When you see businesses reopen during this pandemic, you’ll often see only a trickle of customers. Many brick-and-mortar shops find the current retail marketing conditions to be a real struggle.
The twice-yearly CMO Survey conducted by Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business underlines this. A full 67% of businesses surveyed say people are less likely to buy – and 43% don’t want to pay full price.
This means an average 17% loss in sales and a 15% decline in profits during the pandemic. Of course, many are suffering worse than these averages. Consumer optimism is nearly as low as the 2008-2009 global financial crash.
New Opportunities And Advantages
Yet this same study shows undeniable proof of new opportunities and advantages – even in the retail space. The numbers don’t lie.
The good news is, these new positives have nothing to do with a particular product, service, or industry. Successful retail businesses today are only doing a few things differently – things that you can also do.
Before the coronavirus struck, retail businesses enjoyed many regular visitors and buyers. How do you get them back? How can you talk to these previous customers and offer something to get them back in your store?
How are winning businesses solving this problem? What are they doing? How can you apply their methods so your retail business thrives in these tough times?
The more companies you examine, the stronger the evidence becomes – data is the lifeblood of successful businesses today.
For example, data from before the pandemic has been helping stores reconnect with their repeat customers. This data helps companies focus on just the right people, which keeps ad costs lower.
Even if your store offers only drive-thru or pickup service right now, a technology called geoframing can still track who visits your store. We’ve all seen the message on our phones allowing an app to track our location. The terms people agree to with their store apps allow retailers to ethically gather this information.
Geofencing is a great way to capture your target audience. To learn more about geofencing, check this out…
Tracking these visitors is key to measuring the success of your ad campaigns.
Keep Advertising – Here Is The Winning Retail Marketing Strategy During the Current Retail Marketing Conditions
Imagine being able to use pre-pandemic data to find your best customers who are no longer coming to your store. Then you create an advertising campaign targeting just these people. Make them offers to lure them back into your store.
Geoframing then empowers you to see which of these people respond. More than this, geoframing allows the creation of attribution reports. These reports tell which and how many of your store visitors responded to offer A versus offer B or even C and D.
Learning the best offer to draw in your old customers is solid gold.
According to this survey, winning retailers have two things in common. First, they believe marketing is even more important now. Second, they are using more data and digital marketing to draw in customers.
Why This Strategy Works with the current retail marketing conditions
Christine Moorman, the survey founder and professor of business administration at Duke University says, “Marketing budgets as a percent of revenues and firm budget rose to the highest level in survey history.”
As she further explained, this is “reflecting the important role that marketing played in helping firms retain customers and build brand value during this difficult time.”
Before the coronavirus hit, companies spent an average of 13% of their marketing budget on social media. Now that number is double.
Over 84% of survey responders use social media for brand awareness and brand building. More than 54% use social for retaining customers and nearly as many lean on social media for getting new customers.
For the first time in this survey’s history, companies believe social media is contributing to their bottom line. A solid 84% of these survey participants felt their customers are more open to digital offers and 83% say their customers place an increased value on digital experiences.
Are you open to embracing the key points of this strategy – investing in data and digital marketing?
What These Retail Marketing Solutions Mean For You
Real solutions demand a qualified marketer that tailors these methods to your specific business.
Finding the right pre-pandemic data, targeting the right people, executing a winning ad campaign, then properly using geoframing to hone your results – this requires the right marketing guidance. We have a proven track record of helping companies break through the current retail marketing conditions – and use these methods to make their marketing successful.
How can we help you?
