6 Digital Marketing Strategies for Retail Stores
Retail is an extremely competitive market, you need to be marketing to stand out. In this article, I’m going to go over 6 digital marketing strategies for retail stores to get more sales.
These 6 strategies are going to be actionable pieces of advice that you can use straight away in your business.
Now most retail stores have an e-commerce website as well. If your retail store doesn’t have an e-commerce site, it’s time you get one (we made a video on how to create a Shopify Store). In this blog, we’re going to share how to promote both your physical store, and your online store. Let’s get straight into it.
1. Facebook and Instagram Ads.
There is no doubt in my mind, Facebook and Instagram ads are the cheapest method for advertising your retail store. Almost everyone is on either Facebook or Instagram, so you will have no problem finding your ideal customer. The cost of advertising is phenomenally cheap on Facebook and Instagram, a really well designed ad can generate lots of link clicks for only a few cents.
In my opinion, the people you target with your Facebook and Instagram Ads is the most important factor. If you sign up or login to Facebook Ads Manager, you’ll be able to start experimenting with setting up ads. Facebook allows you to create custom audiences and target by location, age, gender, demographics, interests and behaviours. This means you can drill down and target all the common elements of your ideal customers. This way you don’t waste any money showing your ads to people who aren’t interested in your products.
My second tip is, make sure your ad is attention grabbing! Your ad has to stand out in order to make people stop scrolling and click on your advertisement. Your ad has to be irresistible! Spend a lot of time thinking about what your irresistible ad will be.
If you need help with Facebook and Instagram Ads, I made a great video about how to get started with Facebook/Instagram Ads.
2. Video Product Reviews.
People love videos, so you need to be doing them. I recommend the easiest way to start creating videos is by using your mobile phone. You don’t need expensive camera equipment, your phone is just fine.
Now you need some content to talk about in your videos, so I recommend you start reviewing your products. People love to have an in-depth understanding of what they are purchasing, so spend 2-5 minutes each video really showing off your product. If you don’t think this is a good idea, go on to Youtube and search “unboxing”. There are literally millions of videos, with millions of views. People love to see product reviews and unboxings (although I’m not too sure why).
Once the video is filmed, spend 5 minutes and upload it to all your major social media sites + Youtube. Trust me, you’ll be surprised by the powerful results.
3. Geo-Demographic targeting Ads.
As I mentioned earlier, Facebook and Instagram are the king of social media advertising. They offer powerful targeting options, so you can choose who you show your ads to.
Now I believe in order to drive more foot traffic to your physical store, you need to be doing geo-demographic targeting. This means you target people in a certain region, perhaps within 5 kilometres of your shop. Plus you choose certain demographics, perhaps the demographic of your most common customer. This gives you the ability to target your ideal client, who is in the area of your store.
I actually filmed a tutorial on how to setup Facebook and Instagram Ads for retail stores, give it a watch of you want to learn more.
4. Local Influencers.
Now influencer marketing is a controversial topic. I’ve seen it done well, and I’ve seen it done poorly. This is a long term strategy, so don’t expect results over night. I believe influencers have a great relationship with their fans, so they can certainly build a demand for your products. But you need the influencer to promote your retail store/products in an organic manner.
So instead of paying an influencer for 1 single post. I recommend you ask for a 6 month deal, where they do say 6 posts, and 6 stories about your products/retail store (1 post per month). This way their fans see your brand several times throughout the 6 months, and this gives your brand credibility.
As opposed to a single post, where the influencer is obviously trying to promote the product. This comes off as tacky and most people don’t respond well to it. So take your time and build a long term strategy with influencers.
5. SEO.
Now I love SEO, because it’s so powerful. If you don’t what SEO (search engine optimisation) is, essentially it’s the process of increasing the exposure of your website on Google.
This is the king of digital marketing. So I recommend you take it seriously.
The idea behind SEO is, that you want your website to be the first to pop up when your ideal client is searching for your products or services. There are over 1 billion searches being conducted on Google every day, so I can guarantee there is someone out there searching for your products.
Now I don’t have enough time to explain how to do SEO, but I recommend you Google it!
6. TikTok.
I saved the most controversial for last. TikTok for those who don’t know, is a video sharing social media platform that has sky rocketed in popularity. TikTok is being compared to Facebook when it was just released. The great thing about TikTok is, it’s free and there is millions and millions of people using it. Your videos can get thousands of views within hours. The exposure is incredible.
Now TikTok has a reputation for being for kids, but I believe that will slowly change as the platform matures. I am recommending every organisation takes TikTok seriously because it does offer a lot of benefits.
The trick is how to make funny/engaging content that is relevant for your retail store.
I made a seperate blog post about my experience with TikTok and how to use TikTok for marketing.
I hope this blog gave you some new digital marketing strategies for your retail store. We run a digital marketing agency which does retail store marketing, so we know a few things about how to generate sales.
