How Do You Promote Your Boutique?

As a small business owner with a boutique retail store, it can be really easy to hit a slump and feel frustrated when sales are down or when you’re just not getting enough foot traffic through the door. Luckily, there are many surefire ways to spread the word about your storefront in a way that only a physical location can. Check out and try these ideas below to help step up your promotional game and boost your business.

Invest in Local SEO

Brick and mortar retail stores cannot survive solely on foot traffic and word of mouth anymore. So you will need to make local search engine optimization a priority and optimize your marketing online for local searches. Be sure to include details like location photos, directions and operating hours. Announce your location’s news with press release distribution services, and create separate pages on Facebook and Google+ for your location.

Contact Bloggers to Review Your Products

Influencer marketing is a great way to gain traction for your boutique and bloggers are the key to that attributed success. You should start by doing your research ― Find bloggers in your industry with a large following, look for how many followers they have across their social media channels, and see how many likes and comments they receive on their posts. When you contact them, tell them why you love their blog (be specific), then briefly explain why you feel your product would be a good fit for a review on their blog. Provide a sample of your product for free, and if you can afford it, offer to provide another sample for a giveaway. You’ll get a review, a reader will get a free product, and you’ll get priceless promotion direct to your target audience.

Hold Contests and Giveaways on Social Media

Contests and giveaways are great ways to spread the word about what you have to offer, create a buzz about your products, drive traffic to your store, and increase your social media followers. Some sites have specific rules for holding contests, like Facebook, so be sure you know what they are before beginning your contest. Offer one of your products as a prize (or put a few together for a prize pack) and then announce the contest on all of the social sites you use. Plan to post about your giveaways often to encourage signups (use the email addresses you get to build your email database) and then be sure to ask the winner to post a picture of themselves on your page with their prize once you’ve shipped it.

Partner With Other Local Businesses

Partner with other local small businesses to promote your boutique. Who are the other local business owners in your area? If you don’t know them yet, make it a point to go introduce yourself. Talk to them and see if they’d be willing to put any flyers or counter cards out for your business in their stores and, in turn, you could do the same for them. Make it a point to try and choose businesses that have the same type of clientele as your business.

Host In-Store Events

In-store events help to build foot traffic and pack your store with customers. If the concept of events and promotions is new to you, then begin by running one event for each month of the year. If you’re already running events on a regular basis, this is a good way to promote your business. Here are a few ideas:

● Plan a grand opening or a grand re-opening
● Free wardrobe makeover contest
● Hold an open house
● Celebrate business anniversaries
● Invite a celebrity or local influencer to come shop

As you may know, the more work you put into anything, the more you will gain from it. Implementing any of these small business marketing ideas will take a little elbow grease and a change of habits, but your hard work and persistence will pay off and you will reap the rewards.

Which strategy do you see as having potential to help you amp up your brick-and-mortar visibility? Let us know in the comments below!