Contributed by Nicole Leinbach Reyhle, Founder & Editorial Director of Retail Minded, the nation’s only retail lifestyle publication dedicated to supporting retailers through news, education and support.
As recent as ten years ago, loyalty programs used to simply mean giving away something free after 10 holes were punched on a card. While this still works for many retailers, punched holes alone will not keep customers returning to your museum store.
As defined by Wikipedia, loyalty programs are “structured marketing efforts that reward, and therefore encourage, loyal buying behavior—behavior which is potentially beneficial to the firm.” In the case of retailers, whether in a museum or not, this translates to more frequent shoppers and increased purchases from repeat customers. The question remains, however, as to how you make this happen.
The best way to show value through a loyalty program is to clearly define how a customer gains appreciation and member-only incentives through a particular program. Offering rewards that include discounts on products, gifts with purchase, special invitations to in-store events, pre-sale shopping and much more are among your options to entice your loyalty club members, but the list is endless based on your unique museum and store opportunities. The key is to simply make sure your loyal customers know that they are being rewarded for their dedication versus just signing up to receive another email or possibly a text message.
With mobile marketing becoming increasingly popular among retailers of all sizes, staying in touch with customers when they are not in your store is becoming easier and easier. Meanwhile, customers are increasingly enjoying the “surprise” of a text offer from retailers and other businesses with whom they have signed up. This on-demand engagement with the customer is a key factor in driving foot traffic to participating stores. However, you should only use text marketing on a select and very purposeful scale. David Parker, owner of mobile loyalty platform Wicked Loyal in Boston, Mass., states, “loyalty should be a conversation, a relationship. Customers always have their phones. That’s better than a torn up or lost 10-star punch card.”
Gaining trust from your customers is extremely important, so be sure to identify how you plan to use their cell phone numbers as part of your program. To ease your customer’s minds, incorporate some rules and regulations into your usage of their phone number that also identifies how often they can expect a text from you. Another key message for you to consider is to offer an opt-out option that customers can easily do at any time.
Finally, remember that a loyalty program is most effective when it stands out among competitors, other retailers and is a true benefit to the consumer. One way to do this is to offer reasonable rewards that have higher perceived values, encouraging more purchases and greater spending. This combination will equal more frequent shoppers, greater sales and a mutually rewarding loyalty program between you and your customers.
What's your favorite customer loyalty program and why?
Today's post was contributed by MSA board member Barbara Lenhardt, director of retail operations at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Creating your museum store policies and procedures manual is very time-consuming, but so very vital to your retail operations. However, it only needs to be created once and then periodically updated. Get your staff involved in creating the procedures portion—perhaps assign various areas to different staff members. Distributing the workload also helps you gain good buy-in at the same time. Your staff will have a vested interest and feel they contributed to something very important in order to make the retail operation function at its highest potential.
There are four items that you shouldn’t overlook when creating this manual:
1. The mission of your institution and the mission of your retail operations. Your policies and procedures manual should begin with these two significant items. They are different mission statements but interrelated. Your retail mission statement should show how the retail operation supports the mission of the institution—through merchandise for sale, kiosks, book signings, trunk shows, use of volunteers, product development, etc. Post your retail mission statement in your store by the cash registers. Share with your customers how your store is supporting the mission of the institution—that profit from your shop supports education programs and helps fund exhibitions—the public can be persuaded much easier to part with their hard-earned money knowing where that money is going.
2. Sales goals. What are they and where will they be posted? Your sales associates need to know what the yearly, monthly, weekly and daily sales goals are—and how the actual sales are measuring up to the goals. Without this information, it is like driving down the road with no destination in mind or landmarks to guide you along the way. We all have better sales when we know that if we sell one more basket or bowl we can exceed the day’s goal.
3. An information resource book. Building an information resource book is another joint project that can be undertaken between you and your staff. As the front line, your staff knows the most common questions asked, so they already know many items that should be included. Do they have that information at hand or do they constantly need to look things up in different locations? An information resource book should include the following:
- basic information about your building/site and historical facts
- locations of restrooms and food services
- hours of operation
- directions from main highways
- institution schedules for upcoming programming and internal resources
- how to place special, mail and web orders
- how to deal with internal sales
- how to sign up new members
- key/popular product information
- point-of-sale information
- any other information pertinent to your cultural institution
4. Rules, expectations and consequences. What are the rules, or things that I must do or can’t do? For example, “You cannot wear flip-flops to work.” Expectations should be phrased such as this customer service example: “A customer should be greeted within 10 seconds of entering the store using the sales and selling techniques that we have taught you.” Consequences are what happen if you do not follow the rules or expectations—such as a penalty—and they should be spelled out in the manual. In order to carry out the rules, expectations and consequences section, you should have written policies and separate manuals for important tasks, such as Customer Service Guidelines, if necessary. A written consequences policy also should be included. For example, the first time you do not follow policy you will receive a first warning verbally, a second warning written, and a third warning is notice of termination or one more chance. You should clearly state that if an employee is not following the guidelines, you will retrain them in the area where they are deficient. If they, again, cannot follow the guidelines, they will receive a first warning verbally, etc. Having this plan written down makes the process less personal.
Many more items should be in your policies and procedures manual. However, making sure you have included the four items above is a good start to giving clear messages to your sales associates why you have a retail store in your particular cultural institution, what the sales goals are, what resources are available for them to do their job well, and what are the policies and expectations.
What are some other items to include in your store's policies and procedures manual?
Today's post was contributed by MSA board member Julie Steiner, shop manager at The Barnes Foundation.
We know our salespeople can sell. They know our stores, our merchandise and our policies. We’ve trained them on the POS and customer service and on how to process returns, exchanges and gift cards until they can do it in their sleep. But sometimes in all of our daily routines, we lose sight of the big picture: the context and the “why” behind the “how.”
Recently, my shop sales team took an afternoon to be on the flip side of the museum store experience by stepping out of their employee mindset and becoming, for a few hours, museum visitors and shoppers, by “secret shopping” our neighboring local museum stores.
We made a game of it: everyone got a questionnaire, a short list of just a few of the local historical sites and museums within a short distance of our own store, and a nominal allowance to bring back an inexpensive trophy from a shop on the list.
Here’s what we learned from the experience:
1. To look at our own shop with fresh eyes. We see the same displays, store layout and product selection every day. After a while, it fades into background noise. Being in a new environment and looking at how other shops work and how they display their selections gives us a fresh perspective when approaching our own.
2. To highlight what is specific about your store. Most museums and attractions are niche markets, and our successes come when we embrace that niche. Visiting a range of museum stores (including historical sites, natural history museums, city attractions and other organizations with different focus from our own) reinforces our own unique mission, and shows us how to further emphasize and clarify the ways that our institution is different from others, and valuable as a unique destination.
3. To get new ideas. Maybe your neighboring museum has a great way to message membership. Perhaps they merchandise their books in an innovative way. It could be something as big as lighting fixtures or as subtle as an elegant turn of phrase for the return policy on the receipt. You don’t know until you visit, and enlisting your whole team to become observers is a great way to gather these ideas.
4. To practice empathy for our customers. In our own institutions, we know all the answers about our collections, buildings, history or theme. But museums vary widely, and can sometimes be intimidating or downright bewildering to a new visitor. A secret shopping checklist can include such questions as “Do you have a book about your collection?” and “Where’s the bathroom?” Think of those questions your own customers ask every day, as well as those that spring to mind immediately in your new shopping environment. This is a chance to be the ones seeking rather than offering, and to remember how it feels to not know the immediate answers.
5. To try out a sales transaction from the other side of the counter. We all are retail consumers, but let’s face it: memorializing a museum visit with a purchase in the shop is special. Customer service should be special, too, and interacting with other sales staff (as a customer) reminds us of how important that interaction is, and how easy it can be to makes someone’s day. Also, listening to someone else’s sales floor banter might give us new ideas for our own routines.
6. To strengthen your staff’s engagement with your store. This shopping exercise encourages your team to engage with your business on many levels they may not consider often on the sales floor. In new shops, they will inevitably find themselves comparing store design, visitor flow, layouts, product selection and merchandising. This gives them appreciation for the entire process of retail, and provides a more holistic view of the job they do every day.
7. To have fun! Sometimes as museum staff, we take ourselves quite seriously…everything we sell is dominated by a grand mission and a larger sense of educational purpose. Shopping your peers is a good team-building exercise, and finding a small treasure in another museum reminds us of how much fun visiting a museum is, completely apart from the work experience.
My staff came back from their secret shopping outing with a fresh, new perspective on our own store, a new respect for all that we do that is special and unique to our own institution, good ideas about many aspects of their own daily duties, and above all, a reminder of what it feels like, to be on the other side of the museum store shopping experience.
Have you sent your staff out on secret shopping outings? Share what you learned!
Contributed by Nicole Leinbach Reyhle, Founder & Editorial Director of Retail Minded, the nation’s only retail lifestyle publication dedicated to supporting retailers through news, education and support.
It is natural for store owners, managers and dedicated employees to be biased about their store. Customers, however, don’t have these same feelings. Their reaction—or lack of reaction—to a store is based on the store assortment, appearance, customer service and much more.
In an effort to better understand how your customers feel about your store space and inventory, challenge both your team and a select group of customers to provide you with honest feedback about their store experience. Be sure to collect the gender and ages of all participants to help you better understand your audience. Additionally, keep the evaluations anonymous, allowing your participants to more willingly share their feedback.
Using the directions and questions below to help guide you in your evaluation, solicit feedback for your store that you can then review and react to accordingly.
For Employees
Have all store employees participate in the following exercise, asking them to view your store as though they were a museum guest and customer—not an employee. Remind them to think about why they make their own purchase decisions and to evaluate your store with this in mind. Also remind them to eliminate their professional thoughts on the store and instead encourage them to truly experience your store as a customer would.
For Customers
Invite a select group of customers to complete the following survey for you. Using a combination of customers is ideal, inviting those who are very loyal, first-time shoppers and even those who have never purchased anything at your museum store. Explain to them that this exercise is intended to help your store improve as a business and you welcome all comments (both positive and negative). To help customers feel as if they can provide you with honest feedback, offer them the option to mail in their responses without their names included. As a reward for their participation, offer them an incentive, such as a $5 store gift certificate.
- What is the first thing you notice when you walk into the store?
- What is the first item you notice when you walk into the store?
- Do you like this item? Why or why not?
- What is the general feeling you get upon your first few seconds in the store? Please explain.
- Are there any distractions that you identify in the store? Please explain.
- Are there any noises in the store that you do not like? Please explain.
- Do any items in the store look out of place? Please explain.
- Do any items in the store look unapproachable? Please explain.
- Are there products you do not see in the store but would like to? Please explain.
- Do any displays capture your attention, or do they simply blend into the store? Please explain.
- What area of the store is most appealing to you? Why?
- What area of the store is least appealing to you? Why?
- Does the store appear clean to you?
- Is the checkout area of the store easy to use, such as when you make a purchase?
- Are there any areas of the store that appear unkempt or that appear to need repair?
- Is the store signage clear and understandable for you to gain store news, event updates, etc.?
- Are there any missing components of the store that would better support you as a customer?
- What is your final, ultimate impression of the store?
How to Review
Once all evaluations are collected, analyze the feedback provided. Any feedback that is identified more than once should be considered an area of interest to further evaluate. For example, if at least two people respond that they think your store is not clean, then you should address this as an area for improvement. Ultimately, it will be up to you to decide what you should do in response to the evaluations, but the best use of the collected information will be to improve your store appearance and inventory in an effort to strengthen sales.
How do you ask for feedback from your customers?
Today’s blog post is adapted from an article that originally appeared in Museum Store magazine, written by MSA Exhibitor Affiliate, Darren Kornblut, web store consultant at Image Exchange.
Selling on the Internet today is easier to do on a technical level, yet more complicated as customers have increased expectations and an ever-growing number of places they can shop. Improving online sales combines a mix of basic marketing and technical expertise.
Here are six simple ways to support your online sales:
1. Get the Email Address of Every Visitor
There is a saying that a customer is someone who shops at your store more than once. Turn your one-time shoppers into customers—ask for their email address and stay in touch. Having an email address turns a one-time anonymous shopper into a potential long-term customer. Services such as Constant Contact and Patronmail can be used to manage your email list. Send a welcome email to new names on your list. Try to mail to your lists at least once a month or more around specific holidays.
2. Tout Your Website
Let your shoppers know that you are online. Start simple by putting your Web address on shopper bags, receipts, membership materials and exclusive publications. The saying goes, “All roads lead back to Rome.” Let everyone know where Rome is.
3. Tell Your Customers What They Are Getting Into
Today’s online shopper has high expectations. They want their order quickly. Post stock status on product pages with information on when the item will ship.
4. Offer “Cheap” Shipping Options
Postal shipping is a viable option for orders that weigh less than a pound. Offer economy (postal) and standard or express shipping (UPS/FedEx) when possible. Include a link to a time-in-transit map.
5. Sell Books and Exhibition Catalogs on Amazon.com
Don’t think of Amazon as an online store, but as a shopping search engine. The San Diego Museum of Art offers their publication, “An American Pulse: The Lithographs of George Wesley Bellows,” in their online store for $14.95. On Amazon, the lowest price for a new copy is $31.77. Books can be easily added by visiting Amazon.com.
6. Be Social
Turn visitors to your Web store into a part of your marketing team. Be sure all product pages have, at the very least, the ability to share products on Facebook and Twitter. Have separate social media feeds for your store offerings from the museum’s other social accounts. This allows shopping and trend writers and bloggers to better follow and share any information you post online. The museum’s main social media account can then “like” the store’s posts on a selective basis.
What have you done to promote your e-commerce site?
Our guest blogger, Andrew Andoniadis, is the principal in Andoniadis Retail Services, a consulting firm that has specialized in revenue-generating strategies for museum stores since 1992. You can find him at www.MuseumStoreConsult.com.
The beginning of the year is a great time to rethink some of your retail strategies, or at the very least, prioritize your to-do list. The following New Year’s checklist includes low- to no-cost ideas that take a look at revenue and margins, as well as merchandising, display and customer service factors.
Revenue
Revenue is mostly the combination of expenditures by museum visitors, including sales from online stores, catalogs, satellite stores and wholesale orders. The level of sophistication of those to whom you report, and the priorities of your institution, may affect what’s on your New Year’s to-do list, but let’s assume everyone shares the same goals and that we’re focused on your bricks-and-mortar presence. Also, let’s assume that by now some revenue projections, especially for those of you on a calendar or April-March fiscal year, have been established.
The first step to making sure revenue will be what you expect is to verify visitation expectations.
- Has the exhibit schedule changed?
- Have special exhibits or events that impact the store changed in number, length or location?
- Will you be open the same number of hours during special exhibits and events?
- How do you and others in the museum expect updated economic information to affect visitation and sales per visitor?
Because as a store manager you have relatively little impact on visitation, make sure you are at least maintaining store revenue per visitor calculations so the results of your efforts are linked to visitation.
Expenses
The biggest expense between revenue and profit is cost of goods and that’s where you may want to concentrate your review. What are some things you can do to lower the cost of goods and increase margins?
- First and foremost on the list, are you consistently calculating and following open-to-buy (OTB)? Any New Year review must include this aspect of inventory management.
- While staying within OTB parameters, can you combine or increase the size of orders to secure free freight, marketing dollars or volume discounts?
- Are you sure proprietary product development is on sound financial footing regarding the cost of production and the units required to make the retail (or wholesale) cost attractive to customers?
- Are you taking advantage of all available free marketing, such as listings on your museum’s website and printed publications, local online and print newspapers, and local CVB sites?
Merchandising, Display and Customer Service Retail is detail. We never know for sure which detail will impact which customer positively or negatively, but the following are sure to have an effect on revenue and should be on your checklist.
- Is your store dirty or clean?
- Is your store over-merchandised and cluttered?
- Are there fixtures with chipped laminate or scratched paint or woodwork?
- Are the carpets stained or worn?
- Are lights fully lit?
- Does the lighting leave dark areas that can be brightened?
- Is the horizontal glass on the top of your jewelry cases relatively free of scratches and view-blocking display pieces such as small spinner racks?
- Are books merchandised by category with good signage?
- Have you conducted refresher customer service and sales training recently?
- Do your freestanding fixtures generally increase in height toward the back and sides of the space so customers can see the entire store when they enter?
- Is the merchandising and display interesting enough to get a customer to slow down and linger?
- Does the merchandising and display stimulate add-on sales?
What will you be doing to get your store ready for 2013?
Today’s article is a guest post from Chris Walton, SecondarySpend.com.
Finding out what customers are looking for can sometimes be tricky. If they make a purchase, they may tell you exactly what or whom it’s for, but how do you find out why they didn’t purchase anything. Running an exit poll in your museum store is a good way to find out why people don’t buy.
Here are some questions to ask:
- How often do you come to this store?
- Were you looking for something for yourself or as a gift?
- Was the purchase for a man or a woman?
- Did you know what you were looking for when you came in?
- Did you find anything that fit your requirements?
- What would you have liked to have found?
- What was your budget?
- Do you prefer unique products created for this shop?
- What time did you arrive today?
- How did you get here?
- Are you a member/tourist/local?
Asking questions such as these will help you find out what motivates your customers to buy and will help you determine what they were looking for if they didn’t make a purchase. Ask your staff to make additional notes about anything they observed about the customer, as well. Finally, make sure to share the results with your team and include the information as part of your training program.
Have you had success with exit polls in your store?
Today’s blog post is adapted from an article that originally appeared in Museum Store magazine, written by freelance writer, Traci Rylands.
Whether you love them or, well, love them a lot less, school groups can make an impact on your store’s operations and bottom line. So, what can you do to optimize visits from school groups and reach out to this unique audience?
1. Make school groups feel welcome. Know when groups are coming and beef up your staff to accommodate them. Staff members should address the kids in a polite way and review the rules of the store, providing gentle reminders as they move through the store. You’ll also want to make sure your education director schedules time for school groups to visit the store when booking tours. (Remind the education department that store sales help support educational programs within the institution, so it benefits everyone!)
2. Provide lower-priced items for smaller budgets. School groups tend to spend more of what money they do bring on smaller, less-expensive items. Keep a variety of inexpensive items readily available and consider including tax to make it easier for younger customers to spend, for example, $1 even. Offer toy bins where everything is under $5 or promote a “special for the day” on items you know will be popular with school groups.
3. Think outside the store. If you have a very small store, ensuring that every student gets a chance to shop can be challenging; sending a detailed pre-order form to parents before the visit increases that opportunity. Include a variety of items and price points on the form, and be sure the items relate to the exhibit they just toured. If you receive these forms with the money when a group arrives, you can have the items bagged and ready for the kids to take as they leave.
4. More supervision equals less theft. Unfortunately, some school group shoppers leave with merchandise without paying. Creating an atmosphere that deters shoplifting can address this issue. Make sure to have enough staff on hand, not only to help shoppers, but to supervise them, as well. Consider limiting the number of students inside the store to make it easier for staff to monitor them. And, always insist that a teacher or chaperone be in the store with the kids at all times.
5. Welcoming school groups increases return visits. Another advantage to welcoming school groups into the museum store is getting repeat business when they return with their parents. Offer a coupon allowing free admission for the child if they bring their parents back with them, or a ticket to an upcoming event that’s not selling well.
Realizing that school groups can be a valuable source of revenue can be a motivating factor for museum store managers to make their store a more inviting place for kids. Store managers should not only prepare for school groups but embrace the concept and enjoy it!
What are some ways you welcome school groups into your store?
Contributed by Nicole Leinbach Reyhle, Founder & Editorial Director of Retail Minded, the nation’s only retail lifestyle publication dedicated to supporting retailers through news, education and support.
2013 is in full swing, and consumers are back to their normal routines. This includes updating and searching through their social media accounts. The question is, are you prepared to be among their top searches?
While Facebook continues to be an optimal choice for social media, Pinterest is proving to dominate consumer interest through their visual usage, applicable “how-to’s” and much more. A recent study identified that 87% of Pinterest users are female, while only 57% of Facebook users are. It’s no secret that women hold the majority of spending influence in households nationwide, so with this in mind it’s important to capture their attention via Pinterest.
Here are five tips to consider when plunging into Pinterest in 2013:
- Integrate All Your Social Media Accounts. There is no point in pinning if you aren’t directing people to it. Integrate all your social media platforms to allow your audience—both existing and hopeful followers-to-be—to easily find you on Pinterest.
- Keep Your Pins Original. Authenticity is golden when it comes to pinning. Pinterest is not about identifying something specifically—although it can do this—but rather it’s about creating a brand, an experience or a trusted resource. Tell stories about your museum store with images that allow your Pinterest followers to truly understand what your unique destination is all about.
- Plan Your Initial Boards Carefully. If you are still new to Pinterest, this is a great time to make your first few boards all about your store values, mission and other valued positions your store takes. The boards following can be more broad and vary in product, lifestyle and stories. But, to start, really try to create a foundation of what your store stands for.
- Be Pin-Smart about Copyright Issues. The World Wide Web gives you billions of images to choose from... but don’t choose the wrong ones. Whether you’re repinning existing content or posting new pictures, be sure to identify if the pictures are safe to pin. Copyright, fine print details and legitimate URL addresses are all important to consider.
- Add Your Store Watermark. This may be my favorite since it keeps your pin traced back to you. If you can, include a watermark—either your store logo or museum logo—somewhere within your image. An added bonus? Your website spelled out for all to see.
Staying committed in your social media strategy continues to be vital to the success of your social media efforts. If you acknowledge Pinterest isn’t for you, identify someone from your team, or hire an intern, to help manage this. The reality is, consumers are on Pinterest and you should be, too. For those museum stores looking to gain new customers, gain additional website sales and promote brand and store awareness, this is absolutely a great way to gain recognition and add value to your sales strategy.
How will you be changing up your Pinterest strategy for your museum store in 2013?
Looking to sell your product to museum stores? Here are four interesting facts about MSA Museum Members that will help you focus your efforts.
