Guide More Customers from Your Brick and Mortar Store to Your Website
by Michal Kaul - March 15th, 2010 11:21 am
If your retail storefront is getting plenty of foot traffic, but your website sales have seen better days, there are a few great marketing strategies you can put into place right away to increase sales and cash in on repeat business. If your method of getting in-store visitors to check out your website has been to simply slap a URL on the receipt or a catalog, try out the following methods to help build brand awareness, increase customer loyalty and keep people coming back to your site for more great deals.
Offer a Coupon for an Online Purchase with Every In-Store Order
Give your in-store shoppers an online coupon or discount for a certain percentage or dollar amount off their next online purchase. This coupon wouldn’t be available online or anywhere else, giving you a chance to test and track direct store to web traffic and orders. Have this coupon expire a week from the date of their retail purchase to help instill a sense of urgency to take advantage of the web-based offer.
Create an Online Customer Loyalty or Rewards Program
You can also increase online buyer participating by creating an online club or shopper’s newsletter with previews, samples or special deals that are reserved only for website customers. According to an article by the National Retail Federation, customer loyalty programs work best when they’re truly segmented to the buyer’s shopping habits and they remind the customer how much they save or value by being a member. More importantly, simply asking if the customer has a rewards card or is a club member isn’t enough unless your staff also tells them precisely what they’ll get out of it, and makes the process of joining easy and hassle-free.
Make Your Site a Safe Place to Do Business
Many people assume that doing business online is inherently risky and insecure. Take steps today to help put your brick and mortar customers at ease with shopping online. Include payment methods up front, as well as security seals to emphasize the fact that your site is a safe place to conduct transactions. Make your refund policy, satisfaction guarantee and privacy policy noticeable and easy to understand. By taking steps to fully secure your site, you reinforce your position and business reputation on creating a consistent theme and message that customers can easily resonate with. And appreciate.
Once you’ve fully tapped into the advantages of diverting more customers to your site, you open up the floodgates to a wealth of information on consumer behavior, order history and preferences which you can further use to improve and refine your site. By harnessing other online mediums and outlets, such as social networking sites and comparison shopping engines where your target audience is likely to spend time browsing, you’ll have multiple avenues of presenting news, specials and other deals that give your customers every possible reason to shop with you online as well as in-store.
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