way to increase your authority in your niche, so don’t forget to add it when you create a marketing strategy for your shop.

-Connect on a personal level with your clients and learn how you can help, provide value, and make a difference. Leverage that information into better business systems, products, and information.  You can find things they are looking for and need – they will tell you if you just ask.  And it gives you the information to give back to them to tell them that you solved their problem.  Once someone says, I really need an X to do Y, you can find that X and then make sure everyone knows it fixed the problem you have with Y.

-Respond to blog comments in a manner that helps not only the commenter but also any people reading the comments to further their understanding. And leave insightful and useful comments on industry blogs where your audience is present. Make a good impression.  People will click on your name to go to your site so make sure it’s enticing – link to a related blog post if you can.

Demonstrate That You Can Make a Difference

While the first step is to make a difference, the second step in becoming an authority is to demonstrate to your prospects that you can make a difference. It’s the proof step so to speak. In terms of your marketing strategy this could take many forms.

For example, you might use case studies to demonstrate your capacity to make a difference. Testimonials, reviews, and a strong word of mouth or referral marketing campaign can also help spread the word about your expertise and authority.  Ask your customers to share of Facebook and Pinterest if they would like.  Asking may seem unusual, but you should make it part of creating your marketing strategy and teach your clerks and staff to share as well.

Connect with industry leaders. Follow them on social media, comment on their blogs, and invite leaders to be interviewed or to partner with you on projects. For example, you might invite an industry leader to contribute a chapter for your next book or to host an online fundraiser with you. Partnering with industry leaders demonstrates to your audience that you are respected in your community and considered someone to turn to for assistance and guidance.  And they are not that hard to connect with – if you work at making it known that you are a great follower and attentive to their information they share, they probably already know a little about you anyway.

Communicate With Integrity and Authenticity

Finally, in all communications whether you’re establishing authority or sharing that authority with your prospects, make sure to communicate with integrity and authenticity. Consumers are savvy and they can smell a fraud from a mile away. Be genuine both in your efforts to make a difference and the way you share that information. Building authority can take time but when it’s done from a place of integrity you’re on the right path.  Create a marketing plan that allows you to work from a place of honesty and integrity and you will be on the right track.  A little bit of change by making some steps every day to move in the right direction with industry leaders and your prospects will eventually lead to a huge change.

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Jumping from Idea to Reality For Your Shop

Reality For Your ShopSometimes one of the hardest things to do is to take a whisper of an idea, or a mishmash of many ideas, and bring at least one of them to fruition. You have an idea, maybe many ideas, but you just simply cannot stop the noise in your mind long enough to actually make your ideas happen. Jumping from idea to reality is really more like hopscotch than jumping from point A to point B like you do in the long jump. You need to make a lot of small jumps to get where you’re going.  If you really want to start a shop, keep reading to find out the best ways to make that happen!

Get Super Focused

It’s important to get your idea down on paper and become very clear about what your idea is. The truth is, you can keep an idea spinning around in your head for years without ever coming to any conclusions that will make your idea a reality. Once you get focused on your idea, the idea that will become a reality, it’s time to put your money where your mouth is.  You are going to write it down in as much detail as possible and make it clear what the reality is that you want.

Develop Your Plan

Write down everything that needs to be done to make your idea a reality. Do you need to research the feasibility of the idea? Develop a prototype? Set up the infrastructure? What exactly do you need to do in a broad sense to get your idea to reality? Write down each component of your idea that needs to be done.  Things for a shop are to scout the location, get seed money, determine your audience, determine your location, estimate cash flows, you get the point.

Create the Steps

Once you have a broad overview of all the deliverables from developing your plan, it’s time to create the steps to make each aspect become reality. For instance, in the above you could come up with the following: Write a Business Plan, Build a Website, Rent Commercial Business or Shop Space, Perfect the design and purchase the products, get insurance. Then make step-by-step instructions for yourself (and others) to get these things done in a timely manner.  Make sure you assign someone who can think without you constantly having to tell them what to do.  This will make your life easier.

Get the Help You Need

Even if this is your idea and no one else’s, often times getting help gives you the real motivation to bring the idea to reality. You can get help in the form of actual partners, or you can hire employees or contractors to help you implement your plans. You may also need a lawyer, or expert within the area of your idea to help you navigate the laws. Most communities have small business incubators and other help available either free of charge or for a very low cost.  Don’t think of it as wasted money, because you are investing in your business and getting it off to the right start.

Take Action

Organize all steps created in chronologic order. Then simply do first things first. Jump in order from one thing to the next. As one thing is finished, move on to the next until one day, you will be done and your idea will be reality. Remember, time moves forward whether you take action or not, so you might as well take action.  There is a saying to “Eat The Frog” and it means do the hardest thing first.  You would be amazed how effective this is for getting something done.  It gives you a sense of accomplishment for the day and you will get more done.

By getting clear in your mind about what your idea really consists of, the plans you’ll need to make and the steps you’ll take, with the right help your new reality will be the full implementation of your awesome ideas. One idea at a time.

Tell us about a time when you really took action and tried to create a plan – what happened?  Did you get the plan done or did it coast away from lack of attention?

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Choosing A Product That Your Customers Will Love

Choosing A Product That Your Customers Will Love

Every business owner dreams of choosing a product that their audience cannot do without. They want to find a product that screams “buy me now”. They want their audience to salivate at the mouth to get the product. But first, people must know your newly found product exists in order to even want to buy it. Thankfully, there is a process to follow to help your product get seen, and seen by the right people.

Know Your Audience

Before you even start looking for a product, you should have your audience in mind who needs it. You should be able to actually narrow down this audience to between one and three personas that you can write a very detailed product description that makes them want to buy it right now. It might sound counter-productive to narrow down your audience to an audience of no more than three people, but time after time studies show that when you know exactly who your audience is, and therefore who your product is for, you will have a higher rate of success.

It can be frightening to narrow down your audience to very specific demographics because you want to sell this to “everyone” or “every mom” or “ever business person” or “every virtual assistant” or “eChoosing A Product That Your Customers Will Lovevery Name Your Niche.” However, the fact is that this is not going to work well.  Nothing is stopping the other people from buying, but you benefit from being able to talk to and about the small group of customers you find it for because you will be able to promote it to them.

What works well is picking a very narrow group within your niche of shoppers to whom all marketing materials are addressed. By picking three personas, you can test out all three and see which works best. But, make no mistake – the more you can narrow down your niche, the more sales you’ll make.  When you find something, and it sounds just like it was made for you and what you need, are you more or less likely to buy it?  More likely, I would guess.  Like, a purse that is just your favorite color and has the right amount of pockets and inserts and zippers – you are going to snatch that up without thinking twice.

Focus on Benefits over Features

Your audience, no matter how well you relate to them, wants to know “What’s in it for me?” They need to understand what benefits your product offers them, and what problems the product solves for them. If you’ve chosen your product for a specific audience to solve specific pain points, you’re half way there already. Just ensure that the information in your shop and with your clerks, and on any advertisements, addresses benefits over features and spells out the problems it solves.

Even the title of your product should address what your audience will get out of the experience of using your product. If your product helps your audience lose weight and get healthy, your title or subtitle should be clear on that. Don’t be tricky with title names. Use words that mean something to the audience.

Address Their Objections

If you know your audience well, you will already be aware of potential objections they may have regarding buying your product. These objections depend entirely on your audience but some might be:

* The product is too expensive.
* The product scares me.
* This is too hard.
* I have all the time in the world to get this product.
* I’ve tried everything, and this one won’t work either.

Each audience will have their own objections to a specific product. Know what they are and address them in your display and have some demonstrations to make it clear what the product is used for. Give a money back guarantee or give out samples to try; show how the product is worth hundreds more than you’re asking for it. Provide a digital or store tutorial on using the product; show how this one is different from the others by having test candidates use the product, and provide case studies.  Once you are known and trusted in your boutique, a lot of the objections are limited because people will believe you bring good and valuable products to the market.

Whatever you need to do in order to overcome the potential objections to help them pick up the item and buy, should be addressed.

Can you think of a product that your audience would like?  What are some objections they might present?  Tell me about it in the comments.

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