Unlock the Potential of Automatic Sales for Retail Trade

How to create outlook signature

- When it comes to retail stores and retail store marketing, it's like a new world. It's like we fast-forwarded 10 years into the future over the last three months. So let's talk about nine tips that you can think about in terms of your retail store marketing strategy, and how you can take advantage of the new digital landscape. Let's jump right into tip number one. Tip number one is to think outside of the box. And what I mean by that is to put yourself in the mindset that you cannot interact with your customers in a physical way whatsoever. What would you do? You would obviously need a really strong digital presence, right? You would need to have different delivery processes, checkout processes, different ways of acquiring customers, engaging with customers, building relationships with customers, all in a digital world. So put yourself in that mindset that, let's say that you had no way to interact with your customers in a physical way. And we've all been experienced this recently, right? So it should be helpful in putting ourselves in this mindset, but that's gonna put you in a place where you need to be to envision the future and have a vision for where you need to go so that you can put together a strategy and a plan to get there. Tip two is you need to have an elite e-commerce online shopping experience. Here's the deal. People still wanna buy local, right? They're gonna wanna support you as their local retail store. But what you're gonna need to do is have an e-commerce store that matches your brand. So many retail stores have this beautiful store. This beautiful storefront, this beautiful shopping experience. But then you look at their e-commerce store and it's just terrible. You need to level up your e-commerce store. Your e-commerce store has to have that feel that your retail store does. It has to have the same branding, the same brand voice. Your content, the way you write it needs to be like you were in the store interacting with people, how your customer service spoke to people, that needs to be the content on your website. You need beautiful pictures, you need lifestyle pictures, you need pictures of your local area, your warehouse. Make it feel real, so when they're on your store, they feel like they're truly supporting a local business. And then think about the functionality of your store. You need unified inventory so that your store and your e-commerce store all talk to one inventory database. That's important. You're gonna wanna think about things like maybe try on at home so you can send a package or a box of your items to somebody to try on at home if you're a clothing retail store. So start thinking about ways that you can operate in the new world where maybe people can schedule private sessions to come in, and they're the only ones there. And they can try different things on if it happens to be clothing that your store is involved with. Or if it is other things that you offer, think, how do your customers want to interact with you in the new digital world? Do they want private sessions? Do they want home delivery? Do they want pickup services? And think about all of that when you're building your new e-commerce store, your new brand in the digital world, and make it the very best in your local town so that there's no better place to shop, whether it's in-store or online than your store. Tip three is you must have a robust CRM database and you have to actually use it. So the reason that's important is because tip three really is about building relationships. And so many retail stores used to just rely on the foot traffic, people walking in, they really treated the people well, they thanked them for shopping, for stopping in, and tried to build that relationship on a real-time basis. Well, in the new world, you're gonna be doing the same thing but you're building those relationships more proactively across digital marketing and social media. So social media is gonna be hugely important for you. And so you're gonna want your CRM database to be able to collect information like, who are the people in your local area? What are their social media profiles? When is their birthday? Do they have kids? What type of products do they like? What product categories are they interested in? What email lists are they on? Really try to understand your customers in the digital world and build their profile. Building their profile is done in your CRM database. Now, when you have all of this information about all the local people in your area, you're gonna be able to really proactively build those relationships. Click on their social media profiles, look at their recent posts, like their content, follow up with them on birthdays, send them emails about products that they like. Everything that you're thinking about, when somebody walks into the store and you're trying to build those relationships real-time, you're gonna want to be doing that on an ongoing basis in the digital world now. And so a CRM database is gonna be the perfect place for you to store all this information and build processes around how your team can use that CRM database on a daily basis to have great customer experiences and provide great customer service. They should literally come in and just start working through that database. Who has a birthday today, who hasn't been in in a while, who has spent the most with us? And follow up with those customers and start building those relationships to stay top of mind, so when they think about the products and services that you provide, they think of you first. Tip number four hinges off of tip number three, but it's to further reiterate the power of social media for building your customer relationships. So when you're thinking about your existing customer base, in the new digital world it's gonna be about really leveraging social media. So you should be following all of your customers and hopefully they're following you. You should be liking all of their content. You should be leaving comments on their content. You should be engaged. What you're gonna see is things like them posting something about their anniversary. Maybe you have products or services that's gonna help make that anniversary a great day. You can send them a direct message with a coupon. At least send them a direct message with the congratulations so they feel appreciated. That's gonna make them think of you, right? Puts you top of mind. You're gonna see posts like birthdays and all kinds of things are gonna help you think, "Holy cow, this is an opportunity to congratulate and show some love to my customer, but also maybe give them a deal." Maybe recommend a gift for somebody. And so by staying on top of them on social media, you're gonna really build a relationship and it's gonna turn them from a customer to a friend. And here's the thing. Customers stay a month, friends stay forever. And so the more friends that you can build on social media, the more they're going to buy from you, which is gonna increase your lifetime value per customer. That's huge. But you know what? People are friends because they have interests that are related to each other. They have a lot that they can relate about. And so here's the deal. If you build relationships with customers on social media, you're gonna see who their friends are, and their friends are gonna see who you are, and you're gonna be able to tap into their network. And the chances that their friends also like your products or services is gonna be pretty high because they're friends for a reason. And so taking advantage of social media will really increase the lifetime value for your customers. And it will also help tap into their friends and family, which is gonna give you a lot more referrals. That's huge. And so take advantage of social media. If you play it right, the new world might actually result in more sales for you than the old world. It's just about embracing what's happening and taking advantage of it. Tip number five is to take advantage of social media for not just customer relationship building, but also acquisition. So you can really use social media to acquire new customers if you do it right. And what you're gonna wanna do are things like follow nonprofits in your local area. Follow the charities, follow the high schools. Follow all these things that other people are looking at. People are looking at high school sports teams, they're following local charities, and they generally wanna support businesses that support those organizations. And so, if you also are following them and liking their content, leaving comments and engaging with that community, you're gonna become top of mind. And so when they think of the products or services that you sell, they think of you first because they say, "Hey, you know what? I like this retail store, they follow this nonprofit that I also like and I follow. They follow this high school." All those sorts of things are gonna help you generate more visibility in your local community, which is gonna drive more sales. Here's another power tip. In Instagram, you can go into Instagram and you can see all the recent posts in a local city. So go to your city in Instagram, look at all the recent posts and go through there. And if there's people that have posted content that also seem like people that fit a demographic that would be interested in the products or services that you sell, like their content, maybe follow them so that you can like their future content. Leave some comments in there. Maybe even send them some direct messages with some coupons saying, "Hey, hey, I don't know if you've ever tried our store out before, but we'd love for you to stop in, support a local store like us. Here's a coupon. And if you're not interested, no problem, share it with your friend, share it with your neighbor. We would just love to help give back to our community, and we do that by providing great products or services to our people." You know, something like that would be really powerful to get them to really gain understanding of who you are and take a look at your store, take a look at your online store and become a customer. Maybe refer you a new customer. So take advantage of social media for customer acquisition. It's a no-brainer, it's gonna help you grow. Tip number six is to leverage email marketing and SMS marketing, which is text message marketing. This is really powerful and you're gonna wanna have your CRM database set up correctly so that you can really create a lot of automated journeys for this. So automation is really powerful, but you need to build out those campaigns. And so start thinking about that. Which campaigns would you send to people during which times of the year? What kind of promotions, do you have holidays each month with coupons? Do you have certain products or types of products that are more popular throughout the year? And start building all that out. Ideally, somebody becomes a customer or maybe on social media, they click to start following you and become a subscriber to receive VIP deals or coupons or offers as they come up. Once they enter into your CRM database, you're gonna wanna send them emails maybe on their birthday with a coupon to say, "Happy birthday, here's your coupon." Maybe you wanna understand the types of products and categories that they're interested in, and start sending them like a monthly email with some ideas and inspiration on those types of products and categories. You're gonna wanna maybe send them a monthly email for the top holiday of the month saying, "Hey, happy holiday." And also maybe maybe a coupon code to something. If they opt in for text message marketing, this is really powerful. You know, if you have a call to action on social media, like, "Hey, text to this to this to opt into our text message campaign which will get you unbelievable specials on excess inventory." So if you can get more people to opt into your email list, more people to opt into your text message list. The bigger that list gets, every time you send an email, the more sales you're gonna receive, but it's about building up those lists. And providing value in every email that you send. So taking advantage of email marketing and SMS marketing is so important to increasing your lifetime value and building automated sales funnels that are gonna drive you more sales. So put some effort into that. Tip number seven is to ask for reviews. Reviews are so powerful. Every review you get is like a salesperson on the digital streets of America sending people to go buy from you. Every good review. And so it's about getting more and more reviews. If you have thousands of reviews online, this is gonna no doubt drive you a lot of sales. Before somebody buys from you, they often check your reviews online. So it's really important that you have a lot of reviews, recent reviews, and good reviews overall. A high star rating. So ask your customers for reviews, follow up with them and ask for a review if they had a good experience so that you can build your profile. Your goal should be your retail store amongst all your competitors has the most reviews and the best reviews in your local area. You wanna be the no-brainer best. And by having all these reviews in a local area, your site, your store, and your maps listing on Google Maps is gonna rank really high. And when people search for a local business that has the products or services that you provide, you're gonna rank on top and you're gonna look really good if you have a lot of reviews. So put a lot of effort behind getting good review. Tip number eight is to invest in multichannel advertising. Multichannel advertising is really important because of this. You can't control where people look and where they spend their time, but you can control if you're there. And when it comes to digital marketing, people are spending some time on Facebook, some time on Instagram, on YouTube, on TikTok, on maybe driving around town where they're seeing digital billboards. They're maybe watching some digital TV, watching some digital radio. Those are all called channels in the digital world. So investing in multi-channel advertising is investing some dollars in getting where your customers are spending their time. So think about your customer base and your demographic. Where are they spending the most time online? It's probably multi-channel. There's probably like three or four of those that I just listed off that you're immediately thinking, "Holy cow, my clients are spending their time there. My customers are spending their time there." And so that's where you need to be. Marketing in the simplest form is just being where your customers are. And in the digital world, they're spending time in the digital world in these different channels. So you need to be there. So put some money behind being there and put some effort behind being there so that you're visible. So they end up on your store at some point and they buy from you and become a customer. And tip number nine. Last tip is to build your brand. Invest money, time and effort into building your brand. Your brand is extremely important. And so don't rely on Amazon. Don't put your eggs all in that basket. Sure, you can do some things on Amazon, but that's not ultimately building your brand. You need to build your brand. You want your name to be known in your local area. You want people to think of your retail store as the number one in your category. You wanna have the best online store. You wanna be really involved on social media, have nice social media content. You need to just be engaging with the community, sending emails, building a following, building subscribers. The more you can build the brand, the more valuable your brand will be. And that's a powerful thing. So really put some time and effort behind building your brand so that's the most recognized brand in town. And ultimately, that return on investment is gonna pay off tenfold every year. It'll be like a snowball over time. You just have to commit to it, doesn't happen overnight. It doesn't happen overnight. But if you put some time, some effort and some dollars behind building your brand, it will pay off in the long run. So that's it. Thanks for watching. I hope these tips were helpful in thinking about how you can develop your digital marketing strategy for your retail store to fit the mold for where we're going into the future and how things are moving digital and how consumers are changing and how the market is changing. Put some thought into it. If you have additional comments and tips, please leave them in the comments. Like the video if you like it, and share it with your friends. Follow us for more content like this down the road. Happy marketing.