Consumers have fallen upon hard times in recent months, with price rises across fuel, electricity, electronics, food and clothing making ordinary living more expensive than ever before.
As retailers, price rises are a necessity, as suppliers and manufacturers force you to pass on some of your additional costs to your customers. However, having to spend more to receive less is going to make purchasers much more selective about who they give their money to. That’s where your brand and marketing can help set you apart.
While marketing campaigns are an effective way of driving custom in difficult times, the reality is that retailers must explore other areas of the business to cut costs and ensure shoppers aren’t always the ones feeling the biggest squeeze during these financially uncertain times.
Retaining existing customers is going to be the greatest challenge and the biggest priority. There are only two sure-fire ways to do this:
- Keep costs low by increasing technology and automation
- Learn more about what’s driving customer purchase decisions
This article will help you discover different technologies that can be adopted across the business, help you optimise your operations and cut costs within your retail product space.
A powerful CRM: build relationships and maximise sales opportunities
A CRM or Customer Relationship Management system underpins almost every element of customer communication. There may be features you are paying for which are not needed, or there could be features that – if in place – could save you a lot of time and only cost a nominal amount to add on.
A semi-regular review of your CRM system’s features, needs and processes is integral to keeping on top of costs and tasks.
Additionally, providing better training on how to analyse consumer insights within the CRM could lead to better decision-making and higher average transaction values (ATVs). These insights could be taken from audiences you’ve accrued from different campaigns, loyalty programme data, customer service conversations or when measuring engagement from your omni-channel marketing.
Solid project management: Meet deadlines and go to market quickly
This may sound like a no-brainer, but you would be surprised at how many large retailers are yet to make the switch to more modern methods of project management. Software such as Monday can help those in head office and area managers effectively push projects through at pace.
This can remove several layers of ambiguity and minimise the risk of miscommunication to ensure deadlines are met every time.
Marketing automation, AI and analytics: Using insight and data to drive business decisions
Automating processes within consumer purchasing, returns, inventory management and more will help save valuable time and improve the accuracy of reporting within your retail brand’s environment.
Likewise, triggering automated marketing communications for particular actions can help improve the customer experience and increase what they spend on your products. For example, if they have forgotten that their online shopping basket is full, a quick email can give them a nudge to complete the transaction.
Some retailers even go as far as using AI technology to analyse their retail store spaces and interact with their built environment to provide optimal temperature, air quality and lighting for shopping, while also ensuring that technology is powered down during off-peak hours or when the shop is closed.
Brand Activation Management: Reduce agency costs and bring asset creation in-house
Agencies are a necessity for large-scale creative campaigns and strategic work. But sometimes you just need to get things out quickly. Brand Activation Management is an all-in-one creation, education, management and storage portal.
It gives teams, regardless of skill level, the ability to create on-brand video, digital, social, print assets and more. The easy-to-use interface allows individuals to create what they need from intelligent templates and only edit within the parameters that have been pre-defined.
This means you can go to market quicker and use your agency budget more effectively for strategic and topline creative work. Everything off the back of the campaigns, such as resizes, localisations and other edits can be easily executed by your in-house team.
The creation tool is also integrated with your PIM and ERP system, so all data and imagery that’s pulled into collateral is up-to-date and 100% accurate.
Ready to make Brand Activation a reality for your retail brand?
Technology is queen when it comes to cutting costs and optimising every hour you have in the working day. BAM by Papirfly™ provides a game-changing way of working for retailers and their marketing teams. A tool that can be used by everyone from head office through to store-level managers.
Discover more about the power of BAM for retailers or book your demo today.