Promotions are very important to a specialty store, and The Gourmet Retailer helps each month by publishing a calendar with an event for every day of the month. Pick one or more and go for it. Promotions can be as simple as having Monday be Seniors Day and all seniors get 10 percent off their entire purchase to having a full-day event with guests and much advertising.

There are two main parts of a successful promotion: building the event and executing it.

Building the Event: Advertise — How much and where depends on your location and how much you want to put into the promotion. I have found success with doing things the same time each year. Also, be creative. Place someone outside your store to help people remember to come in that day. Ask vendors to come in and do demos for a day, and provide merchandise to give away throughout the day. Free items always attract crowds.

Executing the Event: HAVE FUN. No event should ever be so stressful that you hate it. Bring in balloons, set up posters and treat your staff to a catered lunch. The important thing to remember is to get things ready at least two weeks before the event so that it is a low-stress day. Prepare by preprogramming the computer with sale items. Have signs prepared to mark sale items so that it can be done quickly the morning of the event. Also, make sure all managers and owners are on the sales floor so you can monitor the day. I am always making add-on sales because I am there.

At Love to Cook, we hold a very successful Anniversary Promotion in mid-November. Why mid-November? Because people are just beginning to start their holiday shopping and they need the proper tools for Thanksgiving. We want people to come to us first for their shopping needs before the rush of the season.

We start advertising two weeks prior to the event on radio and in store flyers. Then three to five days prior to the sale day, we run newspaper ads announcing the sale, adding a little more information into the ad each day. Finally, the day of the sale, I rope off part of the parking lot (closest to the street) and have signage for everyone to see as they drive by. It's amazing how many customers come into the store because the sign reminded them of the sale they had been hearing about the prior two weeks. I have also hired an ice sculptor to work outside to get the attention of passing customers. Also a BBQ with free food is always a good idea during warmer months.

Promotions are always a great idea. Just remember not to have them so often that customers wait for your sale to purchase.
Chris Beykirch, Love to Cook/Kitchen Kneads, Logan, Utah

Currently, our most successful promotion is giving coupons to each customer who comes into the store. We set a daily promotion, such as 20% off any one gadget or 50% off a display of Wilton Armetale or even 20% off anything blue. Then we print a quantity of coupons which expire that day and make sure each customer who comes in receives one.
Although some ideas result in more sales volume than others, we find that the coupon gives our sales associates something to greet every customer with and something to explain and show that is of interest to almost everyone. It provides a beginning point of communication that works better than asking how we can help.

By changing the coupon every day, we can track the success of each promotion and emphasize currently attractive merchandise (we can even use it on new things as an introductory special). We developed this concept after reading a number of chain store ads which offer customers 20% off any one item during the heavy Christmas selling period. We did not want to do a general 20% off, so have done a number of specific merchandise category discounts that we can control more easily. It helps sales associates directly see the result of their customer contact when presenting the coupon. And response has been good, providing better-than-average days during a relatively slower sales period.
Terry Monroe, Murphy's Department Store, Stillwater, Oklahoma

At Premier Gourmet, our most successful promotion is Vendor Day. Our customers look forward to it each year. It is our premier event of the season, and it's free. Representatives of some of our best companies demonstrate and sample their products.

Last year, we had a Jelly Belly Guess the Number of Beans in a Jar Contest with a vintage Jelly Belly Bean Machine as a prize, as well as Jelly Belly handing out jelly beans. Hansen caviar sampled an assortment of domestic caviars. Wüsthof-Trident offered free knife sharpening. Samples of chocolates from South America and Europe, as well as award-winning Armenian artisanal preserves from Harvest Song were also sampled.

Diane Hamric, author of It's A Wing Thing... Buffalo Style Cookbook, autographed her book as well as cooking from it. Other samples included Nowinski pierogies, Aidells' sausages, Rothschild preserves and sauces, Republic of Tea, Geulah's sauces, Bear-Man sauces and Scoville hot sauces.

Customers were encouraged to make pasta with a Kitchen-Aid mixer attachment, grow herbs indoors in an Aerogarden, learn about the Capresso Jura Automatic Espresso Machine, and chop quickly and easily with a Zyliss food chopper. It's a promotional event that could work for any retailer.
Janet Ostrow, Premier Gourmet, Buffalo, New York

Our promotions are usually tied to a charity or community service. We held a baking contest in conjunction with Share Our Strength which was a great success. The categories were Professional, Amateur and Children. We had a famous Atlanta food critic judge the professional category and four of Atlanta's top pastry chefs judge the amateur and children's categories. The night of the event, 10 percent of all bakeware sales went back to Share Our Strength. This event really drew a lot of attention from professional chefs, customers and the media. We are making it an annual event.

We have had promotions on several occasions where a customer brings in old bakeware or an old gadget, and then receives a discount off the purchase of the replacement gadgets. The old products are then boxed and sent to local shelters for those in need. This event has been very successful and has gotten media attention for us.

We joined forces with a local coffee roaster this past fall and had a "Buy a coffeemaker and receive freshly roasted coffee as a gift with purchase" promotion. The less expensive makers had one type of coffee as a gift with purchase and the more expensive super automatic machines had a higher-quality coffee as the GWP. It was a win/win/win for us, the roaster, and the customer.

Another successful promotion we've had is related to product and cooking classes. With the purchase of a pressure cooker, the customer received a discount on taking the pressure cooker cooking class. We really saw an increase in pressure cooker sales because the customer was reassured they would be able to really use it after class and not have another dusty kitchen ornament.
Mary Moore, The Cook's Warehouse, Atlanta, Georgia

If you would like to pose a question or send us your feedback, please send e-mail to mmoran@gourmetretailer.com.