Hardware Store Advertising Ideas

A hardware store is a retail business that thrives on interaction between the business and its customers. Customers rely on the experts that work for the hardware store for their advice on the proper tools and materials to get the job done. In order to get foot traffic into your location, you need to employ some hardware store advertising ideas.

You can use that notion that a hardware store is a place to learn about home repairs to work for you by doing in-store demonstrations. These can be occasional demonstrations done by equipment or material manufacturers to show your customers new products, or you can create regular classes on home improvement topics. Some of the topics to cover are regular home maintenance, painting, drywalling, how to install shelves, home repairs, home troubleshooting and floor installation. Advertise your classes in the local newspaper and on posters throughout your store. Create informational fliers for interested customers to take with them. Offer the classes free of charge, and offer refreshments for attendees as well. These in-store demonstrations will make your hardware store the place for customers to get answers to their questions and learn important maintenance and remodeling tips.

With the increase in cable television home improvement shows, there has been an increased focus on remodeling. Arrange to have a known speaker come to your hardware store once a month and give a seminar to customers. Start with the local home improvement television shows as those hosts and experts may not charge as much for appearance fees as the nationally known experts. If there is a new home improvement book or real estate book being released, invite the author to do a book signing at your store. Always tie in your hardware store products to your guest speakers by having pricing specials on products that are appropriate to the speaker's area of expertise. For example, if you are having a gardening expert in to sign her new book then offer a 10 percent discount on all gardening tools.

Get involved in any local charitable organizations that build homes or do major repairs for needy families. If there is no organization like that in your area, then start one. The free media exposure will be good advertising for your hardware business, and you will be giving back to your community.

Find ways to offer advice to customers. You can start a newsletter that encourages customers to put their questions in a drop box, and then answer a select number of questions each issue. Contact the editor of your local newspaper and offer to write a weekly column on home improvements. You can choose to answer customer questions in your column, or you can write about common hardware topics such as the right tool or material for a particular job.