One of the best things about being a member of the AMA is participating in the SIGS (special interest group email listservs) where you can ping 3000 of your best friends for some marketing advice. Today, someone asked the following question, to which I responded. Which got me thinking--it would really be fun to own a clothing store at some point. I love clothes, shoes, and stuff like that. Not so sure I like retail though...

We have a similar high-end single-store retail clothing store here in Green Bay. They do a couple of things very well.

1. They are diligent about collecting addresses and emails to do regular 'preferred customer' promotions. They could do even more if they did a "bring a friend and get an extra x% for yourself and pass your discount on to them" to make the promotions more impactful.

2. They provide clothing for the evening newscasters on one of the local TV stations, which, in turn, nets them a mention each and every night on the program.

3. They have a 'tent sale' every so often, which again draws on their loyal clients. We get postcards 3 weeks before the event telling us about a special pre-event sale..before the general public gets wind of it.

4. As the clothier of record for many of the movers & shakers in the Green Bay area, they've become an informal networking venue to learn more about what's going on with peers & other influentials in the area. If they were to take it further, they'd be more aggressive in playing 'master networker' & becoming purveyors of information, not just fine clothing.

I'd also recommend reading a couple of books that might fit the bill here. Creating Customer Evangelists by Ben McConnell & Jackie Huba - Your client likely has a good roster of high-end customers and it pays to turn these influencers into evangelists. Another is The Virtual Handshake by Scott Allen & David Teten. This might be something of interest if you consider your client to be a 'hive' for the network of clients that they have. IMHO, it's the books that aren't "about" retail that give you the best insights on what do to at retail...

"It would hardly be fish who discovered the existence of water" once wrote Kluckhohn.

If you were to look at their business as 'providing high quality clothing to the greater metro area', I think that there's some missed opportunity. However, if you were to elevate the purpose of their business to 'Ensuring the continued success of XYZ area professionals' (by making them 'look good' in the professional endeavors with quality clothing), then I think you could really have some fun with building their business.

Just some thoughts & observations.

[UPDATE: Maybe there's even room to add the 'social shopping experience' to this list.]