Interview questions for Regina Nicole Marketing Techniques
Interviewing Stephanie Martin and Natalie Newman, They are co-owners of Regina Nicole boutique in Sylva NC.
What types of marketing strategies do you both use in order to keep people coming to your store?
Social media and word of mouth are crucial for our business. We have tried print advertising, a billboard, radio, and sure they work, but nothing has worked as well for us as social media and word of mouth! People advertise our business for us better than we could ever! Text message marketing and email have also been pretty successful.
What marketing strategy works the best for Regina Nicole?
Since we sell clothes, accessories, and shoes, visual marketing is so necessary for us to be successful! Relationship marketing has been a focal point for us since day one, even before we had a brick and mortar. Event marketing has also proved to be an important one and honestly we think it works best because it keeps our customers engaged and interested in what we are doing, it also helps involved them in our business on a very personal level.
Have you came up with new innovative ideas to keep your business open?
We focus on doing small intimate events that invite both our loyal and new customers in to see new products and take advantage of deals. Events like fashion shows, sip and shop events, and other special events.
How have you marketed those new services/products?
We mostly use social media, but text message marketing and email marketing via our Customer Management System have both proved to be successful in getting customers to return to our storefront and quickly. We usually send out a text once a week with new arrivals or event reminders. We have seen people come in just shortly after receiving a text or posting on social media, the results come fast and so this type of marketing is very effective. We are sure to use a call to action when sending out or posting new arrivals or events.
Would you say social media is a big part in every business now?
It is, and we are not sure why so many businesses are not using social media considering how huge many of the platforms have grown. It is such an easy way to reach your customers as well as put your business in front of new customers.
What types of marketing strategies do you use to keep your patrons coming back?
We offer coupons around holidays, but more importantly we offer coupons or discounts to customers that we have not seen in a while. Our main focus is just getting our brand in front of customer eyes and reminding them that we are still here for them. We reward loyal customers in as many ways as we can because we want them to know that we appreciate them coming back to us time and time again. They really are the ones that help us succeed, the repeat customers are also easier to convince to come in, versus trying to get a new customer through the door, and that is usually true in any business. It also costs less to retain a customer than scout for new ones.
Would you say you have more innovative things coming to Regina Nicole?
We just recently opened our Beauty Bar which added more services to our offering. So now we can offer more than just clothes, shoes, and jewelry, but also hair services, lash and brow services, and waxing as well. The Beauty Bar has also helped to get new customers through our door who may want their hair done but will also take a minute to look around at our clothing. It has already been successful, it also allows us to reach a new demographic (as well as people who were not already our customers) now that we have something that men and children can take advantage of as well. We are always trying to think outside of the box and bring in new offerings, or think up new events, or find new ways to market and advertise. We recently moved from emailing through MailChimp to using Square which we have been using for two years for our POS (so it had a ton of data and customer info already) and it has an amazing marketing/customer management system. It allows us to pull detailed reports and market to our customers in unique ways. It also produces coupon codes that allow us to track how many people actually see our emails and then how much money we make on a coupon campaign. We try to listen to our customers, right now we are trying to navigate what it will take to grow our beauty offerings.
What could Regina Nicole improve on in order to get new business?
We are currently trying to improve upon our timing for ordering new inventory and balancing that with sales volume and inventory turnover. Our regular customers want to see new inventory weekly, which can be hard to do sometimes. We are also always trying to expand our advertising and marketing efforts, especially posting more on social media. We also want new potential customers to see a good selection when they come in, nothing is worse than having people who want to buy but they can not find something they want to buy because we are low on inventory. Plus new inventory creates more content for us to use in our marketing.
Do tourists play a big part in your business growth?
We rely heavily on both our local shoppers and tourists. The winter proved to be very slow though without tourists. Spring, summer, and fall season though we saw a ton of tourist foot traffic in the area and this makes up a huge amount of our sales. We know though to treat our locals well because they really support us and become repeat/return customers. Tourists you may never see again or they may come up once a year, so we definitely need them, but as far as marketing goes, you’re not going to be able to get them back in the door as easily as a local from our town and surrounding.
