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How to Write an Advertisement: Essential Steps for Pawn Shop Owners

Owning a pawn shop means you need to wear many hats. Not only are you running a business, but you’re also a bit of a banker in that you sometimes provide temporary loans to customers.

And you need to be a bit of a historian to help you determine the value of the varied items that people sell to you. While it’s never a dull moment, you also have to figure out how to drive new customers in through your doors.

For most business owners, advertising is the hardest part of running a business. Keep reading to learn how to write an advertisement that captures the attention of those most likely to visit a pawn shop.

If You Want to Know How to Write an Advertisement, Know Who Your Niche Customers Are

Not everyone is going to be your customers. Part of advertisement writing is determining who is most likely to visit your pawn shop and make a purchase. These people are your niche or core customers.

Make a list of the common traits you see in your customers. Their age groups, financial situation, and even their hobbies will help you determine the best sources to place your advertisement so they’re most likely to see it.

Help Them Solve Their Problems

If you want to know how to prepare an advertisement, take a look at what keywords other pawn shops are using in their advertisements. In most cases, you’ll find that the keywords most often used are helping people solve their problems.

Helping someone solve their problems not only appeals to their logical side, it appeals to their emotional side as well. And when you can do that, you’ll find customers start to flock to your pawn shop.

Look at Other Written Advertisement Examples

Take a look at advertisement writing examples. The examples that capture your attention the most are the ones you should try to emulate.

Use words that help answer common questions customers ask you. Use a headline that can’t help but capture and hold their attention.

But good advertising is more than just words. Use images that hold their attention and make them take notice. Everything you place in your advertisement counts whether it’s a word, image, or headline.

Tell a Story That Connects With Your Customers

When you’re learning how to prepare an advertisement, you need to learn how to tell a compelling story. Content is king, no matter if it’s a blog or an advertisement.

Tell a story that grabs their attention right away. People are bombarded with advertising all the time and have become immune to paying attention to anything that doesn’t immediately grab their attention.

Start off by sharing a story they can’t help but relate to and you’ve got a captive audience.

Include a Call to Action

If you really want to know how to write an advertisement example that captures people’s attention, don’t forget to include a call to action. People need to know exactly what their next steps should be.

Great examples for pawn shops are phrases like, “come in and see our latest inventory before its gone” and “stop by soon”. You want to include a sense of urgency in the message so they take action as soon as possible.

Keep Learning

Learning how to write an advertisement isn’t a one-time lesson. There’s always something you can learn to help capture the attention of new customers.

Our blog articles can help. Keep coming back to learn the latest tips in content marketing to make your business the success story it deserves to be.

10 Simplest Ways to Promote Your Vape Shop

Ever heard of vape marketing?

It’s a thing. And it’s easier than you think.

More than 9 million Americans vape. That’s a whole lot of untapped business there for the taking. With more people vaping every day, the potential for massive sales is huge.

You don’t need an MBA to reach these potential customers. The secrets to your success involve a simple and cost-effective marketing strategy for your vape shop.

Here are 10 simple ways to bring in more business.

1. Get Social Savvy

Every business should be marketing on social media. It’s a way to reach new customers, connect with the online community, and create some cool content for your brand.

Encourage customers to promote your business in their posts. Have them tag your location, use branded hashtags, and snap and share pics.

Focus on growing these channels:

Instagram – Post creative imagery, captions, and hashtags. Share short videos of a day in the life of your vape shop. Engage with the online community by liking, commenting and sharing pictures that relate to your brand.

Facebook – Share trending articles, company updates, and images. All your company contact information should be present, with accurate hours of operation.

Twitter – Share fun articles on vaping trends and follow inspirational vapers. Post witty quotes and shop specials. Make sure you check out their cheap ads as well.

LinkedIn – As a business owner, you should be on this channel. Your connections have the potential to turn into new customers.

You can also use social media to keep an eye on the competition. Learn from their mistakes and victories, and see how you can do it better.

Here are more tips for making your vape shop a social success.

2. Wow with a Website

Do you have a website? If not, you should.

It opens your business up to a whole new audience and makes it easier for people to find you.

Once someone clicks on your website, you only have less than a few seconds to wow them. Do so by making your website creative, visual, and easy to navigate.

You can enlist a professional, or use a free and easy website tool such as Wix. Images are everything, so hire a creative eye to help you take photographs.

Lace keywords throughout the content on your site, including titles and headlines. This will all help people to find your website better.

Make sure your content gets localized and relevant to your audience. For example, CBD website content should be factual and full of local keywords. Learn more here from this example of a great vape shop website.

Include these pages:

• About us
• Product pages
• Testimonials
• Photo gallery
• Contact us
• Customer Support

Use Google Analytics to measure traffic and evaluate your website pages.

3. Make Friends with Google

People turn to Google’s search engine to find the things they need.

Want to impress Google? Include branded and local keywords and meta tags in all your website content. Link your website to your social profiles. Add your business to local directories.

A strategy for local searches should be part of your digital marketing campaign. It will bring in local visitors who are searching for vape shops in your area.

Create a Google business listing, with accurate and up to date company information. Consider an AdWords campaign as part of your digital marketing campaign. Reach new audiences and increase awareness with online advertising for vape shop.

Here are more ways to get better Google rankings for your business.

4. Blog About It

This is a great way to create fresh new content for your website and boost your SEO.

Blog about vaping trends, benefits of vaping, and new products at the shop. For new ideas on blog posts look to what people are saying on community boards. Or scan magazine covers that relate to the vape industry.

Remember that great blog posts often answer questions that your customers need answering. Think about what you would want to know as a vaping enthusiast or new vaper. Answering these questions and establish yourself as an expert in the field.

Use your blog to develop a relationship with the online vape community. Respond to comments and encourage people to link back to your posts. Share blog posts on social media, to get your topics trending.

Don’t let your blog go stale, try updating an average of three times per week. Once you get the hang of it, you can guest blog on other sites, linking back to your own. Here are some tips for getting more traffic on your blog.

5. Get People to Talk About You

But make sure what they are saying is all good.

92% of consumers read online reviews. They do their research and trust the ratings of the online community. They want to make sure past customers have had a good experience with your shop.

Ask happy customers to leave you an online review. You should also be responding to reviews, both good and bad. Show that you value their feedback, appreciate compliments, and take requests into consideration.

Online reviews also help with SEO, which can put your business ahead of the competition.

Word of mouth still matters. Get friends, family, and employees to spread the word about your vape shop.

6. Got Swag?

If not, then get some. Put your company name and logo on anything and everything that relates to your customers.

• Lighters and matches (…kidding)
• Reusable water bottles
• Keychains
• Stress balls
• Small canisters or flip-top bottles (you can put your weed in there)
• Lanyards
• Tshirts
• Baseball hats or beanies
• Hot sauce
• Munchie snacks and candies
• Stickers

Make your friends and employees your brand ambassadors. They can wear and hand out your swag because everybody loves freebies. Post pictures of your new swag on social channels for extra exposure.

7. Host a Vape Party

Invite customers, friends, family and potential business to an event at your shop. Use social media, email marketing, and word of mouth to spread the word.

Make it an event people can’t say no to. Serve food and drinks and offer door prizes. Have a local musician strumming tunes in the corner.

If you have a vape lounge in your shop, this is a great spot to hold the event. Give guests a chance to explore your merchandise and offer free samples. Handout business cards and capture emails.

To save on the budget, partner up with a local business. It can be a restaurant or brewery that could use the promotional exposure.

Think of a way to tie your vape party in with current events. This could get your business some PR. Music festivals, seasonal events, or community outreach all speak to the media.

Make it a social media blitz by inviting local influencers and encouraging them to post during the event. Influencer marketing tactics make for great vape marketing strategies.

8. Collect Emails and Communicate

Once you’ve grabbed enough emails from your event, consider an email marketing campaign. Use this as a way to communicate with present and potential customers.

Share news on vape shop specials, seasonal highlights, and company updates. This is a great way to follow up with leads and keep communication flowing.

Use an automation system, such as MailChimp, to keep track of email lists and deployment. All company contact information should get included in your template design.

Offer an incentive for people to sign up for your newsletter. A 10% discount on first-time purchase is always a winner.

9. Make More Sales Through E-Commerce

Consider an e-commerce site to boost sales and open up new markets.

Shopify, Wix, or Weebly all have platforms that can promote your products online. E-commerce lets you keep your store open at all hours and it’s easy to add new merchandise as it comes in.

To encourage more online sales, make an offer (spend $75+) for free shipping.

10. Reward Those Loyal Followers

Rewards or loyalty programs bring in new business and keep current customers coming back for more.

Encourage customers to spread the word about your vape shop with a “refer a friend” incentive. Offer reward points for repeat customers in the form of discounts or buy five get one free. Send free swag and holiday gifts to loyal customers.

Thank customers for following you on social by giving them points towards purchases.

Marketing Your Vape Shop, Like a Pro

In today’s world of Insta-stories, selfies, and Snapchats, every type of business should adopt digital marketing tactics.

Use these tactics to reach new audiences and expand your vape shop business. Be sure to keep up with vape news and trends and apply them to your evolving marketing strategy.

Live long and vape on.

Writing Compelling Content For Your Clothing Shop

Whether you have an e-commerce website or a brick and mortar clothing shop, you need the right digital marketing strategy to improve your sales numbers.

Digital marketing drives users to your checkout counter.

This could be through entirely virtual interactions or a combination of online engagement and real-life experiences.

Either way, marketing strategies have to be a core part of your sales strategy; the numbers need the right content to thrive. More so, the right content needs the best copywriting to perform well.

Without compelling content, you risk losing half of your audience before they even get to see your cute clothes!

Not to worry – here are seven ways to transform your copy and better engage customers.

1. Know Your Audience To Create Compelling Content

You can’t expect to engage your customers if you don’t have a thorough understanding of who they are.

Create as detailed of a buyer persona as possible.

Give your ideal customer a name and a lifestyle. Think about where this person works, how much they make, the kind of relationship they are in and the general responsibilities they prioritize.

Do this for your primary and secondary market. Then, write your compelling content as if you were speaking directly to this person.

2. Understand Their Lingo

When creating the conversation between you and your consumer, try to use the everyday language they do.

This may be a form of slang or something a bit more proper. It could be a mix of words and phrases that come and go in pop culture. Or, maybe your customers will better relate to more common sayings.

Whatever their vocabulary looks like, use it.

Write your compelling content in a voice that will sound almost familiar to users.

3. Connect with Similar Stores and Trendsetters

If you want to better understand the lingo of your users, go deeper into their world.

Start reading the content other brands in your market are producing. Pay attention the way their writing is presented. Make notes of everything from the words and phrases to the grammar and how customers are addressed.

Do your users prefer to be talked to as friends or as professionals? Do they enjoy a laid-back, casual conversation or a more proper approach?

To find your answer, see how they connect to competitors.

Then, take this one step further and research the trendsetters in your niche market. Trendsetters are fashion influencers who are always a step ahead of what everyone else is wearing. They know the next big thing before it becomes big.

Pick a few to follow and watch how they communicate with their audience.

Remember, the same people who are looking to your market’s trendsetters for fashion inspiration will be the ones who visit your clothing site for fashion products.

4. Express Your Brand

Once a user makes it onto your website – or even comes across a form of digital marketing elsewhere on the internet – they have to be able to identify with you.

The best way to be relatable to the right users is to use the voice of your brand.

Your brand is everything a user associates with you. It is your logo as well as the filters on your social media and the way you write compelling content for email campaigns. It is the feeling someone gets when your brand is brought up or they walk past your store.

Use your content to encourage a positive brand image. Write with clarity and purpose. Be direct, unique, and always aim to offer the most valuable of insights.

5. Try to Be a Fluid Writer

No matter what you are trying to say, you will find it comes out best when you write fluidly.

This means to set aside enough time for you to take on a project from start to finish. You may have to break up big initiatives into small chunks, but the point is to write as well as you can for as long as you can.

Such an approach allows your thoughts to flow.

It better prepares you to move from one point to another, picking up where you just left off and writing with consistency. This, in turn, creates a better branding and communication strategy.

6. Edit and Re-Write

While it’s good to get everything out at once, you should always come back to it.

Take a step away from what you’ve created. Then give it a look over and see if it truly is the compelling content you thought it was at first.

You will often find you’ve got a good start, but not the whole thing. Don’t be afraid to make the necessary edits.

Maybe there is a word you can replace that significantly improves the overall message. Maybe the message isn’t as clear as you intended.

Whatever the issue, it’s usually nothing a few edits and a bit of time can’t fix.

Sometimes, though, you may have to do a re-write entirely. When you use the steps above, the need for a re-write is few and far between. But, they will come up, and it’s your job to use them as a creative opportunity when they do.

7. Get Creative with Your Placement

Whether you’re writing something for the first time and it comes out great, or you’re taking another shot at it, always make sure you’ve placed your product well.

Think about what your user really wants to hear.

They are not looking for a sale or a new accessory every time. They may be reading your content in search of everyday styling advice or upcoming trends.

But, that is not to say you can’t place your product somewhere in your compelling content. Try to make your writing conversational instead of about the sale. This makes it much easier for users to buy-in, which is better for your business.

Build a Schedule to Write Compelling Content

The final piece of advice to keep in mind when writing is to keep a schedule.

Your schedule helps you be fluid while staying focused and on-track. It gets you in a rhythm to write compelling content.

This may even be the easiest part of your content creation process. Once you have your schedule down, you are better able to take on all the tips and tricks of great writing.

Click here to learn how to create a writing schedule.