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Awareness Marketing / Ideas To Market For A Flea Market

by justmerob
3 replies
Good morning fellow offliners,

I have a project that I want to undertake that involves a flea market in my town. This place has been in the area for over 4 years now and still we hear from new, local customers "Wow, I didn't even know this place was here." The problem is, these people live around the corner, or 4 - 5 blocks away and NEVER knew that the market existed!

So the question of the day is, how to best market this place?

-Here are my thoughts:

1. Direct mailings - The market is located inside a plaza that has 4 - 5 other businesses that I know advertise. So the thought is to do a mailing for the entire plaza (split the cost between them all) and saturate the local area with one of Bob's 9x12 postcards. Do this each month to say, 2500 - 5000 homes and just keep it up for as long as we can. At cost, this would only run each business around $152 to be on this mailer, so I don't think it's that bad of a deal. Of course I would mark it up a hair just to make something for myself.

2. Get the market a better online presence. The do currently have a website (not much traffic), but it's not been pushed like it could be. They have no G+ place, barely have a FB presence, nothing on Twitter (not sure if this is good or not, meaning Twitter for a flea market), and doing a PR each month with new events happening at the market.

3. A BIG LED SIGN - To explain, this market has a HUGE sign that is sitting on the side of a major interstate that thousands pass each and every day. While it's there for everyone in the plaza to be on, the market is the main thing they advertise on it. So what to put up here to get people in? (LIMITATIONS: This sign was bought years ago, so no flashy colors or pictures, just 2 lines, each line can be 19 spaces total. So short and sweet basically. Right now we have up there things like "FLEA MARKET OPEN NOW" and "FLEA MARKET 9-5" and such. I have thought about putting up there "STOP BEING SO CHEAP, AND SHOP THE MARKET TODAY!" or "WE'RE FREAKING HERE!!!"

So all joking aside, any ideas on how to better get awareness out about this place?

*I did search through WF here and didn't see much on flea markets, so thought I would ask the experts

Thanks for any advise/help/ideas & sorry this is a long read Have a great day!
#awareness #flea #flea market #ideas #market #marketing
  • Profile picture of the author BarbaraGordon
    I think an ad in a local paper would be a good idea too
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  • Profile picture of the author Aaron Doud
    The direct mail piece using Bob's method seems like a great idea. It should help but plan to mail a few times. Get them to commit to a series of mailers (3 or 4) spread over a 3 to 6 month period. That should build brand awareness.

    The sign makes me curious. What do they normally show on it? And can you program it to change? Say 30 seconds of one message, 60 of another, etc etc
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    Aaron Doud - Sales & Success
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    • Profile picture of the author justmerob
      Consistency has been the killer for this market for a while now. They will do a ad in the paper for a few weeks and then not do it again for 6 months. So getting them to sign a "long term" deal is going to be key. So yes Barb, I am going to get them back into the papers Thanks!

      @Aaron - That's the idea I was going with as well. Get them to do this for 3 - 6 months and stagger the mailings around a bit. My city here has around 300,000 homes in it so I will surely not run out of homes to send this too.

      As for the sign on the highway, we (meaning the market owners & I) control the sign. So pretty much whatever we want to put up there we can do.

      A little background on the sign tho:

      It's supposed to be utilized by anyone in the plaza were we are located. Some of the businesses have opt'd out of this, so only 3 people are advertising on it currently.

      -City laws: The sign cannot flash, scroll, do flips or jump through hoops. Basically it can display a ad.... wait a minimum of 30 seconds... then change to the new ad... 30 more seconds min and change.

      --Currently on the sign are the 2 other business (they each have 2 - 3 spots each, giving them about 1 - 1 1/2 minutes exposure every 10 minutes. The remaining are about the market. A few times throughout the 10 minute cycle I have the address, directions, hours, etc. I do have about a 3 minute section that has the top line of: "Flea Market Finds" and then below lists a variety of items to be found here.

      Other than that, during holidays / bad weather, etc I will put up some witty sayings.

      So any ideas / thoughts would be great for this.

      Thanks again!

      Rob
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      "There are no magic wands, no hidden tricks, and no secret handshakes that can bring you immediate success, but with time, energy, and determination you can get there."
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