The internet makes it easy for brands to reach international audiences and sell products and services 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Online marketing is integral to all businesses that want a global reach, but did you know that it goes beyond the digital frontier?
You can easily use online marketing to transcend the virtual realm, converting clicks and taps into foot traffic for bricks and mortar stores. Take a look at the following ten ways your online marketing can drive offline success for your business.
10 Ways Your Online Marketing Can Drive Offline Success
1. Offline Event Promotion
It’s always an exciting time when your business launches a new product. If you have an offline presence, such as a retail store, your online marketing can help invite customers to a big reveal event at your premises.
You could offer event attendees “goody bags” containing product merchandise, such as quality booklets that contain marketing material and data sheets, branded stationery, and even a free sample or trial of your new products.
Attendees are also more inclined to visit your store if there will be free food and drink for them to consume during the event!
2. Buy Online, Collect In-Store
Do you sell your products and services online via your website or other online retail platforms? If so, you likely offer customers various delivery options.
When promoting your brand with online marketing, you can also promote a buy online, collect in-store service. It’s a convenient option for busy people, where customers prefer to collect their items in person instead of waiting for a delivery service at home all day.
You’ll find that some customers make additional purchases while they walk through your store or browse products during their visit.
3. Email Marketing For In-Store Offers
Your business will undoubtedly run promotions from time to time, such as product discounts, free items with minimum order values, and product collaborations with other companies.
You may also offer some promotions that are only valid in-store. If that’s something you do, consider creating email marketing campaigns that include special in-store-only offers for customers.
Doing so means you can invite your online customer base to take advantage of in-store-only promotions, plus you’ll have an opportunity to upsell to those people. It’s a strategy that works well for businesses of all sizes with an online and offline retail presence.
4. Offline Affiliate Marketing
The great thing about affiliate marketing is that you can get other people to market your brand for you and reward them only when they produce results! Affiliate marketing is a valuable tool for driving web users to CTAs, like visiting a web page or filling in a form.
But did you know you can also use affiliate marketing for offline purposes? For example, bloggers, website owners, and other online brands can get rewarded for promoting your physical retail store with printable coupons linked to their campaigns.
5. Local Competitions
Most people relish the chance to get something for free by entering a competition. Retailers know this and run all kinds of contests occasionally to engage with their audiences and increase footfall in their stores, and it’s something you probably do as well.
But are you promoting your in-store competitions via your website? If the answer is no, it’s time to use your online marketing to promote your offline contests.
Your competitions don’t have to be in-store; they can get held at local events your business attends.
6. Exclusive In-Store Product Launches
Most retailers might have some POS (point of sale) material in-store to promote new product ranges, and you likely do something similar with new products that get introduced to your customers. The thing is, how will your online customers know about new products you launch offline?
Once again, your online marketing strategies can come to the rescue. You can utilize them to inform customers via your website, social media profiles, and email marketing campaigns of the date you’re launching a new product.
Consider making such events memorable by offering online customers “exclusive” access to the event alongside time-limited promotional prices or even the ability to buy the items before they go on general sale.
7. Local SEO
Local SEO (search engine optimization) refers to optimizing a website to improve visibility to local Web users.
Examples of how that gets achieved include:
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- Creating a Google My Business (GMB) profile
- Localized keyword optimization, and
- Creating content that targets specific local areas
You probably already do some local SEO for your retail store. But it makes sense to place greater emphasis on that so you can drive more online customers into your offline store.
8. Exclusive Offline Workshops
Workshops are brilliant marketing ideas for local businesses because they help people solve specific problems while using certain products or services sold by those firms.
As a retailer, you can run workshops on virtually anything as long as it bears relevance to the things you sell. If you would love more people to attend your in-store workshops, promoting the dates to your customers via your existing online marketing campaigns is a good idea.
9. In-Store Discounts For Online Customers
It’s no secret that customers love feeling special by retailers. You likely already have some marketing strategies in place to achieve that goal, and one more you can consider for your e-commerce customers is offering them exclusive in-store discounts.
For example, you could give them a digital coupon code that gives them money off their next purchase or a free product if they spend a certain amount with you in-store.
10. Influencer Marketing
Lastly, consider utilizing influencer marketing as part of your efforts to boost in-store sales. Influencers like bloggers or people operating popular Instagram or Twitter profiles already have niche audiences or “followers.”
Working with relevant influencers is a fantastic way to boost footfall in your retail establishment and bridge the gap between online and offline customers.
You can reward influencers in many ways, from offering their followers exclusive coupon codes, complimentary products, or even offline collaborations where followers can meet influencers at special events in your store.
Ciao,
Miss Kemya
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