Pin It

In an effort to expand our social media presence, we've started a Pinterest account for Downtown Middletown as well. You can follow us easily, by clicking the Pinterest Follow Me button below, or if you'd like access to Pin things to our boards, please email Sharon Butler to request adding you or your business to our account.

We also have a presence on Facebook, Twitter and obviously Blogger for you and your customers to explore. 

Start following us and letting us know what we can post for you on Pinterest today!

Upside Downtown

Starting a blog can be a great way to attract more attention, create a relationship with potential customers and lend a sense of personality to your business. At the DBD, we thought having our own blog highlighting special things about Main Street businesses in Middletown, might be a good way to pique the interest of people who otherwise might be missing the great services and products you are offering.
Each week, we'd like to feature something unique about Main Street. Whether its an event or a cupcake flavor, a candle scent or a dance class, we'd like to highlight the things that make Middletown's Main Street a great place to visit. If you have something you'd like us to feature, let us know. Otherwise, we'll be calling you to see what we can come up with.
After the post appears on the blog, we'll do our best to feature it on other social media including facebook, twitter, and elsewhere to bring further attention to your services and products, and the blog.
For now, visit us at downtownmiddletown.blogspot.com. The look and feel is still under construction, but we just couldn't wait to get the ball rolling.

The Early Days of Christmas: All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go

Copied from Doug Fleener's, "The Weekly Retail Experience" 

The week or two after Black Friday are always interesting. It's like being all dressed up with nowhere to go. You're ready for the rush. Some days there are flurries of activity, but other days there's not as much going on.

If you're going to get all dressed up, you might as well have somewhere to go! Here are some tips and reminders for maximizing these early days of Christmas:

1. Aim for an aggressive average daily sale. These early days are almost a perfect storm for raising your ADS. Customers are spending money, and you have more time to spend with customers. Get your team focused on ADS for the next two weeks. Run some daily or weekly contests to reward your staff for achieving a high ADS.

2. Events, events, and more events NOW. The key to beating your early holiday goals is creating incremental traffic. Too many retailers think they don't have time to do events during the holidays. That may be true after around December 10, but right now we're dressed up so we might as well entertain! (Read more on holiday events here.)

3. Offer appointment selling. This week and next, can offer your VIPs some precious one-on-one time in the store, perhaps even an opportunity to shop before or after the store is open. It's worth calling your top customers and offering them this option.

4. Host a retail employee appreciation event. What would be the impact on your business if employees in other stores in your mall or downtown referred business to you this holiday? It can happen if you host a retail employee appreciation event. Here's how.

Pick two or three days to host an "event" that celebrates and recognizes retail employees during the holidays. The employees stop by to pick up a small goodie bag that might include a $5 Starbucks card, a few coupons for your store they can give to family and friends, and an entry into a drawing for $250 or maybe even $500. It has to be high enough to motivate people to come in.

Promote the event by taking flyers around to all of the stores. You might limit the goodie bags to the first 100 or so people, but any retail employee can register for the drawing. Capture each person's email address so you can announce the winner.

Be sure to follow-up with both the announcement of the winner and to remind people about the coupons they can share with others. Believe me, this will create a buzz and result in additional business. You might even be able to get some press out of it.

So let me ask, what will you do to maximize these early days of Christmas?

Doug

Calendar Coverage

The Middletown DBD wants to help you succeed. We want to help you get more attention for your specials and events. 

Each week, we scour the news, arts and community calendars, facebook and websites to discover what you’re planning and help draw you more attention to your business and our downtown as a whole. However, it’s nearly impossible to find out all the amazing things happening in Downtown Middletown. 

If you would like to be featured on Downtown Middletown’s website, facebook page, twitter or elsewhere, please contact Sharon Butler with a listing of the events you’d like published. While we still may not be able to publish all the events, we will do our best to get you more coverage than you’d otherwise have.

Help Wanted?

The Middletown DBD is here to serve in so many ways. One more way we can help you do business better is by posting your job openings on our web site. If you have any open positions for staff or are in need of interns, please send Sharon Butler the job description and contact information so we can include that for you.

We also may be able to help connect you with students from local colleges who are seeking internships. 

Let us know how we can help you! To see our job listings online, visit the Downtown Employment page on the Downtown Middletown web site.