Competing With the Big Box

Many of my clients are small independent retailers or small businesses. At some point, a big box store moves into their area, or online notices the products that they have found and been selling and starts selling them cheaper. How do they stay relevant and compete with the stores that have millions of dollars of advertising?

This is what I tell them: service, relationships, and unique products. Let’s say you’re a feed/tack store. If you sell the big brands, you can’t compete with the box store down the street that buys 100,000 units of Big Name Shampoo. You need to seek out the better or more unique product, maybe the organic product or the newest product, that is made by another small business. The Small Shampoo/Supplement Company can’t make enough of their product to service 300 stores and Big Box wants the proven winner that they can sell a ton of, not the little unique product that doesn’t have the marketing budget in national ad campaigns.

Service is very important. The Big Box hires the cheapest employees and usually doesn’t train them all that well. You need to find GOOD employees, train them, and pay them well, or provide them with something the big box store can’t. And then reward them for their knowledge and loyalty to you and your customers. Sell items that require more time investment to sell it and invest that time; educate your customers. Be friendly, try to help them solve a problem, be useful, provide knowledge and customer service that the big box store can’t provide. Be relevant to your community and your customers. Know your customers! Know that Suzy just bought a new horse that has digestive problems and ask how the horse is doing the next time she comes in. Remember that Steve has a cute little daughter with a pony. Take notes or use a CRM computer system if you need to. Ask them how a product worked for them. Form relationships. Big Box won’t do that. People buy from people they trust and like.

Small independent stores can still thrive, but they have to be nimble and creative and not compete based on price on the same commodity products that Big Box gets in volume. Wouldn’t you rather shop where you have friends to talk with and a pleasant environment, where people can provide you with some insight into a product, instead of a self-serve, sterile, crowded and unpleasant environment?

Partnership Marketing

I work with a lot of organizations that participate in “sponsorships.” It is a big part of our industry. But many companies don’t get much ROI from their sponsorships, and most on the other side are always 100% focused on “getting more money.” I think the mental focus is wrong. I prefer to think of this as “Partnership Marketing.” How can we use our respective resources to help achieve goals on both sides? For the long term?

I think both sides need to be proactive at identifying opportunities, and having meetings that don’t just focus on negotiating the dollar amount, but what the end goal is. Yes, the company wants to sell things. But do they want to do that via a retail store on site at the event? Via coupons? Promo codes on their website? How will they link their sponsorship to their brand? Have both sides provided logos, press releases, blurbs? Does each side promote the other in their online and print media?

I think both sides need to work together on a frequent basis, not just exchange a contract and then talk a week before the main event to get a banner. And, both sides need to participate and collect data on the event to see what worked and what didn’t. The association or event should gather demographic data from the events and organization and provide that to the sponsor. The sponsor should attend the event and get involved, as well as think through a strategy to develop on-site as well as future sales that can be attributed to that event or sponsorship.

Working together is the only way to assure a beneficial relationship from partnership marketing.

Sponsorships and Prizes

Committees, pay attention. Companies sponsor events to SELL THINGS. They often don’t have cash to give you, but they may give products to get your contestants to try their brand and get visibility to their items. Make use of this! So many events have bad (or no) prizes, because no one was proactive at getting awards ahead of time. Committees need to know their prize budget, and have people who are looking at sales, thinking outside of the box, and making calls, not just looking for cash, but closeout tack, clothing certificates, and more, that can be added. I’m a fan of giving deep, or random prizes, especially for the non-pros who actually NEED things, not giving everything to just the winner or the “big” open classes. People spend a lot of money attending shows and rodeos, make it worth their while. And, anytime you can brand a product with your show logo, that is just marketing for your next year’s event.

Make your event “fun” and worthwhile, spread around the loot, and make your event the one that everyone wants to enter next year.

Prepare For 2016 NOW, Before Your Event

Committees are preparing for the final push before their summer events. Things are getting busy! And its kids sports and BBQ and wedding season, to boot. But sponsors for 2016 are going to want information on your association and event. That means NUMBERS, and RESULTS, and PHOTOS. You can’t get those after the event happens, you have to be set up to get them while the event is going on. This means being prepared for the future. Sponsors want to know how many people attended, demographics on those people (where are they from, male/female, ages, spending power). They want to see photos from the event to picture themselves and their products and how they might fit in. Not just arena photos, although those are good, but photos of the tradeshow areas, banner locations, and who else is participating. They want to see what the stands look like. Are they full? Is there audience participation? Shopping? What growth areas did you have? More awards? Was there press coverage? Social media activity? Did the social media mention sponsors? In order to increase sponsorship and attendance, you have to prepare at this year’s event for next year. And the time to make current sponsors feel valued is now. Find out what they want to accomplish at your event and make sure it happens in order to keep them renewing for next year. Events with proactive partnership marketing mentality and numbers will be the ones getting the 2016 sponsor dollars.

Business Therapy

I work with a lot of small businesses. Some of them are run by husbands and wives, or parents and kids, or sometimes best friends. Sometimes you need an outside person to just mediate the business relationship taking out the personal relationship drama. I find this situation to be particularly rewarding, to help these small companies get their roles and relationships sorted out in order to get the business back on track and hopefully even help with the personal part of it as well. Let me know if this resonates with your small business.