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Retailers have quite a lot of competition. That’s true locally, alongside more nationally. As a result, it doesn’t matter if they’re online-only or a brick and mortar retailer; they’ll have to do a lot to give themselves an edge.
While a lot of this will focus on your products and customer experience, you’ll need to stand out among your competitors first. The primary way of doing so is through marketing. If you’ve just started your business, then you’ll need to put an extra effort into this.
You mightn’t know what marketing strategies will work for you, however. Though there’s a wealth of options, some wouldn’t be the right fit for your company. That could be because of your budget or simply because it’s not an effective way of engaging with potential customers.
There are a few specific marketing strategies that should be quite affordable. They should also be relatively effective for a retailer, provided you put the time and effort into them.
Top Marketing Tips For Retailers
Encourage Loyalty With SMS Marketing
If you have any loyalty programs or other customer-facing initiatives that take in their information, then you might have your consumers’ phone numbers. This can be put to good use with retail SMS marketing. The approach is one of the more low-cost approaches that you can take.
It’s also one of the most targeted options you can choose. As a result, it’s one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies for retailers that you can choose. You’ll need to make sure that your messaging is right, but it should lead to more sales for your company.
Use Social Media To Target More Effectively
Social media is mandatory for any business, regardless of whether or not they’re a retailer. Potential customers practically expect it. It’s also a way to re-engage with followers and generate more sales. To do this, you’ll need to be active regularly.
Many companies use social media as a way to sell continually. That shouldn’t be the route you take. If you do, you could find your follower counts drop quickly, which will result in reduced sales.
Instead, see social media as a way to communicate with followers while strategically publishing more sales-oriented content every once in a while.
Make Sure To Be Locally Relevant
If you’re a brick-and-mortar retailer, then one of the most important marketing strategies is to be locally relevant. People want to support their local community. If they don’t know that your business is local, however, then they’re less likely to support it.
Targeting locally relevant keywords online, alongside marketing in local publications, are both recommended options for this. If you have a relatively large budget, you could also sponsor local events or sports teams.
A local marketing campaign will increase your brand awareness in your community while also building goodwill among potential customers. That should be more than enough to bring in more customers.
Get Creative With Videos
Most retailers will have pictures of their products populating their website and social media accounts. As effective as these can be to help sell, it shouldn’t be the only thing you do. Creative copy will be another part, and can often be just as vital as images, if not more so.
If you want to add to this, you should add some videos. These can be much more visually appealing than images and can give potential customers a much better idea of what your product does. Videos can also bring in a storytelling element that pictures can’t replicate.
That lets your company connect with potential buyers on a much more personal and emotional level. Since you can also educate them about your product much more effectively, video content increases your chances of gaining sales.
Improving Your Retail Revenue With Marketing Strategies
With the potential impact that marketing strategies can have on your business, you might want to get started on them as soon as possible. Rushing into things isn’t the right approach, however. You’ll first need to identify which strategies would be the most effective for your retail company.
Though all of the above can offer results, some will offer much more than others. You’ll need to determine what the potential return on investment will be with each option. Knowing where you’re likely to see the largest return should be where you focus most of your efforts.
After that, you’re free to pick and choose with the other options. Proper planning, tracking, and analyzing will be needed for this. Using the information you gain from previous campaigns, you can improve your future marketing strategies, which would be mandatory.