Recently I heard a story on NPR radio about The Little Comic Book Shop, a comic book store in Dearborn, MI, that hosts a regular Comic Jam, where enthusiasts (and customers) come to the store, enjoy light snacks and take turns writing their own comic strip, one square at a time. Listening to the story made me think what a great, creative store promotion so of course I wanted to share it with you as an idea for a promotion for your store. Below are some of my various iterations of the Comic Jam that may get your creative juices flowing as well.

Some of the ideas I thought of are:

Host an Open Book Night (take off of "open mic night"), where customers can share passages from their favorite books. Serve wine and cheese and even invite publishers to come to share their new titles.

Have a Recipe Jam where customers can share their favorite recipes or challenge each other to create recipes with a limited number of ingredients (an Iron Chef-style event).

Host a Fashion Jam. If your store features clothing you could have a Fashion Jam where customers use a specific collection to create outfits that you’ll feature in window displays. Have customers vote for their favorite outfits at the Fashion Jam and on your Facebook page.

Let me know if any of these ideas work for you and if you come up with any iterations of your own.

During a recent webinar I gave on social media for the National Stationery Show, I was asked how to increase Twitter followers. Here are some of my favorite tips for retailers and wholesalers to build a bigger Twitter following.

Follow others
Twitter users believe in a golden rule of sorts, "follow others that follow you," so a great way to build your Twitter following is to follow those that you would like to follow you. Most will "follow" you back.

Host a giveaway or get charitable
Have a limited time offer for everyone that follows you during the next 30 days, perhaps entering them into a weekly drawing to win a worthwhile prize. You can also do a charitable slant and pledge $1 to a preferred charity for every new follower. Market your promotion online, offline and in-store.

Offer special deals
Offer a clear benefit to your Twitter followers, such as Twitter-only special deals. A great example is Lance Armstrong who hosts special “Twitter Rides” with his followers. Along with special deals, you must offer followers value in your tweets so make a point of knowing what your followers want to read, learn or see.

Get re-tweeted
Getting re-tweeted is like having others recommend you to their Twitter universe and it’s a great way to build your Twitter following. Check out this post on how to get re-tweeted.

Use hashtags
Using hashtags, which are just search terms or keywords preceded by a “#” (such as #retail), will enable your tweets to come up in Twitter searches. Using hashtags in your post is a good way to get additional exposure to potential followers. For example, a tweet could say: “Just received a new shipment of #Coach #handbags! Stop by and check them out today for a follower-only preview.”

If you’ve been following my blog, it goes without saying that you want to ask for folks to follow you on Twitter in all of your other online and offline marketing, as well as in your store.

Happy tweeting and let me know what’s worked for you in getting new followers.

A few days back we heard the news that Borders Group Inc., well-known for Borders Bookstores, filed for bankruptcy protection. Many of the reports I read on the subject say that one of the greatest contributors to the company’s problems was that it was too slow and too late at getting online and using the Internet to grow its business.

One way to avoid this situation it is to keep abreast of what our customers want when it comes to interacting with and buying from us. For example, we recently launched iPad versions of our magazines (check them out in the Apple iTunes store by searching for GIFT SHOP Magazine and Specialty Retail Report). The trend toward electronic magazine publishing is an exciting new advancement in the world of publishing, and it reflects how some customers want their magazines delivered.

One emerging trend for retailers is the growing number of mobile shoppers or those that use their smartphones to interact with and even buy from retailers. Even though relatively few shoppers currently use their smartphones to buy, access coupons, product reviews and store information (such as hours and location), there will come a time in the not so distant future that the majority of them will. I encourage you to start experimenting now and here are three ways to get started…

Experiment with location-based social networks like Foursquare and Facebook Places. We recently had a great article in the winter 2011 issue of GIFT SHOP Magazine on this very topic.

Make sure your current online marketing is mobile ready . Chances are your customers and potential customers are already looking for you and reading your online communications — whether it be your website, blog or email newsletter — using their smartphones. Make sure your communications are viewable on mobile devices. Use your own smartphone to see what your business looks like on a mobile device. Then check with your specific service providers for more information.

Survey your customers. You can begin right away to informally survey your customers to see if (and how) they use smartphones and how they would like you to interact with them, such as with Facebook Places and/or Foursquare, or simply with a mobile website that includes store information and coupons. Armed with this information you’re likely to have a better initial strategy for mobile marketing to your customers.

I’d love to hear how you have already begun using mobile marketing in your business.

Recently I conducted a social media marketing seminar at the National Stationery Show and one of the questions asked during the session was how to get more Facebook "Likes."

Here are my top three suggestions:

Market in all current media
Make sure you are marketing the presence and benefit of your Facebook fan page in all of your online and offline marketing. For example, make sure to have a link on your blog, emails, website and email signature for you and your employees. Remember to always include your Facebook page in offline marketing, like you newspaper/magazine advertising, business cards, shopping bags, POS signage, etc.

Make an offer they can't refuse
When asking folks to become your fans you will be more successful if you offer an incentive or clear benefit. You know your customers best and what they want, so give it to them for being a fan. For example, Einstein Bros. Bagels gave a coupon for a free bagel to everyone that became a fan. You don’t have to give away the store, but offer a little something as a thank you to your fans, even if it’s just for a limited time.

Have a contest
If you’d like to bump up your fan numbers quickly, a great way is to have a contest with an amazing giveaway. For example, everyone that likes your page in the next 10 days will be entered into a drawing for a $100 gift card or free merchandise. Have a goal for the push, such as getting to 1K fans in 10 days. Remind folks to suggest your page to their friends for an additional entry in the giveaway.

Let me know… what's been successful for you in getting more fans?

Recently I ran across an interesting article on Mashable.com by Christina Warren about a study of Facebook users and when they’re most likely to be reading and posting on Facebook. Here are the most important points for retailers that use Facebook to market to customers:

• User numbers spike during weekdays at 11:00 am, 3:00 pm and 8:00 pm ET.
• The biggest spike each day occurs at 3:00 pm ET.
• Wednesday at 3:00 pm ET is generally the busiest period of the week for Facebook usage.
• Sundays are the least busiest period for users.

So, when is the best time to post? The study said that morning posts tend to garner more user engagement, and posts during the first quarter of each hour, or the last quarter of each hour, see the most interaction.

However, the caveat to this study is that these are generalizations and may not necessarily be true for your customers. Do your own mini-study by posting at the peak times listed and see when you get the most interaction.

A recent article on BusinessWeek.com discusses a study on consumer behavior and offers some great tips on how retailers can better sell new and/or innovative products to customers by understanding what type of buyer they are. Keep these tips in mind when doing your marketing, as they will help you recognize which type of consumer you are aiming for with your message.

Here are some of the suggestions:

For venturesome customers (3 percent) or those that want the latest and greatest of a product-type, regardless of price or remaining issues with the product, the best way to sell to them is to show them the most surprising aspects of the product.

For early adopters (13 percent) that buy because they want a taste of where fashion or technology is going, the best way to sell to them is to explain why your product is a sign of where things are going in the future.

The early majority of buyers (34 percent) tend to buy a new item once it’s been proven to meet the needs of other, earlier buyers. To these shoppers, reliability is key and it’s best to highlight your store’s good reputation and the reputation of the product’s brand name.

The late majority of buyers (34 percent) tends to be more skeptical and will wait to buy until many others have purchased and used the product. For these customers, the best message is to tell them about your satisfaction guarantee and encourage them to try the product before they buy it.

Tradition-tied buyers (16 percent) avoid buying any new products until they have to replace their tried and true items. You are not likely to be able to sell them on purchasing your latest and greatest products. But they can be useful if you listen to their objections and consider them when selling to other categories of customers.

Read the full article at BusinessWeek.com

Happy selling!

Earlier this week I got an email from Twitter that served as a good reminder about the types of people and groups to follow, as well as a friendly nudge for those of us who've been lax on posting new tweets. I thought I’d re-hash it for you and put my own spin on the suggestions.

Follow your interests
Twitter suggests that those who get the most use out of Twitter follow their interests (both personal and professional) and a wide variety of tweets. Think about your profession, your hobbies, local interests and people or organizations you admire. Also, the wider the variety of interests you follow, the more fodder you have for your own tweets, blog posts and marketing ideas.

Get specific
Think about using Twitter to keep up with specific people and interests. Twitter’s email gives the example that if you love food, follow chefs, restaurants, critics, bloggers, etc. You could also apply this suggestion to your business. For example, if your store sells jewelry, you could follow designers, fashion magazines, writers, trend watchers, etc. Think of Twitter as a great way to stay on the forefront of what’s going on with your specific interests.

Twitter’s growing
The Twitter email points out that there are about 200 million active accounts on Twitter and there are plenty of interesting people, organizations and tweets to be enjoyed. So, if you haven’t been as active on Twitter lately, now’s a great time to check it out again and reconnect with your followers… and follow some new tweeters.

Happy tweeting!

I got this great email promotion from Metro Home Style, a retailer in Syracuse, NY. I think it is such a creative promotion to have coffee and a chocolate sampling together. Plus it’s a great promotion to encourage Valentine’s Day sales over a period of weeks.

And Metro Home Style goes the extra mile with this promotion by offering free gift wrapping. Brilliant!

With Valentine’s Day approaching I must have jewelry on the brain, because when I saw this one-of-a-kind glass and clay bead jewelry line, I fell in love. As a mom, I also love the story behind the business… it was founded by a mom inspired by the jewelry-making hobby she shares with her daughter. (They also make adorable bottle stoppers.)

Check it out at clubcreativestudio.com!

Recently I was speaking (actually it was more listening) to a long-retired, successful retailer who has since passed away. He had a furniture store and rug market and was successful enough that it allowed him to retire at the young age of 55 and spend more time with his family. He’d been retired for 41 years! When we last spoke we talked about his business and how the way people do business has changed over the years. He told me stories that were lessons in how we all need to keep in mind those old-fashioned ways of doing business, which ultimately will lead to success both in business and in life.

Here’s what I learned from him that impacted me the most:

Support, encourage, and teach employees. My friend told me a story of a young man that worked for him that would always complain that he didn’t get to go out on furniture deliveries and was stuck in the store. My friend explained to him that it was because he was his best employee and wanted him close by because he knew the most about the store and its inventory. To this day, more than 40 years later, that boy (who’s now a man and a retail store owner himself) says that my friend was more of a father to him than his own father and because of his interest in him it gave him a career for life. What a legacy!

Include your family. From the time my friend’s kids were young they worked in the store. As a business owner (and workaholic), it was a great way for him to spend time with them and teach them the value of hard work. All of his children value those experiences to this day. Family has always been a big part of our company and kept us close, so even though our culture often warns against doing business with family, I highly value having a family business.

Listen to that small voice. My friend told me that his mother taught him when he was a child that we all possess a moral compass. She said that it’s a small voice you hear when there’s a decision to be made, and if you listen to it you will always do the right thing. He practiced his business with integrity and lived his life listening to that small voice. It’s a great reminder that in all things, especially business, one should act with integrity.