Successful businesses, like successful people, find a way to embrace and overcome their obstacles. As a career marketer, I’ve heard for 15 years how the Internet is killing brick and mortar retailers. As the way people shop and purchase has continued to evolve, successful retailers have learned to incorporate an online presence and marketing strategy to drive more foot traffic and more sales.
Let’s examine the 4 best ways for you to leverage social media to drive additional foot traffic through your front door.
1. Introduction – Social media is the First Handshake Between Consumer and Product
Now, nearly 1.8 billion people are active social media users and almost 3.5 billion people have established social media accounts. 67 million businesses have Facebook pages and 5 million of those businesses are actively using the platform to target their advertising and content. That is a lot of interaction between consumer and business.
For most brands and products, social media is where the relationship happens. Retailers cannot simply ignore this opportunity and expect their business to grow. Channels like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and others create free or very efficient opportunities to engage and attract consumers. The importance of social media cannot be overlooked.
2. Authenticity – Don’t Advertise, Demonstrate
Especially if you are in some way dependent on millennials for your survival, stop advertising and start demonstrating. Few, if any of us like to be sold to. Nowhere is that more true than with the most recent generation of consumers.
If you sell a visually appealing product with cool functionality, use video on social media to demonstrate the product. Want more foot traffic? Give your audience just enough wow-factor to engage their interest. Then, invite them into the store to try it for themselves.
3. Drive More Foot Traffic with Promotion
Social media, especially Facebook, creates an extremely low-cost highly targeted promotional platform. You can reach thousands of targeted consumers in a geographic location for mere dollars.
Leverage social media to introduce or reinforce your products with your target audience. Offer compelling reasons to bring them through the door. Product launches and in-store only promotions create great opportunity to pull additional foot traffic into the store.
4. Real-Time Consumer Feedback and Interaction
Social media creates the opportunity to interact with your customers in real-time. Whether positive or negative, interaction with your consumer base provides the opportunity to address issues and build sticky relationships.
Monitor your social pages consistently and respond in a timely manner. Your audience is present all the time. Utilize mobile apps to get notifications when someone asks a question or makes a comment and respond when appropriate.
Your current and future customers are leveraging digital for communication and product research. For many retailers, the stubborn refusal to use social media to communicate with current customers and identify and gain future customers is the death sentence for your business. An understanding of how to leverage the digital tools at your disposal is important and action is essential.
Social Advisors is here to either educate you on the proper use of social media to drive more foot traffic or to do it for you. Contact us today to learn more.