Tip 1: Host a Super Bowl Widows Party
I’m on the road again and this time I have the privilege of speaking at the New York International Gift Fair in New York City today. I’m hosting a seminar on Guerilla Marketing Strategies for Expanding your Customer Base. I’ll be presenting a slew of innovative, inexpensive marketing tactics to kick-start your marketing and store sales this year.

Here’s a sneak peek of one of the ideas I’m presenting.

Consider hosting themed events in your store. Now is the perfect time to plan a Super Bowl Widows Party and invite all of your customers that do not plan to be glued to the television on Sunday, February 6, to join you at the store for a shopping party with special deals, food, drinks, games and prizes. You can send a press release or call your local newspapers (even radio and television outlets), which may get you some free advertising for your event. Market the event to your customer base with an email invitation. Have some fun and get the cash register ringing!

Stay tuned for more sneak peeks of my guerilla marketing strategies.

The majority of commercial emails go straight to the trash without being opened. This means that the average email is being judged solely on the subject line of the message (before being opened) and/or getting sent to the trash automatically.

MailChimp.com conducted a study, sending out 40 million emails with various subject lines to see which got opened and which got ignored. The results were surprising.

With an open rate of 60-87%, the most successful subject lines were:

1. [COMPANYNAME] Sales & Marketing Newsletter
2. Eye on the [COMPANYNAME] Update (Oct 31 – Nov 4)
3. [COMPANYNAME] Staff Shirts & Photos
4. [COMPANYNAME] May 2005 News Bulletin!
5. [COMPANYNAME] Newsletter – February 2006

With an opening rate of 1-14%, the least successful subject lines were:

1. Last Minute Gift – We Have The Answer
2. Valentines – Shop Early & Save 10%
3. Give a Gift Certificate this Holiday
4. Valentine's Day Salon and Spa Specials!
5. Gift Certificates – Easy & Elegant Giving – Let Them Choose

You’ll notice that the “successful” subject lines are extremely straightforward. They’re not pushy or aggressive in any way—in fact, they’re almost boring. Alternatively, the least successful subject lines are all about selling and read like a newspaper advertisement. While these subject lines may be more “creative” than the straightforward ones, they also look like spam to the recipient, and are therefore extremely likely to end up in the trash.

However, not all emails advertising promotions will be trashed. It’s important to think about your audience. If it’s people who signed up to receive promotional and sales information, go ahead and send them the catchy tagline because that’s what they’ll be looking for.

MailChimp.com’s study showed that some of the more “creative” subject lines also boasted some high opening rates—mainly because people were expecting it. However, if your email list is comprised of people who signed up for a company newsletter, rather than advertisements, they aren’t going to be happy receiving your hard-sell, promotional emails.

The most important tip is to make sure your subject line matches what it contains. Don’t confuse newsletters with promotions. Be straightforward, and most importantly, don’t write your subject lines like you’re writing an advertisement.

When it comes to email marketing, the best subject lines tell what's inside, and the worst subject lines sell what's inside.

Research has shown that people tend to breakdown their email into five levels of viewing. As readers go deeper into the process, your chances increase that they will read your entire message.

Here's an overview of the five stages:

Stage 1: From the Name
During this stage viewers determine if they want to initially read your email based on your store/brand name

Stage 2: From the Subject Line
The next test is whether or not your subject line captures their attention

Stage 3: Preview Pane
If you have made it past the subject line then they will look down at the email while it's in preview mode and quickly scan it.

Stage 4: Opened Email
If you made it past the scan test, then readers will click open your email and read it "above the fold line," which means the portion of the email that fits on their screen.

Stage 5: View Full View Email
Lastly, readers will read your entire email. The best scenario is if you have a strong call to action and they click through to the website from your email or if they print it out to bring to your store.

Stay tuned for more tips on how to design and write copy for each stage of viewing. For additional email marketing and web strategies, attend my two sessions at the NY Gift Show tomorrow!

I do a lot of speaking all over the world to educate retailers, so I just uploaded my first professional video clip to YouTube. I thought it would be a good marketing tool in YouTube and on my website, so we've embedded the video on the homepage of PatriciaNorins.com. Plus, we've also added video testimonials to our tradeshow site.

It got me thinking about the many creative ways you can use YouTube to promote your store, so here are a few to get you started:

1. Interview some of your customers to get reviews of a product they've bought in the past. I just read a study that reported customer reviews can up web sales of a particular product by as much as 30%.

2. Feature a new product of the month that you profile and talk about in a two minute video. Make sure to link to your video in your enewsletter—and embed the video on the page of your site that lists the product.

3. Make a short design video. Show your customers how to set the perfect holiday table, how to accessorize their fireplace mantle or how to hang pictures to create a gallery effect on their wall. This will position you as not only a resource for gifts and home decor, but also as an expert who is willing to give advice to customers who are in need of a few tips.

4. Ask your customers why they love shopping in your store. (They keep coming back, there must be a good reason!)

5. Show a "before" and "after" display of your windows or a section of the store. Use the opportunity to talk about the products you've placed.

Have you made a YouTube video for your store? Post a link so we can see it!

This year I spoke to retailers across the country about one of my favorite topics—email marketing. In the sessions I teach, I always suggest that retailers sign up to get on the email mailing list of at least 20 retailers (from small to big retailers) so you can start an idea book of what the competition is doing. It's easy to signup—most retailers have an enewsletter signup prominently displayed on their store website—I'm on at least 100 different lists (which is very helpful!).

As the holiday season gets underway, it is imperative that you keep the momentum going with your email marketing. I know it's easy to get so busy with store operations that it falls to the bottom of your to do list, but with other retailers aggressively emailing this holiday season, you MUST continue to give your customers reminders and reasons to visit your store!

By now you've seen (and heard) about the thousands of retailers who are successfully using Facebook to create an online community for their store, build a list of followers and fans and most importantly, drive store and web traffic and sales.

So if you're not on Facebook yet, you should be. According to Clara Shih, author of the Facebook Era, 300 million people are Facebook, and there are 1.4 million Facebook pages (with that number rapidly growing every day). Shih says, "Facebook is increasingly where your audience is for a lot of products and services."

Even if you don't have a website yet, which is one of the biggest objections I hear from retailers, this is a great way to get started.

Ready to try? Follow these (basic!) steps:

1. Set up a Facebook Page (which is different from an individual profile page—you must have a profile on FB to create pages) using your store name. Make sure it's spelled correctly and what you want—once you create a page and give it a name, you can't change it!

2. Fill out all the pertinent information—store websites, hours, directions, etc. And upload good store photos—a blank Facebook page won't attract fans.

3. In the beginning, invite friends and family to become your fans so you will start to build your list. From a marketing perspective, it looks better when people go there and you already have fans (it creates the herd mentality).

4. Start promoting your Facebook page to your existing customers through every marketing channel you have: email newsletters, direct mail, business cards, your website and signage in your store.

5. Offer monthly promotions, drawings or giveaways to incentivize your customers to sign-up.

6. Make sure you're posting messages on your site that aren't sales-y. You want to entertain, give them a sense of community and be interesting. New store promotions, new products and new sales staff are also good updates.

7. Think about using Facebook's new advertising campaign program to attract more fans and traffic to your store. You can target geographically, by gender, by age, etc., and any time someone says "gift" on Facebook who you've targeted, they'll see your ad. It's a very pointed way to market to potential customers right in your area.

8. Just like any marketing initiative, it's helpful if you map out your goals to use them as a foundation for the content you post, the ways you promote your Facebook page and a way to measure success.

Have you done any innovative promotions to draw more fans to your page? Let us know about it.

Two recent promotions I've received via email.

Every time I see a gift shop or retail cart written up in the paper, I go check the retailer's website to see if they've acknowledged it (a blog mention, a note on their homepage or even a Twitter tweet). If they haven't, I'm always a little disappointed. While the publicity might help you find new customers, it's a missed opportunity to not let your regular customers know about it.

Promoting your publicity (either online or in your store) gives you credibility, plus it's a great reminder of why your customers love shopping with you and it'll inspire customers to return to the store for another visit—oh, and it's FREE advertising.

Here are four creative things you can do to let your customers know about your publicity:

• Blog about it—write a blog post outlining the experience of being interviewed and what topics the reporter asked you about—and be sure to include a link the article.

• Frame the article and put it up in your store—your customers will enjoy seeing the article and it's a great conversation piece (for the first month, be sure to set it close to the register on an easel).

• Write about it in your store print or email newsletter—your store newsletter is a perfect place to write up your experience of being interviewed (if it's online, make sure you include a link).

• Post on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook—the goal is to get as many people as possible to read the article, and those platforms are free and pervasive.

And now to toot my own horn… be sure to check out the article our local paper just published about Pinnacle Publishing Group.

I just gave a seminar at last week's New York Gift Show on email marketing, and one of the sub-topics I covered is the importance of having a strong website for your store.

While a basic website is a step in the right direction, I encourage you to have as much quality content on your website as possible. With quality content, you'll come up higher when potential customers search for a product or gift shop in your local market or if a potential buyer is doing a nationwide search for a product that you mention frequently. Plus, your email marketing will be more effective if your website is robust and reflective of your physical store, and your regular customers will visit your site often if there is a good reason to go there.

Here are three ideas for generating more content on your website:

1. Write a store blog—a blog is not just a great way to connect with your customers. As you write about the new products you've ordered for your store, the special events you're doing and all the exciting things that are happening, you're filling your website with great quality content. I recommend WordPress as a great blogging platform (plus it's open source, hence free). Be sure you install the software on your site—if you use something like Blogspot.com, you lose all the wonderful traffic you'd get if you used YourStoreWebsite.com/blog.

2. Post information about store events and promotions—your website is a fantastic marketing tool to promote all of your store events.

3. Post pictures and descriptions for all the different products you sell and the types of departments you have in your store. Make sure your images are not larger than 72 DPI, and that your text runs as HTML (images do nothing for SEO).

Once you make an investment in your website (and the costs have gone way down for the total investment needed to get a good site going), it will help you increase your store traffic and sales.

Is your store blog working to help you drive more traffic and sales? If so, I'd love to hear about it.

By now I hope you're using email marketing as an effective way to promote special sales and events in your store, notify customers about new product arrivals and encourage them to shop at your store website.

Be sure you remember the rules as you send out your email marketing messages, you don't want to get blacklisted—

1. Don't use false or misleading header information ("From," "To" and routing information—including the originating domain name and email address—must be accurate and identify the person who initiated the email).
2. Don't use deceptive subject lines.
3. Give recipients an easy, one-click opt-out method.
4. Include your valid physical postal address.
5. Only send emails to recipients who have opted-in—or who have asked to receive your information personally.

I'll be speaking about email marketing this weekend at the San Francisco Gift Show in my presentation about retail innovation, and in two weeks at the New York Gift Show at a session dedicated to creative email marketing strategies.

I hope to see some of you there!

I was reading an interesting study conducted by MailChimp.com (an email marketing company) where they analyzed over 40 million emails and identified the subject lines with the highest open rates (60%-87%). Here are three interesting observations I made from the study:

1. The subject line should describe the subject of your email—don't try to disguise the message you're sending. Don't confuse enewsletters with promotions or vice versa—the best subject lines tell the readers what's inside.

2. Use your company name in the subject line—of the top 20 emails (in terms of open rates), 18 of them used the company name in the headline. People will open an email from a company they trust and/or want to receive more information from.

3. The "best" subject lines are straightforward—they aren't too "salesy" or pushy. Stay away from subject lines that read like an advertisement. Unless, your subscribers opted-in to receive "special offers and promotions" from your company. Then there would be nothing wrong with saying "A special coupon" or "offer" inside. (Be sure you watch out for those spam trigger words.)

If you're interested in learning more about best practices and what works in email marketing, I hope you can join me at the New York Gift Show on Monday, August 17th, at my session, "Create Your Own Strong Economy: Use Email Marketing to Power Your Sales." Click here to register for the session.