Cheap Advertising Ideas for baby boutique.. help me save my business?

Question

My best friend and I have a children's boutique selling new better children's clothing. We also have a shop beside it selling new medical unifoms / scrubs. We have really good prices... like the scrubs are 16.00 - 20.00 a set and singles are 8.00 - 10.00 each. Our childrens' clothing we don't mark it the retail like if we pay 50.00 it's suppose to sell for 100.00 but we mark it 75.00.

The problem is we are having trouble getting traffic. We are in a descent location of a town with population of about 6,000 and are the only shop that sells the products we have. We tried ads in the paper but they are expensive and we never have an response... we have tried flyers to and little results off that. Any ideas how we could get the word out.. cheaply? Everyone that comes in loves our things and buys but we just don't have enough traffic. thanks for any advice.

Answer 1

myspace and then request friends in your area, alot of people will accept the invitation and then there friends will also check out your profile and its free!

Answer 2

As a small business owner myself i can understand the hardships of finding an effective advertising/marketing system.  try these suggestions.

1)  Develope a website and make sure to include a photos of  your store, your products, etc.  including directions too your store.  this can be done cheaply website is more or so a $100.00 a year, the software to create the website is about $300.00 then you can easily update your site with new products.

2)  flyers are always cheap to make and if you pass them out yourselves labor is free, but i would add color photos of the products i'm selling (clothes, toys, furniture, etc). provide and special, something like buy 2, get the 3rd for 20% off. you can go to your local printing shop, office store, or companies online to compare pricing.  i do not suggest making black and white flyers on your computer.

3)  signs around town that people will notice.

4)  do something flashy to your store, an eye catcher to draw attention to your business like bright or pastel colors, lighting at night to make people notice your store.  there is alot of traffic at night.

5)  make sure you target your customer base, which i would say is families with children.  advertise were the families are grocery stores, parks, sporting events, schools, zoo's, etc.

6)  at our local food stores you can place advertising in the shopping carts (on the seats the children sit in) every mom will notice this.  check to see if your grocer does this.

7)  expande your marketing area.  since your town is about 6000 people, not all are families with children.  try going outside your area to nearby towns, something with in 40 min of so,  most people are willing to travel that time limit for shopping.

8)  offer seasonal specials.

9)  create a display of your products you can put out front of the store, not everyone will catch your window displays.

10)  get a booth at one at your or a  local town event where you can display your products and pass out:

- flyers

- business cards

- small toys or treats (use factory sealed treats only and if you do suckers or lollipops make sure they are the saftey ones)

- ballons with your information

to children, somthing small where people can pocket the advertisment.  a local party or online party store has small gifts you would usually put into birthday bags, they are very inexpensive.

11)  printed note pads with your company information on it.  pass these out at a school funtion or similar.

most importantly the people you have out meeting your potential customers base is a reflection upon your business.  if you are or seem likable most people are more willing to do business with you.

i will post more ideas for you as i can think of them or you can emial me if you want.

i hope this helps.