[In business] you shouldn’t swim upstream.  Don’t try to change people’s behavior.  Go to where your customers are. – Ramit

Like Ramit, I learned this lesson the hard way.  Growing up in a small town, I always wished there was a small, local shop I could visit to buy clothing, skateboards, and snowboard equipment.

Years later, after graduating from university, I decided to make it happen.  Together with two partners, we launched The Real Deal: a local skateboard shop in a small town.  Our mantra was: “You don’t need to go to the city to shop, you can shop local!”

And our shop was awesome.  We really cared about our customers.  We had a well designed store interior.  We stocked the best brands.

Here’s the problem: the city was only 40 minutes away. Everyone in our small town was already used to driving to the city.  They would make a day of it on Saturday or Sunday.  With a whole day of shopping, they could visit multiple shops, with a bigger selection than we could ever have.  Our customers weren’t shopping local.

We thought we could change their behavior. We launched “shop local” campaigns, we developed relationships, and we offered competitive pricing.  We also sponsored local athletes, put on shows, and even launched our own magazine.  But none of that mattered, because local consumers liked going into the big city for shopping.

Don’t ever lose track of the idea that a business needs to make money.  In retail, that means lots and lots of traffic.  If there’s no traffic at your proposed location, in doesn’t matter how awesome your shop is or how good your idea is, it’s not going to fly.  This applies to other businesses as well: you can’t change the way an entire market operates.

The questions we need to ask are: what are my potential customers doing right now?  How do they shop for my proposed product or service? How can I go to “where they’re at?”

The really neat thing about this blog, is how I’ve set it up: everything is automatic. When a blogger on the site publishes a story, a link to that story is automatically sent to Twitter and Facebook.  And at midnight, all of the day’s stories are automatically compiled into an email and sent to the mailing list.  No button pushing necessary.

For this project I also did a lot of work optimizing the site for search engines (like Google), and customizing the theme itself.

I also launched a digital promotion campaign for them: linking to local blogs, improving Google search results, and creating an identity for them on Facebook and Twitter.

The online campaign went very well, and created tremendous buzz for their opening week:

• “I first heard of them when they signed up on Twitter (@duchessbakeshop), and immediately wanted to check the shop out.” – Britney Leblanc, iNews880
• “Word about Duchess spread like wildfire on the Internet – kudos to their marketing folks for harnessing the power of social media.” – Sue Robins
• “Everyone’s raving about Edmonton’s newest culinary offering: Duchess Bake Shop” – Twyla Campbell
• “Wow, you guys are sure on top of links and mentions of your business online! You need to teach clinic!” – EtownBrides