An Upward Trend In A Downward Market, Part 3

Promotions. The sky is the limit in promotions. Traffic is off and business isn't happening? Have a promotion!

No need to wait for the same old sale periods like Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Presidents day, etc. Boring. Have some new promotions. How about Elephant Appreciation Day. Have a Hobbit Day Celebration. Have a Bee Sale for National Honey Month. Maybee they will make a beeline to your door. You could celebrate National Payroll Week (could be your pay), or Line Dance Week. Great time to sell some of those country CD's.

I'm not making these up, I'm taking them from the Brownielocks website. It is just a wealth of fun for promotions. Get attention, create a new sale every week or even every day! They have bizarre, crazy, silly, unknown holidays & observances categorized by month. Need a spike in your sales, click on the month and you're off with a great new idea. Couldn't be easier or more fun. You never have to do those tired old other holiday sales again.

Another thing you can do for promotions is to decorate your store a bit. It doesn't have to cost much or be elaborate, but just some things to blend with your chosen theme for this sale. I worked at a car dealership as a sales manager and decided to have a Western Days Sale just for something different. I 'rented' a truckload of straw bales and put them all over the lot, had the staff dress in Western clothing and off we went. Another time I had a "Cheaper Than Meat" sale and sold cars and trucks by the pound. I took them all across the scales, got their weight and created a sale on each vehicle by the pound. It was great fun to see $4.79 a pound for a vehicle. So, just go have some fun with it and some will work better than others, but you will be doing something rather than Waiting On the World To Change as John Mayer so aptly puts it.

It's still summer, so that is a great time to rent or buy a popcorn machine cart and stick it out front of your store and give away some popcorn! I've done it and though it is a bit corny, it is fun and it brings people over to your store. There is something about the smell of cooking popcorn that is just appealing.

Team up with some stores in your area and combine sales. That could be a lot of fun. Have an offsite sale where you take a portion of your inventory somewhere else and sell it. That is a perfect place to combine with some others and make it a much larger promotion.

There's a zillion things you can do. Let's get doing!