How we market

We have 5 full-time marketing staff members, as well as a few part-timers, all focused on spreading the word about Painted Tree.  We work with two different advertising agencies and spend thousands of dollars a day on marketing.  To learn more about the specific tools we use to market Painted Tree Boutiques, see below:

Facebook and Instagram - 

    Advertisements - Facebook Advertising is more than making a post on our page.  Facebook and Instagram ads have proven to be the biggest "bang for our buck" at Painted Tree.  They can appear in Facebook’s or Instagram’s feed, Messenger, and even on non-Facebook apps and websites.  Facebook is the most popular search term worldwide, and the platform has more than 2 billion users.  68% of adults in the US have an active account and are on the platform an average of 35 minutes every day.  Our ads come in a variety of formats—single-image, video, slideshows, and more—and can be targeted to extremely specific audiences.  This allows us to create ads that are targeted to and produced for women of a specific age, who live or work in a specific area, or who have particular interests.  We’ve even been able to create an ad about Painted Tree being a good place to buy gifts and target the audience to people who have a friend celebrating a birthday in the coming days.  The reach, customization, and targeting potential within these advertising platforms are truly one of a kind.  

(Note:  These ads are only visible to the individuals being targeted in the ad.  So if you don’t see an ad, it’s not because they aren’t running, it’s because your gender, location, age, or interests don’t match the specific target audience of the ad being placed.)

    Posts - Facebook and Instagram posts are a tool for those who like or discover the Painted Tree page to see and learn more about us.  We post multiple times a week, and we can boost certain posts by spending money for the post to show up more often in people’s feeds.  But we have more control when we purchase an ad compared to boosting a post.  Unlike ads, these posts can be seen by anyone who happens to visit our page.  

    Reels - Reels are short videos under a minute long that will pop up on a person's feed.  They can be used to help tell our brand's story in ways that are unique and authentic.  We produce a few reels per week and allocate a portion of our social media budget to make the most successful reels into advertisements that can be viewed by more people.  

    Events - Facebook events are a tool we use to announce special store events.  Shoppers can RSVP as well as share and invite their friends to the event, all within the Facebook platform.  We gather valuable data about the types of people who want to participate in these events so we can create better ads and customize the audience to reach these customers for future events. 

    Pinterest - There are 500 million users on Pinterest.  These people are looking for unique and creative ideas for their home and wardrobe.  Painted Tree has Pinterest Boards geared towards shoppers and boards geared toward space design for vendors.   We place Pinterest ads that look like regular Pins to appear in places where people are most likely to see them. These Pins will surface in the desired audience's home feed, category feeds, and relevant search results.

    SEO - Search Engine Optimization is a way to ensure our name appears at the top of the list when people search using specific words like "home décor", "boutique", "fashion", "clothing", "gifts", "candles", "marketplace", "home goods", "local", and more.  We pay specific amounts for Painted Tree to appear at the top of the search results for specific words in a particular location.  

    Retargeting -   Studies show that it costs 5 times more to acquire a new customer than it does to keep an existing customer, and repeat customers spend 3 times more than new customers.  We devote a portion of our advertising dollars to retargeting shoppers who have already shopped our store.  We know they’ve come because they’ve either given us their email, told us via Facebook that they came to a special event, or their mobile phone shared their location with Facebook or Google.  Upon shopping with us, we will retarget them over the coming days and weeks to remind them to come back.  

    Email Marketing - We have thousands of shoppers who have signed up to receive emails from us!  We send an email every week or two to keep Painted Tree on their minds, and we will send multiple emails for every event we put on.  We know most people may not open and fully read each email, but they’ll see our name and the email's subject and we’ll stay in their mind.   

    Digital Video Advertising -  These video commercials appear on sites like Hulu and others as people are watching TV or movies online.  Like social media ads, these ads can be targeted to specific audiences based on gender, age, etc.  

    Mailers - Mailers are very expensive, but we believe they can be a great tool to spreading the word in a particular area.  Within the first few weeks of opening a store, we’ll send out the biggest mailer we’re allowed to put in a mailbox to thousands of homes in the area, letting them know we are there.

    Billboard - Billboards come at a high cost for the number of impressions we receive in return, and those driving by are not always our target market, but we do utilize them from time to time as a way to reach the local population, specifically in areas where our store may not be as visible from the street as we’d like.  

    Newspapers and Magazines - When opening a new store or putting on special events, we will issue press releases to the local news, newspapers, and magazines.  Often, a newspaper or magazine will add our event onto their schedule or write a story about Painted Tree.  

    Waze and Nextdoor - Both Waze (a maps app) and Nextdoor (an app where neighbors can communicate) are apps focused on hyper-local parts of town.  Both rarely have advertising availability, but when ad space is available, we like to utilize these avenues to reach people in specific areas. 

    Influencers -  We believe there is nothing better than word-of-mouth advertising.  When people we trust make a recommendation, it goes so much further than seeing an advertisement.  We work with many influencers across the country who spread the word about Painted Tree to their loyal followers through articles, pictures, videos, and posts.  

    Podcast - The Life and Style Podcast is heard by thousands of people across the country.  We invite experts and influencers from around the globe to speak about the topics they care about .  They promote their interview to their followers, who in turn discover Painted Tree.  

    Local TV News and Radio - Local news and radio stations rarely run a free story on us if we contact them.  A two to three minute story can cost between $5,000 and $10,000 dollars.  We have paid for these stories on occasion, but these stories are often only seen by a few thousand people, many of whom are not likely our shoppers.  Spending that same amount in social media advertising will reach thousands more of our likely shoppers.  We’ve found the best way to get on the news at no cost is when a vendor or group of vendors reach out to a friend in the news or radio industry about a new store opening or special event.  If you know someone, please tell them about us!

    Locations and Signage - One of the greatest ways to market is at the store location itself.  We place Painted Tree stores in areas with high population density and high traffic counts where our store front and signage can be viewed by thousands of people each day.  These locations often cost more than others that may not be seen by as many people, but we believe the investment in the right location is key to reaching shoppers.  The signage investment alone in each location usually runs between $30,000 and $60,000, as we’ll place signage on the building, on monument signage and pylon signage as availability allows.  

    Local, School, and Extracurricular Publications - We dedicate a very small portion of our advertising budget to small, local publications.  While we love to support local interests, we’ve found that the cost of these ads are usually much higher for the amount of people they reach.  For example, an ad in a local yearbook may be seen by 500 people for a cost of $200.  Many of those people may never see the page with our ad on it, and half those people may be teenage boys who are not the ideal Painted Tree shopper.   That same $200 can instead used to place a social media ad and be seen by 3,000 people, all of whom are likely Painted Tree shoppers.