Ronette Reynolds over at Barista Exchange recently posted this:

I’m currently working at a shop that was opened up a little less than a year ago.

It’s located in a golf resort that is also an upscale housing community.  This is the first winter, and with just the home-owners to bring in business at the moment, business has BOMBED.  We made a total of $35 in sales yesterday. This is completely opposite (or so I’ve been told, as I just started working) of the summertime sales, when resort guests are around.

Now, we are outside of a town of about 35,000 (maybe more), and located just off the main highway.  I’m wondering what kind of marketing strategies I should look into (I’ve been given the job to research) to get the winter business up and going.  What are some of your advertising musts? What about Facebook, Twitter, etc?  Do you hire outside of the company or do it yourself?

After reading her post and knowing from experience that many shops face dilemmas very similar to this one, I thought it would be nice to share a small list of ideas on how I would tackle this marketing problem if I were in the same situation (the theme is local, local, local):

*UPDATE*

Start-up a Customer Database! Too many small business owners just don’t do that, but there’s no excuse not to with so many options and price-points available. A free CRM is ZohoCRM, but there’s a good comparison at BusinessInsider.com. I personally use Act by Sage, Outlook & OneNote because those fit best into my work-flow on my tablet pc (which I LOVE).

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