The online marketplace has captured a lot of revenue away from businesses that depend on in-store shopping. Of course, many brick and mortar retailers have managed to make the best of both worlds by making their goods available online. Nevertheless, they still need to be attentive to maximizing the profits that they derive from store traffic and sales. If you’re looking to step up your net margins over the next fiscal year, consider these proven tactics to increase sales revenue from retail locations.
Identify Your Goals
Trying to get more customers and revenue is certainly a sensible goal to strive for, but it’s also a broad one. To pursue growth with purpose, set fixed goals. Determine exactly how much more revenue you want to generate every month and sales quarter so you’ll have a clear mark to aim for. Then, consider exactly what you’ll need to do to achieve your goals and start creating a sales plan.
In forming your plan, you’ll need to consider several important factors. Your past performance is a big one, and you should look closely at which type of sales represented the greatest percentages of your total volume. This can shed light on the best ways to optimize inventory levels. With substantive analyses of individual products’ popularity, you can stay well stocked with the items that have the highest demand. Likewise, you can avoid overstocking items that will languish on shelves for months on end and ultimately have to be marked down.
Your planning process should feature an evaluation of industry-wide trends and shoppers’ spending habits. Try to pinpoint what factors might be contributing to shrinking sales and look for ways to address them. Look at your competitors’ performance and examine what you can do to take advantage of opportunities that they’re missing.
Enhance Online Engagement Tactics
When you’re hoping to steer people away from online shopping, reaching out to them online might not seem like an obvious maneuver. However, it’s important to bear in mind that digital marketing tactics are among the most cost-effective ways to connect with a large number of shoppers.
Since you’re trying to get people to a specific location, it’s crucial that your website content and the content that you put on third-party sites are well-targeted to reach customers in your area. Incorporate information about storefronts’ addresses into as much of your content as you can. That can benefit your SEO performance and affect how prominently your business will rank on mapped search results.
Make the Most of Social Media
Use social media ad campaigns that connect you with local users. It may be advantageous to outsource some of your social media account management tasks to a professional marketing company. Experienced marketers who are knowledgeable about your industry and locale can offer you input on what type of content you should be posting and how to win more followers.
A marketing company can also assist you with designing ad content for social media platforms. With a strategically designed social media ad campaign, you’ll get a lot more attention online than you would by simply relying on potential customers to find you. Pay-per-click advertising is an affordable way to maximize visibility and spark interest without putting too much of a strain on your total marketing budget.
Use Direct Mail Marketing
Sending marketing materials through the mail can be costly, but it tends to generate a better return on investment than many other forms of digital outreach. You could send information about your business to all of the customers within a defined geographic area, or you may tailor your search to reach specific demographics.
It’s usually a good idea to include promotional offers in direct mail materials. A compelling promotional offer is more likely to prompt shoppers to visit your location than a general advertisement telling people where you are and what you sell.
Ultimately, smart planning and methodical marketing can help you attract more customers and boost sales. Tracking your progress and utilizing advanced data analysis tools will enable you to identify which strategies are generating meaningful results.
