From the blog 3 Affordable Candy Store Promotion Ideas Proven to Attract Customers

It takes more than a sweet tooth to run a successful candy store. Owners need to be savvy marketers with a knack for attracting customers if they want to stand out in this crowded and competitive market.

Unique promotions attract attention in a big way, enticing regulars to return and drawing in new customers who otherwise may not have realized that your shop existed. Coming up with candy store promotion ideas can be fun, too. Here are three proven ideas to get you started:

Think Seasonally

Summer can create a major slowdown across the confectionery industry. When you think of holidays where sweets are the centerpiece — Easter, Halloween, Valentines Day — they all happen during fall, winter, or spring.

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That’s a big three- or four-month gap in the middle of the year, one that happens to coincide with temperatures that melt many popular candies.

One clever way to solve this problem: make your own holiday and run a promotion surrounding it. You can take an existing holiday, such as July 4th, and give it a candy-minded twist — pop rock candies to create fireworks on your tongue, for example. Alternately, you can invent a holiday all your own and run a promotion to help everyone through the dog days of summer. Who knows, maybe it’ll take off, too!

Be sure to emphasize seasonal stock in your promos. In a lot of people’s minds, summertime equals salt water taffy. Rich or heavy sweets like chocolate? Maybe not so much. Let people know you’ve got their seasonal favorites ready to go.

Like Giving Candy to a Baby

Free samples offer a way to get customers to try out new types of candy without the risk of going home with a bag of something they don’t like. Being able to sample candies is one of the big selling points for small candy retailers who focus on customer experience, as opposed to a chain pharmacy or similar big retailer.

For candy store owners, the high profit margin that candy generates helps level off any losses incurred by giving away free samples. Counterintuitively, giving away product for free can be one of the more affordable ways to promote a product. Case in point: samples are a part of the success of goliath companies like Costco and Trader Joe’s.

A lot of candy shops offer samples, but what can you do to make it a standout promotional tool for your store?

Rather than leaving your customers to explore on their own, set up a dedicated area for samples. If your clientele tends to be interested in new and unique products, try organizing an array of candies from around the world to give the sampling experience an exciting new theme.

Another way to delight your customers is to give them a free sample bag of treats with their purchase. This can be an add-on bag of assorted misfit candies, on the house!

Find Partnerships

You don’t have to go it alone! Local businesses that support one another help make each other stronger by sharing a customer base. Finding new partnerships can help you boost your social media presence, sell product directly, or get better rates on payment processing.

Partnering up with events coordinators and wedding planners can present a good consistent source of revenue, especially during the lean summer and early autumn months. Your average wedding planner plans several weddings per year. More sought-after planners will have a wedding per weekend throughout the wedding season. A good partnership with a planner can lead to consistent revenue over time. Be sure to offer special wedding packages that are flexible for different price ranges and wedding sizes.

A lot of companies are diving into delivery to compete with e-commerce giants like Amazon. Local delivery can entice offices and small businesses to order candy for meetings and special events. Finding a local courier service to partner with ensures that your special delivery finds its way promptly.

The internet is a great place to look for partnerships as well. Most successful businesses use the internet to boost sales and tap into valuable e-commerce streams. There’s nothing stopping your business from entering the e-commerce business too. To get started, these free clickfunnels templates may be useful to get more sales. By using sales funnels, customers might be more likely to purchase from your site. There’s a lot to debate about when setting up an online business, but getting customers buying your products is essential. Perhaps using funnels might be beneficial for your store. However, many more businesses use social media to promote their brand locally, connecting with potential customers and showing off what’s in store.

Finally, be sure to stay in touch! A customer who drops by in July will hopefully keep you in mind when the holidays come around, too. For an affordable and easy promotion, collect emails to create a mailing list and drop a line to your customers once in a while to let them know about special deals, new products, or just to say hello!

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