Hardware Stores use Social Media to Promote Business to Customers

Using Social Media to Promote Your Store to Customers

More and more hardware retailers are using social media such as Facebook and Twitter to promote their stores and connect with customers on a more meaningful level. Start taking baby steps and you just might stumble onto a new, cost-effective way to build store traffic while developing a loyal group of followers.

The smartphone is changing everything. How we shop, how we organize our lives, how we spend our time and how we connect with people is all undergoing a dramatic transformation. Within the next five years, 80 to 90 percent of U.S. consumers will carry a smartphone.
Facebook has applications that allow cell phone and social media to be tied in, and House Hasson Wholesale Hardware can help dealers thrive in this new arena. House Hasson Wholesale Hardware can also help you develop and execute a targeted email marketing campaign to grow sales in your store.

“Social media is where things are headed in the future,” says Taylor Hasson. “It’s a good way to advertise new products and connect with customers. We’re here to help dealers with it.”

Start Experimenting

It’s not that traditional methods of advertising such as newspaper ads and circulars don’t work; the reality is that retailers need to do more to engage customers and build top-of-mind awareness with an increasingly distracted group of consumers.

Most young people (those under 30) spend a large part of each day immersed in a fast-paced social environment of their own design, bouncing back and forth between texting on their cell phones, posting updates on their Facebook site and tweeting their Twitter followers.

When they are in a store and see a great deal, they tell all their friends about it—right then! They won’t see your circular inserted in the Sunday newspaper, because they get all their news online from non-traditional sources. They may not be your customer today, but they definitely won’t be your customer in the future unless you take steps to communicate with them on their terms. When that next generation of customers gets their first home in three to seven years, social media may be the only way to reach these potential customers.

One retailer needed to get rid of 30 shrubs quickly. So he posted an incredible deal to his Facebook and Twitter sites: buy one shrub, get three free. He had seven or eight people come in and take advantage and got rid of his shrubs right away. Some of the customers had been told about the deal from someone else on Twitter.

You can promote upcoming events, post photos of past events, publicize seasonal closeouts and community involvement, tell customers about new product categories or niches you’ve added to your store or share home improvement project tips. Post coupons and provide links to your sales fliers and circulars—whatever you think customers should know about your business that’s relevant and timely.

Location-based services such as Foursquare are growing in popularity. Foursquare allows customers to “check in” when they arrive at your store, earning points or virtual badges that can be used toward special offers. They can even have coupons sent to their mobile device while they’re in an area.

House Hasson Wholesale Hardware Leads the Way
House Hasson Wholesale Hardware has set up a social media marketing group on Facebook to help dealers share ideas related to advertising and social media and ways they are getting customers to follow them on Facebook, according to Ron Yatteau, e-commerce specialist. Check out the House Hasson Wholesale Hardware social media marketing group at www.facebook.com/househasson.
One of the newer technologies that individuals and companies alike are starting to explore and find practical uses for are QR codes, according to Yatteau. “You may have seen them on billboards or in print advertising, and it’s a type of barcode with an encoded Internet link (URL),” he says. “If you have a smart phone with a camera and Internet access, you should be able to use this technology—simply take a picture of the QR code and you’ll be connected to that specific content or URL. Retailers can put it on a sign in their store and link their customers to their online presence.”
Going to a House Hasson Wholesale Hardware market and networking with other store owners and suppliers is a lot like connecting with your customers online—you must engage them and get to know them. You will build loyalty and a following.
House Hasson Wholesale Hardware customer Richner Hardware in Twinsburg, Ohio, is on Facebook, although owner Dave Murch gives credit to his daughter. “She set us up on Facebook until we become familiar enough to take over. She posts hardware tips of the day and seasonal tips. She’s even promoted the benefits of our no-VOC paint line,” Murch says.  
On the back of coupons Murch encourage customers to “join us at our Facebook address.” So far the store has 170 fans. Check them out at www.Facebook.com/RichnerHardware
Beverly Perry, vice president of the Prichard division, points out that Slanesville Store in Slanesville, W. Va., had a huge increase in their business in 2010 and they have been on the "cutting edge" in the stuff they have been trying.

Slanesville Store offers hardware, appliances, hearth, grocery, deli/pizza, beauty shop, gas station and video rental, all under one roof. “The beauty shop and pizza counter have monitors that display ‘subliminal’ ads and messages about the appliances and hardware while clients are having their hair done or waiting on their pizza to come out of the oven,” Perry notes.

Owners Matt and Jodi Stotler decided to experiment with social media and they were pleasantly surprised by the result. They developed their own web site, which has a link to encourage customers to follow the store on Facebook—so far Slanesville Store has 840 followers.
“We decided to try some new marketing tools, because we saw all ages were getting into Facebook. We quickly discovered that people were very interested in it…and us,” says Jodi, who has been the one spearheading the effort. “There wasn’t enough public knowledge about all that our business had to offer. Why pay money to others to spread the word when we can spread the word ourselves for free?”
When they looked at the demographics of the store’s followers, they discovered the age group was 30-45. “We were really surprised by that. So far our customers are having fun with it,” says Jodi, who notes that people’s relationships are increasingly built on texting.
Jodi does all the social media posting with input from others and most of the time it’s marketing focused. As deer hunting season approached, she encouraged people to post their best “big buck” stories.
She is able to take adViewer and put a PDF of their sales flier on the store web site. “Then we go on Facebook and direct people to the site to see our flier. It’s just another way to constantly remind people we’re here,” says Jodi, who has also experimented with Twitter and found their customers aren’t into that as much.  
Jodi makes sure to respond to everyone on Facebook, whether they ask a question or post a comment. “No one cares who you are at the big box. This is a way to be personal with people,” she points out. “I would urge every retailer to jump on board with this. We go to the House Hasson Wholesale Hardware social media site for ideas.”

10 Ways to Increase Your Facebook Fans1. Ask all your staff to become fans and to suggest all of their friends "like" your page too.
2. Add a Facebook message to you and your employees’ e-mail signatures.
3. Put a Facebook link on your web site.
5. Put a Facebook logo and your web site URL on all your advertising.
6. Print little handouts that tell your customers you're on Facebook and give them out at the register. You can also do it on the back of coupons you hand out.
7. Go to www.facebook.com/username and claim a custom URL.
8. Post informative, interesting and compelling status updates. Don't feel that everything you post needs to be an ad. Facebook fans find that to be extremely annoying. Social media is not like regular advertising. It's a conversation and is good at engaging people.
9. Post regularly but not so much it becomes “spam,” since your fans have given you permission to stay in contact with them. Also, post at different times of the day.
10. As a final strategy, try using Facebook ads. You can select the demographic and area you want to target. You can also have the ads appear only to friends of current fans (with their friend's name included).

The Scoop on Facebook:
Facebook is an Internet-based social utility that facilitates real-world social connections with family, friends, coworkers and customers. Learn more about Facebook by going to: http://www.facebook.com

• Launched in 2004
• More than 500 million users worldwide
• More than 200 million active users currently access Facebook through their mobile devices.
• 50% of users log on in any given day
• Average user has 130 friends
• More than 1 million websites have integrated with Facebook Platform

The Scoop on Twitter:
Twitter lets you write and read public messages up to 140 characters to answer the basic question: what are you up to right now? Learn more about Twitter and its applications for business by going to the following link: http://business.twitter.com/twitter101

• Founded in 2006
• 175 million active users
• 95 million tweets are written every day

Callout: Check out the House Hasson Wholesale Hardware social media marketing group on Facebook at www.facebook.com/househasson.

The largest independent regional hardware distributor in America. House Hasson Wholesale Hardware is a full service, exclusively wholesale, hardware distributor.

http://www.househasson.com