
For any trader, entrepreneur, retailer or businessman the thing that matters the most is the people who buy the company’s products or services or, in other words, customers. The potential of general public in becoming your loyal customer is not hard to induce in your business. All you need are some good tactics and tips to grab their attention more efficiently.
When you own a retail store, the marketing strategy needs to have a solid impact so that the people who visit you once, become your loyal and regular customers. You need to be open towards the direct marketing strategy of being polite to your visitors even if they are not purchasing from you and then take their feedback personally about what they think should be available at your store or how you can be of more help to them. This personal touch and politeness can become your USP (Unique Selling Point) and will leave a positive impact on the visitors.
You must also pay your workers, staff and salesmen appropriately so that they can also talk highly about your store, just as their own and thus this strategy will grab more customers for you through their friends, family and acquaintances. The more people will hear about the opening of your new business, the more visits and potential customers you can obtain from this direct word of mouth marketing strategy.
To attract public to your store, you can also plan a big launch event with more prominent and loud decorations so to attract more eyes and crowd to your store who can all be your potential customers in the future. This marketing strategy is most commonly used these days. If you have a good budget up your sleeve, then you can also send a teaser through radio, television or newspaper about the opening of your business in the new location. This will also end up drawing more crowds to your store because people around it would be anticipating the opening and thus would visit you to figure out more about you and your products.
Following are a few more ideas that can help you sustain in the competitive market and turn your visitors into your regulars.
Take care of your image
To begin with, you need to take care of your image as people often say ‘first impression is the last impression’. There can be many ways to improve the outlook of your outlet but foremost is the cleanliness. If your store plus the outside space and sidewalk is neat and clean then visitors would appreciate the neatness and can actually become your regular for the fact that you are hygienically prim and proper. On top of that, you can enhance the outlook by repainting and make sure there is no rustiness in your windows, their frames, doors, product stands or anywhere for that matter because if a visitor would cringe away that will only bring bad name to your store. You can even use flower pots to decorate your space well and give your visitor and customers a silent welcome.
Arrange a Parking Area
Another useful tip is to think productively for your business, well before the time. This means, that when you are making your store or outlet, make sure to leave some extra space around it for a proper parking area. This well in time thought will bring very positive results for your business. Often small businesses make this mistake of not arranging a proper parking area and that actually kills their customership because of over crowdedness or because who wants to get stuck in a lot of traffic and crowd just for shopping.
Once you have established your own parking lot, make sure of two more things: One, it should be closer to the shop for elderly or for ease of general public with groceries or shopping bags in hands. 2ndly, it should be covered from the top so that the cars don’t boil up in the summer time.
Create an Entertainment Corner
Often, families come together for shopping but once they are done buying their particular stuff, they have to wait for the others. It gets very boring and thus they begin to nag the ones who are taking longer, to finish off quickly. To prevent such case scenarios, you can also make an entertainment corner where anyone who is not actually buying anything, can find something to amuse them or where they can find games or music to kill their time happily. This way, you will help your visitors and in future, kids would force their parents to go to your store in particular, which eventually will be good for your business.
Freebies and Sale
Another tactic that can be used is to start your launching day with a promotional sale. This generally works more and ends up bringing more customers to your business because who doesn’t appreciate a free item or discount on their purchase. You can put up a limited time offer of promotional sale or give a freebee to every customer who buys up to $100 or as per your budget allows.
You can even give free tickets to a nearby amusement park or a movie, because the attraction will end up bringing more visitors to you from which you can collect positive feedback for your business. You can also devise a sale plan where people will get points for shopping above few hundred dollars and those points will earn them small goods.
Efficient Staff
The best tip to survive in the market is to hire your staff, salesmen and women very selectively. You must have a good team to begin your business with especially for your launch day. Hire professionals who know how to grab attention of the visitors and even passer bys. They need to be polite, well behaved, welcoming and should know about the product line perfectly. If a customer is asking some detail, and your salesman doesn’t know about it than it is a major spoiler. Always hire the people who are from the same industry and who have good track record. It is actually the best trait of a salesman to force a visitor to not only buy from your store but to actually come to you as a regular, without realizing the fact that he is being forced into it.
Manage Your Business on E-Shop
These days everything is available on Internet and people prefer to shop online instead of driving out with their families. So you must avail that category too. Make your E-shop and circulate its page around the web portals to attract more customers to your brand and business. Over this e-shop you can provide several ad-ons and let them feel that they can customize their order to their heart’s content and still it will be delivered in the least possible time. Also make sure that you keep your page easy and simple so every type of customer could benefit from it and doesn’t get confused or nervous with a lot of unnecessary details and steps.
Kid’s Corner
One very useful and smart tip is to create a kid’s corner, something similar to entertainment corner. This could be a glass room or an open corner so that parents can view it from a distance too. You can hire few caretakers like nanny so that if parents want, they can leave their kids with them and shop freely in the meantime. You can also fill this corner up with swings or toys to attract the attention of the kids.