Your brick-and-mortar store can use digital marketing. Even if it’s been off of your radar as you focus on in-person sales strategies, digital marketing is a vital part of your sales process. Many consumers shop online — not just at e-commerce stores, but also to visit a store’s website before heading to its physical location. Companies that use digital marketing for their business can see sales go up.
If you’d like to beef up your digital marketing strategy, here are three ways to implement your plan.
1. Let Your Website Bring You More Customers
You put lots of effort into your store’s front entrance. If you have shop windows, you ensure they are attractive to passersby. You probably display seasonal merchandise there to get attention.
Your website is the front entrance to your online store. Many customers see it before they visit your physical location, so it’s just as essential to make it attractive. It also needs to be visible to shoppers. Unfortunately, simply creating a site and putting it online doesn’t make it so — you need an SEO strategy.
When people search online, Google gives them relevant results. How can you make sure your site is relevant? Make sure your keywords are what local shoppers look for, and list your business with local directories.
You can also benefit from link building with relevant and local sites. Link building is getting links from other sites back to yours. They are also called inbound links or backlinks, and they help bring you website traffic.
There’s a right and wrong way to build these links. White hat link building is the right way; it follows Google’s guidelines and uses authoritative sites. Black hat link building involves spam-like tactics such as using private blog networks or creating bogus blog comments that link to target URLs.
2. Meet Your Customers on Social Media
Your shoppers are using social media — are you? If you are, that’s an excellent first step. It’s essential to keep the momentum by engaging with your customers there. Try some of these ideas:
- Post a live video from your store. You can advertise an open house or special sale. Another idea is to give a behind-the-scenes view of your business.
- Ask questions that entice people to respond. They can be relevant to your store (“What is your favorite coffee flavor in the springtime?”) or something fun (“How are you spending the weekend?”). The engagement attracts attention to your business.
- Post shopping tips. You can tell customers how to find the best local Black Friday deals or what products go on sale in the summertime. A non-sales-like post shows customers you want to engage without just selling products.
Social media builds relationships and increases customers’ trust and loyalty.
3. Harness the Power of Email
Email is a powerful digital marketing tool. The key to its success is segmentation. By segmenting your emails, you can vary your campaigns and target different customer bases. Not every customer is interested in everything you offer. However, you can create campaigns that appeal to various groups.
You can gather information about your customers by using surveys or forms. Abandoned forms or shopping carts are also good ways to learn about their interests. You can also use demographics; population segments use varying products and shop in different ways. Demographics to use include:
- Gender
- Location
- Job title
- Age
- Household population
When you target emails to the right customers, you avoid turning your campaign into “junk mail.” You catch their attention and make it more likely they will open your message and engage with its contents.
Your brick-and-mortar store may be thriving, but it can use a boost from digital marketing. You can build your customer base, generate interest in your business, and increase loyalty with some digital marketing strategies. Your website, social media posts and email marketing campaigns are big pieces of that strategy. Use these tips to get started and increase in-person sales along with online business.