Promoting your Market Stall with Social Media is Free and will increase your day’s trade. No doubt about it. Letting your customers and potential customers know where you are and how they can come over to see and buy your products is something that many old-school market stall businesses still do not do. When you do it, you will build your following, your brand and your sales. We built our following up to 4,000+ people just by asking our customers to give us the ‘thumbs up’.
First Steps
First of all, whichever platforms you select be it Facebook, Instagram, You Tube, Twitter or Pinterest or any others, remember to fully fill out your profile. Or your business profile as that will be the one you are trying to promote. From your address, to contact details, to what your business does and how to order from you when not at a market. All of those things are free tools that many folk skim over. Input the information once and it will be your constant advertising source. And of course, pictures. Pictures tell a thousand stories!
Also remember to register your business with Google Places – this will give your business a huge boost in status and for free too! This will mean that your business will appear on Google Maps too.
Choose the Right Platform
You may be a young trendy selfie Instagram fan but are your customers? If you sell traditional bread and cakes by all means post your pictures on Instagram but remember, if you customers are older, they will probably see your posts through Facebook. If your customers are female and crafters, then perhaps Pinterest is the one to focus on. If your customers are 14 year old boys, then Tic Tock is likely the platform for your videos. Social Media can take up a lot of your time, so once you do your daily or weekly post, then leave.
Create a Content Calendar
Create your own content calendar. Posting something every day is ideal and you will get best results from this. Whenever you do post, just remember it must be something that will be of interest to your customers. Perhaps a quote, pictures, special offers and most definitely what markets you will be at that week. If you have a month-to-view calendar ready with what to post on which day, you will get faster at it and one post will eventually take no longer than 5 minutes a day. Do remember to always include a link to your website, if you have one, so folk who can’t venture to your next market can purchase your wares online.
Share Video
Videos (You Tube or Tic Tock) are very popular to view and if you do them of your market stall with a bit of a talk on who else is at the market, the whole market will get the benefit. Videos of you making your wares, or a day in the life of YOU are extremely popular and will help you build your brand online. Perhaps you could launch a video contest getting your customers to make videos of how they use your products or the reaction they have received when they gifted your products to friends etc.
Build Your Community
Building your community by building a Facebook group around your brand, with light-hearted banter and hopefully responses from your followers so you can take a back seat and let them talk with each other. Ask your customers to share pictures of them enjoying items they have bought from you. You could also join an online community group that is relevant to your business and post on that so your brand will become known.
Ask For Likes
With every sale you make, give your customers a business card and ask them to like your page. Customers are extremely happy to do this so don’t be embarrassed or shy – you are building your brand and they will want to be part of it. Just ask them to give you a ‘thumbs up’. If customers ask when you will be at the market again, remind them to like your page as they will get automatic updates for when the next market will be on (as they have become one of your followers).
Online Sales
If you have gathered enough followers through your social media platforms, and you make it easy for them to buy from you online, you may find that once you get back from the market, that you have orders in your inbox as well. For which you have done nothing other than set up your Social Media and added a post or two.
Not all businesses will find email marketing appropriate. Only you will know if this is appropriate for your customers. If you can gather email addresses from customers when you get a sale, perhaps for after-sales service or for emailed instructions or just ask them to subscribe to your mailing list. Email marketing is an extremely powerful way to generate sales but you must get permission to send emails first.
Media outlets NEED stories. If you have any news about your brand, don’t be shy about promoting yourself. Write press releases, phone your local radio station telling them about your business or your market and ask if they want to interview you on the radio or TV. If you are someone who is not shy about putting yourself out there and talking in public, you will be received with open arms.
Speak at WI Events
Promoting yourself at local events is always welcomed by local groups and networking events. The more you talk the more well-known you will become and so will your brand. People will recognise you at your markets and your brand will gain status and recognition. This is free and easy advertising. Promote your willingness to talk to local groups through your own Facebook page or other Social Media platform or contact local groups and see if they would be interested in you telling your story to their members. Sometimes there will also be a speaking fee involved. Win-win!
Summary
There are many roads to promote your business, particularly online, for free. The only thing you need to do is devote an initial amount of time to setting all this up and the upkeep should only take you a few minutes to achieve a week. Getting used to creating press-releases or posts could even be done when you are standing on your market stall, especially if you are not very busy.
Good trading!