In 2021, it can be hard to know how to attract more customers to your store. If you own a business, you may wonder how to get more customers in your store. Even with pandemic restrictions, some retail businesses are allowed to operate. Others, which are closed, will reopen at some point, and need to attract customers back. Meanwhile, those customers are spending more time online. Some businesses can take advantage of this. If you want to know how to get more customers in your store, you will learn some new methods. As the world is going digital, most new methods are done online and on social media.
Tips On How To Attract Customers In Retail Stores
- 1 Tips On How To Attract Customers In Retail Stores
- 2 Traditional Retail Store Marketing Ideas
- 3 How to Increase Sales in Retail
- 4 Increasing Your Business Presence in The Future
- 5 FAQs about How to Get More Customers in Your Store
- 5.1 1. Should I focus on digital marketing or traditional marketing for my retail store?
- 5.2 2. How can I use digital marketing to drive foot traffic to my physical store?
- 5.3 3. What is SEO and how can it help my retail store get more customers?
- 5.4 4. How do I measure the success of my marketing efforts?
- 5.5 5. What are some low-cost traditional marketing ideas that still work?
- 5.6 6. How has customer behavior changed, and how should I adapt my marketing?
- 5.7 7. What’s the most important first step for a retail store wanting to attract more customers?
It is a question that all retailers must ask, as much as they need to. The question is, how to attract customers in retail stores? There are countless ways to advertise your business, with methods dating back hundreds of years. Our focus will be on the digital ideas of the present, while also looking at some traditional methods.But, a lot of today’s marketing is done online. It is done in the form of digital marketing, and is growing bigger and bigger.
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing is any form of marketing that is found on the internet. It is perhaps one of the fastest growing sectors of marketing. Internet usage increases every year, which means there are more opportunities to conduct digital marketing. Digital marketing has benefits over traditional marketing, too.
For example, a business could send physical mail to advertise. In the present day, most of that mail goes to the recycling bin as soon as it is received. That can be avoided with digital marketing. A business could send emails, post on social media, post videos, and place advertisements on websites. This is a huge advantage over sending mail to potential customers. It is also a digital marketing strategy. Your business can benefit from digital marketing, if it is not already implementing it.
Attracting Customers in Retail
After learning about digital marketing, you may still be wondering how to attract customers in retail stores. Normally, online advertisements can be connected to online businesses, more so than physical locations. One of the first ways to do so is online order, but in-store pickup.
Customers can order online, but still come to the store to pickup. This way, they are still exposed to the rest of the products when they come to the store. Sending coupons through email is another strategy. Normally, coupons are sent in the mail, but if they are on an email, customers have the barcode on their phone. This way, they do not lose the coupon. They can come to the store, and use the coupon physically. Knowing how to get more customers in your store is not always done through digital marketing. Sometimes, physical marketing strategies should be applied as well.
Traditional Retail Store Marketing Ideas
When thinking about how to get more customers in your store, some traditional ideas may arise. Not all marketing has to be done online. Some retail store marketing ideas include having a mascot outside of the store, waving a sign. This may seem silly, but it is proven to work. Other retail store marketing ideas include big sales, handing out business cards, and doing ads in newspapers. There are many creative ideas for retail store marketing out there. If you have a limited budget and want to know how to get more customers in your store, you have a decision to make. A limited budget means you can only do either digital marketing or traditional marketing. Both have positives and negatives, which we can go over next.
Digital Marketing vs. Traditional Marketing
Digital marketing ideas and traditional retail store marketing ideas both can help a business. Both have their own expenses, and are done in different marketing channels. Deciding which one to imply for your strategy involves weighing pros and cons of each one. Whichever one has more benefits for your business should be the strategy taken.
Digital Marketing: Pros and Cons
There are many types of digital marketing strategies. These strategies involve using an owned platform, a paid platform, and an earned platform. An owned platform is one that the business already owns and can use to market. A paid platform is when another company does the digital marketing for you. An earned platform is when consumers share your company’s Facebook posts, or do word-of-mouth advertising. Earned platforms are difficult to obtain; business owners have no control over them.
One big con of digital marketing is the amount of ads that users will see. There are already plenty of ads online, and by doing digital marketing, there will be even more. Another con is that each platform needs a different strategy, making your require another specialist. But there are pros. More platforms means more ways to get the word out there. Campaigns are also easier to measure in digital marketing.
Traditional Marketing: Pros and Cons
Usually, when business owners ask themselves how to attract customers in retail stores, they may think of big billboard advertisements. Essentially, that is a traditional marketing strategy. Other types include mail, TV advertising, and even a blimp with a sponsor name on it. Some pros of traditional marketing include the fact that it is permanent. Basically, a newspaper ad will stay on that issue of the newspaper regardless. If it was on a website, it could disappear after refreshing the page. Also, these ads could be more memorable. Commercials sometimes stay with us for years, if they had an impactful message. The downside to traditional marketing is that it is difficult to measure its success. It is also much more expensive to do. Super Bowl ads are an example of the inflated cost of a TV commercial.
Which Type of Marketing is Right for You?
As you want to know how to get more customers in your store, you will also want to know which strategy is best for you. The main catalyst here is the budget. Some businesses can only apply one type of marketing strategy. Budget-wise, the digital marketing strategy will be less expensive. A Facebook ad will come cheaper than a newspaper or billboard advertisement. As far as making a long lasting strategy memorable, a traditional marketing strategy is the way to go. Both strategies have pros and cons for you to decide on. Both can help in learning how to increase sales in retail.
How to Increase Sales in Retail
Successful retail business owners know how to increase sales in retail. The issue is, the world has changed in 2020. New methods must be taken up in order to keep increasing retail sales. This is where most traditional retail owners have to implement a digital marketing strategy. Many full service agencies offer digital marketing help and SEO for websites. Agencies also know how to increase sales in retail, through a successful digital marketing strategy. Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of their main tools for success.
Search Engine Optimization
The pandemic won’t last forever, so you will need to know how to get more customers in your store soon. A digital marketing strategy can be future proof, if it is done right. By doing it right, it involves the implementation of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Search engine optimization is used to improve the ranking of a page. The ranking referred to here is the ranking seen on the search engine results page. A higher ranking means a higher chance of your page being visited by new customers. This ranking can be a achieved organically and by paying for a top spot.
Organic results are results that are very well optimized for the search engine. A paid result is basically putting your page at the top as an advertisement. Search engine optimization can bring more customers to a business by leading more people to the page. 
Increasing Your Business Presence in The Future
When you learn how to get more customers in your store, you may have learned a few different tactics that can help you do so. There are two types of marketing strategies that can be used. They are digital marketing and traditional marketing. While digital marketing proves to be more cost efficient, traditional marketing is more memorable. In a sense, digital marketing can be more widespread, but traditional marketing can visualize a brand better. If business owners want to use digital marketing, then utilizing search engine optimization is important.
SEO can improve the organic rank of a website. This means that without paying for an advertisement, a business’s website will rank higher on a results page. It potentially opens the door for more visitors to the site. Also, having a presence online will help the business for the future. Commerce is slowly starting to move online, and retail stores should be prepared. SEO Design Chicago provides retail marketing services for stores just like yours.
FAQs about How to Get More Customers in Your Store
1. Should I focus on digital marketing or traditional marketing for my retail store?
The choice depends on your budget, target audience, and goals. Digital marketing is generally more cost-effective and easier to measure, making it ideal for businesses with limited budgets. Facebook ads cost less than newspaper or billboard advertisements and offer better targeting options. However, traditional marketing can be more memorable and impactful for certain demographics. If you can only choose one, digital marketing offers better ROI for most retail stores, especially when combined with SEO strategies that provide long-term benefits.
2. How can I use digital marketing to drive foot traffic to my physical store?
Several digital strategies can bring customers to your physical location: implement online ordering with in-store pickup to get customers through your doors, send email coupons that customers can use on their phones in-store, use local SEO to appear in “near me” searches, create social media posts showcasing in-store experiences and products, run geo-targeted ads to people in your local area, and encourage customers to check-in on social media when they visit. The key is connecting your online presence to your physical location.
3. What is SEO and how can it help my retail store get more customers?
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) improves your website’s ranking on search engine results pages like Google. When potential customers search for products you sell or “stores near me,” higher rankings mean more visibility and website visits. SEO can be achieved organically through website optimization (content, keywords, local listings) or through paid advertisements. For retail stores, local SEO is particularly important as it helps you appear when people search for businesses in your area, potentially driving both online and in-store traffic.
4. How do I measure the success of my marketing efforts?
Digital marketing campaigns are easier to measure than traditional ones. Track website traffic using Google Analytics, monitor social media engagement rates and click-through rates from ads, measure email open rates and coupon redemption rates, use unique promo codes for different campaigns to track which brings customers, and ask new customers how they found you. For traditional marketing, use methods like unique phone numbers for different ads, special discount codes mentioned only in specific campaigns, and customer surveys to understand which marketing channels are most effective.
5. What are some low-cost traditional marketing ideas that still work?
Several traditional marketing strategies remain effective on a budget: having someone wave a sign or dress as a mascot outside your store (proven to increase foot traffic), hosting special sales events or clearance days, distributing business cards and flyers in your local area, partnering with other local businesses for cross-promotion, participating in community events and local fairs, creating eye-catching window displays that attract passersby, and offering excellent customer service that generates word-of-mouth referrals. These tactics require more time than money but can be very effective for local retail stores.
6. How has customer behavior changed, and how should I adapt my marketing?
Customer behavior has shifted significantly toward online research and digital interactions. Many customers now research products online before visiting stores, expect to find businesses on social media and Google, prefer email coupons over physical mail, and value convenient options like online ordering with in-store pickup. To adapt, ensure your business has a strong online presence, maintain active social media accounts, optimize for local search results, offer digital coupons and promotions, and create seamless connections between your online and offline customer experiences.
7. What’s the most important first step for a retail store wanting to attract more customers?
Start by establishing a strong online presence, even if you’re primarily a physical retail store. This includes creating or optimizing your Google My Business listing, ensuring your website appears in local search results, setting up basic social media profiles, and implementing a simple email marketing system for customer communication. These foundational digital marketing elements are relatively inexpensive but essential for modern retail success. Once these basics are in place, you can expand into more sophisticated digital marketing strategies or complement them with traditional marketing tactics based on your budget and target audience.
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