Executive Summary 

There isn’t a retailer in the world that wouldn’t be delighted to see their month-on-month sales growing by double-digits. A retail business that is growing at a steady rate is not only good for the shareholders but also for the consumer.

A growth in your sales also means that the retail marketing strategies that you have been executing all along are delivering the desired results. What this does, in the long run, is to ensure that the future of the company looks very promising.

However, every retailer knows that achieving sales growth is not a walk in the park. Among many other things, it demands to devise and implement the best retail marketing strategies. And if this is achieved, your retail businesses, whether brick and mortar or eCommerce-based, can even double their sales. 

This whitepaper highlights several strategies that retail businesses can use to double their sales. They include pursuing a strong online presence (through app integration, for instance), paying considerable attention to the location of the business, and delivering excellent customer experience in every brick-and-mortar or online shop.

Introduction

Retailers are sometimes hesitant to adopt new marketing strategies. The majority of them do not like the idea of coming out “salesy” in the eyes of their target market.

While steering clear of new marketing techniques is a big no-no in every industry (we’ll cover that later), there’s more to retails sales than marketing. Excellent customer service, as well as great products, are two of the key ingredients of retail sales — both complementary (not excluding) innovative marketing strategies.

If you fail to examine new ways through which you encourage your customers to locate and purchase your products, you end up missing out on great opportunities for boosting sales substantially, and consequently, your overall organizational goal can suffer. 

The very reason your company is operational is to sell products to the target audience and solve their respective problems. You need to increase your sales without seeming pushy. 

So, how do you go about it? 

How do you grow sales without appearing pushy? 

We delve deeper and explain some tried and tested, killer retail marketing strategies that you can use in your retail business to finally double your sales, moving forward – without appearing too aggressive and salesy in the process. 

Retail Marketing Strategies Capable of Doubling Your Sales 

Ready to sell more? We’re here to help!

You surely know some of these strategies already. And you’re probably using them right now.

Our suggestion is to try to combine as many of them as possible (even all of them) and use them at the same time for a significant sales increase.

1. Proper Management of Your Online Presence 

This is one of the most critical areas that you should pursue as the owner (or manager) of a retail business. Irrespective of what you’re selling, people are searching for products and companies just like yours online. So it’s crucial that you are there and that your presence is impeccable.

Approximately 70-80 percent of customers research a company on the internet before visiting the store to make a purchase. Most of these searches are done via mobile because it’s easy and convenient. For this reason, you must do everything possible to become part of the solution they are looking for.

According to ThinkWithGoogle, 63 percent of shopping occasions usually begin online. 

This statistic shows that regardless of where customers finally make a purchase – online or in a physical store – their journey to finding the right product begins online. In many instances, the searches start on Google or Amazon, which happen to be two of the most popular sites.

That’s why your retail business must pursue a strong online presence. By so doing, you increase the chances of getting consumers to your store to make the much-needed purchases. 

Here are three effective ways of achieving a powerful online presence: 

i. Reputation Management 

Today’s digital age demands retail businesses to ensure proper management of their brand’s online reputation. Such efforts include building a website with the potential to convey every unique and remarkable thing about your business.

Proper online reputation management also entails establishing a consistent presence on social media networks and the management of major small business review platforms like Google My Business and Yelp. If you haven’t created profiles on these sites, you may want to consider doing it now. 

And while at it, ensure you leverage these forums to the fullest. Avoid a situation where a client walks into your business, opens up their Yelp app, goes through the reviews, doesn’t like what they see there, and the next thing they do is turn around and walk away. 

If properly managed, these platforms can significantly boost your sales. Here’s what to do:

• Answer every review, especially the bad ones.
• Give small incentives to people who leave reviews on third-party platforms (discounts or loyalty points).
• Add your promotions and coupons to Google My Business — you’d be amazed at its reach and SEO potential!

ii. Social Media Advertising 

Apart from managing your online reviews on Yelp and Google, you should also consider using advertising tools in platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. Such channels don’t just grow your online sales, but also the amount of foot traffic in your retail store. 

What makes Facebook such a powerful advertising tool for retailers? Two things – cost and targeting. 

Facebook gathers huge volumes of data about people and then avails the data to advertisers. It helps you achieve specificity as far as putting your products and services in front of your target market is concerned.

For instance, if you sell fitness gear, and your audience is individuals aged 25-35 with an average income of say $50k, and are interested in fitness and wellness, you can easily reach these people using Facebook advertising. 

Besides Facebook’s targeting, your brand can engage in other creative things such as advertising to the fans of your firm’s Facebook page. Since these people have already interacted with your business, a wiser approach is to promote a different offer than the ones you would want to show to a person who has never bought anything from your company.

A good example is to inform them of the availability and benefits of signing up for your business’ loyalty program.

When it comes to Facebook, you cannot tell immediately what will work and what won’t work. It has a lot to do with experimentation. You will definitely experience some hits and misses along the way, which is normal due to the ever-changing consumer dynamics. So don’t get discouraged. It’s all part of the game.

So do not shy away from testing various audiences for your ads and an array of offers until you identify a couple of combinations that work for your business. 

Away from its effective targeting, Facebook is more cost-friendly compared to other channels such as local paper advertising, or Google Ads. That’s why it’s an ideal platform for cash-constrained retailers who want to not only create brand awareness but also, to grow foot traffic to their stores. 

iii. Content Marketing 

Online reputation management goes beyond being reactive and managing online reviews as they flow in. You also need to intelligently engage your target audience. It’s a mistake to just sit around and wait for whatever time of the day your customers will find you. 

Are people more inclined to inform themselves on the internet rather than in-store? Then you’ve got to find and engage them wherever they are. A good way to achieve this is to become a part of their online conversations through proactive content marketing

Since it can be quite challenging for your business to compete with others based on price, how about having your survival and success depends on your ability to increase the value of your customers’ buying experience? 

Sounds good, right?

Start creating useful, intelligent, and engaging content to demonstrate your ability to add value to the buying experience of your customers. Before long, your sales will begin to grow. 

iv. Solutions Integration 

With companies using so many business applications to monitor their marketing campaigns, engage customers (both new and existing), – not mentioning the various eCommerce platforms that require attention – it is becoming extremely difficult to manage all these software solutions.

iPaaS solutions like Syncapps by Cazoomi will help you to integrate all your mission-critical software, and hence, make them extremely easy to use and deliver exactly the kind of results you need to grow your sales. 

Take the case of Murray’s Cheese, a full-service food destination. The company adopted NetSuite to easily manage their core businesses and manage their CRM, besides hosting their eCommerce site.

To manage mailing lists, newsletters, and automated campaigns, the company uses Mailchimp. Something was lacking though – a system that would make it possible for the company to reach out to existing and prospective customers with ease. The company was also looking for an easy way of handling their eCommerce business on various platforms. 

Through SyncApps, Murray’s Cheese integrated NetSuite to Mailchimp which made it possible for them to more easily handle their marketing campaigns, build customer relationships, and also access user data.

Now, the company can view its contacts and leads and also manage opt-outs from a single app. At the same time, the sales team can easily track the activities of their customers and leads, apart from monitoring targeted emails. 

2. The Location of Your Business 

The second stage of the retail sales funnel is the first engagement that your customers have with your business’ physical location. As such, you should consider it as a crucial aspect for increasing sales in your brick and mortar store. 

At the same time, it is worth focusing on the customer journey and paying attention to all the elements that contribute to a customer’s transition from online research to walking into the store. 

Consider looking into the following aspects: 

v. Make Sure that Your Brick and Mortar Store Is Easy to Find 

A survey by Pew Research Center reported that 90 percent of smartphone owners use their mobile devices to obtain directions, business recommendations, and other information connected to their location. That’s massive! 

As such, you should channel your efforts on ensuring that key directories such as Yelp, Google Places, Yahoo, Foursquare, Apple Maps and so on, are up to date with the correct description of your business, address, business hours, and even pictures of your storefront and product displays. Since all of the above are free, there is no excuse for not using them. 

vi. Are You in The Process of Choosing a Location for Your Business? 

If yes, then you are really in luck! You have a chance of choosing an ideal location – a place that is very easy to discover. 

An ideal location should have heavy foot traffic. Be on the lookout for businesses located on corners, and with easy access to parking or near public transportation. Your signage must be large and with an easy-to-read font type, and clearly indicating what you are selling or the services you are offering. 

vii. Give Customers a Reason to Walk into Your Brick and Mortar Store 

Do you want to increase your retail sales? Then incentivize your target audience to come through the door of your shop. There are many ways to do so and the safest way to find the ones that work for you is test, test and then test again.

The idea is to create a sense of urgency in the minds of the customers. Something like ‘25 percent off on all smartphone accessories this weekend only!’ This is an amazing strategy for generating foot traffic in your shop during that weekend.

On the other hand, if you cannot afford to offer huge discounts, it is still okay. You can keep it simple and still manage to bring more customers through your door. For instance, if you sell spices or soaps, you can give small-sized versions of the product for free every once in a while for every purchase a customer makes in your shop. 

viii. Maximize Your Storefront’s Curb Appeal

Being the window to your brand’s soul, its appeal from the street can make or break your efforts to grow retail sales.

Make sure that your storefront appearance matches your offline and online aesthetics – and it should effortlessly command the attention of people. A visual representation of everything your business represents and what you offer will go a long way in helping you accomplish this. 

xi. Appropriate Signage Usage 

Digital signage or different window displays will help you capture the attention of passersby. Those in the clothing business may even consider keeping a few racks on the sidewalk – a passerby shopper may stop and enter your store. 

x. Create an Experience

Creating an experience in line with your brand is an excellent way of not only increasing retail sales but also introducing your company to new customers. On a slow afternoon, for instance, a beauty shop can consider offering personal shopping services or even offer free pedicures or manicures to a few customers. You may also consider rewarding your top customers.

If approached correctly, this has the potential to bring you more customers. Such events allow customers to experience your business freshly and uniquely. Engage creativity to create the best memories for your customers. While doing event marketing, focus less on money-making and more on brand awareness. You might not see increased sales immediately, but this tactic will earn you a lot of voluntary brand ambassadors. 

xi. Attractive Product Displays 

Retail businesses should always pursue fresh, new as well as clean displays. Think of the best ways to use your space taking into account that the bestselling zone is usually what falls between the waist and the forehead of your average customer.

If you aren’t careful about your displays, you’ve been getting a lot of potential customers to walk out of the door without buying. By all means, avoid packing products into tight displays lest you slow down your sales. 

3. Make Your Customer’s Experience Worthwhile 

How? 

xii. Have a resourceful team – as discussed earlier, by the time a customer walks into your shop, they are already highly informed of your products and their potential. They expect your staff to be even more knowledgeable about the products they wish to buy. Don’t disappoint them. Train your workers to know all the ins and outs of your product. 

xiii. Speedy service – no one wants to spend their entire afternoon in your shop. Customers love to be served as fast as possible. Educate your workers on the benefits of offering speedy service, and at the same time, being helpful to customers who want more information about what they intend to buy. 

xiv. Personalized service – everyone who walks through that door should feel welcome. Greet them with a big smile, seek to know what they want, and by all means, go out of your way to make their experience an unforgettable one. Make them feel valued and they will keep coming back. 

xv. Upselling and cross-selling – this is usually done at the point of sale. Train your employees to upsell without appearing too pushy. One way of beginning an upsell is stating the benefit of the product to the customer and then explaining a unique feature about it. Suggest products that can be used together with what the customer has bought and shown the value.

Conclusion

It’s easy for retail businesses to double sales by engaging the above practical tips. Manage your online presence well, pay attention to the location of your physical store while ensuring to have beautiful and attractive displays, engage in event marketing, incentivize your customers and if you are starting from scratch, and in the process of searching a business space, find a place that is extremely easy to find and access. As you embrace more and more business applications, make it worthwhile through integration. Manage all your software solutions on a single interface through Cazoomi’s SyncApps. 

About Cazoomi

Cazoomi allows retail companies to integrate critical everyday business data through our SyncApps integration platform. Integrate CRM, marketing automation, eCommerce, financial, and support software to the software you use today. We offer more than 150+ integrations and help you set up, explore your options, and guide you through usage.

SyncApps by Cazoomi enables retail companies to deploy software as a service for their financials, handle support, CRM, eCommerce, and marketing integration with ease and at a price point built for any organization.

For more information, visit https://www.cazoomi.com/