Marketing Simulation #5: Bookstore

The offline book market has been in decline since a decade ago because of the online book market.This doesn't necessarily mean that starting a bookstore business is bad business but that you need a better strategy than the average bookstore so you can be among the last few that will survive in the market, because the less competitors are in the market the better it is for the ones remaining. Being in a declining industry also means not many will dare to adventure in it. So how do you stay in the business then? The answer is by focusing and making sure you dominate one category. Also offering what online bookstores can't, maybe not such small prices but you can offer great customer service!

So don't offer every type of book, just focus on one category like business books and get thousands of them if you can. If some other bookstore still can have more business books than you have than focus even more and offer say marketing books. Make sure you dominate the category you're in and overwhelm any competitor for that market and make sure people know you do! Being the leader is the biggest incentive for people to buy from you.

Here are my 10 tips on how to get those people to come to your bookstore:

1. Location
Put it near other bookstores that are more generalist. This not only it won't hurt you since the people who want marketing books will come to you anyway instead of going to them - they know you have the highest chance to have the book in your bookstore - but it will also help you because it's convenient for people to go to a place where there are several bookstores and there are higher chances they will find their book so overall the people who will come to all those bookstores will increase.

2. Book arrangement
Keep most of your books or at least the bestsellers faced-up. People will not bother( i know i don't) to look on the edges of most books which means they mgiht miss the one they were looking for and will also rarely ask the salesperson for it. Also putting the bestsellers in front will increases sales for those books - there are studies that show that people are more willingly to buy bestsellers and high rated books rather than those that are not.

3. Bundle packages
For certain more expensive books or perhaps for a packages of 3+ books give a small and cheap but very good book for free.Customers will feel like they got more value for their money and will be happy with you bookstore which makes them comeback other times as well.

4. Visible sign
Make your sign very visible and attractive to get people inside, even those that are just walking by and not really looking for a book.

5. Direct mail
Get your customers' addresses and send them some sort of catalog with your newsest bestsellers and offer discounts for those that come with it a detachable coupon from it.

6. Bestseller price cut
You can give a bestseller with a 15% or so discount every month. Make sure everyone who enters the bookstore sees this offer. You can put posters near office buildingss or colleges with this book and announcing the price cut.

7. Business cards
Give them away to people you meet and give one for their friends. Don't forget to mention about your bestseller price cut either.

8. Customer service
Get your personnel to ask anyone what book they are looking for but also to recommend some other good books related to the one they are looking for.

9. Loyalty points
Give points for some of the books you sell. Once they gather up a certain number of points they can use them to buy other books for free.

10. Referrals
People like to talk about the last book they've read with their friends. You can use this and make a referral system in which customers get a number of loyalty points for every new customer they bring.

Marketing Simulation #4: Gym

As in any business you should first identify your target market and define your marketing strategy. A gym's imagine is created by the people that go there and that's because the gym is not only a place to work out and lose weight but also a place for socializing. That happens more easily when the people that go there have the same status and values. After you've decided what type of clients you want to have you can start implementing your business strategy and come up with some marketing tactics. Here are some of my suggestions for a gym that addresses to people with an average salary, around 21-40 of age, both men and women.

1. Corporate alliances
This must be the best marketing tactic you can use to increase significantly and relatively easy your number of clients. Make deals with the companies around your area to give their employees the benefit of going to your gym to stay healthy and get these companies to pay fully for it give at least some type of discounts. You can also go to hospitals and ask the doctors to recommend their patients your gym. You could let the doctors come at your gym for free.

2. Free trials
Give 2-4 weeks for free to new members as a incentive to come and test out your gym. If they like it they will stay longer with you. Make sure you promote this in your signs, ads or direct mail.

3. Referral programs
Come up with a referral program for your members that have bought a 1 year membership. Give them a free month for every new member they bring that buys a 1 year membership.That person should also be given that free trial month to see if they feel comfortable with your gym first. Chances are he or she will want to go to your gym too though because their friend goes there already and they can come together.

4. Membership packages
Offer your potential new members different membership packages. The bigger the period the less they would pay overall. For example 1 month-50$, 3 months-120$, 6 months-200$, 1 year-300$. The more they buy the more they will save.Long periods are good for you because you don't have a to worry as much about people that leave after a month and then you have to get someone else to "replace" them.

5. Member retention
Besides giving them savings incentive to keep them longer with your gym you should also make them want to go to the gym because most people give up after some time when they got too tired or lazy or they achieved they goal in either fitness or weight loss. Some of your trainers could keep weekend seminars at special hours about the benefits of going to the gym, eating healthy and so on. You can also have some posters with fit men and women in the gym to remind them of how they want to look like and why they keep going to the gym.

6. Location and visibility
You don't need a very high priced location but it would be good to be around where most of your target market is. For example if most of your members are from companies then you should be near those companies to make it easier for them to go from work to the gym. As for new members they must see where your company is, the yshouldn't go by and not even notice you so put on some big signs so everyone knows there's a gym there.

7. Trainers
Get very good ones and let them work out at your gym for free in their free time. They could bring many new people to the gym so make them happy with your gym. Make sure you have enough of them for everyone and aks them to remember the names of the people they helped when needed. This will be greatly appreciated by the members.

8. School health classes
You can have your trainers teach about staying healthy and fit to kids in school for free and then give them flyers with your gym so they can show it to their parents.

9. Goal oriented programs
For people that want to lose a certain amount of weight or have a certain muscular mass make some programs to follow and then assign a trainer to help and "make" them achieve that goal.

10. Blogging
If you don't have a website you should at least have a blog. This will be a great tool in your relation with your members and potential new ones. Have your trainers write on it about weight lifting, wellness, diet, sports or anything related to that and your gym. This way your members will have something else to show to their friends as well when they recommend you and can lead to more new members to your gym.

Marketing Simulation #3: Nightclub

The most important thing about a nightclub is "personality". First you must find out what type of personality you want your nightclub to have because that's what kind of people you're going to attract. This depends on what kind of music, drinks, food, prices, service and the whole atmosphere you will have. If you want to serve a certain category of people you will have to find out what are their preferences in all these and then figure out what are the best ways to get the people there and keep them coming.

These are my suggestions on how to increase the number of people that come to your nightclub.

1. Location
Obviously you will want to be as close as possible to your target market as people sometimes won't make those extra miles just to come to your nightclub.

2. DJ and music
Hire a very good and popular one.This is usually usually what drives new people to come to your club and keeps the old ones loyal. A good DJ puts good music and creates great atmosphere.

3. Bartender
Get an experienced one that can sell/recommend drinks to people and can make them quickly.

4. Waiters
If you have only male waiters that are good looking it will attract a lot of female clientele to your club which in return will attract male clientele as well so overall you will have more clients than just having waitresses.

5. Holding events
Get known bands every week or at least every month so sing in your club and do it in the busiest day for you, like Sunday. This will get you lots of people in and they will tell their friends and next time they might come too and so on. You could also hold a weekly dance competition other kind of contests where they can win free drinks.

6. Drink "specials" night
Have a weekly night when you offer certain drink discounts or even free beer after a certain hour late in the night so you get to keep them as long as possible and by then they'll also buy more from you.

7. Build awareness
Try to appear on clubbing sites and get voted as the best local club. Get on the town's website list for clubs. When holding special events try to get the local papers to write about it.

8. Partnerships
Get the nearby hotels to send their clients to you for entertainment either by recommending or having some ad inside or outside the hotel. In return you can do the same for them with people that visit the town, go to your club and then need a place to sleep.

9. Bathrooms
This is a very important aspect, especially for the ladies. If the bathrooms are not clean and not working properly they will not come to your club anymore. If they look much better than the average club bathroom the women and also men will be impressed and will return to the club.

10. Food service
If there isn't any food very close by and till late in the night some of your clientele will not stay in the club till early morning because they will be starving. You can treat this as an opportunity and serve some type of food in your club but keep it simple,something like burgers so they don't waste too much time with eating and you also don't have to come up with a whole restaurant in your nightclub.

Marketing Simulation #2: Clothing Store

For those of you that have or want to have a clothing store you must first know who's your target audience: men, women, parents, high school teenagers, college students, athletes, rich people and so on. I advise choosing the one with the least competition, or none if it's possible in your local area,
and then stick to it. Don't try to be all things to all people because it's harder to fight against competition when you are not focused and it sends confused messages about your brand. For example you want to be "THE teenage clothing store" not just "one of the many stores that sells everything".

Now I'm going to give you tips on how to drive customers to a clothing store that sells articles for high school teenagers:

1. Location
As with most brick-and-mortar businesses this is the most important thing that will get you customers. Locate your store in an area with lots of high schools where the teenagers can pass by and see your store and check it out for new articles.

2. Naming
Find an original, cool name for your store and the teenagers will love to go shopping at your store and tell their friends that they bought from you. Word-of-mouth will work for you this way and get you more of them coming.

3. Build awareness
Don't leave out other high schools that are not in your area. Put banners near each high school to increase your awareness.

4. Sponsor events
Offer to sponsor certain events or concerts .They will want to hold them from time to time. Give them free T-shirts with your logo on and ask the organizers to name you as the official sponsor for the event.

5. Sponsor students
Whenever there's a local school related competition you can offer prizes for the winners like giving them 100$ worth of cloths from your store - their pick. This way every high school student will find out about you and about what you're offering.

6. Bargain advertising
Get the high school students to promote you on their school magazine and offer them discounts for that month. You can even advertise in it for a small price.

7. Catalogue
Make one every season with your best products and spread it around in the high schools. This will be a good reminder that you have the new cloths for the new season.

8. Free item
Give them a free cap or something else when they spend a certain amount of money buying from you. Most people love to get something extra for free. Don't just put a sign with it though. Surprise them. This will create emotions and generate a lot of positive word-of-mouth for you.

9. Monthly sale
Have a sale once a month in weekend. If this becomes consistent, with time you will be getting more and more customers in that weekend of the month.

10. Build a website
Most teenagers use Internet and it's very likely they'll want to check out clothing articles on the Internet first to see if they can find something they would like to buy. You should also have a blog as a PR medium to see what your customers are most interested in buying from you and see what are their reactions to new clothing articles.

Marketing Simulation #1: Local Restaurant

This being my first article here, I'm going to start talking about what marketing is and why it is so important for your business.

Marketing begins before you've even made the product because you should not create a product and then try to find the right people to buy it, you need to find the right people with a specific need or desire and then create a product for them to satisfy that need or desire. Marketing is not just about the promotion of the product as many people think it is but it also includes the product, the price and its place in the market( the 4 P's of the marketing mix: Product, Price, Place, Promotion). You have to sell the right product, at the right price, in the right place and promote it to the right people to be successful.

Many small business owners don't understand the value of marketing and consider it an unnecessary cost. However, they should look at it as an investment. The more you invest in good marketing campaigns the more customers you will get. You just have to make sure you're not doing it the wrong way and make it a bad investment. This why I'm starting to write on this blog to guide you through making some good decisions about marketing you business. I'm going to write about a different business every time.

Here are some of my tips on marketing a local restaurant:

1. Location, location, location
First of all choose a very good location, one with a lot of people traffic around it, an intersection for example. Some of the people that pass by are bound to stop and eat at your restaurant.The more traffic the more customers you will get. The more people pass by that location the more expensive the rent will be but you should not worry about this. The number of customers you will get should make up for the rent. So if you have to choose between cheap rent and few customers and expensive rent and lots of customers, the choice is easy, the latter one. Of course watch out not to get tricked and pay a higher rent than the place is worth. Compare it with other places in the town.

2. Stay visible
Make sure your restaurant can be viewed from as many directions as possible, from as far away as possible and in any weather conditions or moment of the day. Don't hide it. The more people see it the more customers you will have. Put signs around your area, where they can't see the restaurant, to point people to it.

3. Great service
Make sure that all your customers are treated a little better than they expect to be in your restaurant so they will want to come back as often as possible. Don't keep them waiting long for their order or for a waiter to come by their table and take their order. Make sure your restaurant doesn't have all the tables occupied for most of the day. You may say "but that's a good thing", well not really because that also means there are a lot of potential customers that can't get a table throughout the day and next time they might just go to the competition instead of checking out if you have a free table or not. Have as many available tables as you can afford so that almost always a person should find a free table.

4 Food differentiation
You can't serve the exact same food as your competition, you must give them an incentive to come to you instead but don't differentiate just for the sake of differentiation. You must serve what the people in your local community wants to eat the most so keep 2-3 types of food that are ordered the most and in rest bring something that is not served by the competition. Replace the least ordered type of food with a new one every month to get people to keep visiting your restaurant and to tell their friends about your new food type.

5. Offer meal deals
Make meal deals to sell more food for a single price. Like you'd get from McDonald's a burger, fries and coke and pay for them a single price rather than separately, but make that price slightly lower than the sum of the each taken separately. This gives incentive to buy that "deal" and selling more food/customer means getting more money/customer.

6. Give discounts
Give bill discounts for people that come to eat in groups of at least 4 or so. This way you'll get more customers/table.

7. Spread fliers
Hire some students to spread fliers in other parts of the the town. It's a good way to get new customers especially if you offer an incentive with it.

8 Send mail
You can send your menu with a coupon in people's mail and invite them to your restaurant. Give directions to it.

9. Contracts with local businesses
You can make exclusivity contracts to deliver food to local businesses in their lunch break and offer discounts on volume.

10. Build a website
People should see here your location, phone number, e-mail address, hours of operation, menu items and they should also be able to make reservations. You can also come up with a series of new marketing tactics on the website, like making a contest for those that order online and winning free meals, offering coupons for those that register to your newsletter and so on.

Remember there are 3 ways to increase your sales but if you do all 3 together your sales will grow exponentially:
a) increasing your new customers number
b) increasing the quantity of food that is ordered/customer at one time
c) increasing the number of times the customers come back per month

Example: If you manage to double each one then your sales volume will be 2*2*2=8 times bigger.