Marketing a small grocery store is tough. Family-owned grocery stores have to compete with larger, corporate-run stores that have higher advertising budgets and lower prices.
For many family-run and specialty grocery stores, the old reliable marketing tactics aren’t working — to stand out, you need to take a different approach.
It’s not all bad news. Great marketing doesn’t require a ton of money or know-how to do well. You just need to take advantage of a few basic tools on your point of sale (POS) system and be consistent.
Let’s dive in.
There’s an old saying: “Fail to plan, plan to fail.”
If you want to boost sales and bring in new customers, a solid marketing plan is a must — but many store owners don’t know where to start.
The answer is simple: Start with your goals. What are you trying to improve about your business in the short and long term?
Focus primarily on measurable goals. For example:
In other words, don’t just try random marketing ideas and hope they work. Setting clear goals lets you use the reporting tools on your POS system to see which of your marketing strategies worked (and which didn’t).
Over time, you’ll instinctively have a feel for which marketing tactics will help you achieve different goals.
One last piece of advice: Tie your goals to your unique selling points. You can’t compete with big-box stores on price alone. Instead, focus on the products, departments, and services you offer that customers can’t find anywhere else.
After you’ve listed your goals, it’s time to figure out how to turn them into a reality.
Here are seven marketing ideas for your small grocery store, and some advice on ensuring they’re a success.
Many people choose a family-owned grocery store because of their close connection with local farms and suppliers — your produce section is a prime spot to hype up your local advantage.
Create signs and standing displays that highlight local and seasonal fruits and vegetables. Use your state colors or the name of the farm to give each item more personality.
Seasonal produce is not only fresher, it’s usually cheaper. That makes it perfect for both budget-conscious and quality-focused shoppers.
Use your social media and newsletter to periodically talk about your locally-sourced items. Include pictures of your local produce on display, link to the farms, post suggested recipes, or write information about your suppliers.
The produce section is usually the first thing a customer sees when they enter your store — so, don’t miss your chance to show off your freshness and variety.
Success Story: How Market Al Frasca Transitioned from Restaurant to Market
Many customers come into your store with a set shopping list — but an attractive standing display might be just the thing to tempt them to go off script and try something new.
Set up small standing displays to upsell customers and highlight the items your store is most known for. Standing displays are also great for putting any slow-moving or soon-to-expire inventory front and center.
A good standing display isn’t just about what you’re selling, but where it’s placed.
Use your POS system to do some basket analysis to see which items are frequently bought together. For example, say you find people tend to buy olives and pickles together with your cheese. In that case, set up a small standing shelf full of your bestselling pickled items to encourage cross-selling in your dairy section.
A display can also be inspiring, a place to show off your expertise and give people cooking ideas. Put dips and healthy snack items in the produce section, hot meals next to complementary sides, or recipe ideas around key ingredients (along with a printed recipe/shopping list).
Seasonal swings are one of the biggest challenges grocers face — but they can also be one of your biggest strengths.
Small groceries don’t have to follow strict rules from a corporate office, giving you more flexibility to be creative with your seasonal promotions.
Create marketing campaigns around big holidays like Mother’s Day, Thanksgiving, the Fourth of July, and New Year's. If you manage an international market, run special sales for cultural holidays, providing customers a fun chance to introduce your community to new flavors.
Don’t forget to run special promotions for local neighborhood events, too — anything from a big high school football game to a local art mart is a potential opportunity to build connections and reach new customers.
As you plan seasonal promotions, base sale items on what sells the best at that time of year. Use your inventory management software to spot seasonal trends and understand how your customers’ tastes shift throughout the year.
Related Read: How To Forecast Inventory: A Quick Guide for Grocers
Marketing isn’t just about letting customers know about sales and driving revenue — it’s about putting a human face on your business and connecting directly with your customers.
This is where email and social media shine. Research shows that promises of low prices and short-term promotions are less likely to bring people into your store when discount brands like Walmart and Costco already exist.
In other words, don’t focus too much on deals when writing your newsletter or posting to social media.
An example of how a local market in Colorado emphasizes community over prices.
Instead, try to:
That’s not to say you should never share any sort of discounts or promotions. Just don’t expect them to be the main reason people visit your store. Instead, share a list of current deals in your newsletter or website that people can look up as they shop.
Related Read: Content Marketing for Small Business: 4 Practical Strategies
Many marketing efforts focus on bringing in new customers, but you should spend a large chunk of your budget on customer retention. Why? Repeat customers spend more than new customers — up to 67% more!
One of the easiest ways to turn one-time visitors into repeat customers is to set up a loyalty program. A well-managed loyalty program keeps your store at the top of customers’ minds, gives you an easy way to connect with them, and ultimately helps build brand loyalty.
With modern POS systems, customers can sign up for your loyalty program right at checkout, and you can manage it directly from your back office.
However, a loyalty program isn’t a guaranteed success. Here are some tips to get the most out of your loyalty program:
All of these benefits are great, but they’re not even the best thing about a loyalty program. Once customers sign up for a loyalty program, you can start to track their purchase history. This gives you a detailed look at the types of products your most loyal customers are interested in.
This information is incredibly valuable for narrowing down your product selection and creating winning promotional strategies.
Even if you do most of your business in person, most people will still find out about your business for the first time online.
A strong online presence is a must — but don’t worry, you won’t need to hire an IT expert or learn the ins and outs of digital marketing to make one. You just need to stay on top of a few basics:
All of your various online storefronts should point back to one another. In other words, make sure your website includes links to follow your social media, and that your social media links back to your website (and your Google Business Profile links to both).
While coupons, low-price offers, and other discounts might not be the reason people choose to visit your store, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use them.
Limited-run sales are still a great tool to turn a profit on short-dated inventory, introduce new products, and encourage impulse buys.
The goal of a great limited-time sale is to capture people’s attention once they’re in the store, so draw people towards current sales with attractive signage. Also, configure your discounts in advance in your grocery management software, so they apply automatically at checkout.
Don’t just run discounts randomly, either. Have a goal for each one so you can measure how effective they are. For example:
Remember: Don’t emphasize low prices for items that customers can get at a regular supermarket. Plan your sales around your most unique items to pique your customers’ curiosity and make them excited to come back.
It’s impossible to give marketing advice that will work for every grocery store, because every store is different.
You know better than us what makes your store special. Regardless of what marketing ideas from this post you try, always try to keep those unique selling points in mind.
But there is one thing that all successful marketing strategies share — the right technology. Even the best small grocery marketing ideas will fall apart if it’s hard to ring up discounts, impossible to track customer sales data, or difficult to spot seasonal trends and bestsellers.
At POS Nation, we’re all about supporting the small businesses on Main Street with the specialized tools they need to find long-term success.
Thinking of upgrading your grocery store POS system? Try out our Build and Price tool to handpick the features and hardware that are most useful for your business.