Talk about a win, win, win. This tip helps local retailers win new local customers, your customers save money and a local community group raise funds. Engagement is measurable, so you can assess the return on your investment.
Find a locally loved and trusted community group in need of funds, a group that has a reasonable number of members who do not currently shop with you.
Offer the community group a percentage from each purchase made by members of the group and their family members.
Offer each member a discount for each purchase.
The amounts offered need to be considered in the context of your business, your margin and the value of the anticipated additional purchases.
Consider a timeframe for the offer. For example, it may be useful to trial the offer for a limited period so you can assess engagement and then adjust as appropriate. It may also be an offer only open to certain days of the week, your quietest days.
Consider the products to be included in the campaign. It may be appropriate to exclude products categories where your margin is not enough to justify inclusion.
To manage the offer, see if your Point-of-Sale software can help. I know the software from my own software company can manage this. You give each community group a member a card, which when scanned ensures they get the discounted price and the donation to the community group is tracked.
The card becomes valuable itself, something talked about, sought after.
The commercial goal of this campaign has to be net new shopper traffic for the business delivering revenue the business would otherwise not have achieved. If this is the case, a discount off the usual margin achieved is acceptable as it is effectively a cost of acquiring the additional business.
Key to the success of this campaign is the active engagement of the community group in rallying members to visit the shop, to encourage them to support you so that you support the group they love.
Make an event of handing over the donation to the community group. Get photos. Talk on social media about being grateful for the local support that has enabled you to make the donation.
Share stories on social media about the activities of the group as your support of them can encourage their support of you.
We love the campaign outlined here as it represents the circular nature of the local community: people living locally, shopping locally, enabling local shops to thrive locally and support loved local community groups.
Tower Systems makes POS software for local retailers that helps facilitate what we have described here.
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