7 Fabric Store Marketing Ideas To Attract More Customers

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Fabric store marketing is all about building community.

For your fabric store to be successful, you need to get customers into the habit of coming into your store and making purchases repeatedly — which means you need quilt and sewing enthusiasts to love your products, get to know you and your employees, and feel at home in your store.

Strategic marketing speeds up this process. By using a variety of marketing channels, you can get the word out about your business, find your ideal customers, and build a loyal community.

In this blog, we offer seven fabric store marketing ideas to help you attract customers and build a community that continually supports your store.

1. In-Store and Community Events

Building relationships with members of your community is a vital part of marketing a small fabric store — and a great way to build these relationships is to attend and host events.

Hosting in-store events gets potential customers in your shop and allows them to see the products you offer — you might try hosting lessons on various sewing and quilting skills. If you’re proficient in these skills, you can teach them yourself, or you can bring in a guest instructor. If the guest has a following, this may improve the turnout of the class. In-store events can be a lot of work, but they’re a great way to publicize your business.

You can also host free work sessions at your fabric store, and provide space and tools local quilters can use. This way, they can create relationships at your store and will be more likely to purchase the supplies they need from you. Such events increase the feeling of community at your store.

Attend events in the community like farmers markets and carnivals, too. Set up a booth and put your best fabrics and supplies on display. Talk to as many people as you can, sharing information about your products and your store — and learn from them. This will create greater awareness of and interest in your store throughout the community.

2. Website Development & SEO

A solid website is essential to your fabric store’s success. Potential customers need to see where your business is located and what your hours are. Customers also want to be able to look at your products and get a sense of what your store is like before visiting in person Use photos from your store and create a website that accurately represents your business.

Your website should be visually appealing and easy to navigate. Using a consistent logo and color scheme in store and on the web creates brand unity that makes your store instantly recognizable.

Your website also needs to be optimized for search engines. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of using commonly searched keywords to make a webpage appear more often and closer to the top in search results. Research the top keywords in your industry and include those keywords on your site. This helps customers stumble upon your site and learn about your business.

3. Social Media Presence

Creating social media accounts can help you reach a much wider audience — but before you do, consider your audience and which platforms they use. A recent Quilting in America survey found the average age of a quilter to be 63. Given this data, it makes more sense to use Facebook, which has an older audience, as opposed to a platform geared toward a younger audience, like TikTok.

Once you’ve determined which platform or platforms to use, you need to post great content.

Here are a few ideas for posts:

Photos of your store
Photos of your products
Projects that customers have completed using your fabrics
Special occasions like holidays
New product offerings
Sales and discounts
Store events
Community events you plan to attend

Create posts that inform users, spark their interest, and motivate them to visit your fabric store.

4. Customer Loyalty Program

When you market your fabric store, you’re trying to build a community of people who depend on your store for their fabric and quilting needs. Implementing a loyalty program will strengthen this community by encouraging customers to make repeat purchases and spend more time at your store.

Loyalty programs reward customers who make frequent purchases. These rewards may come in the form of free or discounted products, exclusive items, free shipping, or other rewards. These rewards are proportional to a customer’s purchases.

Loyalty programs are most successful when they’re easy to use and offer significant rewards. If your loyalty program is too complicated, a customer won’t know how close they are to their next reward and may lose interest. These programs typically use dollar amounts or point amounts, with a certain number of dollars or points earning them a reward. This kind of system keeps things simple for the customer.

Your loyalty program needs meaningful rewards to keep customers interested. Offer a significant discount or a valuable product to keep your customer looking forward to their next reward.

5. Email Marketing Campaigns

Email campaigns help you develop a relationship with your customers and keep your fabric store top-of-mind for them. Build your customer email list by taking a customer’s email at the time of purchase or when they sign up for a loyalty program.

Use email marketing campaigns to let customers know about new product offerings, special discounts, and other store updates. Go the extra mile by personalizing emails — you could send a customer a special deal on their birthday, or send them a coupon shortly after a purchase. Here’s a tip: Look for a comprehensive point of sale (POS) system to automate this process.

6. In-Store Strategies

Your fabric store’s layout has a significant impact on your customers’ shopping experience and on sales. Your store should be easy to navigate, with plenty of space for multiple shoppers to browse the same aisle. Try to make different kinds of fabrics visible from across the room, so customers can easily find what they’re looking for.

To make the exterior of your fabric store more interesting, create window displays. Display new or seasonal items to catch the eyes of passersby and give potential customers a sense of what your store is like. If people can see your products from outside your store, they’ll be more confident in walking in.

To successfully build a community around your fabric store, you need to provide excellent customer service and train your employees to do the same. Answer all questions to the best of your ability and show an interest in the projects your customers are working on. This will help you connect with customers and make your fabric store somewhere people want to be.

7. Partnerships

Partnering with organizations and individuals can widen your audience and increase brand awareness. These partnerships are mutually beneficial and allow you to promote another organization as they promote you. Choose to partner with organizations that have similar values to your own to maintain brand consistency. As a fabric store owner, you could partner with a local crafter, for example.

You may choose to partner with social media influencers. Influencers have large amounts of followers, promote products and services, and influence their followers’ behavior. Look for influencers who promote similar products to your own, like home products. If your audiences are similar, the influencer’s audience is more likely to be interested in your product.

Develop a Customized Fabric Store Marketing Strategy With Like Sew

There are a variety of channels you can use to market your fabric store, and some will be more effective than others. Because your fabric store is unique, it deserves a unique marketing strategy.

Test the effectiveness of various channels and find the ones that yield the greatest results over time for your business. Increase your efforts in these channels and draw back on the ones that consistently fall short. In time, you’ll develop a customized marketing strategy that takes your fabric store to the next level.

Remember: Using a sophisticated POS system gives you a significant advantage as you engage in fabric store marketing. Like Sew is an all-in-one, cloud-based POS system that facilitates easy payment processing and inventory management. It also offers a variety of marketing features like website development, email campaigns, loyalty program features, and more.

To learn more, schedule a demo today!