Marketing strategies used by retailers
Well here are various marketing strategies that the author suggests
1. To be locally relevant
2. Make interesting and out-of-the-box window displays
3. Focus on the regular and loyal customers
4. Give additional benefits.
5. Try connecting your store to the internet
6. Forge new partnerships
7. Store Ambience
8. Customer is the King!
9. Attract the customer towards the store.
To be locally relevant- If one’s retail store is located on a prime property and has all the goods stacked from the best sources but what if the products you offer are not relevant to the local market, then the hard work you put in is all in the drain as your retail store is not locally relevant. If you are from around, then it should come to you naturally, what is loved and liked by the people around but if you are new to the place, then make sure you do your research and this is what had been done by the retailer which had the shop quite popular and also helped the retail store to stay relevant locally and also stay relevant in the market
Create interesting and out-of-the-box window displays- It is said that a book is judged by its cover. Therefore it is important that you have an interesting window display to attract new customers. The retail shop had come up with various colourful designs according to the season, be it autumn, spring or Halloween and this made the retailer’s shop stand out among the other retailer shops around the corner. It even brought a lot of walk-ins and more walk-ins mean more business as there are chances of buying products just for the sake that you don’t have them at your home and this gives the retail store more opportunities to connect with the target audience and their needs and wants to be satisfied by the retail store’s products and services.
Focus on the regular and loyal customers- Just because you have new customers and a lot of new regular walk-ins don’t mean you forget your old regular and loyal customers. The old customers put their trust, which also means that you are not just going to offer them better products at a lesser price because they have been regular to your store for a long time but also make sure that you let them know about the various offers, discounts and benefits of a particular product. And the best you can focus on those regular and loyal customers is that you remember their favourite products, choices and if possible their names, birthdays or even their anniversaries which shows that even a retail shop owner shows the same friendliness and courtesy that a customer needs and desires that he/she be respected by all the employees.
Give additional benefits – The retail store could give benefits to the customers in the sense of giving more discounts/offers/exchanges. But most importantly service after sales is very important since it helps the retail store in recalling the brand, which is here as the retail shop. A retail shop which has been giving doorstep services and better after-sales services is more recollected rather than a mall which has all the top-notch stuff and yet has no substance because the employees there are rude, arrogant, ignorant and always busy for after-sales service. So more benefits, more walk-ins and new customers
will benefit not just the sales but will create word of mouth for the retail store which is very beneficial to the image of a retail store and helps in making more profits
Try connecting your store to the internet- Marshall McLuhan rightly predicted that the world is a global village and this is possible due to the interconnection between citizens around the world through the Internet. The Internet can help you by showcasing products, demonstrating a new product, new offers, better discounts and loyalty programs if needed and this is possible only if your local retail store has an online presence. Online presence such as Google, Facebook, Twitter etc. will help you in reaching out to present, old and prospective customers. Any local retail store having an online presence is bound to raise curiosity among your prospective and current customers as they would be able to look at the various products available to be bought in the retail store.
Forge new partnerships-One must understand that new partnerships forged are always beneficial to an organisation. When a retail store can let you buy items from your shop not with cash, credit card or even cheque but with coupons such as Sodexo, Aramac or even Cintas it will help the retail store in not just increasing walk-ins but also new customers. New partnerships can make a customer’s life easy because the customer not just gets products but also different services since the retail store has decided to transact not just in cash/credit but also in coupons. It was observed in the shops that when customers benefited from this scheme, they increased their spending by about 10% which was observed by the author in a particular retail shop.
Store Ambience- store ambience is important for a customer because it helps him decide what he/she can purchase from the retail store. In sense various colours, sound and smell stimulate and motivates the buying behaviour of a consumer which is why a customer can stay longer and make more purchases. Attributes such as colours, sound and smell all matter as they could be connected with a particular retail store if they have been felt in a particular store. For example, a man or a woman stays in a retail store for a longer time if they like the colours, the music and also the good smell. Music makes a customer/consumer stay longer in the retail store and make some purchases just because he/she had a pleasant idea of how to use the products and services.
Customer is the King! – Here it is rightly mentioned that the customer is the king because if a particular retail store goes out of the way just to be good to a customer, then that customer will keep coming since the needs and wants of the customer have been fulfilled by the retail store from time to time. The marketing team could bring in this extension to not just create relationships but also ensure long-term customer loyalty which is beneficial to the retail store in the long term this also means that the retail store has to go the extra mile just so that the customer is contented with the services of the retail store and will keep coming because the retail store has been giving out special offers, discounts, coupon codes and promotion codes which may put pressure on your profits but will ensure heavy footfalls
Attract the customer towards the store- Make sure that your retail store has been marketed well and this can be done by showing what is unique in this store by stocking your retail store with unique packaged products according to the festive season or the situation or the limited action figures which have been popular these days on the social media. Sometimes an urgency could be created because it does not just force a customer the excitement of buying a limited action figure but also not to mention that there is stress that someone else may buy it off before they could put their hands on it. This will keep up the excitement in the customer’s mind and will be asked for by the customer in the future.
These are some of the marketing strategies followed by a retail store to not just earn profit in the market but also to gain a foothold in the customer’s mind. And a happy customer will make sure that the word of mouth is created so that the person’s favourite store is not just about making money, but also about creating a connect between the customer and the retail store and also trying to reach the customer with the customer’s choices, interests.
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