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You’re confident about your lighting solutions, but your brand’s not connecting with customers.
That’s because your lighting company doesn’t have a promotion strategy that’s authentic, unique, and engaging.
But that’s about to change.
In this post, you’ll learn how to build a promotional strategy that brings your company to light on Google, social media, and in-person.
Let’s get to it!
Build Your Google Presence
Can local residents find you on Google? If not, it’s time to start growing your Google presence ASAP.
According to recent data, more than half of all Google searches are local. And 75% of local searches generate foot traffic to brick-and-mortar businesses.
Building a Google presence isn’t hard. As you get better, you can start mastering more advanced tools like Google AdWords and Analytics.
But for now, set up and optimize the following:
- Google ‘My Business’ Profile
- Google Maps location
- Google business listing
- Google Reviews
- Google+ page
It doesn’t cost a dime to set up and manage these pages either, so it’s a fast and free way to promote your company online.
But strategy is everything.
Let’s take a look at a few local SEO tricks you can use to enhance your online visibility.
What Are Your Customers Looking For?
If consumers don’t know who you are, how will they find you?
Now that you’re online, you have to optimize your website and Google pages with targeted keywords.
These ‘keywords’ are search phrases people use to find businesses like yours. Adding keywords to your website data, Google pages, and content help search engines crawl your site and improve its SERPS position.
There’s no better promotion than ranking #1 for your keywords.
Get Creative with Social Media
You’re a lighting company, so you have a unique opportunity to shine on social media.
Social media gives you another opportunity to promote your company through SEO keywords as well. This is known as off-site SEO, which is any optimization that occurs outside of your website.
Naturally include keywords in your social media bios, posts, page tags to build your visibility in social search.
But social media is so much more.
It’s where you get to engage directly with your customers, so why not let them in on the fun?
Consider these creative social media ideas for your local lighting company:
- Run a Christmas lights contest
- Start a #hashtag campaign
- Show off your best lighting work on Instagram
- Create Pinterest boards to show versatility
- Introduce your lighting promotion on Youtube
These ideas are just the tip of the iceberg. Check out this post to learn how to leverage hot-button topics on social media and this beginner’s guide on Reddit.
Free Swag
Earlier, we touched on social media contests. Pairing free stuff with social media makes for a powerful promotion strategy.
Beyond social media, there are several ways to leverage free products and samples.
For example, let’s say you’re carrying a new brand of rope lights and want to get the word out. How would you use product giveaways to do that?
One tried and tested idea is the classic swag bag. These are perfect for lighting industry trade shows and local events.
But what makes a truly great swag bag?
You don’t want your rope lights to be lonely. Consider adding accessories, chargers, branded pens, magnets, coupons, and catalogs to your swag bag.
You can also add QR codes to your business cards so leads can visit your website straight from their smartphones.
A Promotion Strategy That Gives Back
Did you know that partnering with a charity or cause can increase your lighting sales?
It’s true. According to recent studies, 90% of US consumers are more likely to trust a company if it’s connected with a cause.
A whopping 88% also prefer buying from brands that support environmentally-conscious causes. As a lighting company, this presents a fantastic opportunity to capitalize on energy-related causes your customers care about.
Here are a few ways to promote your company through causes:
- Establish a corporate volunteer program
- Hold company-sponsored events for your chosen cause
- Run a promotion where proceeds go directly to your cause
- Get involved in local energy conservation causes
Don’t forget to leverage your social media accounts to market your cause-driven promotions!
Customer Appreciation
A little appreciation can go a long way.
When was the last time you showed your customers how much you care?
This brings us to our next promotion strategy — customer appreciation.
Customer appreciation is a win-win strategy. For example, run a 20% off promotion for people who sign up for an in-store account. This way, customers get a discount and you get their valuable data.
You can use your customer data to segment promotions, too. Create separate email lists for birthday promotions, holidays lighting sales, online-only promotions, specific products, or local business owners.
Make sure your promotion strategy is aligned with your customer service. Simply mentioning a customer promotion on the phone, in-person, and online can increase lighting sales.
Customer Punch Cards
Customer appreciation doesn’t have to be seasonal. One way to express your appreciation year-round is by issuing customer punch cards.
This is another clever way to get customers to sign up for your email list for future promotions.
With each purchase, a customer gets their card punched. After a certain number of purchases, that customer gets a discount, free gift, or any other offer of your choice.
Customer punch cards can also function as business cards where you can promote your business website, email, phone number, and location.
Sponsor Local Activities
Another way to show your community that you care is by sponsoring their events.
Your customers are local, so how do they spend their free time?
What local parks, events, and activities do they attend? This type of research will help you narrow in on an appropriate activity to sponsor.
As a lighting company, you may want to consider sponsoring a Christmas tree lighting event or supplying lights for a local concert. You could also sponsor a local youth sports team, animal shelter adoption event, or community street fair.
Of course, you want to see a decent ROI on your promotion strategy. To get the most from your sponsorship, create a discount promotion that goes along with your sponsorship.
For example, if you sponsor that tree lighting event, make sure visitors have a discount flyer to take home with them.
Picking an event to sponsor is a decision you should not take lightly, either. Your sponsored event should be well-managed, complement your company’s culture and values, and have enough impact on the community.
Limited-Time Lighting Offers
Hurry now while supplies last!
We’ve all heard that one before, but the truth is, it works. Limited-time offers can even increase sales by 300% by simply creating a sense of urgency.
In psychology, this is known as the ‘scarcity principle.’ It describes that sudden feeling or urge a consumer gets when they learn a product may not be available in the future.
Besides limited-time offers, consider these scarcity marketing ideas for your promotion strategy:
- Advertising limited quantities
- Adding ‘just purchased’ notifications
- Weekend-only offers
- Advertising hours left on a promotion
- Invite-only promotions
To the last point, exclusive promotions not only instill urgency, but they also speak to our desire to belong.
Bundle Up
Do you sell a wide range of lighting services and products?
If so, you can bundle them together to create enticing promotions. It’s hard to go wrong with two or more products for the price of one.
But you can go even further with your bundle promotion strategy.
Make product bundles a limited-time offer or give them out exclusively to store account members.
Don’t just bundle random products. Be strategic with your bundles and pair products that enhance each other. For example, you could create a bundle with rope lights and window suction cups for mounting.
Think of your bundle promotions as experiences.
Get Feedback on Your Promotion Strategy
Data can tell you a lot, but it can’t tell everything you need to improve your promotions. You have to go beyond the numbers and to the heart of what your customers really think.
This is where feedback comes in.
Companies with the highest-rated consumer experiences value customer feedback by more than 70%. But how do they do it?
Here are just a few strategies you can try to encourage customer feedback:
- Free gifts in exchange for feedback
- Surveys on the back of receipts
- Survey pop-ups on your website
- In-store feedback cards
You can also dig into your Google reviews for any feedback on your last promotion strategy.
What Next?
Never start a new promotion without analyzing the results of the last. Along with gathering feedback, look at your social shares, website clicks, cost per customer, average sales, and other relevant data before moving on.
Don’t hesitate to test different promotion strategies to see what works best for your lighting company’s goals.
And never stop learning!
To help develop your next strategy, check out these tips for creating powerful content that communicates your promotion to customers.
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