Opening a store is a big milestone for your small business. It takes a lot of planning, finances, and resources to get to this point. Now you need to effectively promote the store opening to ensure that it pulls the crowds you want. Let’s take a look at the ingredients you need to create the perfect promotional campaign for your store’s opening campaign:

Opening special offers

These offers will act as crowd magnets for your new store. Everyone loves a good deal, and people are willing to travel distances to avail them.

 Here are some examples of some exciting store opening offers:

• A percentage (e.g., 15% or 20%) discount for the opening week.
• A Buy One Get One Free (BOGOF), Buy Two Get One Free, or Buy One Get One 50% Off offer for the first few days after opening.
• Freebies for the first few customers on opening day.
• The opportunity to win a free product or gift card through a lucky draw by shopping for a certain amount.

Alternatively, you can offer a referral program for a limited time after the opening. For instance, you can encourage people to bring a friend with them to the store to get a small discount on their bill. This way you can attract new customers with minimal effort.

Social media marketing

Social media marketing is essential for informing people about your store opening and building hype for it.

For a successful social media promotional campaign, you should create engaging content such as:

• Initial informative posts about the location, date, and timings of your store opening, along with your contact details. Mention the opening discounts and other limited-time offers in bold colors and fonts.
• Reminder posts and stories with countdown timers leading up to the opening. You can also include polls to ask people if they will be attending in stories, which can have a bandwagon effect on people.
• Behind-the-scenes content to show people your preparations for opening day. Document a product display being assembled, introduce your staff, and explain the details of your services or how your products are made.

Influencer collaborations

Collaborating with influencers is great for reaching out to newer audiences on social media.

We suggest working with micro (with 10,000 to 100,000 followers) and nano (with less than 10,000 followers) local influencers. These partnerships are not only budget-friendly, but also very effective. Smaller influencers have loyal and highly engaged audiences, who trust their recommendations and opinions.

So, if influencers promote your store opening and say that they will be attending it, their followers will be very interested in coming too. After all, they would be getting a chance to meet their favorite influencers.

Print marketing

Make generous use of posters and flyers to raise awareness about your store opening among people living in your vicinity. Print marketing is still one of the most effective ways to promote your business in a locality.

You don’t have to hire a professional designer to create print collateral for your business. With PosterMyWall, you can design eye-catching posters, flyers, and more for your small business’s store at a very low cost. Browse through their small business templates, select the ones that closely match your brand’s personality, and customize them to showcase the details of your store’s opening. Then you just have to download and get your designs printed.

You can put up posters on telephone and electricity poles (especially on main roads of an area), as well as any public bulletin boards. This way they are bound to catch people’s attention.

As for flyers, you can distribute them in public places such as malls, or mail them to people lining in the same zip code as your store.

Local press

Make sure to invite local press, including journalists from TV channels, magazines, and newspapers, on the first day of your opening. The more coverage you get, the better.

This is mutually beneficial for you and the press. They get content for their publications or news outlets, while you get publicity for your store so that more people visit it after the first day of opening.

For news media that are unable to attend, you can send a press release before and after the event to make it convenient for them to cover it.

Building a relationship with the press is good for the long-term too. If the local media covers your business, more people will become aware of your business and can visit your store after the grand opening.

Conclusion

Promoting the opening of your small business’s store requires a mix of print and social media marketing, collaborations with local influencers and press, and promotional offers. They are cost-effective methods to spread the word about the opening of your store.

By following the tips mentioned in this blog, you can successfully execute them and draw crowds to your new store.