The SnapRetail Podcast

Email Collection Best Practices Hosted by Justin Shoup and Vince Ventura What not to do: Don’t say “Can I have your email?” or “What’s your email?”Don’t disguise the reason you are asking for their email address. I see so many businesses say they are asking for an email to send a receipt and then they send you marketing emails. There is a difference between transactional emails and marketing emails and different laws that surround it.Don’t just have a signup form or tablet and think...

Boosting Holiday Sales Hosted by Justin Shoup and Vince Ventura We’ve covered Black Friday and Small Business Saturday in previous podcasts, so this episode is going to focus on what you can do during the home stretch in the month of December to boost holiday sales. Find ways to differentiate yourself from the big boxretailers and the competitionOffer services like free gift wrappingCreate a welcoming atmosphere on social media to encourage people to come in, so you can help them find...

Holiday Open House Goals We will discuss how to plan a successful Holiday Open House. How to market that event. What to do during the event. And how to follow up with your customers so that your next events are successful as well. Be sure to listen to Episode 24, our Event Marketing Podcast How to Plan TimetableWeekend afternoonWednesday or Thursday EveningAvoid beginning of the week and Friday or Saturday eveningSet a date and time (and end time!)How Many emails?How Many Social...

Small Business Saturday Tips Hosted by Vince Ventura and Justin Shoup Goals: Nov 25th 2017 and Small Business Saturday is just around the corner. The closer we get to November 25, the more important it becomes to get the word out, if you plan to have a Small Business Saturday Sale. Today we will talk about how to prepare for a competitive and successful Small Business Saturday online, in print, and in store. It’s your turn for profit Stay out of the way of Big Box stores, online only...

Preparing for Black Friday Hosted by Shelby Klick and Vince Ventura Black Friday in 2017- including the days leading up to and after Black Friday - is expected to be the biggest shopping pull of the year with sales higher than 2016. Black Friday has definitely changed the way retail functions during the fourth quarter and leading up to the holidays. Consumers now are after deep price cuts and discounts that some argue make the day “unprofitable and unsustainable” Small Businesses...

The Basics of Branding Hosted by Vince Ventura and Justin Shoup Goals: According to Nielson’s Global New Product Innovation Survey, 59% of consumers prefer to buy new products from brands familiar to them. Your brand is defined by a customer's overall perception of your business. You must be consistent in communication and experience, across all formats and customer interactions: Storefront and sinagePrint, posters, postcards, and even packaging and bagsWebsiteSocial mediaTV,...

Halloween Marketing Ideas Hosted by Shelby Klick and Vince Ventura It’s clear that Halloween is one of the most popular holidays in the country and it’s clearly an important holiday in retail as it is the first major holiday in the 4th quarter. In 2016, Americans spent about $8.4 Billion for Halloween. This includes everything from decorations, candy, costumes, to trips to haunted houses. Unlike recent holidays like Labor Day and Memorial Day, Halloween has a major lead up and is...

Pinterest Basics Part 2 Hosted by Shelby Klick and Justin Druga We covered in our Pinterest Basics episode what Pinterest is and how to get started on this platform. Today we will be talking more about tips on how to be successful on this platform. The first thing that I want to mention about Pinterest is that is a completely unique social platform and can be time consuming if done correctly. Pinterest, like all social media platforms, should not be thought of as another place to push...

Telling Your Brand Story Hosted by Vince Ventura and Justin Shoup Goals: In this episode of the SnapRetail Podcast, we will look at how to position your brand, highlight your successes, get customers to “buy” a part of your story, and focus on telling the whole story (including the ending!) What makes a good story: It is Customer CentricIt shows demonstrated resultsIt is personal and authenticIt is uniqueQuestions to ask: What is unique about your business?What is interesting...

The Art of the Welcome Email Hosted by Justin Shoup and Shelby Klick Today we will be talking about the Art of the Welcome Email. A customer signs up for your email list, what’s next? At this point, you are beginning to build a relationship with them. This relationship starts with a welcome email. In SnapRetail, you can set up any template to be your Welcome Autoresponder Email. If you’re not sure where to start head to the Email Template Library and check out the Autoresponders...

Labor Day Marketing Ideas Hosted by Shelby Klick and Justin Druga Like most large holidays, Labor Day has become synonymous with Sales, Deals, Events, and retail marketing efforts in general. While Labor Day doesn’t have the same themed pull as Black Friday, Christmas, or Valentine’s Day, it does have an emotional effect. People look forward to Labor Day to have a long weekend. It’s an unofficial marker to the end of Summer. It marks the time people are going back to school, kids are...

Staying Top Of Mind Hosted by Justin Shoup and Vince Ventura Today, we are talking about the importance of staying top of mind with your customers (and potential customers). This topic has been debated, researched, and wrote about for over one hundred years! There are varying opinions and theories on what the “effective frequency” [1] in marketing is. In other words, how many times someone has to be exposed to your brand before they are ready to buy. Although there may not be a...

Partnership Basics Hosted by Vince Ventura and Shelby Klick Goals: To use partnerships and combined advertising initiatives to put your brand in front of audiences that you may not reach on your own.

Email marketing best practices: Be a responsible email marketer Hosted by Justin Shoup and Vince Ventura As an email marketer (yes, you are an email marketer!), there are rules, standards of ethics, and LAWS, you must follow when you send commercial emails - emails to your customers, clients, prospects, leads, etc. First and foremost, make sure you are not spamming. The dictionary definition of Spamming is defined as sending unsolicited email to a large number of email addresses....

Back to School Marketing Hosted by Justin Shoup and Vince Ventura Let’s start with some statistics: https://nrf.com/resources/consumer-data/back-school-headquarters According to the National Retail Federation (www.nrf.com) 2016 Back to School (including back to college) spending was expected to reach $75.8 Billion. In fact, back-to-school and back-to-college shopping is the second most significant shopping event behind winter holidays. Also, according to an NRF survey, about 50% of...

Sidewalk Sales Hosted by Shelby Klick and Vince Ventura Goals Sidewalk sale tactics to make your event a success! PreplanConsider your location. Are you in a good place for a sidewalk sale? Do you have a lot of foot traffic or maybe a parking lot to make it huge “must see” event?Check with your local zoning board to see if you are allowed to use the sidewalk in front of your building for such a sale, use banners, or a temporary tent.PermitsChoose a date that is historically warm and...

Event Marketing Basics Hosted by Vince Ventura and Shelby Klick Goals We will discuss how to plan a successful event. How to market that event. What to do during the event. And how to follow up with your customers so that your next events are successful as well. How to Plan Timetable4-6 weeks ahead of time.Set a date and timeWeekend afternoonWednesday or Thursday EveningAvoid beginning of the week and Friday or Saturday evening Theme HolidayNew Product PremiereNew Product...

Facebook Ads Part 2 Hosted by Justin Shoup and Vince Ventura What is the Facebook Pixel? A piece of code of code that you get from Facebook and put on your website that, according to Facebook, makes conversion tracking, optimization and remarketing easier than ever. According to Facebook it will allow you to see how successful your ad is by seeing what happened as a direct result of your ad, automatically bid for conversions after you set up your pixel, and remarket to everyone who...

Image Best Practices Hosted by Justin Shoup and Vince Ventura Goals: In this podcast, we will talk a little about how to take good photos, what file types to use, and how to size for your website, email, and your individual social media networks. Taking Photos: Take lots of photos! Always take a landscape and a portraitUse a consistent background as you’ll want images that are on the same webpage or in the same email to have the same look & feelDon’t crop! Image Orientation: side by...

Video is King Hosted by Vince Ventura and Shelby Klick Goals The type of content you post matters. A text post typically doesn’t do as well as a post with an image. Today we will take a look at video, why it is so important, how it can help grow your business, and what you need to start making videos and live events today! Where to start Store TourBehind the ScenesPersonal MessagesProduct DemoProducts in a Lightbox Facebook What counts as engagement3 second views30 second views...