Healthy Profit; Help in a Snap
Carol L Schroeder -- Gifts and Dec, 6/17/2011 5:23:07 AM
CAROL L. SCHROEDER is a retail expert and consultant.
Q: We would like to use email to promote our store. There seem to be lots of companies that want us to sign up for their email marketing program - any advice?
A: Permission-based email marketing is a great way to take advantage of the relationship you have already established with shoppers who love your store. Even with the fees charged by a marketing firm, email is almost free - and can be a very creative form of promotion.
Email marketing also ties in nicely with social media such as Facebook and Twitter, so you should consider these promotions all as a single component of your advertising plan. The postings you send will only go to existing customers who have given you permission to contact them, either by sharing their email address or "liking" you on Facebook and "following" you on Twitter. Your first priority should be to give great customer service so that as many customers as possible sign up.
There are several ways of doing this - we find that our "customer rewards" program is the best source of signups, although we do also have a card at the counter that customers can fill in. Other shops ask customers when they check out if they'd like to join the list, and often offer a small incentive to do so. For example, you could promise that everyone is who is on the list in July will receive a $5 coupon via email. Keep in mind that it is essential that you offer something of value in your emails and postings so that customers will want to receive them.
There are several excellent email marketing companies such as Constant Contact, GetResponse and My Emma that will maintain your email list for you. These providers charge a monthly fee, usually based on the number of addresses on your list and the number of images you want them to store for you. They all offer templates and tools to help you create a mailing fairly easily, especially if you choose one or two templates and reuse them each time you do a campaign.
The disadvantage of these companies is that their templates appeal to a wide variety of businesses, including restaurants and service providers, so they are rather generic. They also do not have any "stock art" photos of current products, so you need to source and upload any that you want to use.
There is a relatively new player in the email marketing world called SnapRetail's TrafficBuilder (www.snapretail. com/trafficbuilder), which is aimed specifically at the gift and home accessories market. SnapRetail partners with about 100 major vendors such as Midwest/CBK and Mud Pie to provide images and digital marketing materials for the products that many of us sell. These vendors create mailings that are ready to send via TrafficBuilder once they are customized with your logo and other information.
TrafficBuilder also has an active interface with Facebook, and can create Facebook postings based on its vendors' images and ads. In addition, there is a fairly easy option for uploading photos of additional products, and writing your own custom copy. While there is some initial set-up time involved in getting your store's logo and other information uploaded, and getting approval from your vendors as partners, once you get past this stage this program should save you time. TrafficBuilder recently received an infusion of $6 million in capital. These additional funds will undoubtedly insure that the program continues to grow the number of vendors that are participating, as well as the features that it offers independent retailers. It will be exciting to see how this company helps change the future of electronic marketing in our part of the retailing world.
One last advantage that TrafficBuilder has over the other players is its educational programs aimed specifically at the gift industry. SnapEDU is a free library of educational materials to help you better run your business. They also offer Webinars and even a "Snappy Hour" on Facebook once a month so you can get your questions about social media answered.
Q: We would like some guidance about what to do regarding health insurance for ourselves and our staff, especially since the Affordable Health Care Act doesn't take effect until 2014.
A: One in six Americans currently have no health insurance, and this includes a significant percentage of small business owners and employees. If you are not able to join a local affinity group, such as your Chamber of Commerce, your options for procuring health insurance at a reasonable rate have been very limited.
In other industries and fields of business, trade organizations offer health insurance to their members, but that has for the most part been lacking in the specialty retail arena. There are, however, two groups now offering an option for getting a quote on policies to their members.
The first is the Gift and Home Trade Association, a group that until recently was made up exclusively of wholesale vendors and sales agencies. The GHTA voted last year to invite retailers to become members, and at the same time arranged with the Association Health Programs in Overland, KS, to offer health, life, long-term care, disability, dental and vision insurance.
I have been a retail advisor to the GHTA for the past six years, and am excited to see that they have taken on the challenge of making health insurance available for sales representatives. The lack of health insurance has been a huge barrier in finding new recruits to work as sales reps. The fact that the program is also open to retailers is a real bonus, and I encourage you to check into whether it would work for you. The web site for the GHTA's insurance program is www.associationpros.com/assoc/ghta. 
The Gift and Home Channel has recently been revived by The OLB Group of New York, and according to CEO Ronny Yakov they are also offering insurance for retailers.
If you have been able to offer health insurance to your staff, be sure to check with your accountant about the Small Business Health Care Credit. If you have fewer than 25 full-time employees who earn less than $50,000 a year, you may qualify for a tax credit of 35 percent of the health insurance cost. This is based on the assumption that you have paid at least 50 percent of the cost of single coverage.
Specialty Shop Retailing: Everything You Need to Know to Run Your Own Store, published by John Wiley & Sons. Send questions to SpecialtyShopRetail@ me.com.
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