How To Advertise in A Chronically Online Era: 3 Ideas for Retail Stores

Even after the horrific past couple of years, the UK population still spends substantially more online than in brick-and-mortar retail stores, causing the eCommerce market to become one of the most booming industries worldwide.

Yet, with this increase in online sales and a decline in traditional ones, business owners with brick-and-mortar premises have started to fear their fate. While it is unlikely that offline shopping will cease to exist, the preference for online shopping hasn’t gone unnoticed, which is why retail advertising has become an even greater necessity.

Advertising is paramount for offline and online businesses to increase footfall, drive sales, and expand their reach, which is essential in our chronically online era. But how can retail businesses achieve this? We outline several ideas in our article below.

Take Advantage Of Social Media

Although social media might seem like the root of all retail businesses’ troubles, it can be a valuable tool in helping businesses reach more customers and turn visitors to their social media pages into customers. You should seriously consider three social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, as these are the most consumer-centric platforms.

Whether you create a Facebook group or curate visual content on Instagram, having an online community is ideal for establishing your brand, fostering a good customer service experience, and many more benefits. You can even use free-to-use tools that generate a QR code within seconds, which you can use in your content to direct customers to your company website or socials.

Or you can generate a QR code for use in your window displays, which enables visitors to your brick-and-mortar premises to access your information later – if they cannot shop with you immediately. All you need is to pick the QR code’s style/colour and add your company logo, and it’s ready to help you in your advertising efforts.

Use SMS Marketing

In our chronically online age, people of all ages are glued to the screens of their phones, with as many as forty million users of smartphones in the UK alone. Due to this, if you haven’t considered including SMS marketing in your retail advertising campaigns, it might be time to start thinking about it.

With your customer’s permission, start collecting their phone numbers so that you can send them store updates and any other relevant marketing material. You could make customers more willing to give you their phone numbers by offering them exclusive discounts for signing up for SMS updates and creating a sense of urgency by having the offer expire after twenty-four hours.

Spruce Up Your Windows

For brick-and-mortar premises, your storefront window is your website, as this will attract customers to your store and persuade them to buy from you. Due to this, you should ensure that the windows and kerbside of retail stores always look their best.

You can do this by changing the display every couple of weeks, considering the current season/holiday and targeting the type of customer you want to attract. You can also play around with telling stories through your displays or selecting a theme to attract more attention from passers-by, boosting your advertising efforts.