If you own a brick-and-mortar retail business, one of your key concerns is how to attract customers to your store. With so many people buying online, it can seem like an uphill task. Don’t despair, though; despiterising e-commerce sales, people still enjoy shopping in-store. Even better,in-store shoppers spend more.
So, how do you wean potential customers away from shopping online and bring them into your store? There are plenty of marketing strategies for retail stores that can help you increase foot traffic and improve revenue. This guide will share eight key ways to get customers into your store.
What is brick-and-mortar marketing?
Brick-and-mortar marketing describes marketing strategies used by businesses that operate from a store or retail premises to increase foot traffic. These strategies can include digital marketing, offline, and out-of-home promotions.
Read on to learn how to drive traffic to your store with these 8 strategies.
How to drive foot traffic to your store
There are several ways to attract customers to a store using brick-and-mortar marketing. These include:
- Proximity targeting
- Loyalty campaigns
- Geo-conquesting
- Weather targeting
- In-store events
- Relationship marketing
- Social media marketing
- Click and collect
The next section of this guide will look at these brick-and-mortar marketing strategies for retail stores in more detail.
1. Proximity targeting
Proximity targeting lets you define an area around particular retail locations throughgeo-fencing. Once that’s done, you can market to people within that area to influence shopping behavior. For example, when people are approaching your store, you can show relevant promotions to encourage them to stop by. This is a proven way toincrease retail foot traffic.
2. Loyalty campaigns
Loyalty campaignstarget regular shoppers by offering them incentives which encourage them to continue to shop with you. They work with loyalty programs which reward regular customers with member-only benefits, discounts and points that can be redeemed against more products.
Since loyal customers will spend more, this is a useful retail store marketing strategy. And you can combine loyalty campaigns with proximity targeting to tailor campaigns to repeat customers who happen to be near your store. WhenDenny’sdid this, 12% of those seeing the campaign said they’d visit a store within the next two weeks.
3. Geo-conquesting
Geo-conquesting means winning business from your competitors by usinglocation data. This is one of the most effective brick-and-mortar marketing strategies for retail stores. All you have to do is show campaigns to people who are near your competitors’ with the aim of getting them to visit your store instead.
4. Weather targeting
When you’re wondering how to increase foot traffic in a retail store, don’t neglect the weather.Weather targetinglets you use weather and location data to show relevant ads to your target customers in real-time, and encourage them to shop in-store. In winter, show ads for hot drinks and warm clothing; in summer, focus on outdoor furniture, cool drinks and swimwear. Keep your targeting relevant and both foot traffic and sales will definitely increase.
5. In-store events
Another good way to get customers into your store is to create in-store events related to your business that will appeal to them. Whether you’re offering a cooking class, a makeover session or a wine or food tasting, make visiting your store into anexperience. Not only does it create a fun atmosphere, but it’s a great chance to showcase relevant products and services.
6. Relationship marketing
Relationship marketing is related to loyalty programs and campaigns. It’s about building a relationship with your existing customers. You can do this by:
- Publishing and sharing content they’ll love via your website, email marketing and social media
- Asking for and acting on customer feedback
- Creating customer communities, such as Slack, Facebook or LinkedIn groups
- Hosting offline events, like conferences and meetups, for loyal customers
Overall,relationship marketingmeans nurturing customers over time rather than focusing on a quick sale. This results in customers who feel valued, and are therefore likely to buy more, spend more, and to advocate for your brand.
7. Social media marketing
Social media marketing is exactly what it sounds like: using social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest and others to reach your audience with targeted promotions.
With70% of Americansnow using social media regularly, retailers can’t exclude brick-and-mortar marketing strategies from their marketing campaigns. You can make your social media campaigns even more effective byusing location datato build audiences likely to act on your promotions.
8. Offer click and collect
Click and collect lets people place an order online, then get the item from their nearest store. You can use location data to help identify this. Click and collect has beenproven to increase salesfor multiple retailers. That’s because once people come to the store to collect (or return) an item, they may be tempted to buy something else. Effective merchandising can increase this type of conversion.
As you’ve seen, online shopping doesn’t have to spell doom for brick-and-mortar retailers. Use the location enhanced brick-and-mortar marketing strategies shared here, and your store could soon see increased foot traffic.
Use GroundTruth to Track Your Brick-and-Mortar Marketing
At GroundTruth, our mission is to help marketers use real-world behaviors to drive real business results, like foot traffic to brick-and-mortar stores. Our cookieless platform uses a diverse range of identifiers to build precise audience segments with intent to visit stores and make purchases.
Our Blueprint technology shows our customers how many shoppers visited their location after watching an ad on any of the various channels. Using a comprehensive omnichannel marketing strategy, our customers see improved ROAS, incremental sales lift, and sustained visits.
To learn more about how you can set up your first campaign, contact us today.
