When running any kind of retail business, whether it’s online or brick and mortar, you need to have a retail marketing strategy in place to reach out to customers, drive traffic and make more sales. An effective retail marketing strategy is pivotal to a retail business’s success.
If you’re a retail entrepreneur looking to expand your business by reaching out to and attracting new customers, take a look at the following retail marketing strategy tips for your small business.
Retail Marketing Strategy Tips
Manage Customer Reviews
Consumers have long relied on the recommendations and advice of others before making purchases. Thanks to the ease of writing and reading online reviews, some 40% of Americans nearly always resort to online reviews before making purchasing decisions. Make online reviews part of your retail marketing strategy by responding to both negative and positive reviews in a timely manner, so that they act as an “in-the-moment” customer testimonial and help build trust and respect for your brand.
Create Alluring Curb Appeal
If you run a bricks and mortar store, regardless of what products you sell, make your shop look attractive on the outside to help draw people inside. You can improve the look of your store easily and without too much expense by making an attractive display in the window, laying out a welcome mat, placing hanging baskets around the door, and ensuring there are spaces for customers to park.
The power of curb appeal shouldn’t be underestimated as part of your retail marketing strategy.
Set Up a Customer Loyalty Program
When executed correctly, loyalty programs can improve customer loyalty and retention with your brand. In fact, according to research by Nielsen, 84% of consumers are more likely to choose retailers that offer customer loyalty programs.
Such programs needn’t be difficult or expensive to run. For example, if own a book shop, offer a point-based reward program that provides customers with points for each qualified purchase they make. Once the points reach a certain level, allow your customers to redeem them as bookstore gift cards.
Get Active on Social Media
Did you know a staggering 90% of consumers turn to social media to help them with a buying decision? No matter what retail business you run, if you’re not yet active on social media, it’s not too late to create profiles on the likes of Facebook and Twitter to engage with customers.
Improve Your Social Listening Skills
Once you do have an active social media presence, use the channels to listen to your customers. You can improve your social listening skills by monitoring mentions of your brand on social media and responding to mentions to engage in meaningful conversations with customers to help improve customer loyalty and nurture more sales.
Capitalize on Referral Marketing
According to Shopify, “referral marketing is one of the best forms of marketing when it comes to sales and conversions.”
Generate free advertising for your retail business by making referral marketing part of your retail marketing strategy. Referral programs are essentially a way of promoting your products through referrals from your existing customers to new customers. Referral programs can include offering customers that refer your products to a friend freebies, reward points, coupons or vouchers.
Use Video Marketing
Video marketing is more popular than ever and can increase the likelihood of an offline purchase by as much as 64%. Incorporating video marketing into your retail marketing strategy need not be as expensive or time-consuming as you may think.
For example, if you sell items that you make by hand such as jewelery or accessories, taking viewers behind the screens by recording how you make your products and then posting the videos on the likes of YouTube, can be a fun and effective way to engage with customers and increase the online presence of your brand.
Ask an Influential Person to Endorse Your Products
Influencer marketing is an effective marketing strategy for retailers. Persuading an individual who is thought of as credible and influential in your line to endorse your products, is an effective way to gather exposure to your brand and help you sell more products.
Using a tool like Webstagram can be a great way to identify influential people in your field on Instagram and get them to use their power and influence to nurture more interest in your brand and your products.
Photo via Shutterstock
This article, “Apply These 8 Simple Techniques to Improve Retail Marketing” was first published on Small Business Trends