Retail Marketing Strategies You Should Be Aware of
Many things have changed after the emergence of digital marketing, and retail marketing isn’t an exception. In 2020, the e-commerce share of retail sales worldwide accounted for 18%. This figure is expected to reach 21.8 percent in 2024. Still, the more significant part of sales is buying products in person. Nowadays, buyers are spoiled by the variety of goods, they are demanding and know the price of the things since the current market provides all the possible goods both for reasonable and a bit high prices. Therefore, we want you to consider necessary retail marketing strategies to adapt to modern realities and become successful business owners.
What Is Retail Marketing?
It’s the opportunity to promote your business and tell the world about the products or services provided, increase brand awareness and client base, and boost sales. Today, both e-commerce and traditional retailers use these strategies. It’s not a problem for users to buy anything online, but if there is a store in their city, they’ll go there, so you can attract potential customers on the Internet and get real ones offline.
Main Principles of Retail Marketing Strategies
There are four main aspects without which achieving good results is impossible.
#1 Product
A product is what a company opens up for. It offers a service or product to a potential buyer and makes a profit. Any product, both a physical item and service, should have value for the consumer and be high quality. The target audience is preliminarily studied to identify its needs.
The qualities a valuable product should have:
- original design – appearance, shape, brand packaging design, colors;
- brand – name, logo design, authentic style;
- a variety of assortment that meets the requirements of different categories of consumers;
- high quality and functionality.
#2 Price
Increase the cost of goods and manufacturing but make it affordable to visitors by implementing:
- everyday low pricing: not changing prices at all, guaranteeing the stability of prices;
- high/low pricing: non-constant costs – there is a pretty high price that decreases during some time because of sales, discounts, promotions, special offers, etc.;
- competitive pricing: it depends on the competitors’ strategies. As a result, most companies have similar pricing policies;
- psychological pricing considers the influence on clients’ wish to save money, e.g., the seller sets $4.90 for a product, but the buyer associates it with $4 rather than $5.
#3 Place
Place – ideal location or platform to present your products in all its best (store/website).
An essential aspect of retail marketing strategies is the product’s availability to the consumer. A potential buyer should immediately see the product and become interested. So, you need to think about the place where and how to manage it.
There are many options for implementation – small and large stores, shopping centers, home delivery, pages on social networks, and full-featured websites selling their products and delivering them by mail.
#4 Promotion
Get customers hacked with the promotion technique to familiarize the consumer with the product, its benefits, properties, and characteristics. It helps create a complete product image and form a person’s desire to purchase it.
Promoting a new product on the market begins with drawing a portrait of the target audience. It is necessary to determine the needs of potential buyers and, based on this data, create an advertisement for the product, which is carried out via the Internet mass media directly at the points of sale. Types of advertising – videos, create flyers, banners, and articles.
How to Build Your Retail Marketing Strategies
We’ve defined that it’s necessary to find out your target audience, visitors’ requirements, needs, and wishes to innovate your business, find new solutions for promotion, adapt your products/services, and give users what they want.
How to do that? Send questionnaires to understand what customers lack and how to improve their experience(Google Forms or free online surveys ).
For example, if you sell organic soap, ask what additional categories they’d like to see, whether the design is appropriate, etc.
Another essential concept is users’ convenience and accessibility. If it’s offline, it shouldn’t take a lot of time to reach the store. If online, poor navigation, unattractive layout, and lack of necessary buttons only push clients away.
Retail Marketing Strategies that Work in 2021
Mix Online and Offline
Online and offline presence is a must. It brings incredible results and reduces revenue. Join the strengths of both approaches to business development and enjoy the profits.
AI Marketing
Understanding consumer emotions is the key to successful marketing. While artificial intelligence cannot sense feeling, its use in retail marketing strategies improves customer experience and sales. It ensures the continuous collection of data based on purchasing behavior and habits. In addition, social networks track precisely what products and goods buyers follow and what purchases they make or look for. Therefore, you can define clients’ preferences and present the best possible ones so they can’t avoid buying your product.
Visual Commerce
The online store owner should take care of the visualization, which allows the potential customer to appreciate all the product’s advantages and facilitate the selection process. It is necessary to use high-quality images, implement 3D photographs of goods, and upload videos to the online store website through reviews, unpacks, instructions for selection and use, and others. High-quality visualization significantly increases interest in the product, positively impacting sales dynamics.
Use Video Content
Videos allow you to tell and show more. Moreover, they provide high loyalty and engagement and help to get to the top of search engine results. Users interact longer with the pages hosting videos, so the site has good behavioral factors.
Even though video content is easily perceived, it doesn’t mean you need to replace text with it. You need to understand where it fits and doesn’t: you won’t record a separate video describing the product’s characteristics, right?
Omnichannel Commerce
Live communication with customers is a must for brands. AI does an excellent job of answering frequently asked questions or providing repetitive information(e.g., chatbots in ecommerce ), but it cannot yet replace a communication specialist. Instead of completely replacing people, you should simplify communication with them through all possible channels(shopping online from a mobile device, a laptop, or a brick-and-mortar store). A study of 46000 shoppers shows that 73% of people used multiple channels during their shopping journey. What results does omnichannel commerce bring? It contributes to better data collection, building customer loyalty, increasing sales, and improving customer experience.
Social Media Marketing
Undoubtedly, to increase sales, business owners should use social media for online stores (the potential of Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and other social platforms isn’t overestimated). Many social networks allow customer interaction and create online stores to sell goods – from food to luxury jewelry. Users are familiar with the functionality and capabilities of social platforms, so they make purchases more actively.
Brand Ambassador Program
A brand ambassador is a person who presents the company’s ideas and promotes products to the target audience. The task of the brand ambassador program is to:
- unobtrusively advertise the brand among the close circle of contacts, subscribers, readers, and fans;
- build loyalty among the target audience.
Typically, the brand ambassador speaks at events, provides image content, references the company name and videos, or gives interviews. It is good if such a person has charisma and the appropriate authority, which means that with the regular mention of the name of the product or brand, the ambassador’s constant circle of contacts will begin to use it.
Influencer Promotion
Every user spends 1-3 hours on social media daily and has favorite bloggers. These are people whom they respect and, therefore, believe. Their recommendations make most users buy the product, so it’s a great chance to get new clients. It’s different from the program described above, as usually, influencers get money for ads. In best cases, they test the product or service and only then share it with subscribers. Nevertheless, they do it for some time only.
Email Marketing
Email is a reliable and convenient way of communication with clients aimed at repeat purchases and building long-term relationships. For some people, it may seem old-fashioned and not an effective tool. Still, it stays on top of retail marketing strategies.
It is suitable for any business but differs in strategy and set of triggers (automatic letters). You should include the following items in your email marketing setup plan:
- Decide on a mailing system. Every business has its product and tasks: some sell webinars, others – books or some tea. So, companies need different features to automate sales.
- Start collecting subscribers’ contacts offline and online. Add subscription forms to the site, Facebook(or any other social media network), at the point of sale, when registering in the loyalty program. Take the customer’s consent to receive mailings!
Besides, you’ll need a professional tool to succeed and manage all the data. With an advanced Contact form from MotoCMS, you’ll get an unlimited number of fields, automatic notifications, a secure reCAPTCHA field, and simple validation rules.
- Use common tips to prevent emails from going to spam .
- Go to the first mailing. Prepare the content and send it to the desired segment.
Pop Up Shops
Pop-up stores are temporary outlets that open for a short period – from a few days to several months. Its main advantage is that retailers do not need to sign long-term leases or take out large loans to open their shops.
Besides, it is beneficial for the owners of online stores; they can introduce their customers to new products or services in person.
Improve SEO
Take your site to the top without special knowledge. SEO is tailoring your text and visuals to customers’ requests so that search engines can point you out from other websites. Our digital marketing and SEO tips will help you consider all the details. With MotoCMS’s convenient admin panel, you’ll improve your rankings just by optimizing the content.
In addition, if necessary, we can help you create engaging and structured content, provide comprehensive on-page SEO optimization with niche keywords and friendly website URLs, and improve website performance and page speed.
Mobile Commerce
Millions of Ukrainians prefer to shop not from desktops but mobile devices. The increase in the volume of mobile traffic is a stable e-commerce trend, which is strengthening its position from year to year. In 2021, a mobile version of an online store website became mandatory due to high competition and modern market requirements.
The mobile version should be as friendly as possible so the user can choose and buy goods in any condition: a crowded bus, walking to work, cycling, eating, etc. The user will prefer a competing online store if the responsive design is inconvenient. The priority is a simple design, usability, fast content stabilization, and high page loading speed. Please note that MotoCMS templates look fantastic on all screen resolutions, so you don’t need to create a separate mobile version or app for your site.
Loyalty Programs
Loyalty programs are a reward system for regular customers. They help manufacturers to cope with competition attract and form a base of loyal customers. You can offer:
- bonuses for every purchase so that a client can buy something for them or get a significant discount;
- free products(f.e. buy two items and get one more for free);
- bonuses for VIP services: The client receives a VIP service for a fee. Shopping is more enjoyable when the customer feels that they are being cared for. How does it work? The client advances and receives privileges in purchasing goods, additional services, and bonuses.
- non-commercial programs of the company. For example, transferring funds from investments in WWF or ecological production of goods. Thus, the company can interest the client with its policy. It creates a positive company image and unites the buyer and manufacturer.
Affiliate Programs
It’s a type of partnership in which a partner acts as an intermediary between the buyer of the product/service and the seller. It aims to increase sales significantly. The online store provides its partners with such elements as:
- Banners
- Links
- Texts.
After placing these elements on the site, advertisers pay the site owner a percentage of the purchases made by customers who click on the site.
Customer Feedback
Nowadays, there are lots of frauds. Therefore, people will hardly believe you if you don’t present testimonials. Moreover, it proves the security of personal data and money. It indicates that website owners offer quality products, which are so awesome that people even spend their time for feedback and taking photos. It guarantees that you’ll 99% stay satisfied.
So, please think of creating a good and reliable testimonials page .
Choose a Reliable Online Platform
All retail marketing strategies are beneficial. Nevertheless, their implementation starts from opening a store or creating a platform for presenting your products/services. MotoCMS responsive e-commerce templates with appealing layouts and easy editing are an excellent solution for an online presence, which is necessary for today’s market.
Our team can help you launch a full-fledged website to save you time and avoid any possible problems. Read MotoCMS customization services – make life easier to learn more.
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