Spring 2008

Advertise!

Advertising Brings Sales Surge

Retailer Sylvia Killion knows a thing or two about advertising. In 2006, she estimates that she spent about one percent of sales on advertising and saw a 26 percent increase in sales.

Killion owns two stores: Sylvia’s By The Sea and The Runway at Sylvia’s in Scituate, MA and is a strong believer in the power of advertising. She has used both direct mail and newspaper advertising. Killion urges fellow retailers to advertise regularly. “The real importance here is to understand that you can’t just run an ad here and there. It doesn’t work. You’ve got to be consistent and run it every week,” Killion says, “With any luck consumers will start to recognize your ads.” For consistent branding, Killion suggests using similar-looking ads (with varying content) every week—using one kind of border around the ad is a good approach.

Killion uses a combination of local community newspapers and a larger area newspaper (with broader reach). She uses the vehicles to advertise what’s hot and point out customer must-haves. Killion sees an increase in traffic and sales from the ads. She has asked and found out that the ads have brought new customers to her stores.

Killion advises fellow retailers to speak directly to their customers when designing ads. Ads that say: “Pamper Yourself” or “We’ve Got What Your Woman is looking for,” work well Killion says. “Read larger companies’ ads. They understand the 1-2-3’s and basics of marketing and you’ll get great ideas from what they have to say and how they say it,” advises Killion.

A word of caution: Killion says not to make customers cut an ad out and bring it in. “I’ve learned from peers and myself that this doesn’t work and what you’re doing is requiring the customer to do work. That isn’t good,” Killion says.