Want to increase your sales by up to 35%? Ah…I thought that would get your attention.

If you think marketing is only catchy print ads and Super Bowl commercials – you’ve been watching too many rerun episodes of Bewitched.

Marketing is – write this down in indelible Sharpie – anything you do that affects your customers!!!

So, it makes sense that the appearance of your store is marketing.  Right?  (Say yes.)

And, this particular facet of marketing has two sides – brand accuracy and appeal.  But, let’s talk about brand accuracy first.

Appearances Can Be Confusing

Have you ever seen a local restaurant take over the building that one of the big chains moved out of?  You know, Lee’s Chinese Restaurant moves into an old Pizza Hut and the only thing that changes is the name and menu.  So, now every time you dine on bean curd in brown sauce, you keep thinking it tastes vaguely like pepperoni pizza.  The place is inconsistent with the brand.

But, it can be more subtle than that.  One of my favorites was a large Texas-style steakhouse chain that wanted to get their brand back on track.  They told us they were an authentic old west steakhouse and they wanted their image to be “puuure Texas”!

So, on the first day of our evaluation, I walked into the dining room of their flagship restaurant and was abruptly confronted with a big road-house juke box playing… Carolina beach music!  I thought that maybe there was a mistake – so I looked at the other selections on the machine and found that over 90% of the songs available were do-wop beach numbers.

Now, you don’t have to be a genius to figure out that even if a “puuure Texas” steakhouse is located on the beach – which it wasn’t – it still needs to be playing country and western music.  But, strangely enough, when we listed that in our recommendations, they resisted – because the president said he liked beach music.  He forgot that accurately branding his restaurant chain was a critical part of marketing.

So, if your store doesn’t reflect your brand accurately and consistently, do something about it – now!

First Impressions Count

Okay, so what about making the appearance of your business appealing.

What are the first things a customer sees when she drives up to your store?  If you said prime sign (road sign), parking lot, building façade, windows, etc., you’re right on target.

Because this discussion is limited by the format of a newsletter, I’m not going to write a manuscript that rivals War and Peace, but I probably could.  What’s important for you to understand is that all these things affect your business – probably a lot more than you realize.  And, if you don’t believe it, let me share a couple of examples.

Several years ago I was the marketing officer for a major brand restaurant chain.  It was a mature company that was in need of upgrading – both the brand “feel” and the store’s physical appearances.  Part of this process was to revise our signage color schemes from its original dull brown/orange to a reflex blue/dayglow orange. The results on the first test store were mindboggling.  We had a top-line sales increase of 15% just by changing the prime sign!  Not a bad return on investment.

But the follow-up was even better.  When we did remodels of the stores (new colors, new seating, and cosmetic upgrades) we saw a sales increase of 20-35% for every store in the system.

So, remember these numbers when you’re looking at your own facility.  Maybe you don’t want to invest the money for a remodel – or even an updated sign.  But you can still get positive results just by making sure your parking lot is in good repair and freshly stripped, your R&M is up to date, your windows are clean, and your business area is free of trash.  Sometimes it’s attention to the small details that can make the biggest difference.

Everywhere we go lately, we hear business owners and managers saying that things are slow.  Obviously, that’s not a good thing – but, you can squeeze something positive out of this negative if you use these slow periods to your advantage.  When it’s slack, work with your team to improve operations and customer service.  Have impromptu meetings to get valuable input from your staff.  Talk with customers and ask for suggestions.  If you use your “extra” time productively, your business will benefit when the economy rebounds.

A lot of MarketLine subscribers have told us they’re concerned that their emails to customers are not getting opened, so we’ve been giving you some tips on how to make your email subject lines stronger. Here’s the fourth. If you missed the first three, out our September and October and November posts.

Email Tip #3 – Ask a Question.
Subject lines based on a question work! Here’s one that was successful for an audio program on how to become a published author: Is there a book inside you?

The road to success is full of land mines. Here are 5 that you need to avoid:

1. Later. This is a way of avoiding personal responsibility for procrastinating, so eliminate it from your vocabulary. As a reminder, write the word “later” on a piece of paper and put a big X through it. Then post it somewhere prominent as a reminder that you’ll never let procrastination be the cause of losing money again.

2. Passion. John and Paul (the Beatles, not the apostles) said, “All you need is love!” That may be true, but it doesn’t apply to passion. Passion only works if it’s yoked to purpose. So be passionate about reaching specific business goals – because that’s how you achieve success.

3. Patience. Okay, okay, I know your mom told you this is a virtue. I would never argue with your mom – but, when it comes to running your business, a little impatience can sometimes be a good thing. And, just so you don’t have to waste time looking it up, impatience is defined as: eagerly desirous, not accepting delay or opposition, intolerant of interruptions, eager for something expected, dislike of anything that causes delay. Get the idea?

4. Rational. Don’t be. At least don’t get so hung up on following a rational path that you fail to trust your own instincts. Patricia Routledge, the famous British actress said, “You can accomplish anything if you’re not concerned with the consequences.” Obviously, none of us wants to run our business into the ground by being reckless, but operating “outside the box” can frequently lead to irrational success. Just ask Ray Kroc.

5. Failure to specialize. Do what you do and do it better than anyone else. It’s better to be the best at one thing than just adequate at a lot of things. After all, your customers expect it.

A lot of MarketLine subscribers have told us they’re concerned that their emails to customers are not getting opened, so we’ve been giving you some tips on how to make your email subject lines stronger. Here’s the third. If you missed the first two, check out our September and October posts.

Email Tip #3 – Make a Big Promise.
A big bold promise can get your readers’ attention.  Putting a question mark after the promise can help alleviate the readers’ inherent skepticism.

For example:  Safely lose 10 pounds in one week?