How to Get Free Advertising on Google for Your Fashion Boutique

If you are a boutique owner and your store is not on Google Places, sign up at once.  Why?  Because 63% of search engine users expect to find a business that is located within 15 miles of their home when they conduct a search. Google Places helps those consumers find you.  And its FREE.

List your business and Google displays your address, phone number, hours of operation and other key business information.  You can create coupons, display photos and post videos on Google Places and its FREE.   Plus you can track and measure the performance of your listing.  You get information on where customers came from and what words they searched to find you online and did I mention its FREE.

There is another way to advertise using Google Places and it’s ALMOST FREE – Tags. For less than $1 a day you can make your boutique (currently only available in 11 cities) stand out on Google.com and Google Maps.  Tags are currently available in  San Jose, Houston, Austin, Atlanta, Washington DC, San Diego, Seattle, Boulder, Chicago, San Francisco and Mountain View.

Some other great features of Google Places are:

• Business photo shoots: In addition to uploading your own photos, if you have a boutique in one of the select cities you can request a free photo shoot of the interior of your business. The photos are used to supplement existing photos of  your business on Place Pages.

• Customized QR codes: From the dashboard page of Google Places, if you are located in the U.S. you can download an QR code that’s unique to your business. You place the QR code on your business cards and other marketing materials.  Customers can scan the code with their smartphone and go directly to your Google Place Page.
• Favorite Places: This program was so successful Google is doing a second round. They  mailed window decals to 50,000 businesses (awarded a favorite status rating) around the U.S. The decals have a mobile scannable QR code.  Customer and potential customers just scan the decal and can learn all about your boutique and any special offerings.
• Service areas: If you travel to serve customers, you can show which geographic areas you serve. And if you don’t have a storefront (operate out of your house or office) you can make your address private.

One out of five searches on Google are related to LOCATION. Make sure your boutique is found. List today. By the way, did I mention its FREE.  Now that’s a bargain.

P.S.  I do not own any Google stock, nor have I been paid for this endorsement.  This is just my own enthusiastic opinion.  And its FREE!

How Stores Can Play and Win in Social Media!

Last year many brands were saying “they would wait and see”  about playing in social spaces.  This year the waiting’s over and now they’re saying “We have to play”!  So the question is “how can you play and win”?

First you have to recognize that hard selling and advertising aren’t working like they once did.  All of us are learning and shopping differently so your brand’s marketing strategy has to reflect this.  Your brand has to go where the people are and the people are in social spaces.  About 75% of U.S. Internet users, use social networks and blogs.  And 16 percent of these users are more likely to buy from brands they see or discover in social spaces according to a May 2009 report by Knowledge Networks, a marketing consultancy.

Next you have to build a social strategy that integrates with your marketing strategy.  Anyone can pull off tactics like running a Twitter account or setting up a Facebook page and lots of brands are doing just this.  But a winning social strategy is just part of the bigger marketing picture.

Second Time Around, a 21 store chain of contemporary, designer, consignment clothing & furniture stores gets the big picture.  They wanted to create regional awareness of their Boston store through word of mouth and beyond that national awareness for their 20 other stores.  So they hosted a party called ShopUp in their Boston store.  It was an evening of shopping, eating, and schmoozing built around a crowd-sourced fashion show.  Shoppers were given 20% off during the event, and 10% off coupons for future shopping.   They were also encouraged to bring in designer clothes to consign that evening.

Here’s what they did:

• Pre-event they ran a contest through Twitter, where followers nominated the models for the in-store fashion show.
• The hashtag #ShopUp was used to track conversations taking place around nominations and the event.
• People then voted to select the final four models for the show.
• News about the event was posted on Facebook.
• Guests voted for the best outfit worn by a model during the show via Twitter and the model with the most votes won her outfit.
• The event was shared outside of Boston by streaming live video through UStream, Twittering during the event (using TweetDeck and CoTweet), sending TwitPics during the event, compiling a video of the entire evening on YouTube, and uploading photos on Flickr.
• A post-event survey was sent via BostonTweetUp twtpoll to determine the number of new customers and other information.

Results:

• About 75 people attended the event
• Sales were positively impacted
• 50 percent of attendees were new customers

They played. They won.  You can too!

The Social Life of Facebook

Hello, fashion brands!  Your customers are smart, they’re connected and today they’re part of your sales team.  Thank you social media!  The average American spends 12 hours a week online – that’s close to two hours a day.  They’ve  tripled the time they spend on Facebook since August 2008.  And here’s the upshot for boutique brands and stores: fans can get a homepage news feed from a brand.  This means you – the brand can go to the consumer as opposed to hoping the consumer remembers to visit you-the brand online.  Just imagine your customers becoming a fan of  your brand on Facebook.   Your brand then becomes like a personal friend on your customers home page.  Now you can share compelling content with customers and keep them engaged over time.  You just made your customer part of your sales team!

Jump on the Social Media Bandwagon! It’s Left the Station

If you’re in retail, you’re Social.  Shopping is Social.  From bricks (your physical store) to clicks (your online store) word or mouth is driving traffic into your store and merchandise out the door.

Good old fashion word of mouth conversations on the web – that’s Social Media.  If you’re tweeting, or blogging or talking on social sites you’re sparking conversations.  If your conversations are interesting they get passed and shared on the web.

You could be the next Prabal Gurung, a designer who launched a collection in Febuary.  Then Demi Moore tweeted a picture of herself wearing one of his dresses to her estimated 1.3 million Twitter followers.  Traffic doubled on his web site, his Twitter followers doubled, visitors to his Facebook fan page doubled.

If you’re a brand or store and you’re not using Social Media.  Wakeup!  You can’t afford not to.  Jump on the bandwagon.  It’s left the station.