7 Hardware Store Marketing Ideas You Can Try Today

Aug 14, 2024 • 6 min read

Looking for hardware store marketing ideas? We love to hear it!

Marketing is one of the most impactful tools small businesses use to stand out from bigger competitors and attract new customers. While people think of marketing as a skill reserved solely for big businesses, the reality is much simpler.

The right marketing strategy is so much more than a way to drive sales. It’s how you show off your business’ unique personality and expertise to potential customers. By following through with your marketing plans you can boost your revenue while establishing your store as a local institution.

Ready to rejuvenate your hardware business with some fresh marketing ideas? Let’s get started.

The Benefits of Marketing Your Small Hardware Store

When you’re busy managing staff, reordering products, stocking shelves, and everything else that goes into running a small hardware store, marketing is probably the last thing on your mind.

Unfortunately, neglecting marketing and promotions makes it harder to attract new customers and repeat business. Creating a marketing strategy for your hardware store might seem intimidating at first, but it has many tangible benefits.

Helps you stand out: With bigger, faceless hardware chains competing for your customers’ business, marketing allows you to tell your story and establish your local presence.
Drives sales and revenue: A good promotion or discount is a great way to highlight popular products and motivate new and old customers to make a purchase.
Shows off your expertise: Good marketing doesn’t just communicate what you have on offer, but tells the story of who you are and why customers should shop with you.
Helps you understand your customers: Marketing is an iterative process and gives you a sense of what your customers like most about your store (and what they don’t), which will help you make better business decisions in the future.

In addition to offering exceptional customer service and a solid product lineup, marketing is key to establishing your brand. Try to see it as a core part of your business instead of a “nice to have” extra.

Hardware Store Marketing: 7 Ideas

Successful marketing for hardware retail is a balance of art and science. It’s equally important to be strategic with your marketing efforts as it is to follow a strategy that “feels” right for your business and your customers.

Here are seven hardware store marketing ideas to get you started:

1. Create Project Guides

People love local hardware stores because they have access to passionate and knowledgeable staff who can help them with any type of project. Extend that expertise to your marketing with blog posts and videos.

Identify some common home improvement projects and create a step-by-step guide. Your guides should list all the materials needed (effectively, a shopping list), steps to complete the project, and pointers and common mistakes.

You can write a blog, create a video showing the project being done, or both. Share your project guides with existing customers using customer email addresses stored in your point of sale (POS) system or customer relationship management (CRM) tool. You could also post on social media to reach new customers.

If a full-blown project guide seems a bit intimidating, start on a smaller scale with product recommendations and tips for choosing the right tools. Either way, you’ll establish yourself as a local, friendly hardware expert.

2. Start a Newsletter

Newsletters might feel a little old-fashioned, but they’re still highly effective for engaging with customers and driving repeat business. In fact, over half of customers still cite email as their preferred method of contact from businesses.

Collect customer emails from in-person sales, online sales, and customer loyalty and send out a regular newsletter (preferably weekly) to highlight sales, new products, seasonal projects, and more. Like the project guides suggested above, a newsletter lets you highlight your store’s offerings while also showcasing your expertise.

Pro tip: Offer exclusive discount codes and promotions in your newsletters to encourage customers to sign up and read them.

3. Start a Customer Loyalty Program

Customer loyalty programs are one of the easiest and most effective ways to retain customers. Use your POS system to customize a loyalty program. The most common customer loyalty program is a points-based system where purchases earn customers points that can be redeemed for discounts later on.

Customer loyalty programs encourage upselling and motivate customers to come back to keep earning more points. When customers sign up, you’ll get their contact information, which is helpful in a couple of ways:

You can understand your best customers’ buying habits and bestselling items to make better stocking decisions
You can send loyalty members tailored deals and promotions based on their most frequent purchases

The majority of customers expect personalized deals over generic discounts, so try to understand the trends in your sales data to come up with meaningful promotions.

4. Create Product Bundles

As seasons change, people get the home improvement bug. Whether it’s redoing the weatherstripping on their back door, putting up a bird feeder, or finally fixing that leaky sprinkler, a new project means taking a trip to your local friendly hardware store.

Bundle common tools and accessories or let customers create unique product bundles to make life even easier for them. Modern POS systems support flexible barcodes and product categories, allowing you to be creative.

A basic example: offer a discount for customers who buy picture frames and mounting hardware together. You could also offer free items to customers making expensive purchases to build goodwill — like free paint brushes for customers making a large paint purchase.

Use your knowledge of home improvement and insights from your sales data to make tailored product bundles your customers will love.

5. Leverage Social Media

Love it or hate it, social media is ubiquitous in today’s digital world. With over 180 million active Facebook users and 133 million Instagram users in the U.S. alone, not using social media in your marketing is a missed opportunity.

Promote your business on Facebook with short posts highlighting sale items, seasonal items, or your general selection. Unlike a blog or a newsletter, social media thrives more on images and short snappy posts, so don’t be afraid to show off a bit more personality.

Also, you don’t have to be chasing the latest trends to be successful on social media. Know your target audience and what’s important to them — then focus on posting regularly.

6. Develop Partnerships With Local Businesses

Local businesses are strongest when they stand together. Many hardware businesses successfully extend their customer base by partnering with other local businesses to expand the types of products they offer.

Create an area of the store to display local goods, from hand soaps and kitchen goods to hot sauces and decorations. These fun items let smaller businesses get in front of new customers and you’ll benefit when customers make last-minute purchases.

If customers need help with bigger jobs, you can also refer them to local contractors.

7. Create a User-Friendly Website

For many people, the first impression they get of a new business is online. Having a user-friendly and informative website sets the right tone for customers before they even enter your store.

Make sure your website is connected with your inventory management software so that stock levels are accurate. Online sales with local pickup is also a great way to encourage users to make a purchase the minute they’re considering it.

Last, keep your Google Business Profile updated. Google Search and Maps are some of the primary ways that customers will find your store, so ensure information like store hours, contact information, and address is all accurate.

Hardware Store Marketing: Tips To Find Success

Marketing isn’t a one-size-fits-all process. With thinner profit margins and fewer resources at their disposal, small businesses need to take a more strategic approach to find marketing success. Here are some tips to get the most out of your hardware store marketing ideas:

Identify your target customer: Not all marketing styles will magically work for everyone. Use common sense and customer data to choose marketing channels and topics that resonate with your best customers.

Focus on your bestsellers: Hardware stores stock various products and it would probably be impossible to make a concentrated marketing push for every single one. Instead, use your POS software to identify bestselling product categories and focus your efforts there.

Don’t forget inventory management: All the marketing in the world won’t matter if popular items aren’t in stock when customers show up to buy them. Leverage inventory management software to create a better customer experience by keeping stock levels optimized.

Boost sales with e-commerce: Some customers will go directly from a piece of marketing to making a purchase. Make the process as seamless as possible by connecting your POS system to an online store.

Measure your marketing success: Instead of acting on a hunch, use your POS system to monitor the success of specific discount codes, events, and other marketing efforts. That way you can see which marketing efforts delivered the best return on investment (ROI).

H2: Bolster Your Hardware Store Marketing With Leading Technology

Ensure your hardware store marketing ideas are a success by supporting them with leading technology. Comcash POS is a user-friendly and powerful POS system that helps hardware store owners get the most out of their marketing efforts thanks to:

Customizable customer loyalty and discounts
Built-in inventory management support
E-commerce and website support
Customer relationship management
Robust reports and analytics

With some great ideas and leading software at your side, you can drive sales, attract new customers, and find success like never before.

Table of Contents