28 marketing ideas for your shop
Written for owners, not marketers: every idea is specific, free or nearly free, and most take under 30 minutes. Grouped by what you are trying to make happen.
More customers this month
Photograph the window and the rails
Add ten daylight photos to your Google Business Profile: the window from the pavement, the rails, three pieces styled, the fitting room, the front door. People decide whether a shop is 'for them' almost entirely from photos.
About 45 min
Ask at the counter, mark the sheet
Ask every customer how they found you and tally it by the till. A fortnight tells you whether Saturdays come from the street, Instagram or Google, and which one you're pouring time into for nothing.
About 0 min extra
Post the piece styled, with the sizes
Photograph one item properly in daylight, on a person if you can, and always say which sizes you have and what it costs. Shops lose more sales to an unanswered 'have you got a 14?' than to price.
About 20 min
Reply like a shopkeeper, not a brand
Answer every Google review from the last three months in your own words. An independent shop lives on feeling welcoming, and nothing signals that faster than a real reply to a real person.
About 30 min
Start the new-in list
Card at the till: 'we'll message you when new stock lands.' A list of locals who want first look is the cheapest way to sell a delivery in a week instead of over a whole season.
About 20 min
Sell the delivery the day it lands
Post new stock the day it arrives, not when you finally get round to styling it. First look is the whole appeal, and anything that sells in week one is stock you never have to discount later.
About 15 min
Read the tally and the sell-through
Look at where customers came from and which rail actually sold. Buy more of what went in week one, and stop reordering the thing that always ends up on the sale rail in February.
About 15 min
Fill my quiet days
Find the empty hours on the till
Pull last month's sales by day and hour. Independent shops are usually dead on weekday mornings. Name the exact window and point the whole week at it rather than at 'more footfall'.
About 15 min
Make the quiet hour a service, not a sale
Discounting a quiet morning just trains people to wait for the discount. Sell what only works when it's empty instead: a booked styling hour, a proper fitting appointment, a bring-your-wardrobe session, coffee and no pressure.
About 25 min
Invite the list first
The people on your new-in list already like you. Offer them the styling hour first, by name, before anyone else hears about it. A booked appointment beats a hoped-for browse.
About 25 min
Co-host the weekday morning
Ask a nearby non-competing business to share the quiet hour: the café next door doing the coffee, a jeweller bringing a tray, a local maker running a trunk show. Two customer lists, one morning, no spend.
About 30 min
Post the shop looking lovely and empty
Shoot the shop tidy and sunlit the evening before, with 'tomorrow morning, no queue, come and try things on properly'. Calm is a real selling point against a Saturday scrum.
About 20 min
Open up and ask
On the morning, ask every customer what got them through the door. You're testing whether it's the appointment, the calm or the coffee, and that decides what you offer next week.
About 0 min extra
Judge it on baskets, not bodies
Compare that window's takings and average basket with last week. A styling hour that brings three people who each buy properly beats twenty browsers. Keep the format, change the offer, hold the hours.
About 10 min
Want these as a day-by-day plan instead of a list? The free 7-day plan arranges them for your exact goal, no account needed.
Launch something new
Write the drop in one line
Finish this: 'it's [what], for [who], and it's worth it because [the one specific thing].' 'New in' is not a launch. 'The wool coat we sold out of last year, back in three colours' is.
About 20 min
Tease one detail and a date
Post a close-up (the fabric, the button, the print) with a day and no name. A drop with a date turns idle browsing into a diary entry.
About 15 min
Let the list shop first
Give your list and your best customers 24 hours' early access, in person or by message with a hold-and-collect. Being an insider is most of the reason anyone joins a small shop's list at all.
About 25 min
Reveal it styled, priced and sized
Launch post: your best daylight photo styled on a person, the one-liner, the price, the sizes in stock, and exactly how to buy: in the shop, by message, or click and collect.
About 30 min
Show it being worn
Post real customers wearing it, with permission, and the rail emptying. Nothing sells a small shop like seeing somebody local in the thing you're holding up.
About 15 min
Message everyone who asked about a size
Go back through the DMs where someone asked 'have you got this in a 12?' and tell them personally that it's in. That is the highest-converting message a shop can send and almost nobody sends it.
About 20 min
Count the sell-through in week one
How many of each size and colour went in seven days? That number tells you what to reorder now, at full price, while the season is still in front of you.
About 15 min
Get known locally
Be the same shop on every listing
Same name, photo, hours and phone on Google, Apple Maps, Instagram and Facebook. Then check the Sunday and bank-holiday hours: wrong hours on the one day someone plans a trip into town is expensive.
About 45 min
Pick what you want to be known for
Choose one thing (the brand nobody else stocks, the sizes you actually carry, the gift wrap, the honest styling advice) and put it in most of what you post. A shop known for one thing gets recommended by name.
About 15 min
Show the buying trips
Post how you choose: the trade show, the maker you visit, the thing you nearly bought and turned down. Curation is the one thing an independent sells that the internet can't, so show it happening.
About 25 min
Be a good neighbour online
In your town's community feeds, recommend other shops, answer questions, congratulate people, and never advertise. The independent who lifts the high street is the one people name when someone asks where to shop local.
About 20 min
Dress someone the town knows
Style a local face for a real occasion (the fundraiser host, a local band, the café owner's wedding) and post it with their name. Local proof beats reach every single time.
About 30 min
Make the bag and the window worth a photo
Spend an hour on the two things people actually photograph: the window and what they carry out. A bag with your name on it is a walking advert down the length of the high street.
About 25 min
Post to a rhythm you can keep
Three posts a week (one piece styled, one behind the scenes, one human) plus ten minutes a day replying to comments and tags. Six weeks of that makes you the shop people think of first.
About 20 min
Or stop doing this alone.
Kate, an AI CMO, and twelve specialists do all of the above for your shop: the posts written, the pictures planned, the numbers read. 14-day trial, card to start, cancel before it ends to avoid a charge.