Creating a store always involves answering a lot of questions. How do I develop the right retail strategies and tactics for my business? Who are the target customers? What is important for them? Will we be able to work successfully in the market when faced with competitors? These are simple questions, but they require complex and not always unambiguous answers. And as soon as you are sure with the concept and strategy, the implementation stage will test your strength again and again.
However, if you choose the right retail strategy, it will avoid many difficulties in the future. Today we will try to tell you about two retail strategies that can be useful for your business.
In the field of marketing we have a rapid and significant change undergoing. We are moving away from mass marketing and addressing each customer personally through various social channels. The effectiveness of advertising leaflets, TV ads, and e-mail newsletters is decreasing.
Multichannel Marketing Retail Strategy: Most Popular Choice
Most companies in the market use sales tactics based on multichannel marketing.
Multichannel marketing is a fairly popular way to promote a company’s services or products, the essence of which is to use two or more channels to work with target customers.
With this trading strategy, the company not only uses various means of contacting potential users, but also simplifies the conversion procedure on one of the convenient channels. With the help of multichannel marketing, consumers can choose one of the most interesting and convenient directions for them. It gives customers a choice.
The multichannel marketing allows to reach the consumer through as many channels as possible.
For multichannel marketing, it is important to choose the widest network to get maximum customer engagement. The principle of “the more, the better” is one of the most important ones here. Companies that use a multichannel strategy use two or more channels to engage their customers.
The importance of multichannel marketing is that each channel can have its own customer. The task of an entrepreneur is to cover all possible directions and get as many customers as it possible.
The essence of multichannel marketing is the simultaneous use of several channels. But this is only in a simplified form. Another important task is to correctly combine different channels. If this condition is not met, customers, on the contrary, will only be repelled.
As the number of communication channels increases, multichannel marketing becomes one of the key elements of successful retail strategies.
What is Good and What is Bad about Multichannel Marketing
So as any marketing strategy, multichannel marketing has its pros and cons. Let’s take a closer look at them to understand what is best for you.
I suggest to start with the pros.
- Increasing the number of clients. By working with multiple channels, companies are able to attract many more customers than when working with just one channel. Accordingly, the company’s recognition level on the market also increases.
- Customers can choose the most convenient channel for them. This increases the probability of conversion.
- Increasing points of contact with potential buyers. The company gets to know its customer better in order to understand how best to influence them to increase sales.
- The company gets the opportunity to influence a potential client equally effectively, regardless of which channel they use.
And here are some difficulties the company may face when implementing this retail tactics.
- Some companies may find it difficult to determine which channel will be the most effective. And sometimes these companies mistakenly choose the wrong option as the key one, while losing more customers who prefer another channel.
- Companies need to work in several directions at once and manage several channels at once. In addition, it is also important to combine them correctly so that they work as a whole. This requires a lot of effort and skills.
- The need to increase material costs. Working with multiple channels obviously requires more funds to maintain each of them. This includes both increasing the number of employees and increasing the workload for each of them.
Offline-Online Integrations Retail Strategy: a Complementary Approach
Today, each of us faces an information glut. We try to customize the online space for ourselves, but in the end we get an incomprehensible set: we keep dozens of tabs open, read a lot of reviews before purchases, install a lot of apps, and subscribe to an infinite number of newsletters.
Due to the variety of sales channels, businesses face a lack of information about customer needs, consumption patterns, and decision-making models. Thus, the integration of offline and online stores has become an extremely relevant topic.
Despite the fact that online marketing works perfectly today, offline retail strategies are still relevant. Although many entrepreneurs believe that offline methods of promoting products are outdated and do not give results, this is just a misconception. After all, online and offline marketing work best together. This is called omnichannel marketing – combining the advantages that are available online and in offline sales.
In the near future, it is the omnichannel sellers who will start winning the competition in the vast majority of markets.
Research has shown that 40% of customers are ready to make a purchase online only after they can get acquainted with paper advertising materials. Impressive numbers, don’t you think?
It is also not uncommon for customers to view products in an online store, and then buy them offline. This phenomenon is also known as the ROPO (Research Online, Purchase Offline) effect. Or on the contrary – they try things on in the store, and then order them online.
Of course, in the modern world, you can not do without online resources. Almost any offline company has a page in social networks or a website. But you can direct people to these platforms not only by using online advertising, but also by using business cards, posters and ads, and so on.
The goal is not to sell something to the customer at once, but to create an offline reach that will direct people to online points where you can methodically and consistently build trust in the brand and, as a result, get the customer to buy more and more often.
The main mistake of many entrepreneurs is that they believe that if their store is presented only offline and there is no point in using online promotion. Conversely, if they only presented online, offline ads will only be a waste of time and money. But this is not the case. Think about how you can combine these two approaches and you will see that this retail strategy can be very effective.
Here is a simple example to convince you of the effectiveness of offline marketing.
Look at your email. It probably stores a huge number of messages that you don’t have time to view. Among so many emails, your ad can easily get lost, or just get into the spam folder, which a potential buyer looks at once a year.
At the same time, a sales letter sent by physical mail will have a much greater effect, given that few people send them now. You can also specify links to your social media accounts and website in these emails. And if you use both methods, you can be 100% sure that your message will reach the recipient.
These two retail strategies have one very important similarity that you probably already noticed. These strategies use multiple channels to communicate with potential buyers, which makes them more effective. It doesn’t matter which channels you use. The main thing is not to focus on one thing in order to reach as large an audience as possible. And what retail strategy will approach you depends only on you and your business. Be creative and new customers will not be long in coming.
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