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When Houston Shoe
Hospital, Austin Shoe Hospital and Cobblestone
Shoe Hospital wanted to know how to make an
impression on consumers, they went right to the
source. They hired a company to ask customers
about their experiences with the shoe repair
stores.
The group has 27
shoe repair stores in Houston, Austin, Dallas
and San Antonio, Texas. They spend about
$400,000 each year advertising shoe repair in
those markets. Still, when consumers were asked
how they heard about the stores, the majority
answered by saying they saw the location when
they drove by. So the first thing these stores
are doing to attract new customers is improving
their signage.
“Our first
priority is to clean up our stores and make sure
we have the best signage we can,” says Steve
Kelly, president of Zapato Shoe Recrafters, the
factory that handles the repair work for the
stores. “We’re even looking at reader boards
that are computerized and allow us to change the
message. They’re very expensive, but they drive
customers into your stores.”
“The number one
way people located our stores was because of our
signage,” he continues. “So the best thing we
can do to generate new business is to create new
signage, whether it’s neon signs in our window
or pole signs. It’s clear to us that the
absolute, number one key to our locations is to
be visible to passing traffic.”
The shops are also
focusing on their stores’ appearance.
“Our second
priority is dressing up the people in our
stores,” Kelly says. “We don’t wear jeans on the
counter any longer. Everyone is in a button-down
shirt and wears an apron with their name on it.”
Kelly says he
wants the Shoe Hospital experience to be
pleasant for consumers. The public’s perception
of shoe repair is not what it should be. They
want to clean up their appearance and make each
visit a pleasant one that involves great service
and, of course, quality shoe repair.
“Those were the
key elements we gathered from the survey,” he
continues. “That’s where people saw us and
formed their opinions of us.”
Advertising
Tips
It’s clear that
there is a disconnect between shoe repair and
younger consumers. With the attrition of shoe
repair shops, it’s more important than ever to
have a voice in the market.
“We were taking
pictures in the factory for some new ads we’re
doing in Texas Monthly,” Kelly relates. “ One of
the women there exemplified our target customer
– very fashionable, professional, late 20s or
early 30s. She looked at the work and said,
‘Wow, you can do this?’ She was talking about
simple toplifts. She said she had just thrown
away 10 pairs of shoes because she had no idea
they could be fixed and she had loved every one
of them.”
As he mentioned,
Kelly’s stores have a sizable advertising budget
to reach these consumers. When asked what advice
he would pass along to other shoe repair shops,
he offered the following thoughts.
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Television
works best. In smaller markets (between
200,000 and 500,000 people), you can buy
spots very affordably. The television
stations will produce your ads for free.
Cable is a great avenue for advertising.
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Develop a web
site and use it in conjunction with your
ads. Today’s consumers are more inclined to
get their information from the Internet. We
put our web address (www.theshoehospital.com)
on everything, even our coupons.
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Coupons always
work well, but don’t limit your offer. In
the past, we’ve limited our offers to drive
what we were trying to sell. Now, we’re
offering 25 percent off whatever customers
want to do. We want to write tickets. We
believe if we can get the customers into our
stores, they’ll come back and visit us again
because we’ve done the things at the
counter, in the store and with the quality
of shoe repair.
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Billboards are
something we will never do again. We have
tried them a number of times and they
haven’t been successful.
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