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Marketing 101
Where the rubber meets the road, here's how four local retailers view what works - and what doesn't - when it comes to marketing their businesses
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Business New Haven
9/4/2000
By: Priscilla Searles
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Marketing approaches vary tremendously from business to business. What works for one business might not work for another. Four New Haven-area retailers were asked to explain their approaches to marketing their businesses and product lines.
We asked them who their customers were, where they were, how they reached them, what the message was, what their marketing efforts cost and - above all - how well it was working. Here's what they had to say.
Peter Indorf Jeweler
1022 Chapel Street, New Haven (203-776-4833)
Owner: Peter Indorf
Founded in 1972, Peter Indorf is a specialty jeweler designer and creator of fine jewelry.
“Our market is mostly upper-middle [market], but we have many items that are reasonably priced that are affordable to a broader range of the market,” says Indorf.
“We do target our market. For example, my advertising in the New York Times and Connecticut magazine hits the baby-boomer age group or upper-middle-class group. Because we have a university surrounding us we try to market to them - with class rings, for example. They'll come back later because many end up living in New Haven area. We advertise in the Yale magazine, targeting professors and doctors. We're surrounded by professional people - doctors, accountants, specialists of all kinds, visitors - and part of my marketing is just being in this particular spot.
“I use print, cross-marketing with Web sites,” says Indorf. “People will come in with things they see on our Web site. It's decidedly different than e-commerce; it's relationship marketing. We use some direct mail: postcards three or four times a year, no radio or television. We stay in touch with our customers when they place an order, giving them constant updates. Our professional design services are very detailed, [which is] another way to come across as professional in our marketing efforts.
“[Our] marketing is [expressed in] with way the store looks, marketing materials, stationery, customer relations, the way we wrap our gifts, the way our store smells - the whole package.
“When planning our marketing for the year, we usually do a retreat with senior people and staff, going over everything. We analyze our mission, look at the past year, where we want to go, pitfalls, opportunities and potential problems. I'm also marketing my talent as a designer, using pieces I've designed, in our ads.
“We advertise regionally,” Indorf explains, “our customers are mostly from the New Haven area. But we have customers in other states such as Texas and California.
“All you really have when you market is your name, establishing trust and happy customers.”
Indorf says he spends about four percent of our annual operating budget on marketing.
“We produce our ads in-house - copywriting, photography, layout, art production. We used to use an agency years ago, but had to tell them what to do, how to do it. [Now] it's most cost-effective for me to do it and I get what I want and [quickly]: I can turn out an ad in one day.
Our marketing is ongoing; we're always prospecting. People don't need jewelry every day, and that's something we have to deal with. We have a lot of data on clients such as birthdays, anniversaries. We send out cards; we send out thank-you letters. Our Web site has been written up by both national and international jewelry magazines, which is quite an honor. I generally consider my marketing effort pretty effective.”
Milford Camera
9 River Street, Milford (203-878-0156)
Owner: Margaret Koorejian
General Manager: Joseph Flanagan
Founded in 1952, Milford Camera sells a full line of cameras (all major manufacturers) and camera equipment, has a custom photo-processing lab and performs slip processing and video transfers.
“Our market is broad: from students who want to buy good quality second-hand cameras - we make sure cameras are serviced properly before we sell them - to soccer moms to high-end professional people and institutions,” explains General Manager Flanagan.
“We advertise high-end digital cameras in Business New Haven, for example, which works extremely well with the business people,” Flanagan says. “We also do coupons for another market. We are targeting, but doing more than one market at a time and at same time get a good cross-section.
“We use direct mail, print - newspaper weeklies and dailies, coupon mailers, magazines and periodicals For example, we are about to start in a publication aimed at parents, with a list on how to take the perfect picture of your child.”
Flanagan says Milford Camera also employs television and radio “occasionally.
“Our marketing is combination of seasonal, product-focused and image-focused. We give gift certificates to charity, for example, giving back to community, and advertise seasonally for holidays, graduation, Father's Day - both image and product-geared. If we get a new line or a new camera just on the market, the manufacturer will assist us in getting it out and we'll advertise that.
“Our store traffic is regional - and global with the World Wide Web,” Flanagan says. “We provide a lot of information on the Web [www.milfordcamera.com], and get a lot of e-mail looking for answers to problems.
“We sell more than a product; we also sell service, we service what we sell. There's a reason why we've been in business this long.”
Milford Camera's advertising-to-sales ratio has hovered at about five percent. However, Flanagan notes that this figure fluctuates from year to year, “and I would like to trim it.”
With regard to production, “We get some slicks from manufacturers which we use for new product announcement and do some in-house production and [employ] some outside graphic designers.
“One of our most successful recent marketing efforts is a 40-foot-wide by four-foot-high banner on the railroad bridge. It's a one-way street, so we did the lettering in reverse, People are looking at it in their rear-view mirrors from the traffic light. It's perfect; it really worked.”
Zane's Cycles
105 North Main Street, Branford (203-488-3244)
Owner: Christopher Zane
Founded in 1981, Zane's Cycles is a family-oriented bicycle retail store, carrying bicycles, equipment and accessories.
Chris Zane identifies his market as buyers of family and recreational bicycles as well as leisure cyclers.
“Although we may advertise on billboards, the layout and the message is aimed to families, home-owners, high blue-collar, white-collar, recreational or people who want to have fun on a bike,” says Zane.
“We use billboards, television - mostly network stations - radio, direct mail, yellow pages. In print, we pretty much restrict ourselves to yellow pages. Our marketing approach is to generate an image of our company for future customers. Newspapers don't do that in a cost-effective way. We don't want to be a convenience stop; we want to be sought-after. The benefit of that approach is lifetime relationships, not transaction relationships. We can't stay in business with one-bike sales; we need our customers to come back.”
Zane's business, he says, is “definitely seasonal. We do direct mail to promote our spring event, the 'Big Wheel Sale,' which takes place the first weekend in April and kicks off our season. Because of climate and the weather, people buy bikes in spring. There is a lot of carry-over business from this event. People might come back and buy for other members of the family. It's truly a marketing event to get people to think about our products and organization well beyond the event.”
Having entered business strictly as a local bike store, Zane has grown his clientele to the point where he now considers Zane's a regional business.
With regard to his marketing message, Zane explains, “The only brand we sell is our company.”
Zane says he spends five percent of his annual sales on marketing and advertising.
As for production, “We use professional services for the mechanical part of our advertising such as layout design, typesetting. We develop the concept and then go to an outside agency to implement the mechanical aspects.
“Our 'Big Wheel Sale' was our last major marketing effort and it was very effective. We rev up for that event six months in advance. It generates as much revenue in that one weekend as what some bike shops sell in a whole year.”
Trailblazer
296 Elm Street, New Haven (203-865-6244), locations in Guilford and Westport
Owner: Christopher Howe
Founded in 1995, Trailblazer caters to outdoor and running enthusiasts, carrying backpacks, tents, running shoes and other items for outdoor recreational use.
“We tend to be more high-end [than some competitors] because we are committed to obtaining the best quality items for the best value we can find,” explains Howe. “Sometimes they are expensive, sometimes not, but we are certainly not restricted to the high end of the market.”
As for his market, Howe says, “We are targeting the outdoor enthusiast and the technical runner.”
With regard to specific media, “We use cable and network television, outdoor [billboard] advertising, some print and direct mail - plus, we have a e-mail program for existing customers,” Howe says. “We used to do a lot more print, but we have found these other avenues to be more effective.
“We have a written marketing program. We work through a media buyer because they can negotiate better than we could independently. Also, they can give us statistical information that we could not get otherwise and help us interpret the information. They show you how they are hitting in every age bracket, for example. We could get this information ourselves, but to have someone cull it out for us is extremely useful. We do 'flight' advertising - go heavy in multiple forms of media for a fixed period of time, drop out for a while then do it again. Some times are very important such as back-to-school, holiday time, Memorial Day.
Trailblazer's marketplace is regional, says Howe, “basically drawing a circle from Westerly, R.I. to Springfield [Mass.] to Westchester County [Pa.].
“Our marketing concept is almost all image-oriented, our quality merchandise. We do market product, but the main focus is always the store and the quality and service that we represent.
“We spend a little under three percent of our annual gross [revenues] on marketing.
“We do our production in-house and use a media buyer to negotiate contracts. Direct mail, ads, etc., we produce in-house.
“It's hard to say how effective our most recent marketing effort was because of the bad weather we're had, but [overall] our marketing seems to be working. When we do direct mail it's very effective, targeting existing customers as well as new customers.”
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