What do you use to search for the "best steakhouse” in town? Your phone. In fact, mobile searches for “best” have grown over 80 percent in the past 2 years. Everyone you know, including your potential pawn customers, have a smart phone in their pocket or purse. This device has become the greatest customer acquisition tool in the history of small business. And this includes YOUR business.
We take pride in our marketing efforts here at Data Age and in turn often get the opportunity to answer our customers' questions about marketing and promotions. Shop owners often want to know how they can go about marketing their business online. We've put together a starter's guide to Social Media Marketing to help you get a leg up when promoting your business online.
These days almost everyone is shopping online, or at the very least doing online research before making a purchase. eCommerce is becoming a part of our national fabric, and retailers need to be ready to roll with the changes. Now you may say, "Wait, I'm not a retailer. I'm in the pawn business." But think about it—I'm sure that you've noticed a shift in the amount of items you're selling in your shop.
According to IBISWorld Reports, 55% of all pawn shop revenue in 2017 was generated from merchandise sales. We've been following the eCommerce trend for years at PawnMaster/Data Age, so this statistic doesn't surprise us. We want our customers to be able to extend their reach as far as possible, and our e-foro integrated listing tool gives them this ability. e-foro is a powerful tool on its own, but you need to have an understanding on how to best prepare your listings for each marketplace in order to maximize your earning potential.
Advertising is all about getting your message across and making it memorable. You’ve heard the messages, you know the taglines – Maybe she’s born with it. Taste the rainbow. Just do it. Where’s the beef? We’ve all seen cavemen, frogs, and pink rabbits hawking everything from insurance to batteries. Sometimes we remember the taglines more than the product. Great advertising brings the customer in and captures their attention, but you don’t have to be a nationwide company to make yourself memorable.
As year-end approaches, business owners often get pulled in many directions. In the retail sector, this is when sales typically peak. This finds many business owners working more hours in their shops while spending the little free time remaining readying for the holidays and gathering together with family and friends. What can be forgotten in the midst of the season’s hustle and bustle is the critical task of business planning for the upcoming year. Even a small amount of planning in the following areas can provide your business with a roadmap for success.
As we continue to examine the power of the customer in a one-click market and how social media impacts business, the need to have the market validate the value you state you deliver, has become more important than ever before. Social proofing is no longer a phenomena it is a legitimate methodology and one any great company needs to embrace and master. What we now call social proofing, used to be mainly driven by endorsements. The big name athlete getting paid to talk about a product. As we all know the concept does drive people to the product but once the product was consumed no one really had the chance to hear about the end results.
AdWords
You can start small. Look into buying some keywords related to payday loans, cash advances, cash loans, collateral loans, pawn loans, etc. You can target these to people searching for those terms within a geographic radius of your location. On the retail side, you can also target terms that are related to items you’re trying to sell. Some people searching for items may not think to check their local pawn shop. The great thing about AdWords is you can set a daily budget, so you can spend as much or as little as you want – you can start small and increase later. The system manages your budget for you, so you never go over.
As a pawn broker, you know better than anyone that time is money. You may have a dedicated budget for marketing. Or you may have a website that was created two or three years ago that hasn’t been updated since it was uploaded to the web. Perhaps your niece posts something to Facebook a few times a year for you. No matter how little or how much effort you put into marketing your shop, you probably would like to know how that effort is affecting your business.
