Every retail marketing campaign has several steps in place to generate leads, grab the attention of customers and make the final pitch for a potential sale. Understanding the importance of every step and how to properly execute each separates businesses with the strongest bottom line from the rest.
If you run a physical brick and mortar facility, in-store marketing makes up a key component to the final step in your marketing campaign. It should function as the closer for the advertising team.
However, before you dive headfirst into in-store marketing specifics, you need a wider understanding of your marketing strategy and identify how each step leads consumers to your doorstep.
The varying steps of a full marketing campaign
In any great marketing campaign, there are several steps in play. You need to wow customers with a product or deal, promote them into visiting your store, and then close the deal by presenting the consumer with an item they simply can’t live without. With all of these important steps, how can you possibly cover it all in a single advertisement? You can’t.
Each of these different steps should receive attention in varying stages of the marketing campaign. The wide advertising net you cast initially, whether it’s social media, Google Adwords, on local television stations or even billboards, should showcase a product or service you wish to sell. You may also decide to include extra incentives for consumers to visit your store by mentioning your special offers.
The final stage of your marketing strategy should focus on customers inside of your store. The previous steps of the wide advertising approach have brought them into the store, you now need to close the deal using in-store marketing. The customer is already interested in what you have to offer, after all.
How in-store marketing is used
The customer is interested in your product. It’s why they are inside the store. So what should this final bit of advertising do to secure a sale? Realistically it should do whatever it takes to just nudge them over the edge. This may depend on your key demographic and what is important to them.
However, there are a handful of common retail marketing staples you can pull from in order to make sure each of the varying demographics finds what they are looking for using retail advertising.
Nearly every retail outlet will see at least some share of thrifty shoppers. These are individuals who only purchase discounted products or extreme deals. They will not necessarily spend much time looking for the specs of an item or what it can offer. Instead, they just want a great deal. While other consumers are interested in saving money, these individuals will only purchase the product if the deal is greater than usual. In-store advertising is needed to direct these shoppers to deals with attention-grabbing signage.
Other shoppers want the decisions made for them. They don’t want extreme choices as it may confuse their shopping ability. Due to this, highlighting the best of all available products is beneficial. For those shopping for gifts (someone shopping for someone in your key demographic), make it easy for them to understand and point out why the target audience likes the product.
Testing marketing posters
In-store advertisements, such as marketing posters, should be rolled out on a small scale initially to see what draws the attention of customers and boost conversion rates.
Be mindful of lighting, positioning and viewing angle. Does it catch the eye from where your customers will be passing? People who are looking for a deal are using their eyes to orient themselves so make it as easy as possible to identify and interpret your offer. Will they quickly understand which product is advertised and what the deal is?
How would you measure poster campaigns? The simplest way is to look at the sales figures for the relevant products before and after you make the change, but ensure all other offline and online campaigns are stable. This ensures the data is clearer to compare.
Also, training is key to maximise the benefits from an in-store campaign. The people in your store obviously need to be aware of the campaign but also know how to respond to customers who are interested in the deal you are proposing. They may also need to be ready to answer questions such as how long the offer lasts. Interacting with curious customers is also a good opportunity for upselling and add-on selling and by being aware of all current campaigns the salesperson can help the customer add more good deals to their purchase.
When you run a physical storefront, retail posters make up a key component to the strength of your campaign. By implementing storefront posters as not just a way to attract already interested consumers but as a means to closing sales, you’ll unlock the true power of retail advertising.
So keep in mind the full breadth of your marketing campaign and use each detail as a building block towards improving the foundation of your advertising presence.
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