EXCUSE THE ENGLISH BUT WITH LARGE MERCHANTS CLOSING LOCATIONS IN DROVES AND SOME ARE NOT EVEN DOING WELL ONLINE….HOW CAN THE SMALLER MERCHANTS HOPE TO SURVIVE?
The main advantage local merchants have in their arsenal is that they are local. Their personalization and service is a big plus but the bombardment noise of promotions, advertising and marketing of the big boys makes it hard for the local guys/gals to be heard.
The good news is that the marketing tools that can help them are readily available. The bad news is that these services are spread all over the map and cost more than they can afford. Additionally they don’t have the expertise or time to implement a do it yourself coordinated program. The small business is tied up with helping customers, taking deliveries, wiping down the counters and a myriad of everyday tasks that take up all their time.
I walked into a local frozen yogurt shop I have been visiting frequently and did a mini-survey. I asked him if he knew me. He said, “of course, you have been coming in for over 10 years”. He said he knew a great many of customers as well as he knew me. Then came the real questions. I asked him if he knew my last name; my email address: my cell phone number and how did could contact me when I wasn’t in his store – to bring me back more often. His answer was, “no, I don’t know any of the answers but believe my yogurt is so good that you will want to keep coming back – I hope”.
He was typical of many of the local merchants and services in the neighborhood. Some grasped marketing technology (at least to some degree) but most had only a limited knowledge and but didn’t have the money, time or knowledge to put a coordinated campaign together like their larger competitors.
For the most part, my neighborhood survey (which we greatly expanded across the country) indicated that most small merchants would like to have a real loyalty program, email/text and push messaging, private branded coupon site, social media, cross-marketing program and a mobile app. In other words, the modern marketing tools that create business and a continuity program plus analytics that points to, and keep them on, a path to obtain repeat and new business – and increased profitability.
Many of the tools were available on a piecemeal, and pricey basis, but there was no one stop shop that supplied it all – at a price they could afford. And although affordability was of major importance to them, the number one factor in the equation was the necessity of having someone do all the work for them. Sure they could find a good email or text provider but they would have to do most or all of the creative and heavy lifting themselves. This stands true for all the other marketing tools they need as well.
That’s what got us into the business. Sure we wanted to make money, but providing small business the services they needed at a very affordable price was very important to us. So we built a better mousetrap – but if we couldn’t find a methodology that would create traction in the market it would all be for naught.
Many companies have tried to capture local markets. Knocking doors is too expensive for most companies to try – especially on a national level. So we took a different approach. We decided that the road to mass distribution was through suppliers and organizations that already had relationships with local merchants and services. Companies that were looking for a value added service that would be appreciated by their customers while offering them the opportunity for a substantial passive revenue stream.
We have been building private branded cash back loyalty malls for some time and decided to expand into the hyper-local game, and our beta test proved us correct.
We have signed agreements with marketing partners that have over 500,000 existing small business and local merchant customers. Marketing partners that will be bring us to market starting Q1 ’17 and happily, they are just as enthused as we are about our consumer outreach acquisition and retention tool box. They see the need and want to have a platform that helps their customers grow and prosper.
There are about 28 million small local business in the USA alone, and then…who knows.
ABOUT LOYALTY SUPERSTORE
LOCAL THANKS℠ is an operating company of Loyalty Superstore® (www.loyaltysuperstore.com). The Loyalty Superstore management team has over 20 years of experience in the incentive industry and in building rewards/rebates web based loyalty shopping mall platforms that showcase over 1200 national merchants. Our one of a kind white label technology allows clients to customize our National Mall® and LOCAL THANKS℠ platforms instantaneously with their own graphics, videos, text and information. The National Mall® is marketed to medium and large sized clients that utilize the platform as a customer acquisition, retention and loyalty value added benefit. The Malls include a link to local shopping through the company’s LOCAL THANKS℠ platform. (http://merchant.localthanks.com)
The company offers its LOCAL THANKS℠ platform to local businesses, as a consumer outreach marketing program designed to bring existing customers back more often and attract new ones.
