High Impact Sales Event

8/9/2019 High Impact Sales Event

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ASHLEY Presents..

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OUTLINE FOR HIGH IMPACT SALE EVENT

A. Planning is the key to a successful event. Remember the fivePsPriorPlanning Prevents PoorPerformance.

1. First determine date, time (length) and nature (theme) of your event.2. Establish realistic sales goals and set marketing budget.3. Develop marketing plan that details advertising resources to be used.4. Investigate & secure promotional incentives that will highlight event.5. Plan your merchandising with value product and price points; create

your store atmosphere.

B. The Basics1. A high impact sale event can center around a recognized theme such

asAnniversary; a Holiday such asLabor Day weekend; somethingspecial like aRemodeling; or nothing special likeMoonlight Madness.

2. A high impact sale event can be for a few hours, a few days or allmonth long. The longer it goes, the more creative you must be indeveloping promotional hooks to keep the event fresh and exciting.

3. An hour sale or a one-day event can take place any day of the week.However, your best days for such an event would be Wednesday,Thursday or Friday, allowing residual effects of the sale to carry overinto the weekend, when business normally peaks.

4. It is best to start a weekend or longer event with a private sale onThursday, then announce the sale to the general public on Friday,

Saturday and Sunday.

5. It will be necessary to close your store the day before kicking off anevent, allowing an opportunity to prep the product, your store interiorand exterior, personnel, and customers.


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C. The Accounting1. Determining realistic sales goals will depend on your store, your

market, time of year in which the sale is taking place, length of thesale, resources available to produce the event and, most importantly,the type of advertising and promotion that your market is used toseeing from your store.

2. This is an aggressive, high-impact event that should produce aminimum of two to three times your normal traffic and sales volume.

3. An advertising and promotional budget of a minimum 10% of yoursales goal is recommended.

4. Co-opportunities can help defray some costs. For instance,manufacturer representatives can help by providing free labor,

promotional giveaways or sales contests. Media outlets can helpsecure gifts and refreshments from other advertisers in exchange forrecognition during the event. Outside resources are available forconceptualizing and production at no charge.

5. Expect gross margins to be less than normal, but this will be offsetbecause of increased volume and the fact that less productiveinventory will be cleared out.

D. The Marketing Plan1. Kick off your event with a direct mail piece. This can be to your

customer database, targeted zip codes or demographics, or you canflood the market. For multi-week events, you will want to considermultiple mailings. The direct mail piece can be a self-mailer, married

mailer or stuffed in individual envelopes. It can be a postcard, flyer orletter; one-color, two-color or processed four-color; one-sided or twosides. You can mail to individual names or resident/occupant. Thedirect mail piece should land in homes approximately 2-5 days beforethe event.


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2. While the direct mail piece will kick off the private sale portion ofthe event, local newsprint advertising should be used to announcethe sale to the general public. This ad should be page dominant (64-to 90-inch ad) and in color (2-, 3-, 4-color depending on the budget).The day and time the ad should run will depend on whethernewspaper is a daily, weekly, AM or PM publication. Generallyspeaking, however, we will want the print ad to run on a Friday,assuming the private portion of the sale started on Thursday.

3. Radio is important to the overall advertising plan of a high-impactevent, and a great medium to present urgency to consumers, a keyelement in the success of this type of sale. Use a radio blitz package

with high frequency a few days before the events kick-off date, and afew days after. Incorporate a live radio remote on the first Saturday ofthe event.

4. While direct mail, radio and your local newspaper should always beused in the promotion of a high impact sale event, other forms ofadvertising can increase awareness and effectiveness, depending onyour market and budget. Television (network or cable) can be anattractive option. For month-long events, outdoor billboards in hightraffic areas can keep the sale fresh in consumers minds. Small adsin fringe publications such as magazines (TV guides) and freeshopper newspapers can attract attention.

5. A great way to direct traffic to your store is through the use of signwalkers or posted signs at busy intersections in your market. Postingsigns in the ground or on fixed objects at intersections must be clearedthrough your local municipality. However, no such approval isneeded for placing a half-dozen sign walkers at every busyintersection in town. Large, catchy signs posted front and back to

wooden stakes should direct traffic to your store. You can use theevent as a fund-raiser for local youth groups or schools that agree tooccupy designated intersections during scheduled times of day.


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E. The Promotional Plan1. As important as the advertising plan is to the success of your event, so

too is the promotional planthe incentivesthe hooks.

2. The first thing to consider is an incentive for people to line-up for,before the doors open. Getting a crowd at the door before openinggives the sale event a great start. The incentive can take the form of agreat buy on product (i.e. $199 recliners while supplieslast). It can be a giveaway (i.e. free movie tickets to the first 50 adultshoppers through the doors). Or, it could be a creative hook (i.e. 30%discount when doors open at 9am, 25% discount from 10am to noon,

20% discount from noon to 2pm, 15% off from 2pm to 4pm, etc.).

2. Financing is a critical component to the promotional opportunities ofthe event. It must offer a minimum of 6 months same as cashfinancing; 12 months will add to the promotional catch.

3. Another highly effective promotional opportunity is the pay no salestax hook. Although this is only an approximate 7% saving to theconsumer, it attracts attention and gets results. You can not legallyget away without charging sales tax, but you can reduce the price ofthe product by the amount of tax, giving customers the same savings.

4. The sale event should include a register to win incentive, makingit easy to obtain names, addresses and phone numbers of all customerswho enter your store. Free furniture, gift certificates, prizes, tickets toathletic/entertainment events, restaurant coupons, etc. all makeattractive giveaway items.

5. Free is an important word to be able to use throughout and oftenduring your promotion of the event. Therefore, take old items such as

plants, trees, tabletop accessories, wall art, etc.things that have beenaround a whileand mark them Free on the price tag. Then you can

promote some items will be pricefree. When customers come inlooking for the free stuff, tell them they will have to go out in thestore and find it. This gets customers looking, and they might findsomething else that they want to buy.


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F. The Merchandising1. This type of event is great for accomplishing two things: Stimulating

business/generating cash flow, and cleansing your inventory of old,damaged, discontinued and non-productive product. But, you mustmake sure you have product to cover key promotional price points anddrastically reduced price points. You will also want to consider

purchasing extra product for the event. Manufacturers specialpromotions make great selling opportunities during this type of sale.

2. Make sure there are key promotional price points for every productcategory that you sell. You will want bottom line pricing for

upholstery categories (i.e. chairs starting at $99, recliners starting at$249, sofas at $499, sleep sofas at $599, reclining sofas at $699,leather starting at etc.). You will want great introductory pricing on

bedding sets, bedroom groups, dining room sets, percentage off on allaccessory items. You will want to price some items below cost(damage, scratch and dents, old merchandise) so that you can promotesome items marked at or below cost.

3. Produce large, colorful price tags with the event theme printed at top.These tags should be a minimum size of 5 _ X 8 _ to a maximum sizeof 8 _ X 11 (for large itemsupholstery and casegoods). Smallertags (4 _ X 5 _) should be used for accessory items. All tags shouldshow a Listprice, a Wasprice and a Nowprice. The list priceshould be smaller than the was price, which should be smaller thanthe now price. All three prices should be written in black ink, withred cross-outs through the list and was prices.

4. The now price should not include cents at the end ($299.95no,$299yes). The list and was prices should include cents at the

end, only if that is the way store normally prices items. Current pricetags should be removed or turned in plastic sleeves so that regular

pricing cannot be seen. List and was prices should be legitimate,taken from manufacturers suggested retail (list) and stores regularmerchandising (was).


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5. Use the 7, 8, 9 pricing structure to help identify product on the salesfloor. If an item is priced ending in 7 then no other product likethat can be ordered, regardless of price (discontinued). If an item is

priced ending in 8 then other items like it can be ordered at a higherspecial order price. If the item ends in 9 then it can be ordered atthe same price. This will help the sales staff identify product that canor cant be sold at discounted pricing, over and above what the storehas in stock.

G. The Atmosphere1. You will need to dress your store up to give it the impression that

something different, new and exciting is going on. Do not eliminatethis step. It is highly critical.

2. The store should be closed the day before the event starts. During thistime, you will want to paper the inside of the windows and doors sono customers can get in. Lock the doors. No customers are allowedin the store. At the same time, you should schedule your window

painter to paint the outside windows on this day. Use very bright,florissant colors, and very large script or graphics.

3. Signs and banners will need to be made. A large exterior banner foroutside can be effective, depending on the building. This bannershould be generic and made of a material that can be reused duringdifferent events (i.e. Big Sale Today). Many interior signs need to

be produced as well. These can be paper throw-away signs withmessages like Hurry and Save, Save Up to 00% on SelectedItems, Free Financing, Inventory Liquidation, Pay No SalesTax, Register to Win Free Furniture, Name of Event, AllTables, Lamps, Accessories 00% Off. These signs need to be

colorful and plentiful (duplicating signs is okay). They should betaped up all over the store. Dont worry about the way the store lookswith this signing.

4. Rent a helium tank and buy a lot of balloons, string and the goopthat goes in balloons so that they will stay inflated longer. Balloons


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should be used throughout the store. Bunch the balloons in threes,then tie the cluster together and distribute around store. The more themerrier. Use different color balloons. Balloons can be used to identify

products with certain discounts (i.e. red balloons are 20% off, greenballoons are 10% off, etc.).

5. Shirts should be ordered for all personnel on the selling floor. Theseshirts should all be the same color (use red, or use the primary colorthat represents your store), and should be ordered to fit properly. Onthe front of the shirt should be printed the store name. Do not put thename of the event so that you can use the shirts for other scheduledevents. On the back of the shirts should be printed different selling

themes, such as: Ask Me How To Save Money, Whats The BestSeat In The House, How Old Is Your Mattress, Free Financing,Where Did You Get Those Tables, Nice Lamps, Sure We CanDeliver It, Can You Say House Call, etc.

H. The Preparation1. Everybody works the day the store is closed and no one goes home

until the store is ready. The windows must be papered and painted.The floor, every item, must be tagged. Signs and banners must be putup. Balloons need to be filled and distributed. And no customers inthe store when it is closed. Put a sign on the front door that says,Closed today for preparation of big sale. Store will re-opentomorrow at 9:00 am SHARP!

2. No one gets off the days of the sale, and additional sales people (reps,temps, friends, neighbors, family, etc.) will be needed. Although sales

people should encourage customers to pick up merchandise during thesale, deliveries will be made. Therefore additional people will be

needed to handle deliveries, customer pick-ups and floor re-stocking.Additional help will also be needed to record sales at the counter,allowing sales associates to get back on the floor after closing a deal.

3. Develop games and contest to play on the sales floor to help motivateyour sales staff during the big event.


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4. Have refreshments available for your customers. This can take theform of cookies and coffee/punch or hot dogs and sodas.Entertainment is also a big draw. It can be local country western bandthat plays in your parking lot, or the high school band andcheerleaders. It can be an appearance by a local celebrity, or you caninvite a charity to participate and solicit support.

5. Have a meeting. All employees are to attend a meeting one hourbefore the doors open. This meeting is to discuss any last minutedetails, go over the merchandising and promotional incentives, and tocreate excitement about the event. This is when you announce thesales contests for the day.

Open the doors five minutes late, and have fun!

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1. Choose Theme

2. Select Dates

3. Set Sales Goal

4. Establish Budget5. Determine Media6. Decide Promotions7. Develop Merchandising

8. Create Atmosphere

9. Plan Refreshments

10. Schedule Entertainment

Documents

High Impact Sales Event