Promoting/Advertising a furniture store - Any ideas?

Hey all,

Was wondering if anyone has any ideas on ways to advertise a furniture store?

Guy in there (I know well) is trying to think up some stuff. I've been in the shop a few times and it seems good. Products are well constructed, 'built to last' type of stuff. Prices are very good, and the same range of furniture is sold in other stores around the country, but is cheaper in this particular shop.

However, despite the obvious nature of the shop (products that sell well in other stores being sold at discounted prices, brand new) the shop seems to have a lack of footfall. The shop is a tad out of the way, in that it's got it's own premises, so you'd need to be intending to go to it (you wouldn't walk in by mistake) but most people who go into the shop seem to buy.


So he's trying to think up ways of getting people in the door. I've been trying to think up some things myself to try and help out, but drawing a bit of a blank. He has regular advertisements in the local paper, and he does leaflet drops (having the leaflet with you in-store gives you additional discount, so reason to keep it) but he's trying to think up other stuff.


I was thinking he should try to get onto Facebook a little more or get a website up and running to help with people who Google search (he doesn't have a website yet, and his Facebook page is rarely used).

I was thinking it might be good to give away some furniture to a local voluntary group or such to let them raffle off or something like that to try and get people to see the name, but I don't know if that'd translate over into actual sales or not, though.


So I just thought I'd throw a thread up here to see if anyone has any interesting or worthwhile ways to try and get a furniture store out there?


Cheers

Cianos

If he doesn't yet have a website then he should be happy. Why? Because it's a problem easily fixed and should lead to more business

For the money you'd spend on local newspaper ads and leaflets you could expect a much better response from say an adwords campaign.

A good site should reflect the brand/positioning of the shop itself and how he feels prospective customers would be attracted to the shop. As such the message the site should communicate would be crucial to the design of the site itself and a good designer will base the site design around this.

In terms of the marketing of the site you should be targeting people who are in his target demographic - ie maybe people searching for "quality furniture" instead of "cheap furniture" etc.

Getting the site listed on Google Places will put him on the map results, particularly handy if he's a bit out of the way or in a somewhat isolated area.

There all sorts of other promotions you could run through the site/facebook page; discount days, discount for people who sign up to the newsletter, a free gift for 'checking in' on Facebook or Liking the page, etc.

People tend to stroll around furniture stores taking their time, so if you had little standing posters saying "Check in to (furniture store) on Facebook for a free gift at the counter!", or something like that it could get a good response because not many people will be in a rush.

I'll drop you a PM re the site