Starting your retail store involves many elements. Choosing or creating products, finding a space to rent, hiring employees – it takes a lot of time and energy to get started. Now that your store is launched (or about to launch), what’s next? This is where retail marketing comes into play. Retail marketing is the process of attracting people to your products and improving store sales. Retailers who can’t market themselves will struggle to achieve success. About 20% of small businesses fail in their first year. If you don’t want your new store to be one of them, look below for tips on how to market and increase sales.
What is Retail Marketing?
A retail marketing strategy is any method that helps create awareness and increase sales and profitability for your products or business. It goes far beyond advertising in the local newspaper. Your store design, social media presence, and employees are all part of your retail marketing plan.
The Importance of Retail Marketing
A good retail marketing strategy helps sell your products to your target audience. It helps them overcome any doubts about your products and reduces buyer’s remorse, which about 77% of shoppers feel after purchasing something. Let’s take a look at some other benefits of building a retail marketing strategy.
Building Customer Loyalty
First-time business sales are great, but what really matters is getting repeat customers. Bain & Company found that by increasing customer retention by 5%, you can boost your profits by up to 95%. Requesting customer feedback, loyalty programs, and email or SMS marketing are some retail marketing strategies that enhance customer loyalty.
Since we implemented customer loyalty programs, sales have increased by 80%. Most of it comes from customers who recommend our products or buy them over and over again. Eric Mills, Owner and CEO of Pro Support Accessories
Increasing Revenue
The goal of retail marketing is to bring new customers to your business and retain them long-term. Whether through social media, search engine optimization, partnerships, or paid advertising, they are all tactics to increase revenue for your business.
Strengthening Brand Identity
Research shows that consistently presenting your brand can increase revenue by 33%. A good retail marketing strategy will strengthen your brand and make your products and company known.
Types of Retail Marketing
In-Store Marketing
In-store marketing refers to any promotional activities that happen inside your store. Products are promoted to customers and a comfortable shopping experience is provided for them. In-store marketing, in other words, focuses on attracting customers during their shopping journey.
Examples of in-store marketing include:
- In-store promotions that feature certain products or price reductions
- Offering samples of new products
- Hosting events like live music or product showcases
- Having a suggestion box or interactive board
- In-store promotional displays encouraging customers to enter your store
Traditional Marketing
Traditional marketing refers to finding a target audience through offline channels such as print marketing or billboard ads. Although digital marketing has overtaken traditional marketing in many industries, it is still a good way to reach local audiences.
Common channels include:
- Brochures and flyers
- Direct mail
- Newspaper ads
- Event marketing, such as pop-up appearances
- Referral marketing
- Radio ads
Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is the process of promoting your store or products through organic and paid efforts using online platforms. An integrated digital marketing strategy includes multiple channels, such as:
- Search engine optimization
- TikTok
- Talk
- Text messages
The channels you choose depend on where your audience is, your budget, and your overall business goals.
Retail Marketing Mix: The Six Types
The six types are an extension of the four types of marketing and are a fundamental model for building marketing strategies that connect with your target audience. It provides a set of tools you can use to achieve your goals and objectives.
The six types are: Product, Price, Place, Promotion, People, and Presentation.
Product
The product is any item or service that your customers need or want. Retailers divide the product into three categories:
- Core: Products that you always have in stock and ready for sale.
- Line Extension: Various changes to the core product.
- Related Products: Items that support the core product or make it work better.
For example, if you sell blue jeans, the line extension includes different styles (baggy, tight, slim), and belts, shoes, and shirts are related products.
Price
The price is the selling price of your product. It is based on the cost of goods sold, promotional plans, and the product life cycle. Your pricing strategy should work for your target market and competition.
Place
Place is where customers can purchase your products. In terms of retail, this could mean a standalone store in downtown, a shopping mall, or a retail complex. Spatial considerations include:
- Parking availability
- Public transportation options
- Signage
- Competitor locations
- Visual display fixtures
Promotion
Promotion refers to how you communicate with customers. Every retailer needs a promotional plan to build awareness, increase traffic, and improve conversion rates. Retailers often use promotional tactics such as:
- Social media advertisements
- Direct mail
- Referral programs
- Loyalty cards
- Email marketing
Your staff should also encourage sales by interacting with customers. Discussing the latest promotional offers and marketing specific products is a great way to promote your products in-store.
People
Floor staff are the face of your retail store. They are the people who interact with customers from the moment they enter the store until the final sale. To succeed, retailers must train their staff and recruit trustworthy individuals.
Presentation
Presentation is how the outside world perceives your product. Everything from packaging to how you communicate with customers determines whether your target audience will buy your product repeatedly.
Retail Marketing Strategies
A retail marketing strategy is any activity you use to attract customers to your store. Retailers rely on several types of marketing strategies across different channels to achieve their goals.
Storefront Appeal
They say you eat with your eyes first, and this is also true in retail. Before the customer reaches the checkout point, they should be drawn into the store by the storefront appeal. Storefront appeal refers to the look and feel of your store from the street, including parking and landscaping coordination.
Some ways to enhance storefront appeal include:
- Installing attractive signage. 60% of businesses reported that updating signage increased sales by an average of 10%. Signage communicates your message to street shoppers, so it connects with your brand and leads them into your store.
- Creating an eye-catching window display. Data shows that window displays influence purchase decisions by an average of up to 24%. Engaging displays that highlight products and relevant promotions can increase traffic to your store.
Organizing Retail Displays
Visual merchandising refers to how to plan, design, and display products to showcase their features. The goal is to attract customers and motivate them to buy. The best visual merchandising tactics will help you organize your store and let products sell themselves.
Visual merchandising includes:
- Your store’s color palette
- The music playing in your store
- The scents surrounding your display
- Interactive displays
- Mannequins
Organizing your retail display is crucial for successful retail marketing. It allows you to connect with people through the five senses and can lead to more sales in your store.
BuildingYour Online Presence
There are over 3.78 billion social media users in the world today, with over $181 billion spent on social advertising alone. While you may have a physical store, building an online presence through social media helps to grow your audience and attract the right customers.
Nearly all (91%) merchants use two or more social media platforms. Popular channels for social media marketing include:
- TikTok
Feeling confused about the types of content you can create? You can post content such as:
- Behind-the-scenes looks
- Event promotions
- User-generated content
- Influencer promotions
- Product photos
- Short videos
The list goes on. Social media is a great place to share your brand’s story and connect with potential new customers.
Investing in Local SEO
Local SEO refers to increasing your store’s visibility online within a specific area. For example, if your store is located on Main Street in Patchogue, New York, a local SEO strategy can help people throughout Patchogue (and beyond) find your store on Google.
It also helps people find you when they are searching for “near me,” which has tripled in the last two years. In this case, Google uses the searcher’s location to deliver the best results closest to them.
According to our research, 81% of American consumers say that the ability to easily find a local seller through online search is important to them. Retailers who invest in local SEO can be found online and increase store visits and sales.
Running Local Ads
To help shoppers discover you, you can run local ads on Google. One popular type of ad you can run is “Local Inventory Ads.” These ads allow you to showcase your inventory and make it visible across Google’s network, including search and shopping.
Local Inventory Ads appear on Google with “In-Store” and “Pickup Today” labels. They inform shoppers that the product is available at a store near them.
Staying Connected with Customers
We make purchasing decisions based on our emotions. Research shows that emotions drive customer choices before, during, and after a purchase. So, if customers feel an emotional inclination to buy from your brand, they are likely to spend more. The question is how to stimulate these feelings after the purchase?
The best ways to stay connected with customers after they leave your store include:
- Sending post-purchase messages to see if they like the product.
- Encouraging customers to follow you on social media.
- Sending text updates on sales and offers.
- Sending regular, personalized email content to former customers.
- Starting a loyalty program.
Working with Influencers
Influencer marketing is the practice of collaborating with popular individuals to promote your products to their followers. It is a rapidly growing industry, estimated at over $13.8 billion, and is especially popular among younger consumers, with 49% relying on influencers for recommendations.
By working with the right influencer, you can create long-term brand partnerships and execute campaigns that target your desired audience. When selecting influencers, you want to look beyond just follower counts. You want to check:
- Their values
- Their overall reach
- Who their followers are
- How they engage with their audience
- Engagement rate versus their follower count
While these metrics are surface-level indicators to vet influencers, you should do more research before signing them on. Find the right fit by reading influencer marketing: how to find the right ambassador for your business.
Investment
In Word-of-Mouth Marketing
Word-of-mouth marketing means getting existing customers to tell their friends and family about the products they love. For merchants, it’s about making their products worth talking about.
Merchants generate about $6 trillion annually from this type of marketing. It accounts for 13% of total consumer sales. Word-of-mouth recommendations are common in industries like electronics, grocery, and clothing.
Examples of Successful Retail Marketing
Rothy’s
The fashion company Rothy’s offers high-quality, sustainable products and actively helps clean the environment from marine plastic. They also employ several retail marketing strategies that have allowed them to expand:
- Referral incentives with the offer “Get $20, Give $20”
- Personalized offers based on information provided during newsletter sign-up
- Collaboration with influencers like Mindy Kaling and @dress_up_saturday to raise brand awareness.
T-Shirt Tor Company
The T-Shirt Tor Company based in the UK sells children’s clothing. Founder Terry Ann Thornton seized the opportunity to appear in John Lewis, one of the largest high-end department stores in the UK. The partnership led to an increase in social media followers, website visits, and most importantly, more sales and repeat customers.
Bird Rock Coffee Roasters
Bird Rock Coffee Roasters offers customers a $2 coupon for their next purchase. These small marketing techniques encourage customers to get used to a local coffee shop.
Retail Marketing Trends
Omnichannel Buyer Journeys
An omnichannel buyer journey occurs when they pass through several touchpoints, whether digital or physical, before making a purchase. This involves a multichannel sales strategy that creates a positive experience for customers, no matter where they interact with your brand.
With rising digital advertising costs, merchants are turning to omnichannel experiences to draw customers to the brand, ultimately leading to sales.
Cause-Based Marketing
Cause-based marketing occurs when for-profit businesses partner with a nonprofit organization for mutual benefit. It’s an authentic way to connect with customers and impact the community. Data indicates that about 58% of people claim social activism influences their impression of a brand, suggesting that more brands will integrate cause-based marketing into their strategy.
Experiential Retail
The days of filling retail stores with a massive array of products are over. 60% of shoppers expect merchants to dedicate more floor space to experiences rather than products. This is where experiential retail comes in: a tactic that provides shoppers with immersive experiences and enhances their shopping journey. Examples include pop-up shops, masterclasses, and hosting community events.
Cryptocurrency Experiences
Cryptocurrency has transformed the art world, creating new ways for creators to control how their works are distributed. Merchants have also begun using cryptocurrency to access exclusive offers, products, content, deals, and more.
Marketing in the Metaverse
The metaverse market is expected to exceed $800 billion by 2024. The metaverse is a hybrid world that combines the physical and digital realms to build immersive experiences for audiences.
Take the virtual fashion week as an example, featuring 3D fashion shows, exclusive events, and purchasable fashion in Decentraland, a virtual world that anyone with internet access can join. The metaverse has become a new channel for merchants to create unique consumer experiences and sell their products easily online.
Build a Marketing Plan for Your Store
You’ve worked hard to make your store and products perfect. By following this guide, you can attract the right people to your store and increase sales. Customers are looking for you – but they can’t find you if they don’t know you exist. Let them know more about you through a retail marketing strategy. Increase your store sales with Shopify POS.
It contains
Shopify POS has all the tools that help you convert more store visits into sales and increase revenue. Provide more relevant product recommendations, convert abandoned store sales into online sales, and track store and employee performance through an easy-to-understand backend.
Retail Marketing FAQs
What does retail marketing mean?
Retail marketing is the process of promoting products and services to customers through various distribution channels with the goal of increasing sales. It encompasses both direct and indirect marketing strategies, such as advertising, promotions, public relations, partnerships, and online marketing. The goal of retail marketing is to attract customers to purchase products, whether in-store or online.
What is the role of retail in marketing?
Retail is an important part of the marketing mix. It is the final stage where products are sold to the consumer. Retail provides a convenient way for consumers to purchase products at the point of sale. Through retail, businesses can directly target their customers, create a unique shopping experience, and build relationships with their clients. Additionally, retail provides businesses with valuable data that can be used to make decisions and marketing strategies.
What are the types of retail marketing?
Types of retail marketing include:
- Point of Sale (POS) Marketing: This type of marketing focuses on promoting sales, discounts, and incentives at the time of purchase.
- Online Marketing: This type of marketing involves using the internet and other digital channels to attract customers and drive sales.
- In-Store Marketing: This type of marketing uses actual product displays, signage, and other in-store tactics to encourage customers to buy.
- Direct Marketing: This type of marketing involves sending promotional materials directly to customers, such as emails, catalogs, and direct mail.
- Social Media Marketing: This type of marketing uses social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to engage customers and drive sales.
- Mobile Marketing: This type of marketing uses mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, to reach customers.
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