As 2021 comes to a close, it’s never too early to begin thinking about ways to drive foot traffic in the New Year.
As you think about 2022, plan ahead and try some of these innovative ideas offered in the book “Come Back To Bed”:
- Meat Your Mattress.
Dustin Schmidt with America’s Mattress gave customers a $300 Omaha Steak Family pack with any iComfort or Beautyrest Black. This idea drove traffic to his store because, let’s face it, people like meat. And good mattresses.
You can do this at your store, too. Offer a $300 Omaha Steaks gift card with any purchase of a specific high-dollar item. Or better yet, partner with a local butcher to support your community small businesses. Try to move a specific mattress model and market the giveaway with the gift card.
Want to do a summer-focused theme? Include appliance accessories such as grills, televisions, and outdoor kitchen appliances! - Host a Customer Appreciation Day
Do you love Tuesdays? Or, maybe business is slow on Tuesday and you want to generate some traffic. Why not host a weekly event that the community can come to expect every Tuesday? Offer outrageous deals or in-store promotions not available online.
Or take it up a notch and partner with local vendors (think: food trucks, gyms, outdoor businesses–anyone that can transfer their services outdoors) to create a must-attend event for the entire community. Host it yearly and get bigger every year.
- Turn the pandemic into a profit.
Walgreens profits (and foot traffic) are way up because they’ve administered more than 29 million COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S.
Here’s an idea to piggyback on the Walgreen’s stampede: have people bring in their vaccination cards and give them a discount on any purchase over a certain amount (e.g. 20% off over $1,000).
Create urgency by setting an end date, or by offering free pillows to the first 50 customers. If you’re a giver, you could also donate a percentage of sales to a local charity that’s helping with pandemic-related issues.
- Host a Red Carpet Event
You are in the business of helping people create beautiful spaces. With more pictures being taken than ever before in the history of photography, reward those customers who curate beautiful images using furniture purchased at your store.
Host an annual award show at your store. Ask customers to submit their favorite photos from the year of people using your furniture to decorate their space. Create categories such as:
1) Entry Way
2) Living Room
3) Dining Room
4) Bedroom
Then post submitted pictures on social media for people to see and have the community at large vote. Host an awards show for all entrants to attend and select winners, which will drive people into your store and reward those who have shopped with you for advertising your beautiful inventory in their home on the world wide web.
- Host A Private Letter Sale
People love exclusivity, so reward your customers (and future customers) by creating invitation-only sales.
- Host private social media sales.
- Private former client sales—the more they’ve spent in the past, the deeper the discount they receive.
- Sell membership levels with the higher-priced levels getting first and exclusive dibs on new merchandise or exclusive discounts. Advertise that all proceeds go to support local charities.
- Host an estate sale for older or harder-to-sell merchandise. Market it as an estate sale and allow people to haggle on prices. Or, hire an auctioneer!
Start working on these ideas now so you can schedule them throughout the year and have the ideas ready ahead of time. There’s no time like the present!