The Great Bend Appliance team
Dealer discovers a better way to promote its sales
By Andy Kriege, YSN
Great Bend Appliance, Furniture & SleepSource in Great Bend, Kan., recently found a great way to promote its annual anniversary sale … out of necessity.
The promotion has been a staple at the retailer for years and was traditionally heralded with printed invitations that were snail-mailed to select customers. But its 25th anniversary sale hit a snag when the BrandSource member missed the printer’s cutoff date. Bereft of invitations, Great Bend needed an alternative way to promote the event.
“We were just so busy that the deadline crept up on us and we missed it,” said Store Manager Eric Rostine. Undeterred, the dealer decided to publicize the sale almost entirely on social media, and applied the budget for printing and postage (about $7,500) toward prizes and giveaways.
A $500 shopping spree was awarded each day of the event, culminating in a final $2,500 grand prize. Customers entered the daily drawings via social media posts and received additional entries by sharing the post with friends. “We had about 20,000 hits on Facebook alone,” Rostine said. “That just blew us away.”
Given the enthusiastic response, Great Bend extended the traditional three-day sales event to an entire week and held the final drawing in store’s parking lot. “We put the tickets in one of our dryers and tumbled them in front of a big crowd,” Rostine said.
Going forward, the store will no longer use old-school media to promote company events. “It was an eye opener for us,” Rostine said. “We hear about successful digital promotions all the time, but we were skeptical that it would work so well in a small rural market like ours.”
Great Bend owners Sherry and Dale Pruter and Store Manager Eric Rostine (right) receive their Dealer of the Year award at the 2023 Convention.
Dealer of the Year
It’s been a busy year for Great Bend Appliance, which besides turning 25 was also named a 2023 BrandSource Dealer of the Year for the Great Plains Region. As Region Manager Brian Lawrence noted, “They work extremely hard to come up with innovative ways to find new customers and they run a great business. They were very deserving of the award.”
Triple congratulations to Great Bend Appliance, on its award, its anniversary and its newfound approach to marketing!
YSN publisher AVB BrandSource is the nation’s largest merchandising and marketing co-op for independent appliance, mattress, furniture and CE dealers.
