Retail Marketing

Some of the biggest big box store retailers have struggled this century to compete with Amazon, in which online ordering is much more convenient. Here are ways that retailers can benefit from hiring an experienced digital marketing service.

Industry Stats on Marketing

A wealth of internet marketing statistics can be found at HubSpot, Search Engine Land, Expresso and Omnisend, such as:

key marketing strategies grow conversions – order follow-up emails lead to 275% more opens
30% of small businesses with a web presence earn over 25% of their revenue online
due to online experiences, 91% of customers have visited a brand’s physical store
Google is the key driver for 94% of online traffic

Why Retail Marketing Strategies Matter

Marketing strategies are at the core of retail success. The reason many box stores have disappeared this century is that they didn’t embrace online retail first, they simply weren’t fast enough. Clicks became more economical than driving for miles to purchase projects. In this same fashion, in order to capture the ever-growing market that searches online for purchases, you need to make sure you are engaging with them convenient and simple.

Overall online retail is much more like the Amazon model of ordering from a wide catalog of physical products through traditional mail services. In order to reach those online shoppers, you have to get their attention through various multimedia marketing channels, such as:

your website
email marketing and newsletters
social media
PPC campaigns
promotional videos
apps that define your retail store
infographics summarizing your benefits
traditional media such as direct mail

Choosing Your Digital Marketer

It will help your cause enormously if you work with a team that’s already helped many other retailers achieve a profitable ROI. It needs to be a team of young, talented individuals with deep retail marketing industry knowledge and expertise, who must also possess a strong ability to research your competition. Determining marketing holes where demand is not being met is a major “secret” to winning by disrupting the market with innovative solutions.

Boosting Sales and Visibility

Online retail sales are all about converting impressions into purchases, which has a lot more to do with making it easy to meet consumer needs than dated hard-sell strategies. The path of least resistance to high Google Search rankings is to establish authority as an authentic content-rich site that serves a purpose to help the internet community.

Like fixing a car, you can either save money and fix it yourself, but in the end, if you don’t have the time or experience, you should seek professional help as you will end up paying more in the end. An experienced digital marketing team can handle your online advertising campaigns through various platforms to achieve maximum reach. It’s no secret that pay-per-click (PPC) ads are the fastest route to online traffic and sales due to increased visibility.

The more ways there are for people to find your website, the better it will likely do in traffic and sales. The key is to be listed in several major search engines, along with business directory and review sites like Yelp. Of course, you need a compelling message and it does take a bit of marketing experimenting to make the right message connect with consumers.

Another way to boost online visibility, traffic and conversions is through search engine optimization (SEO). This method can work at driving a continuous flow of new visitors to your site, provided you follow the many complex guidelines set by Google. Usually, it’s easier for most businesses to outsource to digital marketing experts to make all of this happen over several months.

E-commerce Solutions for Websites

One of the most essential ways to profit from internet traffic is to offer an e-commerce solution that makes it simple for consumers to purchase your retail products. If prospects can’t figure out how to buy a product in five steps, they tend to give up and move on to the next website.

An even more important factor for a quality e-commerce solution is to only go with solutions that include plenty of security layers. Business survival is at stake if confidential data is breached and shocked customers decide to litigate for failing to meet government compliance requirements. A digital marketing consultant can help direct you to safe, secure e-commerce and email marketing solutions that protect your business from downtime and other disruptions.

In other words, a weak e-commerce solution can expose your business to high risks, whereas a high-quality solution will greatly limit the possibilities of a breach.

Why Good Web Development Makes a Difference

Your website needs to be up-to-date so that visitors don’t perceive it as an abandoned site. Responsive web design has become the standard since it allows for a mobile-friendly experience. It gives your site a more modern feel and sends out a vibe that you care about the online experience of your customers. Furthermore, online surfers can find your web pages more easily, thanks to responsive web design.

While some businesses employ in-house web designers, many retailers have found that it makes more financial sense to outsource to reputable firms that bring a deep pool of talent, ideas and proven solutions to your business. A huge advantage to hiring an outside team of diverse marketing pros is that they can handle both your content creation that you might not have time for an appropriate eye-catching visual design. Of course, they will also help bring traffic to your site so that sales orders start rolling in from your online community. All for the cost of one or two salaried employees instead of an entire department.

If your site looks like it is stuck in the dial-up era, it probably won’t go far since many consumers are suspicious of sites not keeping up-to-date with web design best practices. It raises the question of whether such a site also has outdated security. If you don’t have a certified web designer with plenty of experience on your staff, remember that a knowledgeable digital marketer can guide you towards financial success.

Obviously, it makes more sense to sell products with market demand rather than trying to sell products that have no existing demand. A digital marketing advisor can share industry information with you that gives you a clearer picture of the market, and particularly of your competition. You probably already know that although revenue is what businesses ultimately chase, time, knowledge and energy are valuable at driving your financial vehicle toward its sales goals.

Conclusion

The reason it pays to work with experienced online digital marketing consultants who understand retail store marketing is simply that your campaigns have a much higher chance of success. Let digital marketing leaders manage your online presence while you focus on your core retail business needs. For more information, contact us here for a free consultation at Simplemachine. We are happy to answer your questions and help accelerate your marketing goals.