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Over the past few years, it's become harder to run a retail business in person. Many people are preferring to shop online, reducing traffic to stores and making it harder to turn a profit. However, it's not impossible to run a successful retail business these days, despite the challenges. The key is to implement some solid marketing strategies, which will encourage people to visit your store or shop from you online. Marketing your retail business effectively is crucial for attracting customers, increasing sales, and building brand awareness. Below, we'll highlight five key strategies practically every retail business should be using if they want their store to grow.
Merchandising
A great place to start is with merchandising. Merchandising is the process of arranging your products in-store to better sell them. With merchandising strategies, you're aiming to influence customer behavior and get them to buy your products, all through the setup of your products. You can achieve merchandising in a number of ways, such as creating an appealing display, giving away free samples, adding some new signage, or creating product bundles or promotion packages. Spend some time researching merchandising strategies, then see which of them you can implement throughout your store to better promote your products.
Social Media
Next, you should examine your social media presence. With social media, you can connect with tons of interested customers in your immediate area, all for very little cost. These days, many people like to follow their favorite brands online so that they can learn about the latest products or promotions as they come out. By creating social media accounts for your retail store, you're giving customers a way to interact with your brand outside of the store.
To get started, make sure you have accounts on the largest social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Then, you can start small by posting pictures of your latest products or announcing special discounts for social media followers. If you want to gain more followers, promote your social media accounts in your store or run some paid advertisements on the social media platforms themselves. Over time, you should accumulate more followers, which will help others find your business.
SEO
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is another essential strategy for any business. With SEO, you're aiming to get your website near the top of online search results for terms related to your store. For example, if you have a retail store that sells beauty products, you'd like your store to appear at the top of search results for terms like “skin care products near me.”
There's a lot that goes into SEO, but there are a few simple things you can do to get started. For one, make sure your retail store is registered with Google My Business so that it appears in local searches. After that, spend some time learning about keyword research and how to place those keywords within your website. If you don't have a lot of time, consider working with an SEO agency, as they have the expertise necessary to quickly get your website near the top of search results.
Email Marketing
Email marketing remains one of the more powerful marketing tools available for retail stores. Most people check their emails at least once a day, giving you a prime opportunity to gain their attention. Through email marketing, you can alert interested customers to your newest products or latest promotions, encouraging them to stop by your store.
To get started with email marketing, you'll need to start gathering the email addresses of your audience. Make sure there is a place where users can subscribe to your email list on your website, and ask if they want to enroll when they're completing checkout. To encourage more people to sign up, consider offering a discount on their next purchase. With the right email marketing strategy, you can significantly improve your return customer rate with minimal effort.
Word of Mouth
Lastly, there's word of mouth. Many people still rely on the recommendations of others when determining where to shop. If one of your customers has a good experience at your store and gets several friends to visit as a result, you've now significantly increased your reach. Now those new customers can tell their friends, and so on and so on.
However, you don't have to just hope that people will recommend your store. To encourage word of mouth, you can implement strategies like offering discounts on referrals. You can also simply ask people to leave a review for your store online, which acts as a form of word of mouth. Asking happy customers to tell people about your store is a simple thing to do and most people are happy to do so.
Marketing is an ongoing process, so regularly review and adapt your strategies based on customer feedback, market trends, and emerging technologies to stay relevant and competitive.
Thank you for reading!