Retail businesses need some new ideas to engage customers online. Everything online is instant and ever-changing, so it's important for your retail marketing strategies to be dynamic. You need to constantly update your content in order to keep customers shopping with you instead of losing interest. Updating takes time, however. The good news is that this process can often be automated.
1. Create a social media calendar with daily retail events. Social media is a great way to reach not only your current customers but also a wider audience of new customers. Create a month's worth of retail events in advance and schedule them to post one day at a time. That way, your marketing content is automatically kept up to date but you don't have to spend time each day changing the content yourself.
Daily retail events can be simple sales, product demonstrations, seasonal specials, classes for cooking or another skill relevant to your retail business.
2. Run exclusive deals and collaborate with other local businesses as a marketing strategy. This helps draw in more customers and also promotes the business community in your area. Customers can sign up for these exclusive retail promotions through text message or social media. For example, you could offer a deal where if customers buy a plate set from your store they receive a coupon for 50% off a meal at a local restaurant.Automate the retail promotion process through text message or social media. Use a drag and drop editor in an automated solution to create engaging emails and text messages. An automated retail marketing solution sends out your messages for you at exactly the time you want. Customers can say what type of promotions they want to receive, and messages are automatically sent based on their preferences.
3. Send out how-to emails that revolve around your retail products. If you have a hardware store, share a do-it-yourself instructional on painting or building. If you have an arts and crafts store, tell customers how to create a simple art project. If you have a kitchen store, give customers a knife sharpening tutorial.
Educational retail content is interesting to customers but it also serves to draw customers in. They need the products in the tutorial, so they will come to your store to purchase them. You can even include related retail marketing promotions in the email.
Emails are easily automated and scheduled in advance. After the campaign is sent, review detailed reports to see how many customers opened the email and responded to the promotion.
4. Run frequent retail contests to get customers excited. Social media is perfect for contests, and contest posts and tweets are shared like crazy by your followers. Promotional messages are automated so all you have to do is create the contest and schedule when you want messages to go out.
Make contests interactive so your customers get involved. Have customers share a favorite picture for a chance to win, post a video of themselves using one of your products, share a family recipe and so on.
Try Automated Retail Marketing for Free
Retail marketing automation is simple, efficient and affordable. Sign up for a 14 day free trial to try out automated retail marketing for your retail business. It's all based around a drag and drop interface so even if you're not a technical person you can still create a professional, engaging campaign.
Curious how else our hyperautomation solutions can elevate your store? Why not check out our blog on automated restocking?