This week’s Retail Hack shows how you can use the exterior of your shop and social media to great effect. You will need an 11 foot Stratocaster, mind.
Ian Ruddock of Harmonics Music in Merseyside explains how he has painted a picture of an 11 foot Stratocaster on the outside of the shop and has been able to link it in with its own social media profiles to increase awareness of the store and push its own promotions.
“We decided to use the black wall outside Harmonics to make something different,” he explains, “something special that would get the attention of passers by as well as the social media users. Having taken on the Fender USA dealership I chose to paint an 11ft strat with an American flag. This tells musicians we sell American Strats, it tells the locals and passing traffic that we are a music shop and it gives us a tool for running promotions on Facebook.
“We will soon be posting an offer on Facebook where people are invited to visit the shop and have their photograph taken in front of the painting. If they post the photograph on Facebook and ‘like’ Harmonics then they qualify for that particular deal that we are offering. I have spoken with Jim O Connor and Graeme Mathieson (UK chief) at Fender and they have both been supportive of the idea and are currently in talks with their marketing department about helping us with this project. This will increase our presence on Facebook as well as bringing people into the shop. It has been so well received that hopefully this will just be the first of many similar projects.”
Got any good Retail Hacks that work for your store? Send them to Ronnie Dungan at rdungan@mmrmagazine.com
