What are you doing to grow your music store?
Savvy small business owners always look for new ways to increase revenue and profits — and some of the best ways to grow a small business are to expand operations and put more effort into promoting goods and services. Expansion and promotion can take many forms, and there are many strategies and channels you can use to accomplish these goals.
In this blog, we’ll take a deep dive into growing your business and discuss nine tips and tools you can use to see rapid growth at your music store.
You want customers to instantly recognize your brand wherever they see it, whether that’s in person, online, or in print. Create a well-designed, eye-catching logo and display it everywhere you advertise your music store. Choose a few colors to use and keep them consistent across your website, social media, and the interior of your store.
Your brand also needs consistent messaging. To determine what this messaging should be, determine what sets your music store apart.
Music stores come in many shapes and sizes. Some stores sell various types of musical instruments, while others specialize in pianos, guitars, or another specific instrument. Some stores have a formal and luxurious atmosphere with high-end products, while others specialize in instruments for beginners and offer affordable prices. Determine what kind of store you want to run and let people know anywhere you can.
Most small businesses have websites that display their location and hours, helping customers plan a visit. To stand out, your music store needs a great website that’s easy to navigate on desktop and mobile and allows customers to browse your products.
Offering online purchases and shipping expands the customer base you can serve, opening the door to higher potential sales. To encourage customers to make purchases online, you need to have high-quality images and descriptions for your products and create a secure and seamless checkout process.
If you don’t currently engage in e-commerce, it may seem overwhelming — but a quality point of sale (POS) system makes this process easier. Many POS systems include e-commerce services and can help you integrate this process into your site. By taking advantage of POS services, you can get your online music store up and running in no time.
Related Read: How To Build a Music Store Website: 9 Tips & Tools
Creating a social media presence helps you increase loyalty among your existing customers and reach new customers. Post content that highlights your products and helps users get a sense of what your music store has to offer.
Here are some ideas for social media posts:
You can collect more content for your social media accounts by using customer-generated content. Encourage customers to post videos of their musical performances using your instruments, and to tag you. You can repost these videos on your channels so customers can see and hear your instruments in action.
Offering music lessons helps you grow your music store by opening up an entirely new revenue stream. Some of the most popular instruments for lessons include piano, guitar, violin, and drums. Offering lessons for these instruments helps you capture the highest demand, but offering more unique instruments helps you set your store apart from the competition.
Signing customers up for lessons at your music store helps you build trust with them. As they see firsthand the expertise you have in music, they’ll trust you and your store for all of their musical instrument needs.
If you observe high interest in music lessons, you might hire additional instructors. You can even offer space to external instructors for free. Even if you don’t generate revenue from their lessons directly, their students are likely to make purchases at your music store as opposed to a competitor.
Aside from individual lessons, you can also host workshops with industry professionals for larger groups. These workshops can educate customers about different instruments, instrument maintenance, playing techniques, or other music topics. Advertise these opportunities to as many people as you can. The more people you get through the doors of your store, the greater potential exists for sales.
Related Read: Teaching Music Lessons at Music Shop Retail Stores: Bringing In Extra Income
Instrument rentals are a convenient option for students and other customers who are less committed to their instrument. Each year, middle and high school students participate in band classes and need instruments. Some are learning for the first time, and their parents may not want to make the investment of buying their instrument. Rentals help you capture this market.
To successfully manage rentals, you need a sophisticated system that helps you keep track of who’s renting what instrument, how much they’re paying, and when the instrument needs to be returned. Keeping track of this information on paper causes frustration and mistakes, but a solid POS system can record this information for you to be called up at the touch of a button.
To pique the interest of more customers, you can create rental packages, which include accessories like carrying cases and in-store maintenance services. This is highly beneficial for students and other beginners who are still learning about how to take care of their instrument.
Related Read: What Is the Best Instrument Rental Software? 4 Top Providers
Collaborating with individuals and organizations related to music can get your business in front of a wider audience. If you serve a lot of students at a local school, you can partner with the school for cross-promotional opportunities. Partnering with local music teachers can also help spread the word about your products.
Collaborating with social media influencers can boost your music store’s visibility online — this may include local musicians. If a local musician has a significant social media following, you might donate some instruments to the artist in exchange for social media promotion on their channel.
These mutually beneficial partnerships help your music store gain credibility and show customers that you value helping your community.
Loyalty programs allow customers to earn special rewards by making frequent purchases. There are various ways to set up loyalty programs, but many use a point-based system. Customers earn points with each purchase. After several purchases, they can exchange those points for rewards.
These might include a discount, free or exclusive product, or another reward. For example, a customer might receive a 20% discount on a guitar, a free ukulele, or an exclusive store-branded carrying case.
Referral programs can be effective in drawing in more customers, and can be integrated with your loyalty program. If a customer refers a friend and that friend purchases an instrument, you can give the referrer a discount on their next purchase.
Loyalty and referral rewards incentivize your customers to make frequent visits to your music store and promote it to their friends and family.
Advertising allows people to see your business that may never have stumbled upon it otherwise. Most modern advertising is digital, on platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Google. As digital advertising becomes more sophisticated, advertisers can more sharply target users who are likely to be interested in a product, like those who play an instrument, for example.
You can use platforms like Instagram and Google to send out ads to segments of your target audience — be it musicians, students, parents of students, or another group.
Although digital advertising is becoming more prominent, you can still grow your music store by engaging in traditional print advertising. Create flyers and posters and place ads in music-related magazines and community newsletters. This helps you reach more potential customers — including those who may be less technologically savvy.
There are simple things you can do in your music store to grow its revenue and profits, like upselling and cross-selling. Upselling is encouraging a customer who is making a purchase to buy add-on items or upgrade to a more expensive product.
For example, if a customer wants to purchase a basic or mid-level guitar, you can introduce them to a high-end model. Explain to the customer why it’s a better purchase than the other guitar, discussing its high-quality sound, craftsmanship, and durability.
Cross-selling involves combining items that are frequently purchased together, whether by placing them next to each other on the sales floor, or by bundling them together for a lower price.
To effectively cross-sell a guitar and its accessories, be sure to place them in the same spot on the sales floor. Create a display with guitars, picks, shoulder straps, capos, and other accessories. This will encourage customers to buy everything they need for their guitar at once.
Creating a bundle with everything a customer needs to take care of an instrument can help you sell more accessories and maintenance equipment. When a student is buying a trumpet for their band class, you can sell a bundle with a carrying case and equipment for cleaning and taking care of their instrument. Parents likely want to get everything their child needs for their instrument at once, making bundles a popular choice.
Related Read: Upselling and Cross-Selling: 8 Tips for Music Stores
Growing your music store takes creativity and a willingness to try new things. You may not be very comfortable with digital ads or e-commerce, but if you give new business avenues a try, you might find they generate greater success than you imagined.
Using a POS system helps relieve the confusion that comes with implementing new business operations. There are many POS systems on the market, but you need a system designed specifically for music stores. You need Music Shop 360.
Music Shop 360 is a cloud-based POS platform that offers features like e-commerce, loyalty programs, and marketing tools, as well as music-specific features like rental services, a lesson-scheduling system, and access to the best music vendors in the business. With all of these features together in one system, you’ll have the tools you need to grow your music store.
Contact us to schedule a demo today!