Everyone is talking about the advantages of permission-based e-mail marketing and social networking (Facebook and Twitter) for retailers.   They’re fast, free, and relatively easy ways to contact customers.  But how do you turn your existing customers into fans and friends?

The first answer is to provide excellent, personalized service — and an exciting selection of merchandise — so that customers feel really happy about their shopping experience. Word of mouth is the best form of advertising, but only if shoppers have something good to say about your business.

Once you’ve gotten customers enthused about supporting your shop, you need to make it worth their while to trust you with their e-mail address, and to sign up as a fan on Facebook and a follower on Twitter.  And since the more e-mail addresses, fans and followers you have, the more effective every message you send out will be, it’s worth putting some effort into building up your numbers.

We get most of our customer e-mails by signing shoppers up for our Preferred Customer program, which rewards them for their purchases in the same way that flyer programs reward travelers.  But we could have a program that simply offered a free birthday gift and perhaps also a free gift at the holidays in exchange for being given permission to send occasional e-mails.  Customers love the word “free,”and the promise of discounts and sale offers.

Most of the e-mails we send out invite customers to become our fans on Facebook, ad I think this is the source of the majority of our fans. One of our fellow retailers on Monroe Street here in Madison, the fashionable clothing store J. LaMore, makes a very inviting offer in their e-mail promotions:  become a fan on their Facebook page and receive a $25 voucher good online or in the store. 

Once you’ve got a fan base of Facebook, you can increase your number of fans by making a special offer to the 100th — or 1000th — person to join.  This requires some tracking on your part, of course, but if the reward is great enough you will find your fans forwarding the link to their friends.    Shameless promotion — I’d really appreciate your help in getting more fans for this blog’s fan page, Specialty Shop Retailing, even though all I’m offering is my sincere gratitude and the promise that I’ll continue to bring you useful information that hopefully will help improve your business.  To to become a fan, click here.

Happy Retailing,

Carol “Orange” Schroeder