Clothing boutique designs unique email marketing strategy | boutique email address

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Paulette Kirk Kasmer, owner of Polka Dot Parlor, encourages her customers to express themselves through fashion. “The store is all about looking good and feeling good,” she says. Based in Bristol Borough, Pennsylvania, the quirky boutique boasts an eclectic mix of vintage clothing and kitschy accessories. Although Kasmer is a whiz at curating inventory — there truly is something for everyone at Polka Dot Parlor — getting new customers into the store was a challenge. During her first year in business, she relied solely on word-of-mouth to promote the store and wasn’t seeing as much foot traffic as she would’ve liked.

As the recipient of a Small Business Revolution makeover, Kasmer partnered with Deluxe to build a marketing strategy that would grow her customer base. One key element of that plan was her new email marketing program. In a few short months, she was able to build a contact list from scratch and is now connecting with more customers than ever — all while staying true to Polka Dot Parlor’s mission and voice. Here’s a look at her email marketing strategy in action.

Launching an email marketing program
Initially, Kasmer, like a lot of business owners, hadn’t embraced email marketing because she nurse database was afraid of spamming her customer base with messages they didn’t want. But the truth is that consumers want to hear from companies via email. According to recent research, 91 percent of Americans want to receive promotional emails.

To kick off her email marketing program, Deluxe encouraged Kasmer to put a pen and notebook next to the cash register, so she could collect email addresses from her customers. Because all successful email strategies start with an email list, getting new subscribers was — and continues to be — a priority.

Deluxe created a promotional calendar that integrated the store’s merchandising plan with Kasmer’s email schedule. During the winter months, for example, her window displays and featured inventory would be thematically linked to her email promotions by the holidays, the colder weather and so on: