If you’re planning a store grand opening and don’t know where to begin, this blog will equip you with all the tools you need to make your launch successful.
Opening a store can be overwhelming. You have to consider so many unknowns that it’s like walking on glass panes that can break at any moment if you aren’t careful. On top of that, racking up profits and growing your business is another excruciating challenge altogether. But first, you need to make your Store Grand opening a massive success, but where do you begin?
Your starting point should always be the neighborhood you will serve. Most people who walk into your store will be people from the local community. That’s why you need to identify what’s trendy in the neighborhood and find ways to connect with the local community. Here are some tips to promote your store’s big launch.
Research your local community
Your first task is to familiarize yourself with the local community and identify what makes it unique. Talk to residents and other store owners so that you can identify the patterns of interest in the neighborhood.
All this effort is geared towards tailoring your Store Grand opening in a way that resonates with the local community. For example, if you’re opening a restaurant, you need to know which cuisines are popular in the neighborhood.
After that, you need to narrow down your target audience. Everyone likes to eat out, but if your research shows that the neighborhood likes Italian food, which Italian dish do the people like most? Is it pasta, lasagna, or a freshly cooked pizza?
Familiarizing yourself with the community means you’ll have to talk to potential customers and conduct dozens of surveys regarding customer preferences about the food menu, taste, ambiance, and more. However, the most important thing is to look for successful local food outlets in the area and identify what makes them stand out from the crowd.
Host an event
After you have gathered all the necessary data points, it’s time to connect the dots and put your plan into action. An effective way to gather the community’s attention is by hosting an event before your store’s grand opening. This event will not only be the first organic advertisement for your store but also help you fine-tune the nitty-gritty details of your launch.
You might be tempted to jump the gun at this point, but you need to be patient because hosting an event is tricky. You’ll need to tailor the event to your audience thoroughly. For example, if you’re opening your restaurant in Manhattan amidst high-rise buildings, the chances are that people in the community want a place to hang out or get a quick breakfast on their way to work.
LifeLine Repairs is a US-based electronic repair shop with branches in multiple cities. Before opening a store in Idaho, the store ran a bike event after discovering that the local community loved biking.
On the other hand, when it opened a store in downtown Chicago, LifeLine Repairs adopted a completely different approach. The people there weren’t big on biking but wanted to use bikes to avoid jam-packed traffic.
Harness the power of SEO
Although hosting an engaging community event will build a good word-of-mouth buzz for your store, it’s not enough to make your Store Grand opening. For that to happen, you’ll need to channel the power of the internet. Statistics show that 45% of all Google searches include local intent, and 84% of all local searches result in sales.
Based on these findings, your store needs a strong social media presence and needs to rank high on Google search results. To that end, you need SEO (search engine optimization), a digital marketing tool to climb Google rankings and solidify your online presence.
Without an online presence, your store is practically unreachable. Although you should tailor your event to the local community’s tastes, having an online presence makes a much wider range of audience within your reach. That’s because many of your potential customers will be outside the local community, and they can only reach you through Google or social media.
Indirect advertising
After doing all that technical stuff, you can now resort to some old-school advertising. Maybe you can sponsor a local sports event or facilitate a local fundraiser. You can also promote your launch through a social media influencer or advertise it in a local magazine.
Although promoting your business in your local community is important, reaching out to a larger audience is imperative for the long-term growth of your store. Social media marketing is a handy tool to reach out to people inside and outside your local community without breaking the bank.
With platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, you can advertise to a huge audience, including your local neighborhood, for free. You can also set up a paid targeted advertising campaign on Facebook or YouTube to get more out of your marketing efforts. Either way, you’ll need to create eye-catching event posters.
I’ve used PosterMyWall’s grand opening posters for most of my social media marketing campaigns. It offers hundreds of thousands of event flyer templates that you can customize to your needs.
Some parting thoughts
Your Store Grand opening will build up the much-needed word-of-mouth buzz in your local community. It’s easier said than done, of course, but your focus should be to tailor the launch to your audience’s preferences. The only way you can do that is by conducting thorough research beforehand and making the launch as specific as possible.
Although neighborhood marketing should be your primary focus, you’ll need to target a wider audience after launch to increase sales. Social media marketing and SEO will solidify your store’s online presence and grow your customer base inside and outside the community. The bottom line is that the internet is not an option but a necessity for the launch.
Check out: Have You Faced Challenges While Trying to Grow Your Business?