There is an art to marketing your brand to retail shoppers. Because marketing is constantly changing, you need to adapt your marketing strategy as customer habits change over time. Here are 6 retail marketing strategies that will shape retail marketing over the next decade.
1. Personalized Experiences
A growing marketing strategy is the use of personalized ads and experience. 80% of shoppers reported that they’re more likely to do business with a brand that offers a personalized experience. Additionally, almost half of most customers want to see ads targeted at their interests.
So what is personalized experience? This generally means customizing promotions and discounts to the wants of a specific customer versus a generic message to all customers. Understanding the individual tastes and wants of your customer has never been easier. Modern POS systems allow you to track customer info, as well as their purchasing habits which you can use to create personalized experiences for them. For example, if a regular customer often buys colorful socks, but they have not made a purchase recently, you could send them a personalized in-store offer related to socks to encourage them to visit the store.
2. Visual search
Google’s image search is going to be a game changer in retail marketing. Searchers can upload images onto Google and reverse-search them, finding where others have uploaded the image on the internet. Give it a try here.
Make sure you press on the camera icon to search by image
This can allow people to see images of a product online, save it, then find easily find stores that sell the item. There is a reason why Gartner said that visual search is one of 5 technologies that will have a great impact on the world of digital marketing in the years to come. It can improve nearly every stage of the buyer’s journey. We predict that marketing strategies that use product images and content with visual search will become common practice within the next 5 years.
An example of what Google’s visual search results look like. On the left is the image used for the search, on the right are the results. Notice how the matching images shows the price since its an e-commerce link.
3. Strategizing for featured snippets
Featured snippets are short descriptions on websites that help you show up at the top of a Google search. The purpose of a featured snippet is to help users find a quick answer. You have probably experienced it before when you Googled a question and saw a quick answer at the top of the search results. That was a featured snippet.
This feature of Google is especially helpful as attention spans continue to decrease in recent years. Currently average attention spans are only 8 seconds long. This means it is essential to catch someone’s attention quick, or risk losing it altogether.
Featured snippets help reach catch audiences’ attentions quickly, however it can be difficult to get featured snippets. Check out this article on how you can optimize content for featured snippets. It’s worth mentioning that TAKU Retail is the first retail management software to be a trusted Google Partner. TAKU can help businesses appear higher up on Google search results and Maps when people search for you online.
You have likely heard about how people are now using ChatGPT to search for information or to learn. But there are an increasing number of ways that AI chatbots can help retailers save time and money including:
AI-generated marketing content. With access to so much data, AI chatbots are an easy way to quickly write content for social media or even the text for marketing campaigns on the fly. Think less writer’s block, and more engaging posts.
Writing standardized company policies. While you would still want to have legal policies (e.g. your privacy policy) reviewed by a lawyer, you can draft general company, handbooks or order policies with ChatGPT in several minutes.
Researching product trends for purchasing. ChatGPT’s knowledge is limited at this point, but the advantage of AI is that it will get smarter over time. It’s ability to analyze data from millions of websites makes it more likely to highlight product trends for you faster than searching for them online.
Scheduling tasks, and overall time management. ChatGPT can help you create a daily work schedule and handle time-consuming tasks including things such as performance reports, shift schedules, etc.
Solving problems. Because of the knowledge it has access to, ChatGPT is very good at generating ideas, drafting business plans, and estimating the costs to solve problems for your business. You should still always get secondary advice, but ChatGPT is a good starting point, even if only to check that you’re on the right path.
5. Accessible and inclusive content
Check out Zapier’s guide to accessible web content
This is one of the most underrated of the 6 retail marketing strategies we are touching on today. It’s important for marketing content to be of quality, but what’s the point if it’s not easily understood? Making content more accessible could include adjustable font sizes (or more legible ones), more use of images to convey information for cognitive or reading impairments, and transcripts for videos/podcasts to name a few. The goal is to ensure that as many people as possible can actually engage with your content, and hopefully understand it. Reducing barriers to your content is key and will ensure you can maximize your reach.
If you’ve read our metaverse blog post, you’ll know that more and more people are embracing the digital world. Technology will continue to change how humans interact with each other, extending to how they interact with businesses as well. This is why so many retailers are investing into marketing on the metaverse. Read our metaverse post to learn more about how augmented reality (AR) is being leveraged by big brands such as Ikea to enhance their customers’ shopping experiences.
The next decade is going to be an interesting time for marketers and entrepreneurs alike. As new strategies for promoting your business will continue to grab people’s attention, the promotional game is surely to continue to change. Make sure you’re staying ahead of the curve by subscribing to our blog.
Fall is fast approaching, and for Canadian retailers this means gearing up for the Thanksgiving long weekend.
Although Canadian Thanksgiving isn’t as closely associated with shopping (compared to the U.S. holiday), retailers can still create a unique experience for shoppers.
Keep reading to find out how you can gobble up your fair share of sales this Thanksgiving weekend.
3 Thanksgiving marketing strategies to Help you sell more
1) Have an attitude of gratitude
Thanksgiving is the ideal occasion to express your gratitude to shoppers. At the same time, it’s an opportunity to excite them with upcoming Thanksgiving promotions and discounts.
So thank loyal customers for their business by offering them something in return – in the form of special deals, coupons, or gifts! The following is a list of possible promotions you can run during the weekend:
A Free Gift with Every Purchase: This promotion type encourages shoppers to make a purchase by offering more value for the same price. In order to create a sense of urgency among customers, retailers should stress that the promotion is limited and exclusive. Meaning that the gift is only offered for a certain period of time and until stock runs out. For example, think about using the words “while supplies last” or “offer valid from October 6-14” on your promotional materials.
Percentage Discount: This is the most straight-forward and popular promotion type. Seasonal discounts help attract new customers and get rid of slow moving or seasonal stock.
Buy One, Get One Free: Studies show that offering shoppers something for free is oftentimes more effective than a discount. You can pair high-margin items with slow moving stock. Or, you can increase the amount of items required in the promotion. For example, “Buy 3, Get 1 Free”. The Body Shop is a retailer that frequently and effectively employs this promotion strategy.
Offer treats to show your appreciation: You could offer some Thanksgiving treats in-store to your customers. Things like cookies or pumpkin pie slices are a quick and easy option to show your customers you are thankful for their support. Besides a delicious treat, customers will associate the wholesome feeling of gratitude with your store.
A cute and quirky Thanksgiving cookie, recipe here
Gratitude in your messaging too
The attitude for gratitude shouldn’t end at your sales strategies. Practice gratitude in the messaging throughout your store and to your customers. Making sure your loyal customers understand your gratefulness towards them is an amazing way to make these customers feel special. Use sentences that express thankfulness throughout your store and adverts. Sentences like the following:
Thank you for supporting us!/ Thanks for your support! (this one is a great little message to add on your store receipts)
We love our (your brand name) family! Thank you for sticking with us!
We’re here because of you, thank you!
Once you’ve gotten your promotion strategy in place, make use of digital marketing tools to spread the word about your’s store Thanksgiving promotions. An email marketing campaign and social media are both effective tools that will help generate a buzz and increase foot traffic for your store.
Listed below are best practices to follow for creating an email marketing campaign that converts subscribers to shoppers:
Include an incentive in the subject line. Many business owners overlook the importance of email subject lines. If your email headline does not grab the attention of shoppers (even if it is drafted to perfection), it is unlikely that anyone will open it. By including an incentive in the subject line, you can improve your email open rate. An example of a compelling, incentive-driven subject line is,”35% Off Thanksgiving promotion starts tomorrow”.
Get the timing right. Thanksgiving is a busy time for most shoppers. On top of that, most people are expecting a bombardment of holiday emails (Halloween, Black Friday, American Thanksgiving, Cyber-Monday etc.). That’s why retailers can expect lower than average open and click through rates in November. So it’s important to start your email marketing campaign at least a week prior to the Thanksgiving weekend. Earlier in the week is also proven to be better for email campaigns – with Monday having the highest open rate.
There are many ways to give back to the community this Thanksgiving season.
One way is to partner up with a local food bank by holding a canned food drive at your physical storefront. Not only does this showcase your store’s community support, it also helps drive foot traffic to your store. Create incentives for shoppers to donate by giving a % discount to every shopper who drops by your retail business with canned food.
You don’t necessarily have to partner up with a food bank either. Think about teaming up with a local organization that is related to your business. For example:
A pet food store could partner with an animal shelter.
A women’s clothing store could team up with a domestic violence shelter in the area.
Health food stores could work with local homeless shelters.
Supporting a cause that both you and your shoppers believe in will help you build brand awareness and create new marketing opportunities for your retail business.
Bonus tip: use Thanksgiving hashtags
Make sure you are using relevant hashtags in all your digital communications! This allows you to reach more people who are looking for Thanksgiving related stuff. The following hashtags are great for the holiday:
Remember, Thanksgiving sets the stage for Halloween and Black Friday – two of the biggest shopping days of the year. So it’s a great opportunity to generate a buzz and get shoppers excited for upcoming promotions and deals!
Did you find this article helpful? We will be posting more holiday marketing tips in the upcoming weeks. Subscribe to our blog to stay updated!
