Introduction to Retail Marketing
Sometimes, just by throwing up a fresh and innovative marketing program a company can discover new ways of delivering value to its customers. So, keeping this point in mind, we are going to give our readers 15 main fresh low cost retail marketing ideas that are easy to implement and can be implemented using minimum communication skills and within budget. This may also involve offering a slight discount at some point of time but we can guarantee that by learning and following these tactics you would greatly benefit as a company.
The main idea behind applying such new concepts in the field of retail marketing are that they help to increase foot traffic, increase word-of-mouth and increase loyalty or a combination of any of them. We will be mentioning about the merits (and possible demerits) of each individual idea and how other successful retail marketing companies have implemented them. We would also be discussing any problems that may arise whilst its implementation.
Problems that may arise whilst its implementation
So, here are they:-
1. Create a card that asks the customers to give online reviews
This is a significant step as it would definitely improve your search engine performance. Google is nowadays, keeping a track of all the reviews and suggestions provided by customers about a particular brand through its algorithms. You can be very much assured that whenever a customer searches for a piece of info, Google does looks up for reviews posted related to that search and then shows up the search results.
As a real world example, an inquiring customer was helped by his consultant to get established on Google Places, TripAdvisor and some other related directories. Now, that client has his plans to introduce variations of this card to its own customers. Such an easy and profitable idea!
2. Create a combo of products which offers discount instead of buying them separately
One way of increasing the average transaction amount is to increase the overall revenue. Thus, you should offer your products in packs or combos, which would be liked by the customers and would start to be content with your brand. Hence, satisfied customers mean returning customers and your business would definitely start to flourish.
As an example, McDonald’s had to introduce the Happy Meal which worked wonders for them. Similarly, other retail fast food joints launched the idea offering combos of coffee and pastry, sandwich, chips and a beverage. Those in the women’s boutique business ensemble hats with handbags and saw their fortunes take an upward slide. So the moral of the story is to be creative!
3. Create a photo contest for customers
This is a very efficient tactic to help showcase the customers their talent and also your products. Many of your loyal customers would make pictures of your products and these pictures would be shared and reused on your website and maybe on your stores as well as on your marketing materials. After all, it isn’t said for nothing “a picture tells a thousand words”.
For example, a chain in San Francisco by the name of Pizza Orgasmic has a gallery of its customers on its website wearing the brand’s t-shirts and also hangs framed photos of some of its top customers. Another chain called George’s Music in Pennsylvania runs a photo contest via its Facebook page and asks its fans to post their pictures with their instrument onto the wall.
4. Announce your own Group on-like offer on your Facebook page
Your Facebook fans would most likely observe the offer and will bring in non-Facebook users in a group to your store. This process of introduction of new customers via existing customers is a win-win situation for everybody. For example, Tropic a Mexican restaurant in San Francisco actually offers free drinks to the customer who brings in 5 new ones. Thus, in my view if you run a restaurant chain or a pub, you must consider implementing an offer just like that or introduce a Happy Hour scheme, so as to get in more customers in the unoccupied hours.
5. Tweet or e-mail a special word that customers can share to cash a discount or a free gift
This is a new scheme introduced by many of the retail marketers especially through the social media platforms. In this, the marketer shares a specific word or a phrase that a customer can see on the company’s official twitter or Facebook page. They can then memorize or note down the word and share it at the cash counter of the company’s retail store to avail special discounts or in some cases a free gift for themselves.
For example, Domino’s’ Pizza very frequently shares a unique word or a code with its loyal customers on its twitter page or via e-mailing them which significantly reduces their order price or makes them eligible for a gift toy or something like that.
A conscious marketer always knows how difficult it is to draw in more and more customers and fulfill their wishes as well. Yes, this activity really involves a lot of time and effort and one has to overcome many a challenges in order to be a successful marketer.
Low Cost Retail Marketing Tips
So, we are going to present a few tips for the benefit of low cost retail marketing to help our aspiring young marketers and the more experienced ones as well. Some of these are as listed below:
1. Keep track of all marketing activities
You may not have ever calculated the ROI (Return on Investment) on your most recent previous marketing activities. But, this is not a good habit. You may even not be knowing whether the last marketing campaign was a success or not? Were your goals measurable and specific? However, it’s very important to set some specific and achievable goals then develop a mechanism to track those objectives for each marketing effort that has been launched whether online or off. You must also be very clear in the mind what exactly are you trying to achieve by your marketing efforts? Is the goal to get more visits to your site or generate more revenue by sales or getting more and more post-sales customer reviews?
Whatever your goal be, make sure to track all progress made so as to get a valuable understanding of how to go about in the next marketing campaign? An effective retail marketing strategy is to learn from your previous mistakes and try not to repeat them.
2. Free marketing openings
A good marketing strategy is to use the upcoming trends in social media into your business and make customers get involved. Place your company’s posters and flyers on your community bulletin boards and busy places on the road. You can contact other local retail marketing companies to share your company’s marketing material and broaches so that to have them placed on their spaces at various spots. Example, you can collaborate with a partner organization similar to you in terms of size and domain and you could actually be selling for each other! For example, your retail store dealing in grocery can partner with a fast food joint to offer a special package; a gift from your store or a dinner for family or movie tickets for free. Such marketing innovations may cost you little in terms of printing and distribution but the overall benefits are large and encouraging for your business.
3. Repetition
There are many frustrated (or lazy) retail marketers who send one or two postcards via mail and due to unresponsiveness never bother to send again. But, this is not right. After all, repetition sells! Have you heard of the rule of seven? A customer must see an ad seven times before he decides to buy. It certainly doesn’t mean that you need to get your message across at least seven times but two or three times won’t do any harm to you. That’s a promise! Try to send your message especially together with flyers, ads, banners and digital marketing as many times as you can.
4. Follow-up
Do you keep a track of your customer’s after-purchase behavior? A satisfied and happy customer is a big asset to the business. He may not only get back to you for future purchases but refer you to his friends which is also very exciting, isn’t it? Now, it’s up to you how you deal with those new prospects. Typically, you can send them a free gift or a discount coupon so as to encourage and entice them towards your brand. Remember, happy customers always mean more business!
5. Be a resource for your customers
As a marketer, it is useful if you can act as a resource for your customers. You can do so by throwing some open-ended questions about how they feel about you. Ask them questions like who they normally shop for? Or what are their suggestions to you? Offer them some advice as to how can they get themselves or a loved one a nice gift and become a trustworthy resource. All your inputs, advice and help in any form doesn’t go worthless and makes your business stay on top in the minds of customers.
6. Workers’ training
Workers’ training does not only consists of how to open and close, work the register or keeping the items stocked. It should include another significant aspect – selling. It has been witnessed that when a company trains its employees, the art of selling its overall chances of success greatly increase. When your employees are skilled, efficient and knowledgeable then your customers automatically become more content and loyal.
7. Test
Just like a mechanic tests for the fault before he can proceed with the actual repair process, you as a marketer must also test your marketing campaigns’ degree of success. You must also test your marketing materials in conjunction with one another to ascertain which is doing better. Test a segment of your mailing list for the appropriate version and after getting the result, send that version to the entire list. Such a testing procedure is also very valuable for email marketing, direct mail and landing pages.
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8. Targeted Approach
If you can know the common traits of five of your most repeated customers, you have done a good job. The reason is that without such knowledge, it would be extremely difficult to target your next customers. Thus, try to find everything related to your best customers and develop a customer profile base. Once you have created sufficient customer profiles, you can then send the similar ones your ads and other marketing materials and so better target your prospects.
9. Construct customer relationships
Getting personal can sometimes help. Yes, it’s surely for true in the world of marketing. It is an effective way of saying to your customers that “you care”. Marketing doesn’t always mean selling. This is more proved by this effort of yours which helps build long-term relationships. Believe me, your customers appreciate when you wish them on their birthdays, anniversaries or remember other important events in their lives.
10. Public Relations
Marketing and Public relations although are different terms but have a common objective; to make the customers aware about the company’s products, services and offerings. Whenever you have made a new product, hired someone, conducted an event or made a charitable contribution, first make a press release of it and send to local newspapers, magazines, TV stations and websites. An optimum coverage isn’t always guaranteed but your business would definitely earn the public eye when your press release is seen by prospects and customers through the media.
Retail Marketing Conclusion
These were some effective, important and powerful low cost retail marketing ideas that any and every business can adopt to be competitive in the industry. We hope you must also have got your idea for starting or reinstating your business objectives in the retail marketing line. These 10 simple but real retail marketing advises should (and would) help your business make desired sales and boost more effectively with your marketing. Do let us know what you think of them and how they helped you improve your marketing goals via the comments section.
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