Digital marketing in the retail industry is forever growing and evolving, which is why it’s always important to stay on the ball and ahead of the trends when it comes to your retail digital marketing strategy. Whether you’re trying to sell your product digitally or not, a bricks-and-mortar business still needs a digital presence in order to keep up with competitors and target the correct audience. It’s no secret that digital marketing in the retail sector is a crucial way for both retail stores and online businesses to develop relationships with their communities, forge stronger ties with their customers and identify any potentially missed opportunities that perhaps competitors have already picked up on. Having a solid digital marketing strategy as a retail business for both ecommerce and store activity is a great way to stay one step ahead. Don’t fall behind. Here’s what a great digital marketing strategy in the retail industry looks like.
Here, Mike Ncube demonstrate some of the factors that form the basis of a good digital marketing strategy.
First things first, establish your goals
Whether you’re looking at internet retail marketing or digital marketing for retail stores, you must firstly establish exactly what you want to achieve, as this will then give you a solid base to begin your strategy. Is the main goal of your retail digital marketing strategy to increase your company’s revenue by increasing the average spend from existing customers? Or is your focus to reach out to new audience segments that may have never heard of your brand? As well as what you’re trying to achieve, you also need to establish who you’d like to target. The goals that can be achieved through online retail marketing and a well put together retail digital marketing strategy are endless; you just need to have a clear idea of what yours are. Ultimately, your digital marketing strategy is going to determine what actions you take as a business and the metrics that you track to define success.
As a retail brand, what will my digital marketing strategy need to include?
Whether you want to up your retail store marketing game to stay ahead of the competition or are looking for an online retail marketing strategy that reaches people you have been unable to reach previously, it’s important that you map out exactly what you want to accomplish. This means having a clear idea of customer demographics, business goals, your digital marketing budget and your timeline (how long you have to deliver exactly what you’re planning to do). Once this (the ‘what’) is in place, you can then set to work establishing just how you are going to accomplish it which will probably involve using a range of expert digital marketing services. Remember that your strategy will likely evolve over time, as trends change and your target market expect different things, but it’s important to allow a firm digital marketing strategy to form the foundations.
Using email marketing as one of your online retail marketing methods
The Baking School shows how to gain customer trust in their brand by emailing a newsletter that shares information about their niche.
As consumers (and business owners) we check our emails several times per day; usually to find offers and news from the companies we have previously subscribed to. Although most retailers feared that GDPR would spell the end for email marketing in the UK, thankfully this has proven to not be the case and therefore still remains one of the best converting channels. The benefits of email marketing include the fact that you can email customers who have previously shown an interest in your business – this is because they have allowed their email address to be used on a mailing list as per the terms and conditions of placing an order on your site. Email marketing isn’t just about sending sporadic emails updating people on your latest stock but it’s about earning the trust of your recipients. Creating a monthly newsletter about current trends and new styles means that you can build a routine with your readers. When you do send an email with a discount code, they’re likely to capitalise on this because they have already established a trust link with your brand.
As well as allowing you to develop relationships with customers, email marketing tools make it easy to segment your emails so that you can target specific groups at specific times. This means that you’re more likely to land in someone’s inbox at a time when they were already considering making a purchase with your brand, giving them the nudge that they need to make the sale! Email segmentation should play a role in your internet retail marketing strategy as it also allows you to send abandon cart emails, reminding consumers that they’ve abandoned a purchase and giving them an incentive to go back and complete it.
Content marketing – do you need it?
Etsy demonstrates how having a blog space can enable you to update customers with inspiring stories about your brand. Whatever they blog about, their customer is In the spotlight. This content alone can contribute to customer-retention and has the potential to go viral and if it’s SEO optimised – it’s searchable too!
Content marketing can take quite a few different forms; from blogging to category content or on-page product descriptions, and the type of content that you require as part of your retail digital marketing strategy will depend on your KPIs and the goals that you’re looking to achieve. Your brand will benefit from content marketing due to its long-lasting effects and its ability to depict your brand in the right light, therefore enhancing brand awareness to your new and existing customers. When done properly, content marketing should be engaging, compelling and really produce something that your site users will want to read or interact with. Content becomes even more essential to your website’s overall traffic when you apply an effective SEO strategy. Onto the next point…
Search Engine Optimisation – working together for online and in-store retail
If you are considering the steps that you need to take to develop a successful retail digital marketing strategy, then you can’t forget SEO. Using content marketing to create fantastically written pieces of content is all well and good but if no one can see it then it may be a waste of your time and resource. Whether you decide to go with a blog writing strategy or choose to build out your website with creative content, it’s important to understand how customers are using search engines to find products like yours. Search Engine Optimisation is particularly important when it comes to digital marketing for retail stores as it can enable you to target specific locations so that you are appear ahead of competitors when someone in your area is searching for local results. SEO doesn’t just include optimising your website to appear for one specific search result, but a great SEO strategy will involve optimising different areas of the website for a variety of relevant search terms. When it comes to executing a robust SEO plan as part of your retail digital marketing strategy, you can improve your chances of appearing higher up the SERPs by implementing changes such as using relevant keywords within your content, optimising images and videos, optimising your site for mobile use and even making your content shareable to drive traffic.
Buzzfeed’s mobile site displays content in an easy to navigate tile style grid. As an informal news site, this brand is aware that a lot of people will be searching for their content on their mobile-phones when on-the-go, so have streamlined their mobile site to accommodate for this.
It’s clear that digital marketing in the retail industry is always evolving, which means that as trends change and your business develops, it’s likely that your retail digital marketing strategy should to. However, by taking the advice above and getting a solid strategy in place, you’re building the foundations for a successful and competitive business.
For more information about any of our digital marketing services, feel free to get in touch today on, 0800 011 9715 or visit Fashion Digital Marketing.
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