An educated customer………

“An educated customer is our best customer” was the slogan of one of New York’s iconic independent retailers, Sy Syms. Syms introduced this motto in 1974 as the center piece of his advertising and marketing. His concept was to sell overstock and excess inventory from brand named men’s clothing manufactures. He grew his business to fourteen stores and eventually sold to Filene’s basement. Since his concept was relatively new, especially in men’s clothing he had to educate the consumer in order to be successful. I can only image how he would use today’s social media tools. He was a forward thinker back then using traditional media to get his message across. Think about the advantage smart marketers have today with their ability to connect with customer before, during and after their visit to your store. If you believe that word of mouth recommendations have the most influence on customers then social media is word of mouth on steroids. It behooves you to become competent in using social media to gain a lager share of your customer’s wallets.

Here are some compelling facts:
-Users spend more time four times as much time on Facebook than any other web brand
– The heaviest concentration of users is females in the 18-49 demographic
– 55+ plus the highest growth rate
– Top use of mobile devices: Social networking, web browsing, sending companies feedback and scanning barcodes.

It’s time to reach beyond the confines of your store and the customer tracking capabilities of your Point of sale system to reach out and communicate with customers. Think of Social Media as the Yellow Pages of the 21st. century.