There exists a different balance between early and too early when it comes to getting people interested.
With anything new you want people to be prepared for it, which will then make them more interested. Opening up a new business is one of the biggest things you’ll do, and you want your future customers to be excited about the prospect of it, and fully aware of when your business will be opened up.
To get this interest started you need to start your marketing early enough to get the first sparks of enthusiasm started. Something like custom greeting cards do well for the new business, and helps you to introduce yourself to them.
Create a card letting them know who you are and when you plan on opening up. Tell them when you’re going to be opening your doors and make sure they know about any store opening sales. This is a key feature in encouraging people to give you a shot. Always open your doors with a sale on the first few days, if not week, to give people a good reason to check you out.
Here is the risk though: people forget things rather fast. I’m not taking the time to write down what every single greeting card or postcard says. If a store mentions some big event, but the event isn’t for another month, odds are good I’m going to forget long before the store actually opens.
You need to be well aware of this, and know the two major ways of combating it. The first method goes off of the assumption that you don’t have very much money for your marketing. Get those custom greeting cards done, but wait until two weeks at most before you’re about to open your doors, and then get those cards out to people.
For this you really do need a great sale so people will be that much more likely to write the information down. Another tactic is to have a coupon on the card itself, encouraging people to keep the card, which will mean they’ll keep your information with them.
The second method deals with sending out multiple waves of greeting cards to people, and would be the preferred way to go, but it will cost more money. Send out your first custom greeting cards a month in advance, and then follow them up with another batch two weeks ahead of time, and a final one a week in advance. Now you can be certain that people will be more likely to remember your name, and you will have generated more interest from them by repeatedly targeting them.
No matter what you do just make sure you don’t end up getting your first wave of marketing material out there too soon. People aren’t always going to remember, so be sure you take that into consideration.
