Eat This – How to Win at Retail

We all receive over 3000 images a day from logos, ads, signage, promotions, packaging along with a hoard of everything else we see online and off. But when you’re in a store you see over 300 commercial images within a rapid timescale that leads to 75% of purchasing decisions being made at shelf! From 28 blinks a minute, you go to 17 blinks a minute. A captured consumer! You’re focused, in the moment, editing the present.

But online shopping sales continue to grow at an exponentially faster rate than in-store sales. 51% of Americans prefer to shop online so the old strategies of simply having a good location or putting up flyers or ads in your local newspaper aren’t going to cut it anymore. How do you get people to the store and why should they care. Here are 14 thoughts and examples.

Retailers need to break with stale gender stereotypes in their advertising. Demand that is largely driven by millennial and Gen Z consumers – Stop n Shop’s new ad campaign is a great example
50% of your store visitors may not have any deeper knowledge of or prior relationship with your brand. And you only get one chance at making a first impression
Target and cater for men – Kroger
Give Shoppers a Reason to Visit Your Store – H&M
Sales Triggering Signage – Timberland
Instill a Sense of Urgency – Saksofffith.com
Check-Out Convenience – BestBuy
Don’t Forget to Be Locally Relevant – Nike Flagship stores
Celebrate All the Little Holidays
Get Creative with Video – Dollar Shave Club
Create Returning Buyers through Smart Remarketing
Use Social Media Targeting Capabilities to Your Advantage
Run Beautifully Executed Google Shopping Campaigns –
Burberry
Invest in Some Guerilla Marketing Campaigns – McDonald’s
Try Podcast Advertising
(70M Month)
Understand Your Seasonal Peaks and Plan Accordingly

#1: Run Beautifully Executed Google Shopping Campaigns

Google Shopping campaigns allow retail marketers to sell their products directly through the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages)
Organize Shopping Campaigns by Best-Selling Items. Grouping together your best sellers will help you capitalize on online sales
Ensure Your Ad Images are High-Quality and Crawlable
Include Merchant Promotions and Product Reviews – add tags like a special offer

#2: Give Shoppers a Reason to Visit Your Store

Retail marketers desperate for more storefront traffic need to start giving their customers a reason to come in
The store stands out from its surroundings, catches the consumers’ eye and inspires them to cross the street and enter the store
By creating new window campaigns every few weeks, brands aim at generating regular visits from the window footfall
Perhaps you have a special in-store discount for shoppers. Lululemon is constantly convincing me to come by their stores with their free yoga classes
Brands like Superdry, Desigual or H&M prove regularly that luxury is not a precondition for standing out
If you don’t spend on any advertising, only your window is left to create in-store traffic. Inditex does so, and the result is strong product windows. Lacoste is an example to show that it doesn’t take fancy collections to create strong windows. Tommy Hilfiger is an example of aligning window campaigns with merchandise planning

# 3: Sales Triggering Signage:

80% of the time consumers spend in a store, their eyes browse for the next anchor point
Impulse buys in brand retail represent the largest share of sales
Store signage consists of printed and digital aids that create brand and commercial messages
Signage is the store’s final add-on to make the visual merchandising work (‘the icing on the cake’). If executed well, signage creates brand experience and grows shoppers’ comfort in making a buy
Timberlands’ outlet signage is noteworthy
today’s visitors to the Ferrari store in Maranello are unlikely to remember the merchandise but will recall the story about Enzo Ferrari’s ashtray

#4: Check-Out Convenience

The cashier or check-out is the last stop on a consumer’s in-store journey.
Those last 10 minutes of a store experience hold great potential for building a relationship
Nike’s best practice retail check-out in particular. Think about the last time you shopped for footwear and recall the 15 minutes before being served with your size and color: a waste of time for in-and-out ‘need shoppers’ who already know what they want
Hema – Alibaba’s retail online payment apps and delivery in 30 minutes

Screen Shot 2017-09-17 at 9.16.53 AM #5: Use Social Media Targeting Capabilities to Your Advantage

Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter make it absurdly easy to find and get in front of the people most likely to buy your products

#6 Target and cater to men

Grocers are rolling out sausage, beer stations to lure men
Hy-Vee and Kroger are stepping up their “male-centric amenities” — introducing gourmet sausage stations, “beer dens,” meat and beer pairing promotions, men’s facial care lines and more
Men also are more likely to purchase impulse items, so putting novelty products on display can lead to a higher ticket

#7: Don’t Forget to Be Locally Relevant

Geotargeting
300+ retail and brand logos, VM messages within just 3 hrs of shopping
Ad copy and imagery
Local lingo
Commercial Flagship Retailing – Nike

#8: Invest in Some Guerilla Marketing Campaigns

Using public places to get the word out about your business
Grab the attention of the public outside of the internet. It will be far more memorable! McDonald’s

#9: Try Podcast Advertising

67 million Americans listen to podcasts monthly

#10: Get Creative with Video

Some brands have made their products big through video. For instance, who could forget the Dollar Shave Club videos then went viral

#11: Celebrate All the Little Holidays

#12: Instill a Sense of Urgency Screen Shot 2017-08-24 at 11.01.49 AM

When you instill urgency into your marketing messaging, your audience feels the pressure and is more likely to give in and make the purchase now

#13: Understand Your Seasonal Peaks and Plan Accordingly

This includes things like adjusting ad spend, working with design for new creative, and executing seasonally relevant campaigns that will boost sales during these peak times

#14: Create Returning Buyers through Smart Remarketing