I have my own web development company and I created a web shop for a customer using Drupal Commerce.
My customer was selling children's clothing in a regular store. This store, however, no longer exists because the rental costs and such were simply too high. So we opened a webshop for her in order to sell her items through the web.
The webshop will go live in a few days and I'd like some help in the marketing department since I am a programmer and my marketing knowledge is rather limited.
What I am thinking of doing/ what I already did:
What I cannot/ will not do:
Is there anything I can do to 'brand' the web shop some more, given the limited resources?
As a side question: I'd love to learn more about marketing and branding, can you give me some names of decent practical books to read about these subjects?
*My plan with contacting other companies is: Offering them some space in our web shop to sell their products through our shop (perhaps allowing us to buy the products at a slightly discounted rate) and in turn ask them to advertise our web shop in their store, to their customers. Do you think this would be a valid approach, or would you do this differently?
(Obviously, I'd only target other companies who don't already have a web shop of their own)
EDIT: The point of my 2 lists is not to restrict the discussion or to disallow any specific comments. The first list gives you some information about the things I've tried and the second list gives you some information about the restrictions I face.
Even though I have some restrictions in terms of money, this does not mean that tips that require funds are not helpful/welcome. They would just be long term operations.
All you've stated is "correct".
My common sense tells me that moms will be your target client, correct me (or adapt the ideas below) if that's not the case.
I would also try to contact some magazines/newspappers that moms read and offer their readers a discount coupon. That will help to spread the word with no investment from your side, except the discount.
Another strategy is to sponsor events where moms will attend massively (possibly with a discount coupon). Or hang out flyers on thoese events.
You should really not ignore Facebook now, actually, your client should spend more time on social networks.
Check out how many connections you can reach among you and your client and some close friends that will gladly spread the word in social networks.
It's a great starting point - don't fool yourself about it.