Fortunately, opening a new location successfully isn't just about your budget.
Capers Community Market in Vancouver is an interesting case study of the ways a business can use creativity to gain the respect, loyalty and buying power of a new neighbourhood. If you're planning to open a new location, here are three good lessons.
Lesson # 1: Let people know you're coming
According to Aron Bjornson, Capers' marketing manager, the success of the company's newest location on Cambie Street had a lot to do with pre-opening initiatives, "We chose initiatives that helped our business build personal relationships with our new community." Capers strategy exemplifies creative marketing steps any business can take.
Be a giver. Capers introduced itself to its new community by giving a (well-publicized) donation to a local inner-city school. Choosing a good deed, vs. advertising alone, helped Capers leverage community loyalty in addition to publicity.
Send a note. A promotional mail-out is essential. Capers maximized their mail-out by advertising product specials at their new location while promoting the specials at their existing four locations, so all would benefit.
Make a personal introduction. Send a friendly 'street team' out to meet your new neighbours and give out free water, coupons and other premiums, like Capers did. This is an economical way for your business to promote its brand and place featured products literally and physically in the hands of potential shoppers.
Lesson #2: Consider all the potential partners you can involve in promoting your grand opening.
As a small business, the limitations of your budget will inevitably determine just how much you can do to promote yourself. Capers made the most of their marketing budget by creating joint marketing opportunities designed to include partners like their suppliers and other community groups. Any business can do this, by considering the following points.
Understand yourself. The Capers brand is all about local, natural and organic products. A solid understanding of its brand was the springboard for each of Capers marketing initiatives. Based on a clear brand vision, Capers successfully identified appropriate niche groups to partner with to achieve their marketing goals- including local artisans, celebrity chefs, and the arts community.
Be creative. Not only did Capers identify appropriate groups to partner with for their grand opening, they brought people together collaboratively to build events that were good for the community. One of these events was a fashion show hosted at their new location challenging local design students to incorporate food into fashion designs. Capers invited local Celebrity chefs to further attract media, foodies, and target shoppers.
Leverage your give-aways. Capers dramatically reduced the costs of marketing their new location by inviting suppliers to provide promotional product give-aways. Activities like the street teams, fashion show, and grand opening events were presented to suppliers as distinctive marketing opportunities. Suppliers sponsored catering as a way to promote new products, featured at the store. Every business can learn from this by simply considering the needs and goals of new or local suppliers.
Lesson # 3: Don't forget your post-opening.
Since we're talking about how to make a big splash when opening a new location, keep in mind your plans to continue attracting publicity even after the grand opening festivities are over.
Leverage the publicity of your opening like Capers did, by putting pictures of the opening festivities on your website, and make sure to showcase everyone involved. Media and the general public will be particularly interested in images that demonstrate how your business is helping build up or bring together your new community.
Over 450 people lined up around the block at Capers Grand Opening- even Starbucks would be jealous of that!
Mark Wardell is President of Wardell Professional Development (www.wardell.biz) an advisory group specializing in growth management for privately held companies.
