Retail | How To
10 Retail Marketing Strategies to Drive Sales in 2023
REVIEWED BY: Meaghan Brophy
Meaghan has provided content and guidance for indie retailers as the editor for a number of retail publications and a speaker at trade shows. She is Fit Small Business’s authority on retail and ecommerce.
WRITTEN BY: Agatha Aviso
Published November 17, 2022
Agatha Aviso is a writer of the Reviews Section at Fit Small Business, focusing on order fulfillment and eCommerce platforms. Agatha has a decade’s worth of experience writing online content for small businesses and marketing industries. She also served as a content strategist and digital marketing manager for many entrepreneurs.
This article is part of a larger series on Retail Management .
- 1 Develop Curb Appeal
- 2 Effectively Use Retail Space
- 3 Sell Custom Products
- 4 Create a Competitive Pricing Strategy
- 5 Build Online Presence
- 6 Invest in Local SEO
- 7 Run Geo-targeted Ads
- 8 Stay Connected With Customers
- 9 Expand Through Partnerships
- 10 Turn Your Associates Into Marketers
- 11 Retail Marketing Strategy Evaluation & Assessment
- 12 Bottom Line
A retail marketing strategy is an actionable plan to develop and promote products to attract and keep customers and drive sales—and it is essential whether you’re a seasoned business owner or just starting a retail business . With 20% of small businesses failing in their first year and over half of them not surviving by their fifth year, business owners must devote more time to developing solid retail marketing strategies to get people interested in their products—and keep them interested.
Read our recommended ideas for implementing a retail strategy for your retail business.
1. Develop Curb Appeal
Curb appeal is about the look and feel of your store from the street , including parking and landscaping.
First impressions last, and this holds for your retail store. For potential customers and passersby, your storefront is their first impression of your business. Your store’s curb appeal must get them into the store so you can have a better chance of getting a sale.
Some ways you can develop curb appeal:
Install Storefront Signage
Your signage communicates not only your business name but also your message to shoppers, so they connect with your brand and want to enter your store. A long-standing study has validated this—60% of businesses increased sales by an average of 10% by updating their signages.
Another report found that 80% of customers would choose to shop at a new store with an inviting exterior vs one without. Making your store’s exterior more attractive with storefront signage can make the difference between pedestrians and paying customers.
- Install a storefront sign with your name that cars and pedestrians across the street can easily read.
- Have smaller signage by your front door and windows for people walking by your store who may be too close to see your more prominent overhead sign.
In addition to your permanent storefront sign, use a combination of window and temporary A-frame signs to catch shoppers’ attention from every angle. (Source: Pinterest)
- How to Choose a Storefront Sign for Your Business
- Creative Business Sign Ideas
Design Enticing Window Displays
Window displays are one of the most critical parts of an effective retail strategy. Like signs, they can cause a passerby to turn and enter your shop when they ordinarily would have walked past without a second thought.
Foot traffic has increased 3.9% compared to pre-pandemic levels as of November 2021, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. So, it’s never been more important for retailers to focus on their window displays.
- When creating a window display, choose a theme that resonates with buyers, such as a holiday or seasonal theme.
- Choose complementary colors and arrange your display with various heights and depths to make it visually attractive.
Window displays not only bring in customers but they help you to display (and promote) new products, strengthen your brand image, and distinguish your store from the competition.
This chocolatier’s appealing holiday window display turns heads and attracts passersby.
- Tips for Creating Stunning Window Displays
Make Use of Your Curbside & Outdoor Lighting
Outdoor lighting should be part of your storefront retail marketing strategy. Having a well-lit entry and sidewalk is essential for customer safety. Also, having your sign and window display lit up helps customers notice or find your store at night.
Don’t forget to use your outdoor space. Create a comfortable environment with a few chairs and some greenery.
Don’t forget about your curbside, too! With close to 50% of shoppers citing curbside pickup and delivery as an important option when shopping, why not set up curbside extras to lure them in further to your store? For example, why not set up a board outside your store with some eye-catching art or witty phrase?
- Set Up Click & Collect for Your Store
A witty catchphrase on a board outside a jewelry store will surely draw some curiosity from passersby.
Did you know?
Your signage and parking areas have zoning laws you must abide by. Read our guide to zoning laws for small businesses .
2. Effectively Use Retail Space
When developing your retail marketing strategy, you would be pleasantly surprised that the most effective ones do not always require spending a ton of money or undergoing a complete store overhaul.
You can take two little steps to optimize the space you already have to improve the customer experience and boost sales:
- Re-plan your store layout
- Strategize your point-of-sale (POS) display
Use our free step-by-step guide to planning a store layout to make the most out of your space.
Download Free Store Layout Guide
- Organize Your Displays
- Monetize Your Checkout
- Create a Comfortable Environment
You want to make your merchandise do some work for you. Practical product placements can lure in shoppers, guide them through your store, and increase overall sales.
When organizing your retail display, follow these general guidelines:
- Showcase new and seasonal products at the entrance: Entice customers with seasonal or holiday displays and trending products; keeping the front of your store fresh also gives regular shoppers something new to browse.
- Place traffic-driving products toward the back: Place your bestselling items or sales racks at the back of the store so customers need to walk past and see all of your other merchandise.
- Highlight impulse buys at checkout: Stock small, low-cost items like candy, toys, makeup, or electronic accessories by the checkout counter so customers pick them up while waiting to check out.
The two most important parts of retail merchandising are that your displays stay tidy and that you change them often. Products should always be organized for customers, and new displays keep them coming,ng back to see what’s new.
- Visual Merchandising Techniques to Improve Your Store
- Cross-merchandising Strategies
Your checkout area is where your POS is and where customers complete a purchase. Monetize this area by doing the following:
- Display smaller, relatively less expensive products customers might have forgotten they needed or items that will entice shoppers to pick up while waiting in line. For example, grocery stores usually have candy bars, mints, gum, magazines, and batteries lining their checkout counters. Apparel stores may have items like wallets, hair accessories, or jewelry.
- Utilize point-of-purchase (POP) sales. Use those free displays to test out placing different products at the counter until you see what works, then design a more elegant display that matches the rest of your store.
- Effective POS Marketing Ideas
Customers who spend more time in a store spend more money. Encourage shoppers to relax and take their time by creating a comfortable retail environment.
- If you sell apparel, create accessible and well-lit fitting rooms and comfortable seats for friends and family to wait.
- Feature sample stations to encourage customers to test products, similar to how Costco or Lush does theirs.
- Play thoughtfully chosen music.
- Make sure your store is well-lit.
- Ensure accessibility. Create wide aisles and a section at the checkout counter no higher than 36 inches off the ground so a person in a wheelchair can access it.
- Fitting Room Design Tips
- A Retailer’s Guide to Virtual Fitting Room
- Select & Design Retail Lighting for Your Store
3. Sell Custom Products
Whether you are manufacturing a patented invention or creating a simple private label line, having products that shoppers can’t find anywhere else is an important step in increasing brand loyalty and name recognition, and can be a fantastic sales driver for your business.
Sell Private or White Label Products
Selling private label products is much easier than developing a custom product but offers many of the same benefits. Private label products are products manufactured by a supplier but sold under your brand name. These kinds of products are especially popular for skincare, beauty , food and grocery, kitchen, decor, accessories, tools, and electronic products.
Trader Joe’s is well known for its private label products. Most items sold in Trader Joe’s stores are under the retailer’s private label brands.
Create Brand Equity Through Private Label Brands
When people use products with your brand name or product line name on them, it reminds them of your store every time they use the product. These reminders build trust, encouraging customers to buy more quality products with your name on it.
Plus, retailers can typically make more money from private label products, as they’re usually inexpensive to manufacture. Still, you can mark them up to a much higher price since shoppers won’t be able to find that item anywhere else.
4. Create a Profitable & Competitive Pricing Strategy
How you price a product is another important consideration for your retail strategy. If your prices are too high, you could deter customers and lose sales. On the other hand, if prices are too low, you can make a lot of sales, but won’t have any profit margin.
Many retailers and ecommerce sellers use keystone pricing to price their products. Keystone pricing is a standard 100% markup, or double the wholesale cost. Selling a product for double the amount you paid is considered standard retail practice.
Learn more about pricing strategies you can implement in your retail business.
Consider Your Market Position
There are situations where you’ll want to deviate from keystone pricing. For example, if a product is selling exceptionally well, you might be able to increase the price. If you have a lot of private label or custom products, you may also be able to charge higher prices for those. However, if competitors or online businesses sell similar products at lower prices, you may need to consider lowering your prices to stay competitive.
- Conduct a competitor analysis to see how others price their products. If you find out all the other stores around you are offering the same products for the same price, you might look to create something unique—free alterations, no-questions-asked returns, or complimentary gift wrapping, for instance—and then charge more.
- Get feedback from your customers. Talking to your customers also gives you valuable qualitative insights into how to structure your pricing.
Use Promotional Pricing
Many businesses use promotional or sale prices to drive traffic and sales. Discount prices can leave small businesses with small profit margins but can effectively attract customers or clear out merchandise. Seasonal sales and coupons are popular promotional pricing strategies for retailers.
5. Build Your Online Presence
Whether you have an ecommerce store, brick-and-mortar store, or mobile sales, your online presence is an integral part of developing a retail marketing strategy. An online presence provides more opportunities for sales, especially for shoppers who don’t live near your store or can’t make it in during store hours.
Plus, you’d be losing out on the over 2 billion people worldwide that shop online if you don’t create an online presence for your retail store. Engaging with customers online also helps keep your business at the front of their minds so that they think of you when they do need to make a purchase.
Use Social Media
There are key social sites that every retailer should be participating in: Facebook, Instagram, Yelp, and Google.
- Google and Yelp: Being active on Google and Yelp allows you to see and respond to customer feedback. These two sites are important for helping prospective customers find your business. Make sure to have an active Google My Business account as well, because it helps customers find accurate contact information on Google.
- Instagram and Facebook: These two social channels are great avenues for maintaining relationships with current customers. Instagram, in particular, is very effective because you can talk directly to customers through Instagram Stories. Many retailers also use Stories to showcase new products and offer customers behind-the-scenes footage. Facebook, meanwhile, is an excellent medium for highlighting events and new products at your store. Facebook Advertising can also be a very effective part of your retail strategy for bringing in new local customers.
TikTok and Snapchat have also emerged as valuable retail marketing tools, especially for appealing to younger shoppers.
Use these social media channels to refine your messaging, test your pricing, and promote your best products. Analyze your social ad results to see which messaging and pricing combinations produce the best results.
Create Digital Sales Channels
As an omnichannel approach toward shopping becomes the preference for almost one-third of shoppers in the US and studies show retailers lose almost 30% in sales if they do not sell on multiple sales channels, having an ecommerce store is crucial.
In the US, approximately 80% of the population shop online . If you don’t have an online store, you’re missing out on many sales opportunities with consumers in your backyard and several states away.
Luckily, building an online store is easy with the right tools. Shopify is an affordable ecommerce platform with ready-to-go templates, so you can have your store up and running in no time. Plus, Shopify makes it easy to track and fulfill orders, manage products, and sell on social media sites like Facebook and Instagram.
Looking for other alternatives for your online store? Check out our buyer’s guide on the best ecommerce platforms and recommended Shopify alternatives .
Leifshop.com is one example of a Shopify store.
- How to Start An Online Store
- Ecommerce Website Design Checklist
- Selling on Facebook Shops and Facebook Marketplace
- How to Sell on Instagram
- Other Channels for Digital Sales: Tiktok , Pinterest , YouTube
- Explore Livestream Shopping
6. Invest in Local SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) isn’t just for online retailers—physical retailers can and should optimize for search too.
Prioritize local SEO —you don’t have to target the general keywords that thousands of other businesses are targeting. Instead, go for relevant keywords the audience in your area would search for. For example, create landing pages with your website homepage that target individual locations in your city or town.
Optimize for “Near Me” Searches
The number of searches that included “near me” increased by over 200% in 2019, and “open now near me” searches grew 400% in 2020. Optimizing your website for “near me” searches and Google Maps is essential to attract more people to your physical store. Remember, if people are searching for something near them , there is a pretty strong signal of intent (to buy).
Get started by creating or updating your company’s Google My Business profile. Your profile should include your business name, address, opening and closing hours, contact information, photos, and a description that includes keywords. Consider incorporating local citations as additional cues to Google.
Keep all your details consistent across your website and any other third-party app. To make your listing more relevant, encourage customers who visit your store to leave reviews on your business profile. There are also local SEO tools that can automatically optimize for you and offer recommendations on improving your rankings.
7. Run Geo-targeted Ads
One of the best things you can do to attract more people to your business is to run location-based ads. Unlike general ads, geo-targeted ads target only people in a specific geographical area, preferably those who live in the same town or city as your physical store.
Considering that businesses are expected to spend more than $32 billion on location-targeted ads by 2023 in the US alone, it goes without saying that this ecommerce marketing strategy works.
Target People Near Your Store
To get started with geo-targeted ads, you’ll need to create a business account with a platform from which you plan to run the ads. This could be Facebook , Twitter, Google , Instagram, and/or Snapchat.
Once your account is set up, you can create ads to show to people within a set radius around your store. For instance, you can show ads to people within 10, 5, or 2 miles of your store. The bid amount changes depending on the radius you set. This is a perfect tactic to promote click-and-collect services or online ordering for restaurants—especially ideal for minimizing foot traffic during COVID-19 outbreaks.
Learn how to run a successful ad with our ultimate guide to Facebook advertising .
Run Ads During Significant Local Events
Another way to increase foot traffic to your retail store is by running geo-targeted ads during a large or significant local event.
For example, if you run a music store and notice a famous artist or band performing in a nearby location, you can quickly run ads that target the audience attending the concert.
This strategy works particularly well if you’re located close to an airport, stadium, university, or some other area where a specific demographic may gather. Retailers can also run these location-based ads during holidays.
8. Stay Connected With Customers
Your first sale is just the beginning of a potentially long and profitable relationship. Part of an effective (and long-lasting) retail strategy is figuring out how you will stay connected with customers after the sale.
Launch a Customer Loyalty Program
A customer loyalty program is a great way to incentivize repeat purchases and learn more about your most frequent and biggest spenders. You can also incorporate referral rewards into your loyalty program to encourage word-of-mouth marketing—fueling both customer retention and acquisition simultaneously.
What’s more, with a customer loyalty program, you can create shopper profiles that can serve as the basis for product marketing and your overall personalized marketing efforts. Associates can make tailored recommendations based on these profiles, and you can automate marketing campaigns and product recommendations based on their behavior.
- Customer Loyalty Program Ideas and Examples
- Best Customer Loyalty Program Software
- Calculating Customer Retention Rate
Send Regular Email Campaigns
One of the most direct ways of staying connected is through email marketing . You can collect customer contact information at the point of transaction using a modern POS system and keep up with them post-sale.
Don’t be shy when sending emails to your customers. Your loyal and top-spending customers likely want to hear from you more often. Of customers surveyed, around 70% preferred if brands contacted them via email .
Emails don’t always have to contain a sale or coupon. Celebrate milestones and keep customers in the loop on store or general news.
Implement a Retail Mobile Strategy
Along with emails, collect your customers’ phone numbers so you can send them marketing text messages . Use mobile marketing to send notifications or promote time-sensitive offers to your customers. Location-based messages can also remind them to purchase in-store, provide additional product information, and promote exclusive in-store promotions.
Regularly Conduct Surveys
Customer surveys are an important part of your retail strategy because customers can provide unfiltered feedback on ways you can improve. Customer satisfaction surveys can be simple, with one or two questions and an open-ended space to leave longer comments.
Some retailers also use customer surveys to measure interest in new product lines, events, or additional shopping hours. Using customer feedback takes some guesswork out of trying to improve your business, making customers feel their opinion is valued.
Plan Regular Events
Retail events are effective because they give your customers an excuse to shop, while also making them feel appreciated with some extra like a goody bag, early access to new products, or a special discount. Events drive traffic to your store and provide a reason to send out lots of marketing and promotional material.
Download our free 2023 retail marketing calendar , which includes all the major holidays for 2023 and seasonal markers, below:
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Free Retail Marketing Calendar
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Annual big retail events, such as back to school and the holiday season, are prime selling season. Take advantage of the influx of shoppers by employing these strategies:
- Back to School Marketing Tips for Retailers
- Black Friday & Cyber Monday Strategies, Trends, and Sales Tips
- How to Create a Retail Gift Guide
- Creative Christmas Display Ideas and Examples
9. Expand Through Partnerships
Local businesses thrive when they work together. When developing your retail marketing strategy, consider neighboring businesses and how you could work together. Partnerships not only increase retail sales , but it’s also a great way to promote your business and get name recall.
A few ways you can do this include partnering with stores in the same location, getting involved in community projects, and wholesaling to other retailers.
- Store Partnerships
- Community Involvement
- Product Wholesaling
In Stratford, Connecticut, the founder of Mellow Monkey Decor brought together other local businesses to form the Stratford Lower Loop , a marketing tool that creates a destination out of the local shops in the area.
Mellow Monkey Decor created Stratford Lower Loop to bring tourists and shoppers to local businesses.
You can get involved with your local Chamber of Commerce and other town organizations to learn about vendor and sales opportunities at community events. Being present in your community—outside your store—will organically spread awareness about your business and boost name recognition.
Retailers can also use local businesses to build out additional sales channels. Work with other businesses in the community so you can sell your products in their stores when they host events.
- Open a Pop-up Shop
- Smart Pop-up Shop Ideas for Retailers
If you create custom or private label products, consider selling those products to other local businesses. This is particularly effective if you are in a tourist destination or college town and your products reflect your area.
For example, The Two Oh Three is a Connecticut lifestyle brand that sells apparel and accessories with various local logos. They sell online and at events but sell their products to other local boutiques to resell.
The Two Oh Three is an online retailer that sells its products to local businesses.
Learn how to sell products wholesale .
10. Turn Your Associates Into Marketers
Associates can and should double as marketers and brand ambassadors for your retail business. They are the ones who interact with your customers the most. With the right sales staff, you can create an unforgettable and personal customer experience—and drive more sales.
Use Associates as the Face of Your Business
Humanize your business by showcasing your employees. If you have a brick-and-mortar store, your regular shoppers already know your store associates and will appreciate seeing a familiar face online and in marketing materials. If you have an online store, create an “About Us” page introducing your staff and put some faces behind your brand name. Or you can feature them in social media posts like Somatic Massage Therapy & Spa does:
Offer the Right Training
Hiring great associates isn’t always easy. Training your team and supporting hard and soft skill development is important. Make sure everyone knows about your latest promos and store updates so they can share them with your customers.
Outdoor retailer REI is an excellent example of a business with associates who proactively contribute to the retail marketing strategy. REI hires associates who share a lot of characteristics with its target customers. Plus, they’re knowledgeable about the products and activities for which REI products are used. They have smart product recommendations and can promote items from their own experiences.
Arm Staff With the Right Tools
Equip your staff with the appropriate business tools, like a mobile POS , to help them feel more confident and drive sales instead of simply answering questions and maintaining the space. This way, they can walk around the sales floor and meet customers where they are. When customers have questions, they can look up the answers on the spot.
- Retail Customer Service Tips and Examples
- Customer Service Training Ideas, Activities, & Games
- Tips for Welcoming Shoppers into Your Store
Evaluate & Assess Your Retail Marketing Strategy Frequently
Your retail marketing strategy is never complete—you need tracking to know if it’s working.
Retail data analysis can help you unearth trends before your competitors do, allowing you to be an early adopter. Retail calendars, such as the 4-5-4 and 4-5-5 , can also be helpful tools to monitor sales figures.
With retail data analysis, you can accurately measure, track, and interpret sales, employee, and customer data to better understand your business and continue to hone your retail marketing strategy.
Bottom Line
Developing a retail marketing strategy requires thinking about what kind of products you’ll sell, where you’ll sell them, and how you’ll keep customers engaged post-sale. It is holistic and encompasses everything from your store’s appearance to product selection and pricing. Remember: there’s no one-size-fits-all strategy, and your particular retail marketing strategy will evolve as your business grows.
About the Author
Find Agatha On LinkedIn
Agatha Aviso
Agatha Aviso is a retail software expert writer at Fit Small Business. She specializes in evaluating ecommerce and retail software features that help small businesses grow. She has evaluated dozens of the top software for retail SMBs. Agatha has more than 10 years of experience writing online content for both small business owners as well as the marketing industry. She also served as a content strategist and digital marketing manager for many entrepreneurs.
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10 Retail Marketing Strategies to Help You Get New Customers — and Keep Existing Ones
- You’ll learn what retail marketing is and why it’s critical to your success.
- Wise up on retail marketing best practices — including leveraging the best channels, launching marketing partnerships, and running “win back” campaigns.
- This post also sheds light on key customer management and marketing tools you can use to ensure the success of your efforts.
Whether you’re just setting up shop or been running your store for decades, acquiring new customers and keeping the ones you already have are paramount. The good news is that there are more than enough ways to market your business.
In this post, we’ll shed light on the ins and outs of retail marketing and offer insights into the various strategies you can use in your business.
What is retail marketing?
Retail marketing pertains to the strategies and tactics that retailers use to attract customers and drive sales. Retail marketing has 4 key components, also knows as the “4 Ps”: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion.
- Product. First is the Product, which is the physical item that’s being sold.
- Price. The second is Price, which refers to the pricing strategy that the merchant uses to sell the item. (Examples include “everyday low prices,” implementing pricing psychology like using “$9.99” etc.)
- Place. Third is “Place” which refers to the location or platform used to sell products.
- Promotion. Finally, there’s Promotion, which is what the retailer does to get the word out and entice sales.
Successfully executing your retail marketing strategies requires a solid handle on the 4 Ps. Tracking these componenents and ensuring that they’re all working together is essential to any marketing initiative.
For best results, use a POS and retail management system that allows you to manage the 4 Ps with ease . With the right platform, you can keep your all your ducks in a row (i.e., your products, prices, places, and promotions) and focus on brining your retail marketing ideas to life.
With that said, here are some tips on how to market your retail business and get in front of the right people.
1. Be where your customers are
Effective retail marketing isn’t just about the specific campaigns that you run; the channels and platforms on which you run your initiatives matter a great deal. Even the most brilliant marketing tactics won’t be effective if you don’t meet your customers where they’re are.
So before ideating on your next slogan or initiative, take some time to analyze where your customers are and where they’re coming from.
Here are some areas that you can look into:
The channels that are driving traffic to your brick and mortar store
Identify the channels, tactics, and activities that are bringing visitors to your retail stores. Some common ones may include:
- Retail displays and in-store initiatives – Are people coming into your store because of the vibrant windows? Are they attracted to the large signs or beautiful products you have on display? If these in-store efforts are driving results, then you know that it’s worth doubling down on them.
- Online listings – People are increasingly turning to tools like Google and Yelp to find and discover businesses in their neighborhoods. If this is the case for your retail biz, then be sure to make them a big part of your retail marketing strategy.
- Digital marketing – From Facebook ads and Instagram posts to AdWords and a strong ecommerce presence, the things you do online may also drive in-store traffic. See to it that you’re measuring your efforts on the digital marketing front.
- Word of mouth – Are your customers talking up your business? If word of mouth is a big traffic driver for you, be sure to incorporate it into your retail marketing.
The devices that your customers are using when browsing your site
If you have an online store, be aware of the devices that people are using when browsing your site. Are most of your visitors using a computer or are they increasingly on their mobile devices? What’s the device split that you’re seeing on your site?
The insights you gather will help inform your design and marketing efforts.
The performance of your brand across various networks and platforms
Compare your brand presence and performance across different platforms. If you have multiple social media accounts, for example, it’s worth measuring and comparing your fanbase and engagement on different sites or apps, so you can identify your strengths and weaknesses.
For instance, are you getting more engagement on one social network over another? Are people clicking on certain ads and not paying attention to others? Determine the reasons behind these things, then use those insights to steer your retail marketing strategy.
2. Use with the store assets you already have
Before looking at fancy retail marketing tactics, start by leveraging the assets you already have . If your store is up and running, you likely have a lot of resources that you can use in your marketing efforts.
These assets include:
Your merchandise and fixtures
The best way to attract and convert customers is to wow them with your amazing merch. See to it that you’re always stocking the right products. Then once you have the right merchandise, come up with creative displays and arrangements to make them pop.
Not sure how to do that? Start by identifying your “Lake Front Property.” This is the area of your store that generates the most revenue.
According to Rich Kizer and Georganne Bender , “Displays in this area should house new, hot and high margin product, not every day, basic items that are best housed toward the rear of the store. And since 90 percent of customers enter a store and look or turn to the right, the Lake Front Property needs to be merchandised with particular care.”
Further Reading
Follow the steps outlined in this post to locate your Lake Front Property.
Your window and curbside
Your window and curbside offer tons of opportunities to attract new customers, so get the most out of them. Let’s start with your windows…
Window displays – Keep changing things up and try to update your displays at least once a month. For busy shopping seasons like the holidays, you want to do it every couple of weeks or even every week if possible.
Every retail store is different, so certain design tips may work better for others. The “best” design or look depends on your customers, so zero in on who you’re targeting and craft your displays specifically for them.
Also, consider telling stories with your displays. You can do this by selecting a theme, and finding stories in line with it.
Check out what Anthropologie is doing. The apparel retailer changes the window displays of its stores depending on certain seasons or events. What makes their window displays great, though, is that Anthropologie always finds a unique angle or story within its chosen season theme.
For instance, for Earth Day 2013, the retailer decided to “pay homage to the gifts of gardening with a variety of handcrafted fruits and veggies, and containers made from recycled cans, tires, bottles and more.”
Curbside – Don’t neglect your curbside. In addition to keeping this space clean and tidy, consider adding “curbside extras”. For example, why not set up a sandwich board outside your shop with some eye-grabbing text or art? Doing so can make passers-by stop and pay attention.
Check out this great example from Covet Shoppe & Jewelry Bar in San Francisco
Did you know that Starbucks spends more money on employee health benefits than coffee beans? And according to AOL , the company also “offers extensive benefits packages that are customized for each employee, called “Your Special Blend.” Options include things like bonuses, 401 (k) matching plans, health/medical/dental plans, and even adoption assistance.”
Starbucks recognizes that happy and healthy employees perform better and are generally more pleasant. Walk into any Starbucks store and you’ll likely find enthusiastic baristas who chat up customers and recognize their regulars. Starbucks’ employees provide a great in-store experience that keeps people coming back.
Here’s our point: employees could be your best marketers. It’s important to keep them engaged and motivated. Accomplishing that starts with hiring the right people and treating them well. Offer competitive compensation, provide ample training, and strive to be a great place to work.
These steps will lead to happier employees and higher levels of performance, which in turn lead to better retail experiences and more satisfied customers.
3. Leverage social media
When it comes to retail and social media, there are three platforms you should seriously consider: Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. These are the most consumer-centric networks, making them ideal for merchants. Pinterest has the added edge of being a platform people specifically go to conduct research before they purchase something.
So let’s break it down:
Facebook tips for retailers
Here’s the reality: if you’re a brand who wants to get more visibility on Facebook, you need to pay for it. The social network has been decreasing brands’ organic reach for some time now, but in 2018, we can expect business’ organic presence to decline even more.
Mark Zuckerberg himself said that they will be rolling out changes to the News Feed to prioritize content from friends, family, and groups, so business pages will have to fight even harder to get exposure.
Here’s what you can do to compete:
Start a Facebook Group – Facebook lets you create Groups for your business or brand. Think of Facebook Groups as clubs or communities where your most engaged customers and fans can congregate.
While you can talk about your products and business, the primary purpose of having a Facebook Group is to allow your customers to connect with each other. It’s not a place to shamelessly promote your business.
One example of a company that’s leveraging Facebook Groups is Peloton, an indoor cycling brand. The company established the Official Peloton Rider Pag e, which is “intended to be a community board for Peloton members to share their experiences on the Peloton bike and iOS app.”
The Group is very active, and people use it to share their workouts, ask questions, dish out tips, and more.
See if you can do something similar for your Facebook presence. If you sell something that’s centered around a particular lifestyle or interests (e.g. fitness, food, crafts), then consider creating a Facebook Group for your patrons and potential customers.
Run Facebook ads – If Groups aren’t your cup of tea, or if you want even more brand visibility on Facebook, then you’ll need to run Facebook ads to reach your target audience.
The good news is, Facebook has a variety of ad products with robust targeting capabilities that let you zero in on your specific audience.
The best thing to do is test different advertising solutions, then keep track of your metrics (e.g. clicks, engagement, sales, etc.) Take note of the numbers, then use those insights to determine your ROI. This will help you figure which ad types are right for you and how much to budget for Facebook advertising.
Using Instagram to market your store
With over 800 million monthly active users (over half of which are active daily), it’s obvious that Instagram is a go-to social network for today’s shoppers. Here are some best practices to consider:
Curate your visual content exquisitely – Your Instagram posts should be anything but random. You need to create a clear brand aesthetic so when people visit your profile, they get a quick idea of who your brand is.
Check out Clad and Cloth’s profile. You can see instantly from their collection of photos that their brand produces casual clothing items and likes a clean neutral palette with pops of color.
So, if you haven’t done so yet, spend time thinking about your brand aesthetic. Ask yourself, what kind of first impression do you want people to have about your brand? Find the answer then figure out how to make it come to life on your Instagram page.
Make liberal use of Instagram Stories – Instagram Stories allow you to be more informal with your aesthetic, as people expect Stories to be more spontaneous and less curated. You can use them to give people behind-the-scenes glimpses at your store or showcase new products.
A secondary feature of Instagram Stories is that you can create a few permanent ones to display on your profile, highlighting things you really want your potential customers to see. Check out what Peridot Decorative Homeware is doing. The retailer uses these permanent Story spots to make it easy for people to view interior designs, shop for items, and more. They even created custom Story cover images to make them look more attractive!
Hashtag it up – Research which hashtags are relevant to your brand and use them to help your photos surface in front of people you’d like to become customers. Pro tip: rather than putting the hashtags right into the caption, post your picture without hashtags and immediately comment them. It looks cleaner than putting hashtags in the caption.
Looking for inspiration for what to post on Instagram? We’ve put together a roundup of Instagram posts that do extremely well .
Pinterest for retailers
Now let’s move on to Pinterest best practices:
Remember that curation is key – Like your Instagram profile, make sure that your Pinterest boards are carefully curated . You should create boards that make it simple for potential customers to navigate to things they’re interested in.
J.Crew , as you can see, has boards that make it easy for you to look at their jeans, their prints, or their stripes.
Don’t just pin your own things – Get social and pin things on your boards from others. (But make sure it fits your aesthetic.)
Be aware that the Pinterest algorithm doesn’t necessarily surface your content quickly – It can often take up to 6 months for your content to really start appearing in people’s feeds.
This means that, while you should be pinning your products, pages that will do best for you organically are likely to be links to your blog posts. You can write blog posts specifically for Pinterest, such as gifting guides that help get your brand lift and will then direct your customers on to your correct pages all year round. As for products, they’ll do great on Pinterest in ad form.
4. Consider SMS marketing
SMS marketing has been making waves, and for good reason: people love their phones. Research shows that US consumers check their phones 52 times a day and that text messages have a higher open rate (98%) compared to email (25%).
That’s why if you haven’t dipped your toes into SMS retail marketing, it may be time to do so. Start collecting your customers’ mobile numbers and send — with their permissions — relevant marketing communications.
One retailer that’s seen amazing results with SMS marketing is Federation +, a popular streetwear brand in New Zealand.
Federation + markets its brand on multiple channels, including SMS. One notable initiative is the brand’s end of the year SMS campaign , in which customers were offered a 20% discount both in-store and online. To give people a sense of urgency, the offer ended at midnight that same day.
The initiative worked incredibly well. The campaign had a 95% delivery rate, an 8% click rate, and a conversion rate of 11%. Suffice it to say, Federation + ended the year strong!
5. Leverage video
In many cases, the best way to market your merchandise is to show your products in action. This is easily doable in-store, where shoppers can touch and feel products or even try them on. However, when marketing online, you need to get more creative with your visuals.
Enter video marketing. When leveraged correctly, video does an excellent job in showcasing the use cases and value proposition of your merchandise.
Here are some quick tips for using video in your marketing:
Make them relatable – You want viewers to connect with your brand when they watch your videos. You can do this by making the content as relatable as possible. Start by featuring people who look like your target customers. If you’re targeting middle-aged moms, for example, then you’ll want to feature that persona in your content.
Choose the right format and platforms – Determine the best platform for your videos. Is your target audience on YouTube? Do they prefer TikTok or Instagram? The answers to these questions will help inform your video strategy. Factors like the the length of your videos, the content you’ll produce, as well as the themes and and effects that you’ll incorporate into the content, hinge on the platform on which your videos will live.
Have a clear CTA – Determine what you want viewers to do after watching your content. Do you want them to follow you online? Check out a specific product page? Get in touch with you? Mention the CTA in your video or add a link in the description. In some cases, you can embed a CTA link into the content and ask viewers to “click” or “swipe up.”
One brand that’s doing a top-notch job with video marketing is Rebecca Minkoff. Rebecca often posts Reels on her Instagram page to showcase different apparel pieces and accessories. Rebecca Minkoff herself embodies that trendy female persona of her brand, so she’s the perfect subject to star in these videos.
There’s also a clear CTA on most of her Reels. Whenever a product is featured in a video, Rebecca Minkoff tags those products so customers can easily view and purchase them.
6. Market your business through key partnerships
Partnering with a local business or charity is a wonderful way to get your brand’s name out to people who can come and shop in person, not just online. There are a few ways to do this:
Partner with the stores in the same location as you – If you’re in a strip mall or downtown area, you can ask the stores around you to offer your coupons to their customers (in return for you doing the same). The upside here is that you’ll be directly reaching people who are perfectly positioned to just pop by. The downside is that your neighbors’ clientele may not be your clientele.
Partner with stores in the general area whose clientele are your clientele – If you have stores in the nearby area that service the same clientele as you, you can also ask them to offer your coupons. Alternately, if you worry that no one will be motivated to drive to you based on coupons, you can always take your business to your partner and set up a pop-up shop for a day.
Partner with a local charity to put on an event – Customers these days are much more socially conscious and like to shop with brands who care. Partnering with a local charity offers you the chance to hit two birds with one stone: get your name out to a new set of people and show your customers you care about making a difference at the same time. Choose a charity whose values align with your own and set up an event!
7. Beef up your email marketing
Email marketing is still the most effective marketing channel, with a 4400% ROI . Taking advantage of email to acquire new customers just requires a little savvy-ness.
Segment your non-customers – The best way to use email marketing for getting new customers is to segment your subscribers who haven’t purchased yet into their own list. (For even more effective and personalized emails, you should further segment this list by other relevant pieces of information.)
You can then send people who haven’t purchased yet targeted campaigns with first-time buy offers or giveaways.
Showcase your story and values while you’re at it – Another great campaign idea is to send an email detailing your brand story. It’ll get people engaged with your brand and excited about your values.
The Farmer’s Dog is killing it on this front. Check out this gorgeous email I received after not purchasing. Their story is touching and the 20% off coupon is a solid CTA to end on. (And fun fact: their marketing automation software also served me a personalized 20% off CTA when I went to the website independently about 20 minutes later. Genius.)
Provide value (period) – Email promotions aren’t the only way to acquire new customers.
You also have to think about the long game of email + content marketing, in which you send valuable content without any hard sells or strings attached. This builds trust and positions your brand as an authority, so when people are ready to buy, they’ll think of you.
Check out what The Dollar Shave Club (DSC) is doing. While DSC sends promotional emails now and then, they also have DSC “Original Content” emails that contain informative (and entertaining) articles on grooming, health, style, work, and more.
These content pieces are non-salesy and they’re refreshing to read, especially when every other company out there keeps sending “SALE” or “BUY NOW!!” emails.
The bottom line? Your email marketing strategy should have a mix of promotional and valuable content. Find the balance that works for your subscribers and go from there.
8. Run a win-back marketing campaign
Marketing to new shoppers is great, but what about your existing customers? I’m specifically referring to those who haven’t shopped with you in a while. Identify inactive shoppers and win them back with a marketing campaign showing them what they’re missing.
A good example of this in action comes from Our Bralette Club (OBC), a lingerie retailer based out of Singapore. OBC uses Marsello to automatically run “win-back” campaigns.
Using Marsello, OBC automatically identifies customers who haven’t shopped with the brand in a while, and sends them a series of messages encouraging them to come back — complete with a 15% coupon. These messages have generated amazing results. OBC earned $4,000+ in revenue in just 4 months thanks to this automated email flow.
Boost your retail marketing efforts with automation. Using a solution like Marsello, you can automate various customer outreach campaigns so you can spend less time doing tedious tasks like customer segmentation and data entry, and devote more energy ideating and strategizing for your business.
9. Consider influencer marketing
These days, a nod or endorsement from an influencer carries more weight than traditional advertising. Why? Because people are more inclined to act on the recommendations of sources they know, like, and trust.
This is why it pays to have an influencer strategy. Getting key individuals to recommend or talk about your brand can drive awareness, traffic, and ultimately, sales.
The basis of influencer marketing is that your brand partners with a third party content creator who then pushes your products on their platform(s).
One brand, Morphe , used influencer marketing to become in less than a decade one of the most powerful names in the beauty industry. Morphe was founded in 2008 with the very intention of using beauty influencers, particularly those on Youtube, as their primary way to generate sales. They have given many, many beauty influencers affiliate codes, but Morphe really refined the art of marketing by working very strategically with a certain few top influencers, whom they pay extra.
They also collaborated with these influencers to create customized beauty items, like eyeshadow palettes, which the influencers then encouraged their huge followings to purchase.
This strategy paid off in a big way when Morphe’s top influencer, Jaclyn Hill, delivered Morphe 1 million sales of her palette in 6 months last year. At $38/palette, that’s pretty life-changing for a brand.
The best part about this story for your store? You can totally replicate their success! Morphe was an almost unknown brand when they first partnered with Hill, who was also relatively unknown at the time. Morphe prudently chose to invest in her early on and their partnership ultimately allowed both parties to flourish. If you’re looking to use affiliate marketing, follow Morphe’s footsteps and get strategic about who you’re investing in.
Want to learn more about influencer marketing? Here’s a detailed post on using influencers to drive word of mouth and sales .
10. Start a referral campaign
Capitalize on word-of-mouth marketing with a referral campaign. While there are many variations on referral campaigns, the core idea is that you provide some sort of incentive for your happy customers to share the word about you to their friends.
Stitch Fix , a fashion box company, has referral marketing down to an art. Their referral campaign is such a permanent part of their strategy that it actually has its own page on their website.
Each customer is provided with a unique link to Stitch Fix’s home page. The customers can then share this link with their friends and social network. When someone purchases a box using that link, the original customer is given a $25 credit towards their next box. (And the new customer is enticed to make a purchase with their own $25 credit.)
For stores looking to replicate Stitch Fix’s success, consider testing out referral marketing with an initial campaign. Choose your incentive, set up goals and get cracking. (For a great step-by-step guide on how to run your first referral marketing campaign, check this article out.)
Acquiring new customers can be daunting for a SMBs, but these strategies have worked wonders for many retailers. By testing different things out and analyzing your results, you’ll be able to figure out what works well for your brand.
And take note that these retail marketing tactics are just the tip of the iceberg. There are plenty more ways to acquire new customers. You could try promotions , mobile marketing , or events , among other things. They key is to try different things, figure out what works, then go from there.
About Francesca Nicasio
Francesca Nicasio is Vend's Retail Expert and Content Strategist. She writes about trends, tips, and other cool things that enable retailers to increase sales, serve customers better, and be more awesome overall. She's also the author of Retail Survival of the Fittest , a free eBook to help retailers future-proof their stores. Connect with her on LinkedIn , Twitter , or Google+ .
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These marketing strategies are great. Marketing increases the value of a product several times over. These are certainly must-try strategies.
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What is Retail Marketing? Benefits, Types, Strategies
- by Michael Keenan
- Jun 28, 2022
- 21 minute read
- What is Visual Search: How Retailers Can Use it to Enhance the Customer Experience
- How to Make Your Product Copy More Persuasive
- Affiliate Programs for Retailers: What Are They and How They Can Boost Your Revenue
- The 8 Best Podcasts for On-the-Go Retail Entrepreneurs
- Social Commerce For Retail: What Is It and 3 Examples of Retailers Doing it Well
- Retail Partnerships: How to Collaborate with Other Stores (+ 9 Examples)
- 4 Easy Ways to Get Better Reviews on Your Google Places Page
- 6 Examples of Retail Gamification to Boost Engagement and Sales
- The Science of Free Samples: How Freebies Keep Customers Coming Back For More
- 7 High-Impact Books Every Retailer Should Read [Giveaway
A lot goes into creating your retail store.
Selecting or creating products, finding a space to lease, hiring employees—it takes a lot of time and energy to start up. Now that your store is live (or about to go live), what’s next?
That’s where retail marketing comes into play. Retail marketing is the process of getting people interested in your products and improving in-store sales. Retailers that can’t market themselves will struggle to succeed.
Nearly 20% of small businesses fail within their first year. If you don’t want your new store to be one of them, see below for advice on how to market and drive sales.
Table of Contents
What is retail marketing?
Importance of retail marketing, types of retail marketing, retail marketing mix: the six ps, retail marketing strategies, examples of successful retail marketing, retail marketing trends.
A retail marketing strategy is any method that helps spread awareness and increase sales and profitability for your products or company. It goes well beyond advertising in the local newspaper. The layout of your store, your social media presence, and employees are all part of your retail marketing plan.
A good retail marketing strategy helps you sell your products to your target audience. It helps them overcome any doubts about your products and reduces buyer’s remorse, which some 77% of shoppers feel after buying something.
Let’s look at some of the other benefits of building a retail marketing strategy.
Build customer loyalty
A business's first sales are great, but what's really important is getting repeat customers. Bain & Company found that by increasing your customer retention by 5%, you can increase your profits by up to 95% .Customer feedback requests, loyalty programs, and email or SMS marketing are a few retail marketing strategies that improve customer loyalty.
Since implementing customer loyalty programs, sales have gone up by 80%. Most of it comes from customers recommending or buying our products over and over again. Eric Mills, Owner and CEO of Pro Support Accessories
Increase revenue
The goal of retail marketing is to get new customers into your business, and retain them for the long run. Whether it’s social media, SEO, partnerships, or paid advertising, they are all tactics to drive revenue for your business.
Strengthen branding
Research shows that consistent brand presentation can increase revenue by 33% . A good retail marketing strategy will strengthen your brand and make your products and company recognizable.
In-store marketing
In-store marketing refers to any promotional activities that take place inside your store. It promotes products to customers and provides them a comfortable experience. In-store marketing, in other words, focuses on engaging customers as they go through the shopping journey.
Examples of in-store marketing include:
- In-store displays that feature certain products or price cuts
- Offer samples of new products
- Hosting events like live music or product demos
- Having a suggestion box or interactive board
- In-store promotions that encourage your customers to walk into your store
Traditional marketing
Traditional marketing refers to finding a target audience through offline channels like print marketing or billboard ads. While digital marketing has eclipsed traditional marketing for many industries, it’s still a good way to connect with local audiences.
Common channels include:
- Flyers and brochures
- Direct mail
- Newspaper ads
- Event marketing, like pop-ups
- Referral marketing
We were offered the chance to pop-up in other businesses before we launched our brick-and-mortar; that was a great way to bring awareness to our business, and gain customers before opening. Kate Collings, founder of The Tare Shop
Digital marketing
Digital marketing is the act of promoting your store or products through organic and paid efforts using online platforms. A well-rounded digital marketing strategy encompasses multiple channels, such as:
The channels you choose depend on where your audience hangs out, your budget, and your overall business goals.
Related: 15 Digital Marketing Ideas for Retail Store Owners
Increase store foot traffic with Shopify
Shopify comes with built-in tools to bring more online shoppers to your store. Manage your Google Merchant Center listing without leaving your point of sale, show each product’s availability across all store locations, offer in-store pickup, and more.
Presentation
The Six Ps are an expansion of the four Ps of marketing, which is a foundation model for building marketing strategies that connect with your target audience. It provides a set of tools you can use to reach your goals and objectives.
The Six P’s are: Product, Price, Place, Promotion, Personnel, and Presentation.
The product is any item or service that your customers need or desire. Retailers break Product down into three categories:
- Core: products that you always have in stock and ready to sell.
- Line extensions: different variations of the core product.
- Related products: items that support the core product or make it work better.
For example, if you’re selling blue jeans, the line extensions are different styles (baggy, slim fit, skinny); the belts, shoes, and shirts are related products.
Price is what you sell your product for. It’s based on your cost of goods sold, promotional plans, and product lifestyle. Your pricing strategy must work for your target market and competition.
Place is where customers can buy your products. In terms of retail, this could mean a stand-alone store downtown, a shopping center, or a mall. Place considerations include:
- Public transportation options
- Competitor locations
- Visual merchandising
Promotion refers to how you reach customers. Every retailer needs a promotional plan to build awareness, increase foot traffic, and improve conversion rates.
Retailers often use promotional tactics like:
- Referral programs
- Loyalty cards
- Email marketing
Your employees must also encourage sales through customer interactions. Discussing the latest promotions and upselling particular products are a great way to promote your products in-store.
💡 PRO TIP: Want to create beautifully branded emails to promote your next product launch? Use Shopify Email to create, send, and track campaigns, all from within Shopify—no coding experience required.
Floor staff are the face of your retail store. They are the ones customers interact with from when they walk in the door until the final sale. To succeed, retailers must train their employees and have trustworthy people on board.
Presentation is how your product is seen by the outside world. Everything from packaging to how you communicate with your customers determines whether your target audience will buy repeatedly.
A retail marketing strategy is any activity you use to attract customers to your store. Retailers rely on many types of marketing strategies across different channels to meet their goals.
Popular strategies include:
Curb appeal
Organize retail displays, build your online presence, invest in local seo, run local ads, stay connected with customers, work with influencers, invest in word-of-mouth marketing.
They say you first eat with your eyes, and the same is true in retail. Before a customer gets anywhere close to checkout, your curb appeal must get them into the store. Curb appeal refers to the look and feel of your store from the street, including parking and landscaping.
Some ways to boost curb appeal include:
- Install nice signage. 60% of businesses reported that updating signage increased sales by an average of 10% . Your signs communicate your message to shoppers from the street, so they connect with your brand and enter your store.
- Create an engaging window display. Data shows that window displays influence purchases an average of 24% of the time. Attractive displays that highlight the right products and promotions can increase foot traffic into your store.
I’ve always known that your window could be impactful, but I didn’t realize just how many people it really did bring us. Christie Pinese, founder of Rose City Goods
Read more: How to Create Window Displays that Turn Heads and Drive Sales (With 12 Real Examples)
Visual merchandising refers to how you plan, design, and display products to highlight their features. The goal is to attract customers and motivate them to buy. The best visual merchandising tactics will keep your store organized and help products sell themselves.
Visual merchandising includes:
- The color palette of your store
- The music you play in your store
- The scents surrounding your display
- Interactive displays
Organizing your retail display is critical to successful retail marketing. It allows you to connect with people through the five senses and can trigger more sales in your store.
Read more: What is Visual Merchandising? How to Leverage Product Displays For Your Retail Business
There are over 3.78 billion social media users in the world today, and over $181 billion dollars spent on social ads alone. Even though you have a brick-and-mortar store, building an online presence on social media helps grow your audience and attract the right customers.
Almost all (91%) of retailers use two or more social media channels. Popular channels for retailers to market on include:
Lost on what types of content to create? You can publish content like:
- Behind-the-scenes visuals
- Event promos
- Community-driven content
- Influencer promos
- Product photos
- Short videos
The list goes on. Social media is a great place to share your brand's story and connect with new potential customers.
Read more: Social Media Marketing: How to Build Buzz for Your Retail Store
Local SEO refers to increasing your store’s online visibility in a specific area. For example, if your store is located on Main Street in Patchogue, New York, a local SEO strategy can help people in the entire town of Patchogue (and beyond) find your store on Google.
It also helps people find you when they perform a “near me” search, which has increased 3X over the past two years. In this case, Google uses the searchers’ location to deliver the best results nearest to them.
According to our research , 81% of US consumers say being able to easily find a local retailer through searching online is important to them. Retailers that invest in local SEO can get found online and increase store visits and sales.
Related more: How to Build a Local SEO Strategy for Your Retail Business (+ 9 Tools to Get Started)
💡 PRO TIP: You can set up, track, and manage local inventory listings and Smart Shopping Campaigns from Shopify’s Google channel . Get all the perks of marketing your business on Google without jumping between accounts.
To help get discovered by shoppers, you can run local ads on Google. One popular ad type you can run is called “Local Inventory Ads”. These ads let you pay to boost your inventory and have it seen across Google’s network, including Search and Shopping.
Local inventory ads show up in Google with the labels “In store” and “Pick up today”. These labels tell the shoppers that the product is available in a store near them.
Local ads are a smart way for retailers to bring high-intent shoppers into their store. By running these ads, you can get found across various digital places like Google Search, Google Maps, Google Images, and more.
Related Reading: How to Reach Nearby Shoppers with Google Local Inventory Ads
💡 PRO TIP: With Shopify, you can get your products found by more nearby shoppers looking for what you sell on Google. List your products on Google for free , show pickup availability to increase store visits, and measure how your listings impact store sales from Shopify.
We make purchasing decisions based on our feelings. Research shows that emotions drive customer choices before, during, and after purchase.
So if customers felt emotionally charged to purchase from your brand, they'd likely spend more. The question is how to trigger these post-purchase feelings?
Top ways to keep in touch with customers after they leave your shop include:
- Sending post purchase emails to see if they like the product.
- Asking customers to follow you on social media.
- Sending text message updates with sales and promotions.
- Sending regular, tailored email content to past customers.
- Starting a loyalty program.
Read more: 4 Strategies to Keep the Conversation Going After Customers Leave Your Shop
📌 GET STARTED: Choose from hundreds of loyalty apps in the Shopify App Store and start rewarding shoppers for purchases they make both online and in-store.
Influencer marketing is the practice of partnering with popular individuals to promote your products to their followers. It’s a fast-growing industry, valued at over $13.8 billion , and popular among younger consumers, 49% of whom depend on influencers for recommendations.
By working with the right influencer, you can create long-lasting brand partners and run campaigns that appeal to your target audience. When choosing influencers, you want to look at more than just follower count. You want to check out:
- Their values
- Their total reach
- Who their followers are
- How they engage with their audience
- Their engagement-to-follower rate
While these are surface-level metrics to vet an influencer, you’ll need to do more research before signing them on. Find the right person by reading Influencer Marketing for Retail: How to Find the Right Ambassador For Your Business .
Marketing by word of mouth means getting existing customers to tell their friends and family about products they like. For retailers, it's all about making their products worth talking about.
Retailers make $6 trillion a year from this type of marketing. It accounts for 13% of all consumer sales. Word-of-mouth recommendations are most popular in industries like electronics, groceries, and apparel.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Rothy's (@rothys)
Learn more: Word of Mouth Marketing: How to Get a Free, Sustainable Flow of New Customers
Fashion retailer Rothy’s offers quality products that are sustainable and actively help to clear the environment of marine plastics. It also employs several retail marketing strategies that have allowed it to expand:
- Referral incentives with its give $20, get $20 offer
- Customized offerings based on information given during newsletter sign up
- Pairing with influencers like Mindy Kaling and @dress_up_saturday to increase awareness of the brand.
Read more: Retail Partnerships: How to Collaborate with Other Stores (9+ Examples)
The Tur-Shirt Company
UK-based The Tur-Shirt Company sells children's clothing. Founder Terri-Anne Turton capitalized on the opportunity to appear in John Lewis, one of the UK's largest high-end department stores. The partnership netted the brand more social media followers, website visits, and most importantly, more sales and repeat customers.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Tur-Shirt Company Ltd (@theturshirtcompany)
Bird Rock Coffee Roasters
Bird Rock Coffee Roasters offers customers a coupon code for $2 off their next purchase. Such small marketing techniques encourage customers to become accustomed to a local coffee shop.
Omnichannel buyer journeys
Cause marketing, experiential retail, token-gated experiences, metaverse marketing.
Let's take a closer look at each of these trends individually.
An omnichannel buyer’s journey takes place when customers go through multiple touchpoints, both digital and physical, before making a purchase. It involves a multi-channel sales strategy that creates a positive experience for customers, no matter where they interact with your brand.
With the rise in digital ad costs , retailers are turning toward omnichannel experiences to draw customers closer to the brand, and eventually end in a sale.
Read more: 9 Omnichannel Trends to Look for in 2022: Predictions for the Future of Retail
💡 PRO TIP: Offering in-store pickup as a delivery method at checkout is a great way to get more online shoppers to visit your store. To get started, enable local pickup availability in Shopify admin to show online shoppers whether a product is available for pickup at one of your stores.
Cause marketing happens when a for-profit business teams up with a non-profit for a common benefit. It’s an authentic way to connect with customers and make an impact on society. Data shows that some 58% of people claim social activism impacts their impression of a brand, which suggests that more brands will incorporate cause marketing into their strategy.
Read more: Cause Marketing: What It Is, How to Do It, and Why It Matters
Gone are the days of packing retail stores with a superabundance of products. Some 60% of shoppers expect retailers to dedicate more floor space to experiences than products.
That’s where experiential retail comes in: a tactic that gives shoppers an immersive experience and upgrades their shopping experience. Examples include pop-up shops, masterclasses, and hosting community events.
Read more: Experiential Retail 101: How to Host In-Store Events Your Shoppers Will Love
Non-fungible tokens have changed the art world, building new ways for creators to control how their work is distributed. Retailers have also begun using NFTs through token gating . A token gating strategy refers to giving holders of an NFT access to exclusive products, experiences, content, deals, and more.
The metaverse market is projected to reach over $800 billion by 2024 . A metaverse is a hybrid world that marries the physical and digital realms to build immersive experiences for an audience.
Take the Metaverse Fashion Week , for example, which showcased 3D catwalks, exclusive events, and shoppable fashion in Decentraland, a virtual, browser-based world anyone with internet access can join. The metaverse is becoming a new channel to help retailers build unique experiences for consumers and sell their products more easily online.
Build a retail marketing plan for your store
You've worked hard to make your store and products perfect. By following this guide, you can attract the right people to your store and earn more sales. Customers are looking for you–but they can't find you if they don't know you exist. Let them know about you through a retail marketing strategy.
Grow store sales with Shopify POS
Shopify POS has all the tools to help you convert more store visits into sales and grow revenue. Make more relevant product recommendations, turn abandoned store sales into online sales, and track both store and staff performance from one easy-to-understand back office.
Retail marketing FAQ
What do you mean by retail marketing, what is the role of retail in marketing, what are the types of retail marketing.
- Point-of-Sale (POS) Marketing: This type of retail marketing focuses on sales promotions, discounts, and other incentives at the time of purchase.
- Online Marketing: This type of retail marketing involves using the internet and other digital channels to attract customers and promote sales.
- In-Store Marketing: This type of retail marketing uses physical store displays, signage, and other in-store tactics to encourage shoppers to purchase.
- Direct Marketing: This type of retail marketing involves sending promotional materials directly to customers, such as emails, catalogs, and direct mail.
- Social Media Marketing: This type of retail marketing uses social media networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, to engage with customers and promote sales.
- Mobile Marketing: This type of retail marketing uses mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, to reach customers.
About the author
Michael Keenan
Michael is a SaaS Marketer and SEO and founder of Peak Freelance. He’s inspired by learning people’s stories, climbing mountains, and traveling with his partner and two Xoloitzcuintles.
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8 Marketing and Promotion Ideas for Retail Stores
- by Ana Gotter
minute read
Fortunately, marketing isn’t just a luxury for large businesses with big budgets. There are tons of marketing options that can help retail businesses in every industry and size reach their audience, regardless of budget or experience.
In this article, we explain 8 different marketing strategies and promotion ideas for retail businesses and discuss how to choose which will be best for you:
- Social media
- Email marketing
- Influencers
- Referral campaigns
- In-store assets
- SMS marketing
- Win-back campaigns
What is retail marketing?
Retail marketing is marketing to promote your retail store. Marketing can mean organic content (for example, blog posts), paid content (for example, advertisements) or a mix of both.
Marketing includes both in-person and digital strategies, which can encompass everything from running giveaways on social media to having a sign outside your brick-and-mortar store detailing a special promotion.
In many cases, businesses benefit from using a combination of retail marketing strategies at once (which is sometimes referred to as a “marketing mix”) to reach more people.
Retail marketing has 4 key components, also knows as the “4 Ps”: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion.
- Product. First is the Product, which is the physical item that’s being sold.
- Price. The second is Price, which refers to the pricing strategy that the merchant uses to sell the item. (Examples include “everyday low prices,” implementing pricing psychology like using “$9.99” etc.)
- Place. Third is “Place” which refers to the location or platform used to sell products.
- Promotion. Finally, there’s Promotion, which is what the retailer does to get the word out and entice sales.
Successfully executing your retail marketing strategies requires a solid handle on the 4 Ps. Tracking these componenents and ensuring that they’re all working together is essential to any marketing initiative.
For best results, use a POS and retail management system that allows you to manage the 4 Ps with ease. With the right platform, you can keep your all your ducks in a row (i.e., your products, prices, places, and promotions) and focus on bringing your retail marketing ideas to life.
When you’re considering which marketing strategy to use for your business, it’s a good idea to look at a number of different options to see what would work best.
1. Leverage social media
When it comes to retail and social media, there are three platforms you should seriously consider: Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok. These are the most consumer-centric networks, making them ideal for merchants looking to reach new customers.
Marketing on Facebook
Even with the rise of newer platforms like TikTok, Facebook is still the most popular social media platform in the world. On Facebook, you can share frequent updates with your customers, promote your products, create on-platform events thanks to a built-in event function and use features like live broadcasting to make meaningful connections.
You can also provide direct links to your website in your posts, or connect your Facebook page to a shoppable catalog. Keep in mind that you’ll need to create a Facebook account in order to manage ads on Instagram, because the ad software is shared between platforms.
Start a Facebook Group
Facebook lets you create Groups for your business or brand. Think of Facebook Groups as clubs or communities where your most engaged customers and fans can congregate.
One example of a company that’s leveraging Facebook Groups is Peloton, an indoor cycling brand. The company established the Official Peloton Rider Pag e , which is “intended to be a community board for Peloton members to share their experiences on the Peloton bike and iOS app.”
The Group is very active, and people use it to share their workouts, ask questions, dish out tips, and more.
See if you can do something similar for your Facebook presence. If you sell something that’s centered around a particular lifestyle or interests (e.g. fitness, food, crafts), then consider creating a Facebook Group for your patrons and potential customers.
Run Facebook ads
If Groups aren’t your cup of tea, or if you want even more brand visibility on Facebook, then you’ll need to run Facebook ads to reach your target audience.
The good news is, Facebook has a variety of ad products with robust targeting capabilities that let you zero in on your specific audience.
The best thing to do is test different advertising solutions, then keep track of your metrics (e.g. clicks, engagement, sales, etc.) Take note of the numbers, then use those insights to determine your ROI. This will help you figure which ad types are right for you and how much to budget for Facebook advertising.
Marketing on Instagram
Instagram is one of the most popular social platforms today, with over a billion monthly active users . What started as a photo sharing app in the early 2010s has now become a full-blown photo, video and shopping destination for consumers and businesses alike.
Your business can connect with your community by sharing short form video clips to Instagram Stories or Reels, posting product or in-store photos to the feed, hosting Live events through Instagram Lives or more long form through IGTV. Creating an Instagram Shop will let customers view and buy products directly from the app.
Carefully curate your visual content
Y our Instagram posts should be anything but random. You need to create a clear brand aesthetic so when people visit your profile, they get a quick idea of who your brand is.
Check out Clad and Cloth’s profile. You can see instantly from their collection of photos that their brand produces casual clothing items and likes a clean neutral palette with pops of color.
So, if you haven’t done so yet, spend time thinking about your brand aesthetic. Ask yourself, what kind of first impression do you want people to have about your brand? Find the answer then figure out how to make it come to life on your Instagram page.
Use Instagram Stories
Instagram Stories allow you to be more informal with your aesthetic, as people expect Stories to be more spontaneous and less curated. You can use them to give people behind-the-scenes glimpses at your store or showcase new products.
A secondary feature of Instagram Stories is that you can create a few permanent ones to display on your profile, highlighting things you really want your potential customers to see. Check out what Peridot Decorative Homeware is doing. The retailer uses these permanent Story spots to make it easy for people to view interior designs, shop for items, and more. They even created custom Story cover images to make them look more attractive!
Marketing on Pinterest
If you have an eCommerce website, using Pinterest is a smart choice. Pinterest, like Google and YouTube, functions as a search engine. Over 450 million users flock to the platform to research buying decisions or find inspiration and how-to guides. If your business can be the answer they’re looking for, you’ll likely find success.
You can also work on creating content-focused pins with tutorials showing how to use a product. Here’s a great example from Sephora’s page:
Pinterest also has shopping capabilities, so you can tag your products in certain pins for customers to shop directly from the platform. Advertising on Pinterest is another popular option. Promoted Pins can help you create targeted campaigns so that your ideal demographic will see your content.
Remember, curation is key
Like your Instagram profile, make sure that your Pinterest boards are carefully curated . You should create boards that make it simple for potential customers to navigate to things they’re interested in.
J.Crew , as you can see, has boards that make it easy for you to look at their jeans, their prints, or their stripes.
The Pinterest algorithm doesn’t necessarily surface your content quickly. It can often take up to 6 months for your content to really start appearing in people’s feeds.
This means that, while you should be pinning your products, pages that will do best for you organically are likely to be links to your blog posts. You can write blog posts specifically for Pinterest, such as gifting guides that help get your brand lift and will then direct your customers on to your correct pages all year round. As for products, they’ll do great on Pinterest in ad form.
Marketing on TikTok
TikTok is taking the social media world by storm. As one of the world’s fastest growing apps, TikTok became the first non-Facebook owned app to reach 3 billion installs globally .
The short form video format combined with TikTok’s interest-based algorithm makes the platform very small-business friendly. If you’re comfortable in front of the camera or have someone on your team who is, all you need is a smartphone and our tips and tricks to get your business seen by thousands.
2. Beef up your email marketing
Email marketing is still the most effective marketing channel, with a 4400% ROI . Taking advantage of email to acquire new customers just requires a little savvy-ness. It will help you keep customers engaged without depending on an algorithm. With email marketing or loyalty software , you can send segmented campaigns based on your customers’ past purchases and current behaviors, like abandoned carts or views of a specific product page.
This form of targeted marketing is powerful and a great way to remind customers that you’re around.
Segment your non-customers
The best way to use email marketing for getting new customers is to segment your subscribers who haven’t purchased yet into their own list. (For even more effective and personalized emails, you should further segment this list by other relevant pieces of information.
You can then send people who haven’t purchased yet targeted campaigns with first-time buy offers or giveaways.
Showcase your story and values
Another great campaign idea is to send an email detailing your brand story. It’ll get people engaged with your brand and excited about your values.
The Farmer’s Dog is killing it on this front. Check out this gorgeous email I received after not purchasing. Their story is touching and the 20% off coupon is a solid CTA to end on. (And fun fact: their marketing automation software also served me a personalized 20% off CTA when I went to the website independently about 20 minutes later. Genius.)
Provide value
Email promotions aren’t the only way to acquire new customers.
You also have to think about the long game of email + content marketing, in which you send valuable content without any hard sells or strings attached. This builds trust and positions your brand as an authority, so when people are ready to buy, they’ll think of you.
Check out what The Dollar Shave Club (DSC) is doing. While DSC sends promotional emails now and then, they also have DSC “Original Content” emails that contain informative (and entertaining) articles on grooming, health, style, work, and more.
The bottom line? Your email marketing strategy should have a mix of promotional and valuable content. Find the balance that works for your subscribers and go from there.
3. Consider influencer marketing
Influencer marketing , if done well, can help your business reach its marketing goals. With influencers, follower count isn’t everything. In fact, engagement rate is a better metric for determining whether or not an influencer is worth partnering with.
Influencers with relatively low follower counts (fewer than 10,000 followers) often have much higher engagement rates than their mega or macro counterparts. A high engagement rate signifies a high amount of trust, and therefore, a higher likelihood of conversion for your business.
Find influencers that create content for the same target audience as your business and see if they are interested in partnering with your brand. You can do this by searching through your tagged photos, relevant hashtags or even your competitors’ accounts to create a shortlist of people to reach out to.
You can hire influencers to create photos or videos promoting the products in your store or specific event, like a grand opening.
How Morphe skyrocketed sales with influencer marketing
One brand, Morphe , used influencer marketing to become in less than a decade one of the most powerful names in the beauty industry. Morphe was founded in 2008 with the very intention of using beauty influencers, particularly those on Youtube, as their primary way to generate sales.
They have given many, many beauty influencers affiliate codes, but Morphe really refined the art of marketing by working very strategically with a certain few top influencers, whom they pay extra.
They also collaborated with these influencers to create customized beauty items, like eyeshadow palettes, which the influencers then encouraged their huge followings to purchase.
This strategy paid off in a big way when Morphe’s top influencer, Jaclyn Hill, delivered Morphe 1 million sales of her palette in 6 months last year. At $38/palette, that’s pretty life-changing for a brand.
4. Start a referral campaign
Capitalize on word-of-mouth marketing with a referral campaign. While there are many variations on referral campaigns, the core idea is that you provide some sort of incentive for your happy customers to share the word about you to their friends.
Stitch Fix , a fashion box company, has referral marketing down to an art. Their referral campaign is such a permanent part of their strategy that it actually has its own page on their website.
Each customer is provided with a unique link to Stitch Fix’s home page. The customers can then share this link with their friends and social network. When someone purchases a box using that link, the original customer is given a $25 credit towards their next box. (And the new customer is enticed to make a purchase with their own $25 credit.)
For stores looking to replicate Stitch Fix’s success, consider testing out referral marketing with an initial campaign. Choose your incentive, set up goals and get cracking. Referral programs are an incredibly effective retail marketing strategy, with 92% of customers trusting recommendations from people they know. Creating incentives for customers to refer their friends can bring in high-value traffic and encourage repeat purchases from both. A popular way to do this is to offer a coupon for customers and their friends if they successfully refer someone. You can promote your referral and loyalty programs both online and in-store.
5. Use your in-store assets
In-store retail marketing focuses exclusively on leveraging the customer’s in-store experience to promote brand and product awareness. Some of these strategies will also drive traffic into the store, too.
There are seven in-store retail marketing strategies you should think about using if you have a brick-and-mortar retail store.
- In-store merchandising
- Window displays
- Curbside displays
- Staff training
- Partnerships and collaborations
- In-store or virtual events
- Referral and loyalty programs
In-store merchandising
The best way to attract and convert customers is to wow them with your amazing merch. See to it that you’re always stocking the right products. Then once you have the right merchandise, come up with creative displays and arrangements to make them pop.
In-store visual merchandising includes everything from storefront displays and product displays to your cash wrap and retail POS system . The idea is to display your products in a way that draws attention to them and inspires customers to make a purchase.
This can include any of the following:
- Signs promoting your special deals, like a buy-one-get-one offer
- Putting your fastest-selling items on a mannequin in the center of the store
- Displays near your register encourage users to add on last-minute “impulse purchases”
- Identifying your “Lake Front Property.” The area of your store that generates the most revenue.
Window displays
Window displays are a great way to capture people’s attention as they’re walking or driving by your retail store, hopefully drawing them in. You can show off some of your best selling merchandise and represent your brand in an exciting, creative way.
When creating window displays , use lighting, color and mood to your advantage.
Keep changing things up and try to update your displays at least once a month. For busy shopping seasons like the holidays, you want to do it every couple of weeks or even every week if possible.
Every retail store is different, so certain design tips may work better for others. The “best” design or look depends on your customers, so zero in on who you’re targeting and craft your displays specifically for them.
Also, consider telling stories with your displays. You can do this by selecting a theme, and finding stories in line with it.
Check out what Anthropologie is doing. The apparel retailer changes the window displays of its stores depending on certain seasons or events. What makes their window displays great, though, is that Anthropologie always finds a unique angle or story within its chosen season theme.
For instance, for Earth Day 2013, the retailer decided to “pay homage to the gifts of gardening with a variety of handcrafted fruits and veggies, and containers made from recycled cans, tires, bottles and more.”
Curbside displays
Curbside displays are similar to window displays in that they also aim to capture foot traffic as people walk past your store.
This is a great place to mention any specials or ongoing promotions that you have. These are typically relatively low cost to create, especially if you’ve got standard evergreen options or are using a chalkboard display that can be changed up regularly.
So don’t neglect your curbside. In addition to keeping this space clean and tidy, consider adding “curbside extras”. For example, why not set up a sandwich board outside your shop with some eye-grabbing text or art? Doing so can make passers-by stop and pay attention.
Check out this great example from Covet Shoppe & Jewelry Bar in San Francisco.
Staff
Your staff should all be trained in advanced sales techniques and know your inventory well. If they do, they’ll be able to do the selling for you, guiding customers to products that they’re looking for and even pointing out a few that they weren’t.
Well-trained staff, especially if they have access to an advanced commerce platform that clearly displays information about customers, will be able to identify potential add-on purchases, leveraging cross-selling and upselling to boost the overall purchase value. They’ll be excited about your brand and your products, so your customers will be, too.
Partnerships and collaborations
Establishing partnerships with other local businesses is an excellent way to expand your reach
and connect with new audience members.
One popular way to land a partnership is to pitch your products to be sold at complementary businesses. For example, if you own a pet store and produce your own line of dog shampoo, you might be able to partner with a local veterinary office to see if they would stock your products.
and connect with new audience members.
One popular way to land a partnership is to pitch your products to be sold at complementary businesses. Here are some more ideas:
- Partner with the stores in the same location as you – If you’re in a strip mall or downtown area, you can ask the stores around you to offer your coupons to their customers (in return for you doing the same). The upside here is that you’ll be directly reaching people who are perfectly positioned to just pop by. The downside is that your neighbors’ clientele may not be your clientele.
- Partner with stores in the general area whose clientele are your clientele – If you have stores in the nearby area that service the same clientele as you, you can also ask them to offer your coupons. Alternately, if you worry that no one will be motivated to drive to you based on coupons, you can always take your business to your partner and set up a pop-up shop for a day.
- Partner with a local charity to put on an event – Customers these days are much more socially conscious and like to shop with brands who care. Partnering with a local charity offers you the chance to hit two birds with one stone: get your name out to a new set of people and show your customers you care about making a difference at the same time. Choose a charity whose values align with your own and set up an event!
In-store events
In-store events can do wonders when it comes to bringing more foot traffic into the store. There are plenty of in-store event ideas that you can take advantage of. A wine store could hold a tasting, a studio gym could have a healthy cooking class and an art store could host a painting class, to name a few examples.
To keep customers safe and to honor social distancing protocols, virtual events have become a popular way to get people together. You can host events through video conferencing software and invite people to see your latest products from the comfort of their own home.
In addition to bringing traffic in and resulting in sales, events are also a great way to generate buzz on social media and nurture relationships with attendees.
You can connect your brand to both your community and a cause by hosting a charitable event that includes a donation. This is a powerful way to give back, while also reinforcing a positive reputation for your store. Showing that you care about doing good can impact how customers see you and your business.
Loyalty program
Loyalty programs are a great promotional idea for retail stores to show their appreciation of repeat customers. Pulling purchase history and customer data from your commerce platform can help you craft more personalized promotions. 72% of customers say they will only engage with personalized messaging.
You can also consider adopting different platforms for your loyalty programs including email, social media, and SMS text messaging. Giving customers choices on how they can be contacted also shows you’re paying attention to their preferences.
6. Consider SMS marketing
\SMS marketing has been making waves, and for good reason: people love their phones. Research shows that US consumers check their phones 52 times a day and that text messages have a higher open rate (98%) compared to email (25%).
That’s why if you haven’t dipped your toes into SMS retail marketing, it may be time to do so. Start collecting your customers’ mobile numbers and send — with their permissions — relevant marketing communications.
One retailer that’s seen amazing results with SMS marketing is Federation +, a popular streetwear brand in New Zealand.
Federation + markets its brand on multiple channels, including SMS. One notable initiative is the brand’s end of the year SMS campaign , in which customers were offered a 20% discount both in-store and online. To give people a sense of urgency, the offer ended at midnight that same day.
The initiative worked incredibly well. The campaign had a 95% delivery rate, an 8% click rate, and a conversion rate of 11%. Suffice it to say, Federation + ended the year strong!
7. Leverage video
In many cases, the best way to market your merchandise is to show your products in action. This is easily doable in-store, where shoppers can touch and feel products or even try them on. However, when marketing online, you need to get more creative with your visuals.
Enter video marketing. When leveraged correctly, video does an excellent job in showcasing the use cases and value proposition of your merchandise.
Here are some quick tips for using video in your marketing:
Make them relatable – You want viewers to connect with your brand when they watch your videos. You can do this by making the content as relatable as possible. Start by featuring people who look like your target customers. If you’re targeting middle-aged moms, for example, then you’ll want to feature that persona in your content.
Choose the right format and platforms – Determine the best platform for your videos. Is your target audience on YouTube? Do they prefer TikTok or Instagram? The answers to these questions will help inform your video strategy. Factors like the length of your videos, the content you’ll produce, as well as the themes and and effects that you’ll incorporate into the content, hinge on the platform on which your videos will live.
Have a clear CTA – Determine what you want viewers to do after watching your content. Do you want them to follow you online? Check out a specific product page? Get in touch with you? Mention the CTA in your video or add a link in the description. In some cases, you can embed a CTA link into the content and ask viewers to “click” or “swipe up.”
8. Run a win-back marketing campaign
Marketing to new shoppers is great, but what about your existing customers? I’m specifically referring to those who haven’t shopped with you in a while. Identify inactive shoppers and win them back with a marketing campaign showing them what they’re missing.
A good example of this in action comes from Our Bralette Club (OBC), a lingerie retailer based out of Singapore. OBC uses Marsello to automatically run “win-back” campaigns.
Using Marsello, OBC automatically identifies customers who haven’t shopped with the brand in a while, and sends them a series of messages encouraging them to come back — complete with a 15% coupon. These messages have generated amazing results. OBC earned $4,000+ in revenue in just 4 months thanks to this automated email flow.
Find the right marketing mix for your retail store
Starting out with the right retail strategies for your campaigns can make a huge difference. When you’re choosing a retail marketing strategy that makes sense for your brand, you’ll be able to invest your budget wisely into in-store and online promotions that work well for you.
Remember, too, that all businesses can benefit from a strong marketing mix. Having different touch points allows you to be more discoverable and accessible to your customers.
As you’re planning your overall marketing strategy, don’t forget to optimize your employee scheduling for best results. All retail stores will have a select handful of sales staff that are top-performers. Use scheduling tools and store data to ensure that you always have at least one experienced, high-performer in your store at all times.
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Ana Gotter is a freelance business writer specializing in content marketing and PPC copywriting. Since 2014, she has written for over 20 industries and has been featured in Social Media Examiner, Adespresso and more.
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How to Build a Retail Marketing Plan
Marketing Strategy
With today’s crowded marketplace, it has never been more essential to ensure that you have a sound marketing strategy in place to foster the growth of your business. Modern consumers are so regularly overwhelmed with content coming from all angles, social media, email, commercial, billboard, all vying for their patronage and hard-earned dollars.
This challenge is especially true when it comes to the retail space, which has faced quite a bit of disruption over the last few years thanks to the rise of eCommerce businesses. But traditional brick-and-mortar or digital based — all eCommerce businesses need a retail marketing plan to reach their full potential.
Heading to Market
To set yourself apart from other eCommerce businesses takes more than just a cursory idea of what your customers want. Rather, you must develop a deeper understanding of your place in the market and devise a thorough strategy that is tailored specifically to your product and the users you hope to reach. Only then will you be able to tap into your business’s potential for growth and realize the most effective ways to engage your customers. Here are a few steps you can take to jumpstart your company’s retail marketing plan.
- Identify your mission statement: Before you launch any kind of marketing effort, it’s absolutely imperative that you first establish a firm grasp of your business’s mission and objective in the marketplace. More specifically, you must know the need your business fulfills with customers. This understanding of your value will inform all subsequent decisions you make regarding how you market your product.
- Know your target audience: Once you know enough about the role your business plays in the market, the next step is to establish a clear idea of your ideal customer profile . These two are, of course, inextricably linked, but many companies neglect to recognize that how your business is designed and marketed plays an integral role in determining your potential customer base upfront.
- Decide on your branding: Now that you have defined your mission and audience, you need to then decide how to best connect the two. Everything from your logo to the outward messaging you send consumers shapes the specific branding of your business. Take a look at the competition for inspiration, and consider how you can distinguish yourself in the eyes of your prospects. What makes your approach different? For example, are you leading with price or quality? At this stage of your marketing strategy it’s critical to review your pricing and identify how it comes into play .
- Establish a marketing presence online: Given the age of social media we live in, it should be no surprise to realize that your business should have a presence among leading sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. However, your online presence doesn’t extend solely to these. Sites like Yelp, YouTube and Google Plus can also help expose your business to new prospects and boost your search engine optimization (SEO) ranking.
- Define yourself as an expert: In recent years, content marketing has become a more central way to gain awareness for your business, but it’s only one of many ways to establish the expertise your business brings to customers. You can also build upon this with partnerships with other companies, guest posts on popular sites (yes, even for free!) and events that position your business as a thought leader within your industry. This goes a long way toward building your credibility among prospects.
- Monitor results and adjust accordingly: Even if you are actively marketing your business already, you need to be prepared to adjust your strategy when something isn’t working. This flexibility to recognize a failed effort and to switch things up is essential to develop the further growth of your business. To keep your company from staying stagnant, be sure to have analytics in place to monitor results and act quickly if changes are needed.
The Future Awaits
While the technology involved in eCommerce lends businesses a certain flexibility, this aspect alone is not enough to keep your business afloat. Every day, new challengers are entering the fray, and there’s never been a more critical time to review the marketing plan you have in place to reach your target audience.
These steps are simply the start of a grander, more effective approach to connecting with consumers. Endless possibilities await you, and you’ll truly need to stay vigilant with your retail marketing strategy to achieve the continuous improvement and forward growth your business deserves.
For more invaluable insights into how you should approach marketing your eCommerce business and use automation to drive future success, check out our new eBook, “ Key Automated Marketing Strategies for eCommerce Store Success .”
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Real-Time MAP monitoring to identify & track violations instantly
What Is a Marketing Plan and Does Your Independent Retail Store Need One?
Access My FREE 5-Part Retail Sales Training Email Course!
Whether you are about to open a retail store or have been running one for years, if you don’t have a marketing plan, you really haven’t focused your attention on who your customer is or how you’ll reach them.
A marketing plan helps you understand who your target audience is - and who they are not . That's really important especially if you're trying to reach Generation Generic - the Millennials.
It also helps you effectively reach them and gives you a tool to boost your retail sales.
One of the greatest benefits of developing a marketing strategy is that once you have one, all of your planning becomes easier - not just your marketing.
But many independent retailers have never considered a marketing plan unless they had to file for an SBA loan . If they did, they may have felt they needed an exhaustive and expensive one.
Maybe you yourself have reviewed a few online, small business marketing plan examples hoping that you could simply copy and paste , or you’d buy some computer program to help you, and voila – you’d have your marketing plan.
But it doesn’t work that way.
The good news is that creating a plan for your small business doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive.
But build it and they will come just doesn’t work.
And just for the record, word-of-mouth is not a marketing plan . It’s the bonus, the pink frosting on the vanilla cupcake.
A marketing strategy helps you streamline your efforts because you know who you are talking to in the first place.
Whenever I do business makeovers I ask, “Who is your customer?” The clients invariably reply, “Everyone.”
That’s a lazy answer; you can’t market to everyone effectively. That's like shooting a shotgun into the air and hoping you hit something and instead waste your effort.
Is everyone old people who like to skydive? How about teenagers who are constantly on their iPads wearing earbuds? Boomers who are far-sighted? Engineers who value knowledge over low price?
There are many segments of shoppers, but most aren’t applicable to your specific business, and I’m here to help you get yours down pat.
Spend some time thinking
When you spend the time thinking about your specific customer, you’ll toss away many ideas that will not reach those particular people. You’ll save time and money and realize your goals more quickly and efficiently.
This doesn’t have to take a long time to do. Grab pen and a pad of paper. Pour yourself a cup of coffee, or if it’s after hours, a glass of wine, and develop your marketing plan in an hour or less.
Just answer these five questions
Not you personally – your business. The answer has to go beyond your company name and some generic description of the services you provide or the products you sell. What makes your small business better? What makes you unique? How is what you do different than your competitors?
Better yet, Why do you do what you do? Answer these correctly and everything else fits perfectly. If you struggle with it, I guarantee your customers will struggle and your marketing will fail miserably.
Who are my customers?
One of the most important steps in marketing is to be able to target your messages as narrowly as possible. The smaller and more focused your audience, the less you will spend to reach them. Who is your ideal customer? How old are they? Where do they live? Where do they work? Why do they buy from you? Look for the obvious signs…
What kind of cars do you see in your parking lot? Do they come in once a month or once a year? Do they pay cash, or charge, or ApplePay?
And yes, you will have many types of customers, but stay focused on just three different ones. In online marketing we refer to these as buyer personnas so that when we write, we envision one of those key groups.
For myself, I write posts like this one for independent retailers, others for larger brands, and others still for C-level executives. They are all concerned about similar issues but have different needs.
Don’t become discouraged if you do not know some of the answers to these questions or your answers at first seem generic. As you spend time with your plan, you’ll have insights because you will really get to know your customers.
What are my goals?
I tell my small business makeover clients , if you don’t know where you’re going, anywhere will do . And if you don’t prioritize your goals, chances are you will never get there.
Creating a goal is setting the bull’s eye for the target; your goals help you measure the effectiveness of your marketing activities. Set measurable and realistic goals you wish to meet within the next 6-12 months.
This is part of knowing whether your campaign is successful or not so choose your goals to be black and white results, not a feeling.
How much can I afford to spend to achieve these goals?
Your budget will keep your marketing expenses from spiraling out of control or running out of money when you really need to be visible, like during the holidays. You don’t want to spend $1000 to get $500 in sales so be realistic. If you want to have an event, it should still pay for itself in sales. Don’t forget to budget for Facebook sponsored posts or for your costs to acquire high-quality images for your regular newsletter.
On the flip side, remember many manufacturers have a set amount of co-op advertising funds. A lot of that money goes unspent each year because retailers simply don’t ask about it.
How exactly are you going to reach your target market to meet your goals?
The simplest way is to work backwards from your goals to develop strategies (what’s your logic) and tactics (how you’re going to do it.) Then plug them into a calendar.
An example would be:
Goal : Increase customer traffic by 25% weekly
Strategy : Customer traffic currently increases by 10% with each E-newsletter. Increasing the subscriber base to the E-newsletter by 15% should result in a 25% increase in weekly traffic.
Tactic : Create a counter card offering free widget to every new E-newsletter subscriber during the month of September. Train every employee on why this is important. Have a contest for signups. Track all new submissions to see if they came back after an email.
You get the idea.
See also, Can You Know If Your Marketing ROI Is Working For Your Retail Business?
Your retail marketing strategy drives product purchases and let’s you know how much you pay for attracting new customers.
Even a brief and simple marketing plan on a napkin can act as your roadmap to increase your retail success.
The key is to just start. Waiting gets you nowhere.
Follow these tips and you’ll not only find your marketing delivers more, but you’ll be able to buy merchandise that more closely aligns with your target customer, which limits markdowns and out-of-stocks.
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Retail Marketing Strategy: The Ultimate Guide for 2023 and Beyond + Examples
Retail marketing is a tricky business. That is why, f or this guide, we consulted the retail marketing experts at Acceleration Partners , an award-winning, global partner marketing agency with extensive experience in retail, to give you a deeper understanding of what a great retail marketing strategy involves , and the best tactics for retail marketing success in 2023 (and beyond!).
Retail marketing as a whole doesn’t get the attention it deserves. Most people focus on e-commerce alone, and the potential it has, but in reality, it only accounts for 14% of global retail sales . The other 86% comes from people walking into stores and buying products in person.
This presents a unique opportunity to use both online and offline marketing to drive revenue for your business. If you don’t take advantage of the right channels for retail marketing, then potential customers will go to a competitor without thinking twice. That is why it is so important to have a great retail marketing strategy!
So, what makes for a truly successful retail marketing strategy? And how do develop and implement one that works for your unique brand?
That is exactly what we’re covering today – everything you need to know to create and implement your own successful retail marketing strategy, along with examples, case studies and tips from the best of the best in retail marketing!
Let’s dive in!
Skip to What You Need
What is Retail Marketing?
Retail marketing is the process by which retail businesses promote their goods and services, to their target audience, in order to build awareness, goodwill, and generate sales.
There are countless ways a retailer can market their services. Some of them are free and others are paid. Traditionally, retail marketing has relied heavily on mass media advertising and commercials.
That said, retail marketing has rapidly evolved to include more peer-driven marketing techniques, such as affiliate and influencer marketing.
According the experts at Acceleration Partners , to be successful in the highly competitive space that is retail, brands must leverage the power of social influence to reach through the noise, establish trust and build meaningful connections with their customers.
It’s important to note that retail marketing is used by both e-commerce and traditional retailers. In fact, almost every retailer uses retail marketing in some form or another. It’s also apparent that online channels are becoming more and more popular. The majority of consumers use search engines to research retail products.
When those searches are on a mobile device , 88% of consumers call or go to the local business within 24 hours.
Before you can get 88% of the people who find you to walk into your store or visit your website, there are a few things that should be in place:
The Four P’s of Retail Marketing
The fundamental approach to retail marketing can be broken down into 4 key principles, namely: product, price, place and promotion.
This might be a given, but it is considered one of the most important retail components- you first need an actual product, otherwise known as merchandise, to sell.
There are two types of merchandise – namely hard or durable goods and then soft goods. Some stores can sell a combination of these types, or they might sell only one type of merchandise.
Once you have a neat product to sell to your customers, it then comes down to the packaging! And the packaging is way more important than some retailers realize.
According to Inc., of the 95% of products that fail to stay on the shelves each year, they believe that it’s due mainly to poor packaging. And I think they make a good point!
Here’s what they recommended for designing packaging that has a lasting impact:
- Understand your demographic
- Make cheap packaging look sophisticated and personalized
- Try to create a unique unpacking experience
- Use eco-friendly packaging options (a good example is Puma’s clever bag that they decided to use, as opposed to using a cardboard box).
Your choice of pricing is a vital part of the retail strategy, as it needs to cover the cost of goods, and any overheads, as well as remain affordable for customers. There are four main pricing strategies for you to use as a retailer:
- Everyday low pricing: this is when retailers operate within thin margins and try to attract as many customers as possible. This strategy is used by retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target.
- High/low pricing: this strategy is mainly used by small to mid-sized retailers, and is when the prices begin at a high price and are later reduced, as popularity fades.
- Competitive pricing: here the retailer looks closely at what the competition is charging for the same merchandise and will base their pricing on the competition. This strategy is normally used after the retailer has exhausted the high/low pricing strategy.
- Psychological pricing: this is also known as price ending or charm pricing – when a retailer uses odd numbers to price products. This is so consumers think they are paying for lower prices, when in fact they are not cheaper. For example, if an item is going for $1.95, customers might associate it with spending $1 rather than $2.
You can also look at the following two pricing methods for your product:
Cost-plus Pricing:
This involves using a break-even price for your product, where you add a markup, based on the amount of profit you would like to make. This is a very simple approach and doesn’t take your competition or product’s value into account.
Value-based Pricing
This method involves determining how much your product is worth to your target audience and using a price that will attract them to make a purchase. It might even mean using higher prices, allowing you to generate higher profits.
You may have the best product, packaging and price, but if it’s out of reach of customers, you’re in for a dilemma! So make sure you find the perfect location suited for your type of product.
The place for a product is where the retailer conducts business with its customers. While most of us think it’s a physical location such as a brick-and-mortar store or a shopping stall at a street market, it can also be the location of a product on another company’s online catalog, platform or an e-store.
4. Promotion
Promotion is the last, but certainly not the least, of the marketing principles. Promotion has to do with knowing how to effectively communicate and spark an interest in your product with your customers.
These tactics can include sales promotions, in-store merchandising, face-to-face marketing, and publicity.
However, in a world that is saturated with marketing messaging, consumers are relying more and more on recommendations from other people (not from brands themselves) to inform their purchasing decisions.
According to Acceleration Partners , various forms of partnership marketing , such as affiliate and influencer marketing, are now critically important for retail promotion.
You can also use these different methods at different times, depending on your objectives, which could be introducing your customers to a new product, trying to increase sales, product positioning, or retaliating to direct completion.
What it Takes to Build a Successful Retail Marketing Strategy
It’s not possible to launch a retail marketing campaign without a plan and get everything to work out. It won’t.
Apart from the right tools, there are three key elements needed before you think about launching any retail marketing initiative:
- Understand your customers and their needs
- Choose the right products and services to meet their needs
- Take location, accessibility and convenience into account
Let’s take a closer look at each of these elements, with real-world examples, and a retail marketing strategy case study from the experts at Acceleration Partners :
1. Understand Your Customers and Their Needs
Do you have a clear enough understanding of your target customers?
Do you know what they want and the way they perceive certain brands and styles of marketing? Are you turning them off or hitting the right notes?
Until you can answer these questions with certainty, it’ll be difficult to achieve breakaway success. The good news is that you can get a deep understanding of your customers cheaply and effectively.
How do you do that?
By sending out questionnaires to past customers or the people who visit your store and website. This isn’t a customer satisfaction survey. Instead, you’re trying to understand what they’d like to accomplish with the kinds of products and services you’re selling.
For example, if you are selling beard care products you’d want to know why customers buy. Is it to boost their confidence, live better lives, get a date, etc.? The answers inform both what you offer and how you position those products.
Beardbrand has a deep understanding of its customer base and showcases that with its Keep On Growing® mission.
The company launched successful retail marketing campaigns, which fostered loyalty and culminated in a partnership with Target stores.
Here are a few questions you can ask to get a better understanding of your customers:
- What brought you here today?
- What problem are you solving with X product?
- What’s your biggest challenge related to X (with x being the problem you address).
In online questionnaires, you’ll want to find out what the customer’s needs are. If you have a bigger, more expensive product that takes some time to consider, you also want to know which buying funnel stage they’re in. This gives you the ability to adapt your messaging accordingly. The AARRR lead funnel framework is a helpful method to optimize communication for ‘Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, and ultimately Revenue’.
2. Meet Their Needs with the Right Products & Services
It’s one thing to know what your people want and why they want it. It’s another thing to give it to them with the right products and services.
For example, let’s say the fictional company Acme Inc.’s customers want a stronger, softer, and shiner beard and hope to achieve that by using natural organic products. A product with tons of preservatives and chemicals would be contrary to that. Even if it helped them achieve their main objective, it wouldn’t be appealing to them.
Part of the preliminary work for retail campaigns involves making sure you have the right products for the audience you’re targeting.
If you don’t, you can do one of two things:
- Change the product
- Change the audience
Neither option is ideal after you’ve launched, so focus on building a solid foundation.
3. Location, Accessibility and Convenience
The final piece of the retail marketing puzzle is being where your customers can easily find and access your products. If you opened a new physical store, would you go deep in the woods and put it in a place that could only be accessed after a 2-hour hike?
Of course not.
It would make a great getaway but a horrible store location. The same thing can happen online. A confusing layout, difficult product discovery, and lack of support will hurt your marketing efforts.
In either scenario, it would be hard to do business with you. Unless you’re one of kind in every aspect, people won’t work too hard to give you their money.
The takeaway is to make sure people can access your products and services easily and conveniently, before you launch any campaigns.
You can do this with usability tools like User testing , Hotjar , and Crazy Egg which allow you to get real testers or see recordings of how people use your website.
Case Study: Retailer Drives $46M Global Revenue Through Buy Now Pay Later Partners
Now that you have a better understanding of the core elements of a successful retail marketing strategy, let’s take a look at a case study to demonstrate how powerful a good strategy is when you take a data-driven approach and fully understand your customers and how best to meet their needs:
Acceleration Partners was engaged by a large global retailer, who wished to expand its customer base to include millennial and Gen Z women.
Engaging these previously unengaged demographic groups could drive exponential growth and revenue for the retailer by opening up a whole new market segment.
Supporting research data points showed that:
- The estimated purchasing power of Gen Z amounts to $140 billion, whereas the estimated purchasing power of Millennials amounts to $2.5 trillion
- Over $600 billion in household purchases may be influenced by Millennials
- Female buyers account for 85% of all consumer purchases
To engage the new target demographics, Acceleration Partners took a data-driven approach, researching the best ways to leverage existing affiliate partnerships, as well as the most effective new partnerships to engage Millennial and Gen Z women.
Based on their findings, the client services team recommended that they continue to pay affiliates a percentage-based commission but add the option to pay flat fees for specific placements.
They also recommended that the retailer engage 10 new Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) enabled partners because the majority of BNPL users are Millennials or Gen Z (75% of BNPL users in the US, and 80% globally).
Adding BNPL partners drove purchases by meeting the target demographic where they were, and offering them an easily accessible and more convenient shopping experience, that involved fewer clicks.
Using BNPL partners also meant that the retailer could implement a one-time card, where customers within the BPNL app could break payments up into installments without the partners needing to be added as payment solutions on the retailer’s website.
This innovative, data-backed, approach led to some incredible results for the retailer:
The retail marketing strategy developed by Acceleration Partners integrated into the retailers existing affiliate partnerships and added new BNPL partnerships. The success of this strategy is demonstrated by the measurable results they achieved:
- $46M revenue driven by all BNPL partners
- 49% of revenue came from Millennials
- $1.3M revenue driven from a single BNPL partner
- 37% revenue increase in placements with one U.S. BNPL partner
As you can see, a good retail marketing strategy is essential for success and, when done right, can drive exponential growth and revenue for your brand.
10 Best Retail Marketing Platforms
When it comes to retail marketing, having the right software makes all the difference. There are loads of options available and choosing the best platform can be a time-consuming and overwhelming process.
To make it easier, we have selected three of the best options for you to consider. We selected these four options based on:
- Key features
- Key integrations
- Demos, trials and our experience with the platform
- Pricing and value offered
- Verified user reviews
These retail marketing platforms are all great options that will provide all the capabilities you need, as well as robust analytics and reporting. Importantly, they all offer automation, customization, segmentation and personalization, which are essential components to any successful retail marketing campaign.
1. Marsello
Marsello is a smart, targeted marketing tool for omnichannel stores. Powered by Point-of-Sale and eCommerce, Marsello does the smart work for you, crunching the data from customer behavior in-store and online so you can deliver targeted, and timely, marketing that gets results. Marsello us a powerful tool, with key features that include loyalty programs, automated campaigns, email marketing, SMS, customer feedback collection, and detailed, accurate reporting. Marsello’s integrations include Shopify, Vend, BigCommerce, Cin7, Lightspeed Kounta, and more.
Marsello is a fantastic tool for retailers who need a marketing solution that works both in-store and online. Their pricing plan is based on three factors: integrations, number of sites, and customer count. They include the first 1000 customers and POS + eCommerce connection within their baseline plan and their easy-to-use pricing calculator makes it easy for you to get an idea of what Marsello would cost for your unique business.
- Ecommerce platform integrations are seamless very quick and easy to set up
- Integrates very well with POS on Shopify (5/5 rating on Shopify App store)
- Great customer support and accurate advice on how to improve conversions
- Email and pop-up asset designs are well designed and attractive
- Cost effective option that yields measurable results
- Very easy to use, clean and simple UI
- Thorough and accurate analytics and reporting
- Useful and effective automations
- Great customizations
- Combination and segmentation of features allows for focused marketing that hones in on the areas you need
- One review noted onboarding issues when using both online and brick and mortar stores and slow customer service
- Occasional glitches with email/SMS sending
- Time zone differences between US and customer service may cause delays
- Can become a costly option for multiple stores/POS and very large customer databases
- Free trial version has limited features
Capterra Rating: 5 /5 (2 reviews)
TrustRadius Rating: N/A
- Free Forever: For social media scheduling, sales tracking, online forms and a stock media library
- Pro: $100 /month for everything in Free plan + marketing automations, loyalty marketing and signup forms
Website: Marsello.com
Klaviyo is a comprehensive, cloud-based, retail marketing platform. It offers a full suite of features, including a good combination of automation and personalization, as well as customer segmentation. It integrates well with most e-commerce solutions, including Shopify, Big Commerce, Commerce Cloud, Magento, and WooCommerce. While it is mainly used by e-commerce vendors, it is also used by some B2B and B2C companies.
One of the best aspects of Klaviyo is that they offer highly flexible pricing, based on the number of contacts and the number of messages sent to those contacts per month. In this way, you only pay for what you need and use, but you can still scale and grow as needed. There is also a free plan, for up to 250 contacts. The main limitation of the platform is that it offers limited features for social media marketing and lead database storage.
- Targeting and segmentation capabilities, based on detailed data
- Detailed individual user tracking
- Customized email triggers
- Great customer support
- Integrates with paid media campaigns on Google and Facebook
- Easy and intuitive to use, well designed and simple
- Accurate real-time statistics and detailed reports
- Offers A/B split testing (drag and drop, no technical programming needed)
- Visual flow-building makes it easy to create, monitor and test flows
- Many templates that can be customized (HTML and block-based)
- Volume of information supplied can be time-consuming to go through
- Quite technical – learning to use it be tricky for some
- Sufficient tutorials and information for new users is lacking
- Data security is not clear and some reviewers were concerned about that
- Occasional bugs when sending emails that took a while to pinpoint
- Rearranging CRM campaigns in flows can be challenging
- Flows can be difficult to amend once they have been set up
- Analytics require a flow to be active to show in the main dashboard
- Several reviewers noted that it was an expensive option (but also said it was worth it)
- Issues with Magento integration
G2 Rating: 4.6/5 (495 reviews)
TrustRadius Rating: 8.7/10 (58 reviews)
- Free Forever: For 0 to 250 contacts, 500 emails and 150 SMS/MMS credits every month
- Email: From $20 /month for 251 to 500 contacts, 5000 emails and 150 SMS/MMS credits every month
- Email and SMS: From $35 /month for 251 to 500 contacts, 5000 emails and 1250 SMS/MMS credits every month
Website: Klaviyo.com
3. Omnisend
Omnisend is an all-in-one retail marketing platform that is designed for multichannel campaigns that include email, social media, and mobile channels. It offers a full suite of MAP features, as well as automation, segmentation, and personalization. It integrates with all major e-commerce platforms, including Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and PrestaShop.
Omnisend is great for small and medium businesses that are looking for a scalable solution. Their price plans do not limit user contacts and are differentiated on the features offered rather than the volume of contacts/messages sent.
- Provides a lot of options for customization and personalization, including complex forms
- Very easy and quick to use, clean and simple user interface
- Well designed with comprehensive app integrations
- Cost-effective option
- Great, prompt, customer service and support
- Comprehensive, highly detailed analytics and thorough reporting
- Useful and intuitive automation for creating campaigns as well as deploying them
- Offers a free plan (unlimited contacts, up to 2000 emails a day)
- Easy to use templates that can be customized
- Triggered email automation
- Follow-up campaigns are easy and effective
- Free plan has limited email options
- Some users noted that there was limited customization and manually altered items can’t be saved as templates to re-use
- Billing is for volume of emails with no automatic cap so costs can be incurred unknowingly
- Limited functionality in Live View
- Customization of email content could be better and more templates provided
- Customer support can be slow when technical changes are required
- Data synching with Shopify can be challenging
- Features are limited on mobile
- Integrating with multiple stores can be a problem
- Limited app integrations
- SMS/MMS functionality can be difficult for some users to use
- Does not pull historical data on customers, will start from scratch when you install it
G2 Rating: 4.6/5 (564 reviews)
TrustRadius Rating: 8.1/10 (8 reviews)
- Free Forever: For 0 to 250 contacts, 500 emails, 60 SMS credits and 500 web push notifications every month
- Standard: From $16/month for 500 contacts, 15 000 emails, 60 SMS credits, unlimited web push notifications and a customer success manager
- Pro: From $59/month for 500 contacts, unlimited emails, 3900 SMS credits, unlimited web push notifications, a customer success manager and advanced reporting
Website: Omnisend.com
Emarsys (by SAP) is an omnichannel retail marketing platform, with an emphasis on customer engagement. It offers fully integrated, multichannel, campaign management, personalization, segmentation, and data analytics. Emarsys uses AI technology that automates flows based on collected data. It is customizable and offers great personalization features, including optimized timing/scheduling for message deployment.
Emarsys combines CRM with email marketing and automation. It also offers A/B split testing and provides robust data analytics and reporting. Key integrations include Shopify, Magento, and Salesforce Commerce Cloud.
- Very easy, intuitive, and enjoyable platform to use
- Frequent updates and improvements to the software
- Offers training for new users and support using new features, plus customer success manager
- Great on-going customer support
- A/B testing is easy to do, both in automation and directly within a campaign
- Easy drag and drop, block-based customization, and personalization
- Set up is quick and easy
- Customization is easy
- Good integration with supported software
- Creating flows across multiple channels is easy and centralized
- CRM is great for adding targeted paid campaigns alongside email campaigns
- Segmentation and custom lists allow for efficient, hyper-targeted flows
- Technical support can be slow to respond/resolve issues
- Opening times are not displayed for delivered emails to specific contacts
- Translations for tools in different languages can be difficult (missing, poorly translated)
- Blocks can be time-consuming to set up and require knowledge of HTML/CSS to amend
- Automation center is not drag and drop
- Restrictions in templating framework when populating changes across crusades
- Limited tracking and management capabilities when using the mobile app
- Issues with user right management
- Automatic flows cannot be edited while they’re running
- Some reviewers reported occasional glitches and bugs
- Admin age is not very user friendly
- Updating a template block requires you to manually update the template
- One reviewer noted that it can be an expensive option with a long contract duration
G2 Rating: 4.3/5 (239 reviews)
TrustRadius Rating: 6.9/10 (23 reviews)
- Contact for quote
Website: emarsys.com
5. Flipkart Ads Manager
Flipkart Ads Manager is an easy-to-use platform for retail marketing ads. This platform offers three main categories of features – an adds manager, a pricing manager, and a product selection manager. With these tools, retail brands create display, product contextual, and product listing ads. These functions allow a lot of customization, however, they’re only ideal for ads on Flipkart’s platform.
The pricing manager enables businesses to offer competitive prices based on competitor and customer analysis. What’s fantastic about this tool is how user-friendly it is. You can easily measure your performance through Flipkart’s built-in analytics.
- It’s easy to use and learn this platform. If you’ve used Google Analytics, you won’t find it challenging
- The user interface is attractive and easy to navigate
- You get real-time tips and recommendations to enhance your productivity
- The customer support is responsive and helpful
- It’s a versatile product for small and mid-level businesses
- Because this software is easy to use, you don’t have to train your team
- You can get a custom quote based on your brand’s individual needs and retail marketing goals
- Many retail and eCommerce businesses use this software.
- It’s easy for users to find your product with full-fledged management
- The group targeting feature is handing to engage specific audience segments
- There are a lot of valuable insights you can gather from this software
- Running ads on platforms either than Flipkart can be a little cumbersome to configure
- There’s no smart suggestion tool for ad bidding
- The mobile app needs serious improvement
- The software should integrate better with other platforms
- The pricing can be expensive for some small businesses and startups
- Limited inventory access to the open market
- The campaign setting only allows users to target negative keywords
- There are a few glitches and bugs when using this software
- The targeting feature isn’t robust enough for in-depth audience targeting
TrustRadius Rating: 7.3/10 (24 reviews)
Website: cloud.flipkart.com
6. Perpetua
Perpetua considers itself a boutique investment firm. This retail marketing platform will help you manage the financial aspects of your business, leaving you with ample room to grow. With a rigorous, repeatable, and pragmatic investment process, this platform delivers bespoke investment strategies that are fair to your and your employees and is focused on strategic partnerships and industry relationships.
Perpetua is an excellent retail marketing platform for startups and enterprises that need specialized investment and financial strategies.
- This software supports Target and Walmart sites
- You can organize and manage your ad spending
- Perpetua provides real-time suggestions on ad spending
- Many users say this software is affordable
- You can easily contact customer support through live chat
- The automated features optimize productivity
- Onboarding employees is quick and easy
- Having a dedicated project manager makes it easy to achieve results
- Your team can focus on high-level data and actionable customer insights for conversion-driven marketing
- The customer service is incredible and responsive
- Perpetua has advanced keyword harvesting to optimize your ad bids
- Sometimes the software is down and then users can’t complete the tasks they need to.
- The search insights tool needs improvement
- You may run into some technical issues now and again
- There’s a slight learning curve in understanding the platform’s terminology
- There’s a lack of online resources on using this platform.
- There isn’t a milestone function for onboarding campaigns
- There needs to be more strategies
- There needs to be more metrics for the Amazon Store
- Businesses would prefer more sponsored display integrations
G2 Rating: 4.7/5 (71 reviews)
Website: perpetuaim.co.za
7. Retail Media by Criteo
Retail Media by Criteo is a retail media ecosystem! Talk about putting traditional retail marketing software to shame. This platform will help your retail brand target and acquire new customers, secure brand loyalty in your existing audience and optimize your customer retention.
Another aspect of Retail Media by Criteo that businesses love is their high-level technology solutions. This platform offers technology for an AI engine, product recommendations, and predictive bidding.
- This platform works for businesses of all sizes
- It’s very easy to use this tool and the features are intuitive
- The customer support is quick and helpful
- The inventory is easy to manage and customize
- Users love this software for remarketing ads
- You can match user history with advertising strategies
- The account management team is helpful and responsive
- Sponsored products are included in dynamic marketing, giving you less ads to optimize
- The ad bidding optimization needs improvement
- The reporting issues have problems
- The sales reps aren’t very transparent
- This platform has many bugs and technical problems
- There could be better customization options
- The customer prospecting tools need improvement
- There limited data and insights
G2 Rating: 4/5 (18 reviews)
TrustRadius Rating: 6.7/10 (18 reviews)
Website: criteo.com/solutions/retail-media-platform/
Pacvue is a dedicated eCommerce marketing platform for retail businesses. You can use this platform to grow your brand on several well-known platforms like Amazon and Instacart. Pacvue will start by improving your campaign’s performance through sales optimization and high-level automation.
You can also count on this retail marketing platform to optimize your products’ shelf life. Pacvue will manage your inventory, optimize your landing pages to accelerate sales, and drive organic sales through increased online visibility.
- There is a vast variety of training resources to use this platform
- There are loads of automated features
- The reporting is accurate and in-depth
- There are lots of custom rules for different functions
- The AI bidding feature makes it easier to secure valuable ad placements
- The user interface is beginner-friendly and easy to navigate
- You don’t need a lot of technical skills to learn this software
- You can use various filters to find what you need without wasting time
- You can view all the analytics and metrics for your campaigns with one tool
- You have to log in and out of different platforms and views which is cumbersome
- It’s a little complicated to pause campaigns and modify budgets
- Some integrations take a lot of time to work
- Some functions and features could use an update
G2 Rating: 4.4/5 (12 reviews)
Website: pacvue.com
9. Quartile
Quartile is the top retail marketing platform for retail brands selling on Amazon . With a team of Amazon selling and marketing experts, you can rely on solutions and campaigns that drive results. The purpose of Quartile is to be an external extension of your brand and develop, implement and manage your campaigns for you. You’ll receive detailed, weekly reports to evaluate your campaigns’ performances.
What’s unique about Quartile is its advanced technology solutions. There are so many ways to customize your campaigns and bidding processes through automation. Every business gets a dedicated account manager so you don’t have to look to resources or guides for help.
- They have a team of Amazon experts
- You can easily collaborate with your account manager
- Quartile provides strategy support for optimized retail campaigns
- The AI and hourly bidding features are highly valuable
- The team is highly responsive and can answer all your questions
- You get weekly reports of your campaigns’ performances
- Working with a platform to manage all your retail marketing efforts saves you a lot of time and resources
- The technology solutions are impressive
- Real-time tracking will keep your account in good shape
- You don’t need a lot of technical knowledge for this platform
- The naming conventions are confusing
- It can take two weeks to learn how to use this platform
- Some users say sometimes this platform doesn’t capture exactly what you wanted in a campaign
- Some industries may not find all the features as valuable
- You may get a lot of new account managers and the transitional period can be tricky
- It can be time consuming to identify the performance of certain items
- The analytics dashboards are confusing
- You can’t always track the metrics you want
G2 Rating: 4.2/5 (31 reviews)
Website: quartile.com
Kevel is a high-level API that allows retail brands to develop custom ad platforms. You’ll own this platform while Kevel’s team will be on the sidelines, ready to offer speedy guidance. Within a few weeks, businesses can build a bespoke ad server with functions and features like sponsored ad listings, native ads, retail media, and email ads. You can also leverage personalized content and digital out-of-home ads to accelerate your bottom line.
Kevel is not that challenging to use given how powerful this platform is. While the team is small, they are super responsive and helpful.
- This platform is very flexible
- The API documentation is user-friendly
- You can easily contact customer support via Slack or email
- There are always new feature releases and software updates
- You don’t have to worry about bugs and technical issues happening often
- You can easily place ads in specific locations or for specific keywords
- The integration support is fantastic
- The team is smaller so they deliver a more personal approach than most retail marketing platforms
- You may have problems understanding why certain ads aren’t performing
- The analytics for unique users isn’t easy to access
- There are time limits on when data is refreshed
- It takes time to learn how the group assets function works
- You can get confused if you’re not to careful when navigating the interface
- There aren’t many customization features for reporting
- No variety of ad templates and formats
- Some of the API design choices aren’t helpful
G2 Rating: 4.5/5 (42 reviews)
TrustRadius Rating: 10/10 (2 reviews)
Website: kevel.com
4 Retail Marketing Strategies for 2023
Now that you understand what’s required for successful retail marketing, let’s look at the different tactics you can use to make the most of it:
1. Targeted Social Media Platforms
Social media, when used properly, is a powerful way to connect with your ideal customer. Advertisers from every industry have taken note. Worldwide retail digital ad spending will surpass $50 billion in 2023.
This shows just how effective social media marketing can be for your business. However, there’s one problem most people don’t realize – it’s difficult to grow a large presence on all social media channels at once.
Look closely and you’ll realize that most businesses that are successful with social media started with one or two platforms. After they built up their presence, they expanded to other social sites.
If you want to succeed in retail marketing, it’s important to do the same thing. What channel works best for you, based on the products you’re selling and the audience you’re targeting?
For example, brands such as Frank Body have built large Instagram followings. In fact, it used Instagram to grow to $20 million in annual revenue , and secure deals with the likes of Target, Sephora and Ulta Beauty.
The platform is introducing even more tools like Instagram stories which retailers can use to grow their reach and build an engaged customer base.
Other brands are using Facebook to get in front of their ideal customer. Thursday Boot Company went from selling a few boots a week to selling thousands a month with targeted Facebook Ads that focused on the lifestyle of its customers.
Williams Sonoma focused heavily on Pinterest and has grown a massive following. It now derives a lot of referral traffic and sales from the platform.
I’m not showing you these examples so you go and try your hand at each of them. Select a single platform that works well with your products and audience and focus on growing there first.
2. Email Marketing with a Twist
Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to connect with customers and generate revenue.
There’s one big challenge, inboxes are crowded. The average office worker receives over 100 emails a day. Unless your emails can stand out from the crowd, they’ll be ignored or people will unsubscribe.
Prevent this by using simple behavioral segmentation to send targeted emails to your audience members and past customers. I’ll touch on a few of the highest impact tactics:
– Pages visited
The average e-commerce store has multiple products for sale and each one has a unique page. When someone visits, they’ll interact with the product pages they’re interested in and ignore the rest. Track this using your email marketing software and send out relevant email automation based on the pages a visitor has viewed.
There used to be a time that the software was very expensive, but there are modern email marketing tools that are quite cheap and they make it simple to segment people based on website activity.
Start by setting an automation trigger that goes out to people who’ve visited a page 2 times or more within 30 days (or however long it takes people to go from consideration to purchase). If you have a large product catalog, focus on the most popular product first and expand from there.
– Email opens and clicks
This segmentation method focuses on finding the kind of content your subscribers are interacting with and sending more of it. When someone first becomes a subscriber, it’s natural to lead them through a welcome series and send them different types of content.
After that, what do you do?
It would be far from ideal to send them multiple offers about products they may or may not be interested in. Get around this dilemma by tracking what kind of emails subscribers are opening and the links they’re clicking.
For example, someone signs up for Acme Inc.’s mailing list, which is about an active lifestyle and activewear. Acme Inc. doesn’t know whether they’re a man or woman, if they prefer running or weight training, or any other information about the subscriber.
It sends out all kinds of emails to the new subscriber and notices they’re only clicking on links related to women’s products and content. It also realizes that the subscriber likes yoga pants and running shoes. Going forward, Acme Inc. sends more content tailored to the subscriber’s behavior.
This is not a manual process. Advanced tools like Active Campaign or OmniSend make it possible to apply tags or update contact records based on behavior. You can then send messages to specific groups of people, which get opened, clicked, and generate revenue.
– Past purchases
This may be the most powerful type of behavioral segmentation. Your subscriber has told you they’re interested and is ready to spend cold hard cash.
You can send similar promotions to them regularly . Even if they don’t buy from you, it’ll be well received because it’s something they’re interested in.
ASOS takes this strategy to heart. The only things I buy from it are shoes and jackets. The company sends me an email every few days. About 70% of them are focused on shoes and outerwear. The other 30% are emails about interesting content and different product categories.
These emails are created through email content automation . The software inserts the right products for you. But there’s an important aspect to keep in mind when you’re segmenting based on behavior. Your customer may be interested in much more than you know. In addition to emails promoting similar products, be sure to add different product categories to the mix.
3. Pop Up Shops
E-commerce has a significant drawback – you can’t touch, feel, or smell a product before buying it. In many situations, that matters. Another thing to consider is that some consumers only shop at places they’re familiar with. That means they’re not willing to try a new brand they found online.
A pop up shop can help you reach a segment of your market that would otherwise be inaccessible. Other benefits include:
- You’re able to create a multi-channel experience connecting consumers online and offline
- More cost-effective than a fully fledged retail location
- The ability to create deeper connections with customers and get feedback in real time
- An opportunity to soft launch new collections at select locations and test market demand
These are just a few of the many benefits associated with pop up shops and brands like Kylie Cosmetics have taken note of just how powerful it can be.
People reportedly waited outside for 11 hours or more before getting inside. Smaller retailers are also creating meaningful experiences for their customers who, in many cases, travel to participate in the activity.
For an offline businesses, it’s also possible to partner with an online retailer to expand your reach and test demand.
There are a number of things to keep in mind when you’re planning a popup shop campaign. It’s more than choosing a space and sending out an email to your subscribers:
- Do you want a new space or a section of an already existing business? Kylie Cosmetics pop up shops took advantage of Top Shop’s stores.
- Will you need any licenses, permits, or insurance?
- What kind of payment system will you be using?
- Will the furniture be provided or do you have to rent/buy your own?
- What’s the goal of the event (a certain sales figure, brand awareness, etc.)
- Staff policies and guidelines (or hiring new staff)
It takes a considerable amount of effort but it can be one of the most powerful ways to connect with a larger market because it’s an experience.
The RealReal launched a pop up shop and had guests from Vogue and Vanity Fair cover it. The end result was exposure, revenue, and goodwill.
4. Brand Ambassadors
The last retail marketing tactic I want to touch on is using brand ambassadors to extend your reach, both online and offline.
A brand ambassador is someone who’s paid (or otherwise rewarded) to endorse a company’s products and services. They work closely with your in-house teams to create and conceptualize marketing campaigns that build awareness and increase revenue.
In fact, it’s the exact strategy Lululemon used to go from a single yoga studio to a multi-billion dollar company.
I want to make something clear. A brand ambassador marketing initiative is different from an influencer marketing initiative. Take a look at this article to get a feel for how different brands are empowering their ambassadors.
Of course, your brand ambassadors can be influencers in their own right, but it’s not a prerequisite. Depending on your reach, products, and goals, there are many ways to run a brand ambassador program. Consider the following things before you launch it:
Take cues from successful programs in the past
Brand ambassadors have been in use for a long time. It’s not something that started with social media or the internet. Research companies that have gone before you to understand what set their successful campaign apart and how you can replicate that success.
Start small and iterate
This is obvious, right? Not exactly.
Many retailers are so excited about the thought of a brand ambassador program that they recruit as many people as they can. In the end, they’re unable to give their early ambassadors the tools and attention they need to succeed.
It’s better to move slow and steady in the early stages. Focus on finding people who’re already talking about you and recruit them to your cause. Use social listening tools like Mention or Brand24 to find them.
How are you compensating ambassadors?
Influential ambassadors may require cold hard cash but many of your early converts won’t. The best ambassadors are people who’re already familiar with your brand and would use your products whether they were being paid or not.
With that being said, they’ll be working closely with you to build awareness and drive revenue. This will require time and energy on their part, so a simple thank you won’t cut it.
Daniel Wellington runs a college brand ambassador program that rewards participants with merchandise, exclusive event invites, concert tickets, gift cards, and more.
Finally, let your brand ambassadors do their thing. Apart from a few guidelines, it’s important to give them room to work.
They’re advocates of your brand and are best suited to communicate what makes you unique to them. They can add their own spin to your marketing, which you may have never considered. If you make them rehearse that message or change it too much then it loses its ring of authenticity.
Retail marketing is constantly evolving and it’s important for you to evolve right along with it. If you don’t then it’ll be impossible to stand out from the crowd.
The specific techniques may change from year to year but the underlying strategies remain the same. It’s important to understand what your customers want and need from you then deliver it in a way that’s convenient to them.
Choose one or two of the tactics outlined here to focus on and you’ll be sure to see massive improvements in revenue, engagement, and brand awareness.
Let me know what your favorite retail marketing strategies are in the comments and don’t forget to share.
Frequently Asked Questions
The retail marketing mix consists of which of the following.
The retail marketing mix consists of the four primary P’s: Product, Price, Place and Promotion. Nowadays, it also includes other P’s such as Presentation, Packaging, Personnel and Positioning. The Product is the particular type of merchandise you are wanting to promote, either durable goods or soft goods. The Price is determined on a number of direct and indirect factors that need to be considered and whether the retailer wants to aim for: low pricing; high to low pricing; competitive pricing; or psychological pricing. The Place is the specific location where the retailer attracts the customers and where the point of sale (POS) occurs. The location of a product is often one of the most important variables in retail marketing. Promotion defines all the objectives and goals for increasing the awareness and sale of the product. This includes a wide range of marketing activities, such as digital advertising, word of mouth, press releases, customer incentives and rewards, contests and prices and personnel sales.
What is retail marketing?
Retail is the sale of consumable goods or services to customers in relatively small quantities through various distribution channels. These channels can be through large franchises or hypermarkets and supermarkets, to medium or small independent stores, including online stores and automatic vending machines. Retail marketing is the processes and strategies implemented by retailers (i.e. the merchant) to attract customers, generate goodwill, increase brand awareness and drive sales. Retail marketing incorporates a range of avenues that must be strategically planned based on the nature and type of business.
What is retail marketing example?
Williams Sonoma, a furniture manufacturing company in the United States focused its efforts on growing a stronger following on the popular social media platform, Pinterest. This retail marketing strategy generated a great deal of traction and has led to a higher volume of referrals and increased sales.
What are the types of retail marketing?
A retail marketing strategy is custom-designed according to the type of business and needs to assess the following criteria: target market, consumer needs and accessibility. A retail marketing strategy will incorporate different types of retail marketing. These include: • The internet- through a website, which includes an online store for purchasing products or services; and having a strong presence on a wide range of social media platforms and forums. • Word of mouth programs- through referral programs and networking events. • PR marketing- connecting with customers before they even enter the store, by partnering with various local charities or events or CSR activities. • Direct marketing- engaging directly with customers, through any form of print, audio or visual advertisements. For example through billboards, advertisements, brochures, catalogs and so on.
About the author : Daniel Ndukwu is the founder and CEO of KyLeads . There, he helps businesses create meaningful experiences and increase audience engagement while generating more leads using surveys, quizzes, and smart popups. When not working, you can find him spending time with his family or and traveling as much as possible.
Yoobic: Retail Efficiency: Best Practices in Retail Store Operations
Insider Intelligence: US retail media ad spending will reach $31.49 billion in 2021, up 53.4% from 2020
Emarketer: Global Ecommerce 2019 and The Ad Platform: What we think about retail media
Statista: Number of monthly active Facebook users worldwide as of 3rd quarter 2022
Shopify: 53 Data-Backed Retail Statistics Shaping Retail in 2022 and Beyond
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An effective strategy for your retail marketing plan
The world of retail marketing is fast paced and ever-changing. Whether it’s at the store or head office level, marketers in this industry often deal with very limited time constraints, constant adaptation to trends and increased pressure on resources. In order to introduce more effective ways to manage campaigns for retail marketing, we must first understand exactly what it is…
What is retail marketing?
Retail marketing is the tactics and strategy of promoting your business and products to consumers.
The traditional retail marketing definition – a product, at a price, being promoted and then sold from a place of business – has given way to a more consumer-focused model. And the retail marketing strategy has changed to keep pace.
Now technology sees an ever-evolving shift in what products are made available and how they’re sold, delivered and promoted. In-store marketing has become more inclusive. And retail brand marketing has developed into a dominant force.
But how do you develop a brand? And get that to market in as crowded a space as retail? Here we look at retail marketing objectives and strategy in more detail.
Why retail marketing is important
Why is retail marketing important? Because quite simply, people want products. Your role as a retail marketer is to get your products to your audience, and how you market them goes a long way to achieving that aim.
You’re not waiting for the consumer to find you. You’re bringing the product to the consumer. And in an increasingly competitive landscape where consumers are spoilt for choice over virtually every product – if you’re not marketing your products effectively, they will find alternatives.
But there are other reasons why retail marketing is valuable for your brand beyond the long-established cycle of buying and selling:
1. It helps you connect with consumers and close the sale
Consumers tend to need multiple touchpoints with a brand, and a decent understanding of the value the product brings to them as an individual before making a purchase. Retail marketing allows you to speak to consumers on a variety of levels, at different stages of the buying cycle. The awareness, education and decision stages can all be directly influenced by campaigns at different touchpoints.
2. It helps categorise products for the consumer
Marketing, like Point of Sale and digital signage, help purchasers find and buy what they need. A customer may not even know what comprises the entire range of products and accessories relating to their needs. Often they’re looking for a solution, sometimes, to see if one exists at all. Categorising products helps satisfy the problem-solution issue, and delivers the options of the right product in an easy way for consumers.
3. Provides a service to the customer
As mentioned earlier, people today can choose from a variety of places to find the goods they’re looking for. Part of what makes retail marketing important is how it presents convenient information and incentives to consumers as to why they should choose you and your products.
4. It improves the standard of living
By making a variety of goods and service available to the people at a reasonable price it improves the standard of living.
Beyond the important part retail marketing plays for individual retailers, it also plays a valuable socio-economic role. From the employment opportunities available to retail marketing managers and similar positions, to the impact the retail industry as a whole has on a country’s GDP, retail and therefore retail marketing is a powerful force in today’s world. That’s why there are university degrees in retail marketing.
Retail marketing creates a constant flow of information between the market, consumers and manufacturers. Each helps encourage the other to produce higher quality and better fitting products and services.
What is a retail marketing strategy?
Traditionally, the core of a retail marketing strategy started with the four Ps. These aspects created the foundation for your future retail marketing efforts and put a heavy focus on your products and your organisation as a whole.
The four Ps
What is the product you want to sell? The two main types are soft goods (fashion, paper products, etc.) and hard goods (household items, tools, electronics, etc.)
Pricing is key to any retail strategy. You need to cover the cost of the goods, and weigh these against your potential overheads, such as staff and shop rental. Developing a pricing strategy for your products price will typically involve discount offers and competitor analysis.
Where will you sell the product? You could operate through a distributor, online or in a catalogue. When deciding this, first understand where your customers will feel most comfortable purchasing from.
This is where you define how you will market your product. Technology has opened up countless new opportunities to promote a product, so it’s essential to understand your objectives and choose the right mix of channels.
That was the traditional approach. However, as time has passed, retail strategy has evolved beyond the four Ps into the four Cs. Where the Four Ps centred around the product and how to get it to market, the four Cs approach instead concentrates on the consumer.
The four Cs
Consumer (Product):
Whereas once the focus was on the product, the focus changed to the needs of consumers. Manufacturers would ask what products do people need? They built products around consumer needs.
Cost (Price):
The basics of cost are the same as in the Four Ps in that you need to cover the costs involved in bringing your product to market. But now you need to consider the customer’s perceived value of what they’re buying matches their expectations. Cost also considers how much it will cost them to switch to a competitor.
Convenience (Place):
The internet has changed what convenience means forever. You can buy online and have something delivered the same day or pick it up from a nearby store at a time that works for you. But you need to be offering your customers options that suit them.
Communication (Promotion):
Instead of one-way advertising – ‘here’s our product. Buy it because it’s great…’ – promotion becomes about having conversations with your customers and building loyalty to your brand. Customer conversations can inform brand and product development and are crucial for a long-term retail marketing strategy.
Overall, developing a well-orchestrated retail marketing plan helps provide a greater return on investment, while attracting more potential customers.
But once you have this strategy, it is vital that it evolves over time in response to the economy, new products and innovations, consumer trends and more. Many of the most enduring and celebrated global brands survived by adapting their strategies and branding over time, be it a change of slogan or logo on their various offerings to customers.
Next-day delivery becomes same-day delivery. Partnerships are created to expand existing sales channels. Your retail marketing strategy must be malleable and capable of adjusting to new behaviours, patterns and developments in order to achieve long-term success.
What are the types of retail marketing?
An extensive range of marketing channels for retailers is available to be utilised, each presenting different advantages in line with your goals. Each should be considered in relation to your means and your overarching retail marketing strategy, particularly when it comes to where your target markets are most likely to see and engage with it.
Here are some of the most common types of retail marketing:
Online and digital marketing.
The mix of online marketing tactics includes everything from optimising your site for search engines (SEO), automated abandoned basket emails and utilising social media with organic posts and paid adverts to pay-per-click adverts, affiliates and content marketing.
Direct marketing
Any marketing that is designed to elicit a direct response. This is usually a sale but could be a showroom visit or a request for more information. Direct Marketing includes letters through the post, flyers and email newsletters too. Television ‘infomercials’ are even considered a form of direct response marketing.
Point of sale
In-store promotions such as posters, shelf talkers or samples are known as point of sale. You are grabbing the consumer’s interest at the point of sale.
Public relations
PR relates to managing the perception of your brand, and making positive associations and stories to your company. Digital and traditional PR work to ‘spin’ stories that put your brand in a position of authority, maintain relationships with small and large media outlets and provide expert comment on your industry.
Experiential marketing
If you want to promote your product or brand give consumers a taste of what it’s like in the real world. Samples and test drives are a good example of this, but some marketers have gone to incredible lengths to promote a product . Remember Red Bull’s record-breaking skydive from the edge of space?
Limited-time discounts
Discounts are a common tactic to get shoppers to buy. They’re also a good way to clear stock. Add a time limit to increase the sense of urgency and the fear of missing out.
A catalogue is great for allowing people to browse in their own time. Not only can you present products in an idyllic real-life situation, if they leave your store without buying, just hand them a catalogue on the way out. It maintains that connection, for when they are ready to buy and showcases your entire range.
Word of mouth
Word of mouth is one of the most powerful marketing tools. A good recommendation often leads to a sale, or at the very least a highly qualified lead. As well as great products, deliver great customer service and a strong brand. It will help people spread the word.
Some companies formalise the word of mouth strategy with a referral scheme known as refer-a-friend. These deliver rewards for both referrer and referee.
TV and radio advertising
The more traditional channels of television and radio advertising are still useful in an overall marketing mix. Television adverts are often mirrored online through sites such as YouTube, while some companies choose to create ‘television’ adverts purely for YouTube alone.
Television sponsorships are frequently used too.
Partnerships
These are a good way of reaching another potential audience and might take the form of a promotional flyer that another company inserts into its current orders when they are sent out. Or a fast-food chain might partner with a cab company to provide a door-to-door delivery service.
We’ve looked at some tactics and below are the most common outlets for your retail marketing strategy:
Department stores – these offer high levels of customer service alongside a wide range of products and possibly a shop-in-shop model, where other brands sit within the same area of the department store.
Prices typically vary over time, and discount sales are common. In these environments, a customer has the convenience of many products in one place.
Supermarkets – once the main outlet for food, drink and groceries, the supermarket has diversified into banking, insurance and homewares.
In a competitive industry, supermarkets have huge buying power and will sell at low prices, in exchange for volume.
Warehouse retailers – usually in a no-frills environment, warehouse retailers keep overheads down and can sell a wide range of goods at competitive prices.
Speciality retailers – here expert knowledge is backed up with premium prices. Speciality products are added as part of an added value experience.
Ecommerce retailers – also known as etailers. Products are sold online via a website. These are highly convenient and can pass overhead savings, for example not having a brick-and-mortar store, onto customers. Most can ship products anywhere in the world.
Convenience retailers – smaller localised stores, often found in residential areas. These offer a smaller range of products, but at higher prices due to the nature of convenience.
Discount retailers – a variety of discounted products with low prices. Discounter retailers buy less fashionable and overstocked branded products from a range of suppliers and resell at discounted prices.
All or just some will fit your strategy, depending on where your customer is.
How to develop your retail marketing plan
Now we’ve established the basics and importance of retail marketing. To get your brand, products and services out there, it is important to consider the steps to develop an effective, feasible and unique strategy to achieve this.
Below we’ve incorporated some aspects of retail marketing best practice to consider when constructing your plan.
Develop your brand
- Create your brand story and qualities
- Align this with your business objectives
- Develop the assets needed to communicate your brand
Define your position
- Examine what your competitors are doing
- Assess your place in the market – where do your products fit in the landscape?
- Use customer surveys for feedback
Identify your target market
- What are the demographics of your customers?
- Where and how do they prefer to shop?
- What needs and wants do they have that you can resolve?
The benefits of your product
- Determine the USPs of your product against the needs of your customers
- Develop your messaging around these key advantages your products offer
Detail your tactics
- How will you promote your product?
- Which retail marketing channels will you use?
- Will you use advertising?
Build a schedule
- Create a budget for your retail marketing campaigns
- Plan out when the various aspects of your campaign will be delivered, and through which channels
Alongside these best practices, you might also want to consider these other features of effective retail marketing strategies:
Begin with a story
Every great marketing campaign begins and ends with a story.
It’s a hook designed to grab the audience and pull them in and ideally connect with a very personal emotion. When building your story focus on an individual who looks and fits into the organisation’s key demographic.
Highlight the problem, and show how your product can fix it. The stories do not need to be complex, but are there to showcase the unique advantages of your products and your brand’s distinct personality.
Understand the marketing channels available to you
There are dozens of marketing channels, ranging from social media and internet paid advertising to blogging, TV spots, internet video and word of mouth. You shouldn’t be hasty in determining which one is best suited for your ambitions.
You need to understand the particular channel before using it. The better you understand a marketing method, the stronger you become in this particular ecosystem as you learn how to best utilise the benefits offered by the marketing method.
You may decide to go with a specialist advertising firm to assist with this, or you may bring in a professional who knows the ins and outs. Either way, you need to understand the channels you’ll be working with ahead of time.
Unite your messaging
When you advertise across multiple marketing channels and in numerous locations, it’s crucial to have a strong unifying message. Your messaging needs to be consistent down to the individual product level.
How you position your products across all your marketing channels needs to be consistent with regards to pricing, brand logos, technical specifications, as well as additional text and images.
In this connected world, customers will find you out fast if you can’t keep consistent.
Let branding do the selling too
It’s best to focus on branding, and connecting customers with the brand, as well as selling the product. By telling a good brand story too, you’ll be in a stronger position and you’ll get more engaged and loyal customers in the long term.
How to build a retail brand
Brand value increases exposure and goodwill toward your company. As your brand value grows, your business becomes a more valuable commodity, as more people recognise who your company is and what you stand for.
The value of your brand, also referred to in some cases as brand equity, is generally identified as the amount of money the business makes when compared to a similar product with a generic brand. In other words, how much more (or less) money does your company make due to its branding.
What is retail brand activation?
Brand activation is the process of making a brand a popular, trusted household name. It’s crucial in developing a positive connection between your brand and your audiences. First impressions count.
You may find product samples in stores, pop-up shops in high streets or more complex experiential events. It’s as much about an emotional engagement with consumers as it is putting a new product or brand in the hands of potential buyers.
Here you’ll showcase the core features that make you stand out from the competitors. You’re creating your brand positioning. Doing this effectively and consistently results in greater customer loyalty, as long as their values match your own.
Also consider:
- Marketing and creative that engages with an audience on an emotional level. Get them to believe in your brand.
- Timing – engage your customers at a time that’s right time for them.
Achieving brand consistency
In everything you do, your brand identity should remain consistent throughout the entire company. However, building brand consistency can prove difficult, especially for new companies searching for an audience. Here are several ways brand consistency can be realised as part of your retail strategy.
Create a brand guide
Every brand needs to have a clear voice and identity. It’s what the company stands for and what gives it personality. However, unless you have this clearly defined and established, your company will lack brand consistency. This is why creating a brand guide is necessary.
The brand guide should outline what personality the brand has, the brand’s identity and what sort of character your brand has. All of these traits should receive a clear identification as soon as possible. This way, you can determine your brand’s voice, which will guide a lot of your retail marketing efforts. Generally, your brand guide will fall in line with your key demographic, yet customised for your unique values and objectives.
Once you have created a brand guide, use it for every bit of marketing material, social media post and in-store display. Ask yourself if it fits into the brand guide. If it does, good. This helps build brand consistency. If it doesn’t, adapt the material until it does.
Evolve with the times
It might sound counterintuitive, but your brand needs to evolve. This doesn’t mean dropping all your products and completely changing the services you offer. Instead, evolving your brand identity simply means keeping your company vibrant and current.
Companies evolve their brand identity all the time.
If you look at the history of the Lego logo as one example you’ll find 13 versions since the company began in 1932.
And Lego is certainly not the only brand to reinvent itself – Apple, Burberry and Stella Artois among others have all reinvented their brand. There are many examples and the reasons behind it vary from facing bankruptcy to wanting to appeal to a new generation of consumers.
By constantly revisiting the brand guide and refreshing it when necessary, it is possible to not only stay current, but it allows your business to continue to stand out in your industry. Just make sure everything you produce and all marketing material is consistent with your brand identity.
When you establish a clear brand identity, it allows you to build brand consistency and use this to inform any retail marketing campaign.
Use social media to build a retail brand
Social media has become a powerful way of communicating all elements of a brand to today’s consumers:
The best retail marketing ideas should incorporate a mix of social media techniques:
Don’t stick to a single channel
Customers use more than one channel. You should too.
Use social to support existing campaigns
As well as the obvious advantages of reaching out to new audiences, using social to support existing campaigns will help create a seamless brand experience for your customers.
Use social media for feedback
Social media channels offer great opportunities for gathering feedback about products and testing new ideas.
It’s a great customer service tool
Some customers will only use social media to contact your business. Develop the customer service side of it, to ensure their experience is as good through social as it would be if they phoned.
Get customers to share
A huge advantage of social is the ease with which customers can share their positive experiences. A photo for example, of them happily using a new product. Use them as your advocates.
Listen for trends
Social media channels are where people chat. Look for trends in your market, or about the products you are selling. It’s also a great opportunity to hear what customers are saying about your business.
Use social shopping
People can now buy directly through social media. Make sure you’re on board with this to maximise your business’s sales potential.
Retargeting
If someone comes into your shop or visits your site but doesn’t purchase, it’s possible to retarget them through their social media pages. Like social shopping , it’s all part of the marketing mix.
What does brand equity mean in retail?
The principle here is that well-established brands, those with a good reputation, are more successful.
Brand equity is important. It affects both the user experience and your potential customers’ confidence over making a purchase from your company.
Retail brand value
Brand value allows a business to charge more for the brand name, and it generates more interest as consumers want to be part of your brand. As your own customer brand equity grows, so too does your ability to increase profits over the competition.
However, as a company, you must first identify and agree upon a way to define your own brand value, in addition to how to measure growth.
Define your brand values
Do not confuse brand value with brand values. The values of your brand are what your company stands for.
It is important to have clear brand values established ahead of time. This way, you can define your retail brand’s value while maintaining core values. Core values are often a prime motivation for customers to engage with your organisation. They like that you provided quality products at affordable prices, or that you donate a portion of proceeds to a local charity, or that everything is made with locally sourced materials.
As brand value grows, and you shift your core values, it will affect brand equity. Increasing the prices of your products, as an example, may negatively impact the way customers saw you as an affordable option.
Brand valuation methods
Your business needs to determine not only how to define brand value for the company itself, but also how to measure it.
The income approach brand valuation, also known as in-use approach brand valuation, looks at predicted future net earnings and connects it to the brand in order to establish a retail brand value.
In other words, it forecasts future sales. You’ll also have your forecast to use as a measuring tool.
Market-based brand valuation occurs when you compare your brand against others on the marketplace. You would be looking at, for example, transactions, prices for similar products and client growth.
You then measure brand value in comparison to the competition.
Cost-based brand valuation looks at the costs your business has accumulated since it started. It looks at how much it would cost to replace the brand.
You’d be aiming to have revenue greater than the cost of creating the brand.
More retail marketing tips
- Have a local appeal – customers want to feel special, and that their unique needs and pain points are being met by your brand and its products. Even if you don’t have a physical store location, you should still be making efforts to localise your marketing to connect on a deeper level with consumers. Employ location-based marketing techniques, such as targeted adverts and discount codes for users in select areas, to drive traffic directly in your local markets.
- Create a unique in-store experience – more and more people shop online for its convenience, but nothing beats a friendly face when they come into your store. Get inventive with your retail marketing efforts here, as customers are only a few steps away from a sale. Experiential marketing can be particularly effective, whether it’s sampling sessions or free trials of products, it can greatly enhance their experience and how they view your brand.
- Retarget online customers – customers who don’t purchase can be retargeted through advertising and social media
- Use online data for agile retail marketing – When your customers shop with you, you build up a profile of information, such as their personal details, buying habits and browsing history. As you amass more insight, your digital marketing and website messaging can be tailored to create a more personalised experience for individual consumers .
How to do retail marketing well – your template
Effective retail marketing requires a good amount of initial research. That would include data that helps you understand the market for your product, including a SWOT analysis, a competitor analysis, understanding the demographics of your audience and where they are buying. Are there any trends? Are there areas where other companies have been successful or failed? The more you have at this stage, the more you have to work with.
Based on the data you’ve acquired, you should have a good idea as to what sort of product or service to highlight in your upcoming marketing campaign. You’ll also uncover other attributes including key demographics and what marketing channels generate the highest return among these audiences.
With a wealth of information provided off the back of your analytical data, you have a strong foundation to produce a functional, successful retail marketing plan.
You just need to generate a template for documenting what works, what doesn’t and how you can evolve the plan over time. Here are a few suggestions on creating that marketing plan template:
Target customers – consumer profiling
There’s a good chance your company has a few different key demographic consumers. Or, you may be interested in attracting a new demographic to the company.
Identify the target customers. Create a customer profile, regarding their age, income level, gender, character traits, interests and everything else you might need to put a real face behind the target customer profile. This step should be an essential part of each of your marketing plans, always placing the consumer, their characteristics and their needs at the heart of everything moving forward.
Your unique selling proposition helps separate your business from the competition. Basically, it’s what special feature your brand delivers that nobody else does. Are you the fastest? Are you first? Whatever it is, say it loud and say it often.
Many companies fall short here, placing their focus on generic benefits over something that genuinely makes their business unique.
Expenses and projections
Where possible make projections for expenses and don’t lose sight of costs. Your budget may be the most crucial part of any retail marketing plan. It will inform where and how you advertise.
Measure success
An often overlooked part of any retail marketing plan is taking time to reflect on the areas that did work, and what fell short of expectations. Testing and refining are crucial in finding the successful formula, so ensure during and after each campaign, you devote time to analysing where improvements can be made.
In addition, define what success means for your company at the start of the process and build milestones throughout to keep you on track. This presents a benchmark for your marketing efforts, so you’re aware if changes are required to achieve the goals you have set out to accomplish.
Great retail marketing ideas for retail stores
- In-store events, such as book signings or book clubs, can be promoted through social media and email.
- Leveraging employees to share information about the store through their own social media channels.
- Taking advantage of channels like Instagram Stories, which allow you to show off certain aspects of your store in an informal manner.
- Price discounts are a fast way to increase sales and get people through the door. Most customers these days expect some kind of sale.
- Get their attention by creating a brilliant window display. Use it to promote your sale.
- Many high-street stores promote loyalty programs. It creates returning customers, but in some cases retailers can even maintain a higher price on their products as customers return to spend their loyalty points.
- Stock products made locally. It’s a great selling point and you can align your brand behind supporting your local community.
PIM – Product information management
You’ve developed the brand, created the strategy but your business will still need to implement and managing processes at each stage of your customer’s journey, including the eventual purchase.
Bigger opportunities mean more challenges, especially when it comes to product-related content. The strategic opportunities of new lines may not include the practical reality of getting those products online, into shops or within catalogues.
Who’s making sure that the descriptions are accurate from a technical (and legal) point of view? Perhaps most importantly from a marketing perspective, with so many products to list and lots of people involved in content creation, is your central brand message in danger of becoming muddled or diluted? And how do you make sure your marketing is using the correct pricing?
This is where your product information management (PIM) strategy comes in.
At heart, it describes a set of processes and tools to help you stay in full control of the information linked to your product lines. Getting it right enables you to make your whole content creation process much more efficient, and promotes a stronger, more accurate and more compelling marketing message.
Why do I need PIM?
From your buying or product development department, via marketing and customer queries, and right through to order dispatch, your products are essentially on a ‘journey’ as they pass through your organisation.
Unless the right information about these products is presented to the right people at the right time, that journey can become needlessly protracted. Here’s how:
Multi-channel marketing and sales are now part of the marketing mix. Tone and content may alter to meet the needs of different channels, but with multiple sales platforms to manage, there’s a risk of straying from important product information. So it’s useful to have a central hub for core information about the product for your people to draw on – along with channel-specific guidelines.
Flow of information through the company
Where information is fed into a single source, you don’t have marketing teams sitting on their hands waiting for technical information from the product development department. They can access these details immediately and independently to greatly reduce turnaround times for marketing to reach consumers. Plus, it offers a valuable platform for collaborative working with employees who may be based remotely.
Flow of information to the customer
Having access to managed product information makes it easier for your marketers to tailor advertising and marketing materials to your various audiences. This allows you to showcase particular features or particular product variants to groups based on how receptive they will be to these aspects, supporting your personalised marketing efforts.
Retail marketing trends
When you’re creating your marketing plan think about these trends in retail marketing .
- Only 5% of retailers focus on Gen Z. However 60% still target millennials.
- Be vocal about social issues. Most retailers think it’s a risk worth taking and that there are inherent risks with sitting on the fence.
- Be varied with your use of discounts. People seek deals, especially those shopping on mobile. Retailers will offer exclusive discounts to mobile users.
- Invest in voice search. Many retailers believe it’s the way of the future.
- Retailers will use more exclusive products and offers to compete in the digital space.
You may also want to improve on the basics
- Ensure you comply with GDPR and the EU ePrivacy Directive
- Differentiate your brand
- Improve the shopping experience
Whether it’s retail digital marketing or in-store marketing , paying attention to these trends while shaping your strategy will make it more likely you see rewards for your retail marketing efforts.
Retail marketing during COVID-19
In the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic, few sectors have felt both extremes brought on by this crisis like the retail industry. From the immense pressure placed onto supermarkets and other essential organisations, to the reduced traffic experienced by high street shops and fashion lines, 2020 has brought unprecedented challenges to this sector.
When discussing the retailers’ response to COVID-19, there’s a greater emphasis than ever on keeping engaged with customers at this time of confusion and misinformation, investing in digital channels and producing content that resonates with audience’s pain points and changing behaviours in these unique circumstances.
While there is the temptation for those with reduced activity to take their foot off the gas, we firmly believe now is the time to focus on innovation and adaptation. By taking these strides, retailers will be in a stronger position to maintain customer loyalty in this difficult period and perhaps form connections with new audiences both now and beyond this crisis.
So, why retail marketing?
In its simplest form retail marketing is the process of getting your product or service in front of the audience. The immediate benefits are more sales, which are crucial for the survival of a business.
Retail is experiencing a transformation too. People want the experiences to be more personal. Providing brilliant customer service distinguishes you. Great branding inspires confidence and it all has the power to result in repeat custom.
Some of the strategies and techniques available to the retailer are listed here, but when it comes down to it, the sky (and budget) is the limit with developing ideas that get your brand to the top in this noisy world.
A well-defined marketing mix, delivering the right message at the right time, to the right people is a recipe for success.
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8 Retail Marketing Strategies to Drive Sales
Nov 21, 2018
Any retail business that does not generate sales is bound to fail. However, generating sales without marketing is virtually impossible. Marketing is concerned with how prospective customers and current customers, as well as the market or segment your retail business belongs to, perceive and talk about your business.
Using the right marketing strategies can be very advantageous to your retail business, driving awareness of your brand and producing a certain trust for the goods offered in your online and brick-and-mortar stores. Effective marketing strategies also deliver a steady stream of new customers, generate referrals attracted by word of mouth from satisfied customers and, of course, improve the allocation of scarce marketing resources.
There are a lot of specific aspects of your retail business that must be addressed with the right marketing tactics to boost sales, and below you will find eight marketing strategies to consider adopting.
1 - Create impressive storefronts
The growth of e-commerce stores has forced brick-and-mortar stores to increase their experiential appeal. Customers have multiple options when it comes to buying products, and for a retailer to stand out, it must offer a great experience. And although many businesses are fond of overlooking this important aspect of their retail marketing, the only way to attract passersby to your online or physical stores is to optimize the design of your storefronts.
For brick-and-mortar stores, you have to design your storefront for better visibility with custom designs and adopt a minimalist approach to the storefront design that subtly attracts customers instead of screaming at them.
Even for e-commerce storefronts, including your social media platforms and websites, considerations like website loading speed, website navigation, blog posts and other valuable content, mobile optimized user interfaces and SEO visibility can serve as a pull or push mechanism to bring in customers or chase them away.
2 - Motivate your employees with better wages and compensation packages
Your employees are your retail business' brand ambassadors, and you need to give them incentives in order to get the best results. When you compensate your employees properly, you can create an exceptional impression on your customers with memorable experiences.
If you're able to hire and maintain customer-oriented, long-term and committed employees, you're likely to increase your customer retention rate, reduce employee turnover and increase profitability. Also, if you motivate your sales team with compensation packages, they are incentivized to work harder to increase sales.
You can also encourage sharing of new marketing and customer relations management activations with your staff because they might just have a better contextual understanding of your customers and potential customers because of their one-on-one dealings with them.
3 - Provide adequate employee training
Substantive employee training can make the difference between you and your competitors. The experts from EssayOnTime recommend arranging regular training sessions and conferences to retain employees and keep up with industry trends. If you neglect to train your employees, your company will be left behind in your niche.
A retail business that neglects the training of employees will eventually struggle to stay in business. A good practice that will ensure you have great employees with good customer relationship management, retail selling and upselling skills is to train them as soon as they're hired and conduct recurring training annually or every six months to reorient them based on new consumer trends.
4 - Understand the market
To increase sales, you need to do market research to get in-depth retail market data relating to sales performance, store portfolios, and competitor analysis, as well as keeping track of rapidly changing retail and consumer trends.
5 - Engage your customers
Give your customers a reason to love you. This does not involve ineffective, non-subtle marketing techniques like situating a greeter at the storefront to greet incoming customers with scripted lines like, "Hi, how are you doing?" The best way to make customers loyal is to be helpful to them. Answer their questions as truthfully as possible. Relate from their perspective and answer product questions from your own user experience or from real customer user experiences.
When your customers are leaving, thank them for their purchase and invite them to return, leaving a memorable experience with your customers. You should also solicit feedback from customers, post questions and answers online, engage your customers in your market research, and respond to customers' positive and negative reviews. Additionally, you can offer discounts and coupons for returning customers among many other engagement techniques.
6 - Leverage social media capabilities
Almost all businesses, retail or not, have some form of social media presence. However, very few of them have fully leveraged social media capabilities. You can invest in social media advertising which makes it easy for you to get in front of people likely to buy your products and convert them or send them into your sales funnel. With the importance of social media to many people's lives, you can start targeting customers who are specifically interested in the products and services you offer in your retail business, online or offline.
7 - Smart remarketing
You can increase your customer retention rates through remarketin g . Shoppers are usually distracted and can easily forget their positive shopper experience, whether at your online stores or at your brick and mortar stores. You need to remind them of their positive experience by engaging previous shoppers either with promotions and/or discounts based on past purchases or current consumer trends.
8 - Tweak your pricing strategy
There are always changes in product demand due to seasonal or market changes, as well as consumer trends and competitor actions. Thus, you need to stay on top of your pricing game to keep your inventory moving. To do this, you must frequently change retail prices strategically in a way that attracts customers while covering costs and bringing in reasonable profit.
Not all marketing strategies will work for you, so it's important to experiment and be creative in using or combining different marketing tactics with a personal touch to make your retail business grow in awareness, popularity and, ultimately, sales.
About the writer : Serena Dorf is a social media-savvy Los Angeles-based content writer. She is passionate about writing, personal development, marketing, and productivity. In her free time, she is reading classic American literature and learning Swedish. Feel free to connect with her on Twitter .
Join the #retail, #inspiringretail and #SmartStore conversations on Twitter @RetailNext , as well as at www.facebook.com/retailnext .
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8 Retail Marketing Strategies to Drive Sales · 1 - Create impressive storefronts · 2 - Motivate your employees with better wages and compensation