Are you doing retail business? You are not sure which marketing campaign to choose for your store to attract and find new customers? Then this article is meant for you. Let's explore with Navigos Search the most effective marketing strategy for retail stores that both help attract new customers and expand the business.
1. What is retail marketing?
Marketing is the bridge between businesses providing products/services and customers. Businesses deploy marketing campaigns with the aim of identifying user needs. Then, choose the appropriate advertising activity to promote the brand to customers.
Currently, marketing plays a very important role in all fields, especially the retail industry.
Retail marketing is the bridge between suppliers and consumers
2. The importance of marketing for retail stores
The current digital era does not allow businesses to "stand still" with the traditional form of sale. If they do not want to be left behind in the market, they must quickly adapt and change. And retail marketing is a great way to improve business performance with marketing campaigns that focus on and prioritize the customer experience.
Moreover, retail stores often operate on a traditional business model, with fixed store locations. Users will come to the store to choose, shop and conduct transactions. Thus, without retail marketing, it is very difficult for many people to know about the business. While competitors are increasing rapidly, they can take over your customers if you don't focus on boosting your marketing process.
For retail stores, marketing is not only to attract potential customers, influence shopping decisions but also an effective solution to retain customers. The right marketing strategy at the right time also helps to release inventory and significantly increase revenue.
In addition, marketing also helps you "beat" the competitors. For each product or item that is launched, there are millions of business units that compete with you. In order to avoid losing the delicious part of the "market share pie", businesses must be proactive in attracting customers to themselves with effective marketing solutions.
See more: Manage retail chains: Pivotal experiences to know
Marketing helps attract potential customers
3. Highly effective retail marketing strategies
The field of Marketing always tends to change from time to time. To drive business performance, you need to implement one or more appropriate strategies.
3.1. Leverage social media channels
A simple and suitable marketing strategy for any product or service is social media. Currently, in Vietnam, there are three most popular platforms that support the great brand promotion, which are: Facebook, Zalo and Instagram. This will be a "fertile ground" for businesses to develop retail marketing.
Facebook
You can create a fanpage to promote your brand and products. Facebook is the leading high-traffic tool today. This opens up the opportunity to reach a wide variety of customers with different ranges.
Facebook groups build community connections for groups of people with similar needs and interests. At this time, you need to actively provide articles and images to those groups to introduce and promote your products and raise awareness of your brand. The more popular the fanpage, the more followers it has. And you should also invest in advertising costs for this activity. Advertising appearing in the right place at the right time is the most effective way to convey product messages.
To successfully implement marketing strategies on the Facebook platform, businesses must seize the opportunity to define specific goals and map out appropriate advertising directions. You can also cleverly integrate ads on video game shows and music to increase customer recognition.
Zalo
Zalo is a social networking site with a large amount of traffic in Vietnam. Therefore, Zalo will become a technology platform to help you effectively market products to users.
While the "big bosses" in the retail industry are competing fiercely on Facebook, you can navigate to Zalo. The form of marketing is conducted through Zalo shop to drive sales and based on the free messaging feature, you will reach customers more easily. In addition, you will not need to pay any extra fees for brand promotion activities on Zalo shop. Those are also the advantages for the seller to acquire the "niche market".
Not inferior to Facebook, Zalo allows running advertising campaigns mounted on video images and audio. In addition, exploiting the advertising market also helps your unit meet fewer competitors. Simple forms such as Zalo Official Account, product advertising and website links all help retailers improve their ability to approach customers.
Instagram
Users often choose Instagram to post photos and admire beautiful images. Despite being less busy compared to Facebook and Zalo, you can still do marketing activities on this platform.
Most of the items that appear on Instagram are polished in terms of images, so customers will always look for high-quality, high-end products on this platform. This also requires your company to invest in quality posts to attract customers.
Marketing for retail stores on Instagram is done through the Stories feature. You can upload product images to Stories to convey messages and promote your brand. Each post here is valid for 24 hours. After that, you must continue to update other Stories with new content, different images to attract customers.
An important factor for effective communication through the Instagram platform is the Hashtag. These are keywords related to your brand and you should create a short and intuitive Hashtag to make it easy for customers to recognize and remember your brand.
3.2. Start with what you have
There are many marketing strategies on the market today. If you don't know which strategy is appropriate, then use what is available, start with what you have. This is a great retail marketing idea for you to look at yourself before entering the market which helps with saving investment costs.
Storefront
The storefront is a place to stimulate the curiosity of passersby. And try to take advantage of the storefront to turn them into potential customers. You can maximize this tactic with suggestions such as: decorating the counter, hanging banners or advertising posters, ... and display them in a conspicuous place to increase customer recognition.
Depending on the type of retail, the customer segment that you choose the appropriate business location. Pay attention to the impressive and harmonious design of the premises to attract everyone's eyes.
Store staff
Store staff is the decisive factor in customer service at retail stores. Any customers would like to have a quality and comfortable shopping experience. That is why your retail store should invest in a team of professional and dedicated staff to perform well in marketing activities.
Any form of retail store requires a team of store staff. They are the people who take care of the store, display the products and interact with the customers. Having a professional and friendly team of store staff will create a successful marketing strategy. What managers need to do is to develop a welfare policy to retain employees, make them devote themselves to the business.
Professional staffs will help customers have a great shopping experience
Product display in retail stores
The most important thing when doing retail business is how to provide quality products to consumers. Right from the very beginning of your marketing campaign, you need to carefully study user needs. Offerwhat your customers need, not what you have. This is the secret to the success of many retail businesses in the Vietnamese market.
Once you have identified the right potential products, you should focus on displaying them. Make the arrangement eye-catching and outstanding to make passersby want to drop in to buy the product. You can prioritize essential, profitable items to display in a central location.
3.3. Through co – marketing
The implementation of a marketing campaign in the retail industry is to provide products in small quantities to customers. Without increasing the number of buyers, businesses are prone to losses due to inventory. Your retail store should develop relationships with the other stores that display the related product type in the same area.
So what effect will this strategy bring? The first thing is to increase brand awareness in potential customers. Through the venue containing many booths, it will help your business have the opportunity to approach many users with different needs. At the same time, the cooperation in marketing with partners will help both parties improve benefits and expand the scope to introduce products.
When choosing a co-marketing campaign, you must identify the suitable partner for the nature of your business. For example, if you are selling furniture, you should cooperate with a home design and decoration unit. The correlation between products and fields will help create opportunities for harmony instead of competition with units in the same industry.
Co - marketing help increase brand awareness
3.4. Word of mouth
Word of mouth is a well-known strategy in marketing. Marketing activities often aim to provide quality products to satisfy customers. From there, users have favorable reviews for your brand and would like to spread the prestigious sales address to friends and relatives.
It is said that word of mouth marketing is a way for businesses to take advantage of customers to promote their products and brands. When they are satisfied with the product, they will voluntarily share the good review to the people around them. This strategy is maximized to help save costs effectively. However, you need to note that these tactics are only successful when the products and services the business provides must be truly qualified.
Marketing through word of mouth is considered a double-edged sword, determining the business successful operation. If you accidentally make a customer unhappy, it is possible that your brand will lose its reputation and credibility. Therefore, be careful in investing in the quality of products and the best customer service.
3.5. Increase and enhance SMS BrandName, Email marketing
SMS BrandName is a brand messaging service. This service allows traders to send automated messages to customers. SMS BrandName has the ability to optimize productivity because of the large number of messages delivered in a short amount of time. In addition, the message also specifies the business name instead of the normal phone number so that customers will not be confused.
Besides, Email marketing also brings the same marketing effect. Many high-end consumers tend to trust Email and interact with units that use Email. This communication tool shows the level of your business as well as respect for customers.
To promote your marketing strategy through SMS BrandName and Email, you should focus on creative content. Don't use words that offer direct purchase, but focus on content that evokes a desire to try the product. At the same time, adding similar products or accompanying products so that consumers feel convenient shopping.
The content needs to be invested in on SMS BrandName, Email marketing
3.6. Through celebrity, KOL
If you would like to build a brand quickly and effectively, you must not ignore the campaign conducted with a celebrity. Influencers will be able to spread your product on a larger scale because they already have millions of followers from fans and supporters. In addition, customers often have trust in the choices of celebrities.
To promote effective celebrity marketing tactics, businesses must determine the appropriate audience. You cannot use a foodie KOL to promote your clothing brand. Therefore, invest in researching whether your existing products meet the needs of your target customers or not.
When you invite an expert to try it out, you need to make sure your product is of excellent quality. Of course, you will have to invest in some marketing costs and commissions for the KOL.
Indeed, the development of the retail industry is not "gentle" as it seems to be. And it is hard to list out all the marketing strategies for retail stores that drive more sales. Navigos Search hopes the above useful sharing will help you find the right solution for your retail store. Choosing the right marketing method will help you effectively attract potential customers and successfully increase their desire to make a purchase.
Navigos Search - Vietnam's leading middle and high-level talent hunting company