If you’re managing a retail business in a physical location, you have a unique responsibility to combine both physical and digital marketing. Ignore advertising and displays within your store, and your customers will struggle with brand identification. They’re less likely to make impulse purchases.
On the other hand, if you neglect digital marketing, you’re apt to have a harder time attracting new customers and growing your business. The true sign of great marketing in your position is when you cultivate a healthy marriage between both physical and digital advertising.
It’s no longer prudent to separate the two. They have grown so closely associated nowadays that customers have come to expect digital experiences when in they’re inside a store.
One of the most common ways this manifests is through social media. It’s fairly easy to combine social media and print advertising efforts, and consumers subconsciously look for this when they go shopping.
Research shows that nearly 70 percent of millennial customers share details about their shopping experience with others through social media, texting, or other digital means. This is clear evidence that consumers seek a combination of print and social advertising in their shopping experience.
If you’re looking for ways to offer more, here are some things you can do.
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Fuse Offline and Online Media
Your offline and online media should clearly be cut from the same mold. Tactics such as keeping your logo, voice, and design consistent across both platforms will help to define your brBaby’s Futureand in both areas for customers.
There are many other ways to join the two forms of media, including using QR codes on your printed ads so customers can be connected directly to your social pages when they’re scanned. Mentioning websites, social pages, and other online material in your print advertising can also unite the two approaches.
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Encourage Social Engagement In-Store
When customers enter your store, the majority have their phones with them. This means they can pull up social pages in an instant. Encourage them to do so.
Most customers also love to be incentivized, so when you put up a sign that asks customers to “like” your Facebook page or follow you on Twitter in exchange for 10 percent off their next purchase, enthusiastic customers will readily comply.
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Post Social Coupons to Be Used In-Store
This is a particularly lucrative form of advertising for business owners and managers in food and hospitality. You can offer special coupons on your social media pages so only your followers will have them.
Your customers can show you the coupon on their phone when they make a purchase, and display evidence they’re following your social pages. The coupons will bring in more customers and even encourage word-of-mouth marketing as customers tell their friends about your business and social sites.
You’ll likely gain more followers as well as more return customers through this strategy.
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Focus on Engaging People
The best way you can stand out from the thousands of other businesses that offer the same service is through your customer emphasis. Consumers will care about your business if your business shows it cares about them.
Social media provides the perfect platform for engaging individuals, and making them feel more like people than walking dollar signs. There are many ways you can use social media to make potential customers feel special.
To begin with, you can offer your most loyal followers special discounts and coupons in your store. Social media is also a good place to engage with social users who are interested in your business.
Question-and-answer sessions can enhance your customer-business relationship, and Facebook contests will keep them coming back daily.
Certain challenges come with combining print and digital advertising, but marketers have to get used to the idea of digital becoming a more important part of in-store advertising. Companies who learn to roll with the trends right away will see the most benefits from their social and print engagement.
