(Newswire.net — July 27, 2017) — The death of brick-and-mortar stores has not just been “greatly exaggerated,” but in many marketplaces, it is outright false — because rather than shuttering their windows and closing their doors, many stores are extending their hours and onboarding new staff. True, this is not happening in every industry or area, but the across-the-board dread among store owners that the web would obliterate them from the face of the business landscape isn’t happening. The offline world still matters; and in some cases, it’s enjoying something of a renaissance.
However, this doesn’t mean that store owners who want to survive — let alone succeed — can afford to sit back and wait for traffic to flow through their doors. Conventional (read: prehistoric) tactics like phone book ads aren’t enough. Standing out in a competitive marketplace and getting top-of-mind with target audiences requires proactive, deliberate strategy.
To that end, here are 3 ways that brick-and-mortar store owners — regardless of whether they sell products, provide advice or installation services, or carry out any other activity — can boost traffic and elevate the bottom-line:
1. Cross-Promoting
Have you ever walked into a pharmacy and noticed flyers and small signs (usually around the checkout) advertising other businesses that have a health/wellness theme, like household mold removal companies? Then you’ve seen cross-promotion in action. It’s simple, inexpensive, and a win for everyone: the businesses that are cooperating, and customers who can learn about products and services that may be useful to them.
Some businesses also run discount cross-promotional campaigns. For example, a coffee shop that has a lot of laptop-toting traffic can offers its patrons a card (or code) that entitles them to 10 percent off malware removal services. In turn, the malware removal company can promote the coffee shop by offering its customers a card entitling them to a similar discount. Again, everyone wins.
2. Turn Staff into Consultants
Retail environments have a natural advantage over the web that, surprisingly, many of them fail to fully exploit: they have living, breathing human beings on their team who can — and should — lean forward and provide customers with a consultative sales process. This means training staff to non-aggressively and non-invasively probe for customer needs, and helping them discover new solutions that they’d otherwise miss. Offering staff an incentive (commission, rewards, recognition, etc.) to work in this manner can be very beneficial.
3. Improve Signage
While all retail stores have a sign of one kind or another, as sign company Landmark Signs points out, most of them aren’t optimized to maximize visibility, recognition, recall, and traffic. For example, signs are often difficult to see due to barriers, contain too much text, are unmemorable and generic, and so on. Strategically replacing and/or adding signs can make a major difference between an empty store, and one that is buzzing with customer activity.
The Bottom Line
While the last couple of decades have been tougher for retail than in years past, as noted earlier, the belief that brick-and-mortar stores will disappear and be entirely replaced by an e-commerce world is (in most cases) not happening. However, stores that want to flourish need to adopt new strategies for generating traffic and sales. Using the tips above will go a long way towards making that happen.