Retail Selling Ideas

Businesses wanting to spread the buzz on new products and deals quickly are relying on real-time media to communicate. Joel Kramer, CEO of The Minneapolis Post, paints this picture: “Imagine a restaurant that can post its daily lunch special in the morning and then its dinner special in the afternoon. A sports team that can keep you up-to-date on its games and other team news. A store that could offer a coupon good only for today.” The Minneapolis Post is launching web content to host social media feeds from small businesses on its website.

Many local advertisers may not wish to pay for a large ad that will become quickly outdated. They may, however, jump on the idea of being able to post feeds on their community newspaper’s site which locals depend on for information. Here are some real-time communication ideas from The Minneapolis Post and AdBuilder.com:

Ad/Promotion Ideas:
• Seek out businesses that don’t advertise currently, have scaled back or could use the ability to update their ad anytime.
• Create a separate landing page on your publication’s website dedicated to real-time feeds.
• Encourage local businesses to re-post feeds from social media networks they already use, such as Twitter, Facebook, etc.
• Charge each business a low, weekly rate to post in real-time as often as they like. To prevent flooding, show only the latest post for each business.
• If your newspaper receives high traffic volume, create a mobile app allowing subscribers to view the latest RSS feeds from their companies.
• Use AdBuilder.com content to sell ad space on the page and assist small businesses in their campaigns without having to increase staff.

Share your experiences!
Have you tried real-time feeds on your website? Was it successful? Do you have any other ideas? Post them as a comment and let’s increase ad sales together.