As online business booms, brick-and-mortar businesses are struggling to keep up with the competition and are looking for innovative ways to adapt. However, these physical stores enjoy the distinct advantage of meeting the customers in person.
All they need to gain momentum is to have a well-designed advertising strategy to draw customers with promotions, sales, signage, outdoor banners, flyers, rewards programs, networking events, and more.
Start by Sales Setting Goals
Defining your sales goals involves more than just putting a number out there and hoping you reach it. Without a clear set of sales goals and a well-defined action plan, you and your staff won’t know what target to work toward. And if you don’t know where you’re heading, you’re never going to get there.
What’s more important is to hone in on specific key performance indicators (KPIs) and sales metrics that will allow your business to reach the business goals set. Having clearly defined sales goals contributes to overall business success and will help you create sales targets that you can visualize and measure performance.
Brick & Mortar Must-Haves
Some of the things that your physical storefront must have to draw more customers include:
- Signage: This is a great way to attract foot traffic to your physical store as it is something that attracts people to the store. Display acrylic signs and outdoor banners. Well-Placed, clear, and large signs not only attract foot traffic but also play a more important visual role.
- Window Displays –Window displays are another must-have to attract passersby. They allow you to design something simple yet eye-catching that will attract people to come inside. You can also take advantage of holidays to go all out with feather flags and flyers that will help you leave a lasting impression.
- Social Media –Depending on the type of physical store you own, different social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram can help you attract the demographic you want. Facebook is especially helpful for getting your business discovered locally. You can also use Yelp and Google Plus, which also let people read and write customer reviews.
Targeted Outreach
Targeted outreach into the community and utilizing your brick and mortar business for good causes such as fundraising events, educational screenings, and similar events can be an excellent way to attract more guests.
Taking active efforts to involve your community and supporting what they care about will allow you to draw them to your business, and the community will become your supporters organically.
Optimize Online Options
In order to compete with e-commerce brands, brick-and-mortar businesses need to ensure that they’re visible in online searches. And since most of the searches on popular search engines such as Google are local, the need is to optimize your brand for local SEO.
Make sure to build and implement a strong local SEO strategy and allow your brand to simply leverage the free tools available to them for optimizing the online options.
Local Networking
Your business needs to remain active in your community through robust local networking efforts. Joining some popular local groups is a great way to stay connected with both residents and other business owners.
You can also join your local Chamber of Commerce, as attending these meetings and events will expose your brand to other businesses. The idea here is businesses looking out for one another as part of the same group and always try to support local brands.
Another excellent way to drive foot traffic to your brick and mortar business is by doing local networking with specific calls to action, such as redeeming in-store offers that will drive people in and around the area to explore your store.
High-Conversion Campaigns
High conversion campaigns are another great way to target your regular shoppers by offering them several incentives which encourage them to continue to visit and shop with you. The key is to run targeted programs that reward your regular customers with various discounts, member-only benefits, and points that can be redeemed for more products.
Since loyal customers are likely to spend more, this is a very useful advertising strategy. You can also combine these high-conversion campaigns with proximity targeting to tailor your promotions to repeat customers who happen to be near your store.
As a brick and mortar business, you can’t afford to lag behind your competition. The need is to look at your current advertising campaign, ask yourself whether it is generating the results you’re looking for, and accordingly switch up your strategy for better business outcomes.
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