Market Yourself First.

In the world of retail marketing, it's easy to fall into the trap of barraging our customers with emails, social media posts and paid advertisements talking about our latest product or sale. You have probably heard the phrase, "Be the loudest in your community." If you have not heard of it, no, it's not going outside and screaming at the top of your lungs to buy your stuff. Loudness refers more to the frequency with which consumers have your marketing put in front of them. If you have given a major retail chain your email, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Three emails, two text messages, a location-triggered app notification and a message delivered by carrier pigeon is just too much contact for one day.

Consumers are becoming desensitized to this type of blast ad marketing and are more likely to delete or scroll past your content than to read it. I am not saying we should abandon marketing our products and services, however, we must change how we approach marketing. Consumers have countless options of places to buy the products they are looking for, so it's about standing out in the sea of choices. One way you can stand out is by communicating your brand to potential customers through your marketing campaigns.

People are buying brands, not products. They want to know your mission, vision, values and what you stand for. This is especially true in the younger generations that will be aging into our industry very soon. They want to connect with your employees. They want to know what is going on in your business and are interested in events you are participating in. Every business has a story, and the sooner you put your story out there, the sooner you will start to build a brand following.

This does not have to become a production, and you are not scripting a show. Just shift some of your focus to creating content that is people-focused rather than product-focused. You can even get your team involved. Not only will you benefit from more creative input, but your team will become more engaged in the business.

We have just recently created a Google Sheets sign-up for employees who want to be featured in our marketing. Even if they do not want to be featured, they can also make suggestions of material they think might do well. When executed correctly, you should have a balance of product and service-related content and brand-building content that is woven together. This will increase the visibility of each piece of content you create.

Austin Diehl

Director of Retail Operations

Randy's Do it Best Hardware

Meet Austin

With an authentic and contagious enthusiasm and unrivaled data knowledge, Austin Diehl leads the team at Randy's Do it Best Hardware as their director of retail operations. He was promoted to this position after serving as a store manager for nearly three years. Though the operation experienced a major store fire in 2022, Austin found ways to keep employees staffed at other stores, led the rebuild of the store in a new location and implemented efficient ways to operate the store.

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