Retailers and marketing managers need strategies and, above all, they need to know how to sell more in a market that reinvents itself every day. To do that, we have to recognize that customer behavior has changed: while simply keeping an eye on the register and running a few one-off promotions used to be enough to guarantee good results, today people demand innovation.
That means rethinking and redefining retail marketing to meet new consumer demands — consumers who are no longer mere transactional details and now expect their specific needs and wants to be met.
To help you with this challenge, this article will show you how to improve your sales results with retail marketing. Want to stay on top of the new trends so you can sell more? Then keep reading!
Personalize the customer experience
You’ve probably noticed that people are more connected than ever (through smartphones, tablets with Internet access, etc.), right? On their mobile devices, users have every kind of information they’re looking for right at their fingertips. So your POS needs to adapt to this consumer behavior to deliver the experience they’re looking for.
That’s why retail marketing initiatives need to be more customized. In other words, they should be designed to keep pace with these changes in the world and deliver a better experience to each customer, from the moment they arrive through the post-sale. To get there, think about what you can do to offer a distinctive experience that is surprisingly exciting and unique.
Keep in mind that products become obsolete and are replaceable (smartphones included). A great sales experience, however, is something truly remarkable that will always have a place in the market.
Keep up with digital innovations
A wide range of digital innovations is taking over the market. Failing to bring them into your POS means looking stagnant in your customers’ eyes. Below are some of these innovations that can certainly be adapted to your retail marketing strategies:
- digital signage: interactive electronic displays that bring your storefront window or store interior to life;
- holograms: holographic assistants can be used to interact with customers and boost your company’s sales;
- insight-generation software: analyzes metrics and delivers real, relevant data for decision-making;
- geolocation: lets you create maps with directions to your store;
- virtual tours: open up a world of possibilities, such as virtual booths that customers can access from anywhere;
- augmented reality: blends reality and projections to present products and services to customers in an immersive way.
It’s also worth stressing that all of these digital innovations, when used well, create an unforgettable experience and build bonds of affinity between the customer and the company. The result is a greater chance of making the sale.
Now that you know about these digital innovations, it’s important to keep track of market trends. That’s what we’ll cover in the next section.
Keep an eye on trends
If you want your company to sell more, you need to keep an eye on trends. So it’s time to step out of your comfort zone and adopt a professional retail marketing DNA.
A defining feature of today’s landscape is the integration of multiple marketing channels: advertising, customer service, social media, events, public relations, digital innovations and many others. In other words, you need a holistic approach to reach customers across every touchpoint with your company — in an innovative and consistent way.
So we can say that an integrated approach to retail marketing isn’t just a trend, but a communication necessity you need to keep up with. Reaching this level of efficiency requires training your employees, and that’s what we’ll talk about in the next section.
Train your team
Every retail marketing strategy requires training to be executed flawlessly. There’s no point in investing time and money teaching employees to register customers, organize shelves and check inventory if they don’t know anything about sales and marketing.
If your employees aren’t aligned with the kind of sales experience you want to offer customers, the tasks we just mentioned will suffer too — if the company doesn’t sell well, the number of customer sign-ups and restocking needs, for example, is also affected.
So give your employees knowledge and, in return, earn your customers’ trust and loyalty — which can be measured in numbers, as we’ll see next.
Analyze your marketing campaigns in depth
Tracking retail marketing metrics, or KPIs (key performance indicators), helps you understand campaign results — which initiatives are working and should be scaled up, and which are underperforming and should be cut or reworked. Here are a few KPIs you need to watch:
- ROI (return on investment): shows how much return the investment has generated for the company (profit or loss);
- conversion rate: shows the ratio between completed sales and the number of customers who walked into your store;
- CAC (customer acquisition cost): shows how much the company spends to win each new customer.
Use these metrics as a compass to set the direction of your strategies (based on real, relevant data).
Get to know your competitors
When we talk about competitive analysis, what usually comes to mind is a rival we need to beat. But it goes far beyond that: analyzing your competitors and other market segments can bring you the insights for the innovation your POS is missing. So take a look at what other companies are doing to attract more consumers.
The tip here isn’t to copy your competitors’ initiatives, but to understand which ones deliver results and to grasp consumer behavior and needs. Once you’ve done that, just adapt them to your retail marketing strategies.
Finally, it’s important to always set goals and run tests to make sure your strategies have a clear objective and will be well received by your audience.
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