The search for new customers is no easy feat, especially when you just opened your business and you haven’t had a chance to build up your e-reputation.
Luckily, our digital era comes with all kinds of options for attracting new prospects and racking up your conversion rates. From a sleek new website to customer reviews and glittering social media pages, the online world offers all kinds of exciting ways to boost your visibility—and turnover. If you’re a retailer looking to get started, we’ve put together 5 simple tips for bringing more customers into your store or small business.
Showcase Your Business With a Beautiful Website
Build Your Company Website Websites represent an essential marketing lever for all local businesses, restaurants, and anyone looking to sell something. A website serves as a storefront to display your business online and attract new customers. You can choose your colours and design to reflect your company’s ethos and personalized brand image.
If you’re a real estate agency, a website will be perfect for showing off your services, team, and property listings. For restaurant owners, you can tell your story and introduce your team, location, and dining room. But most importantly, you want to tempt your prospects to order right away, featuring your menu along with photos of your mouthwatering dishes.
Your website can also include an online reservation system along with key information like your business hours, phone number, street address, and email. And with an online presence, you can also take advantage of geolocation technology. Geolocalization almost guarantees that if someone searches for your keywords while they’re in your area, they will find your business in Google Maps. Without a website, you risk missing out on clients passing through your neighbourhood looking for companies like yours.
And if you want to take your business to the next level, you can launch your own online store. This is getting into the realm of “e-commerce sites.” These days, e-commerce is widespread and an online store has almost become obligatory if you’re trying to thrive as a business. The Internet has broken down geographical limitations, allowing you to reach prospects across the country, or even around the world. An e-commerce site is more than a sales channel; it provides an important means of communication between you and your audience. For retailers, it’s a winning recipe for success.
Tap Into SEO to Boost Visibility
Work your SEO and give your store or business the gift of online visibility. With this strategy, you’re more likely to appear in Google’s top search results—a great way to boost your sales.
Let’s say your bakery specializes in almond croissants or gluten-free muffins. Your goal will be to appear up on the first page for these keyword phrases. And you’ll do this by applying the right SEO strategies.
When it comes to SEO and rising to the top of Google, the most important factor is your content. You want to be on high alert for plagiarism or duplicate content. Google robots don’t like this at all and they will penalize any and all copy cats.
Next, when you write your content, pay attention to header tags (H1, H2, H2, H3…) and insert your keywords into each heading. Google favours headings that are 65 characters and under. Make sure your headings are catchy, so that readers will click the link. As far as length goes, Google robots prefer when content is between 1000 and 2000 words. Your text should be optimized for the right keywords, organized in a “semantic cocoon” which is a fancy way to describe the process of linking your content in a logical and seamless structure. All that said, your content needs to sound like it was written for humans and not for robots. So, don’t go overboard with your keywords. And if you have photos (which you should), it’s important to use a light format like JPEG and to include meta descriptions.
For more tips on SEO, our Linkeo SEM team is here to help. You can also check out our SEO category right here on the blog.
Build Your Community on Social Media
There are so many social media platforms to choose from, from Facebook and Twitter to Instagram and TikTok. For retailers, your social media presence is integral to any marketing strategy.
Social media pages have replaced the phone book and traditional directories and guides. They offer a simple way to get your business out there and boost sales. In some cases, a solid social media strategy can triple your turnover. So it’s definitely worth it to strengthen your presence and speak to your customers on social media.
The big pros with social media is you get to be in direct contact with your community while reaching an extremely wide audience. Be sure to post regularly to keep your community up to date on your latest news and offers. Target your content based on your profession and don’t forget to add your personal touch. You want to convince your followers that you’re the florist, restaurant, or yoga clothing store they want to listen to. Facebook and Instagram also offer the opportunity to present your audience with targeted advertisements where you can promote your products and specials. We’ll get back to that soon.
Your social media pages are a great place to promote your business and sell your products!
Once you’re out there on the various platforms, you need to define a clear community management strategy. This will ensure that you maximize your business potential, as well as your visibility on social media.
With community management, you will carefully target your prospects and clients, capturing their attention and creating content that will speak to them. It’s about earning credibility and trust as you build a lasting relationship with your customers. Even comments below your photos can help to inspire sales. It shows that you’re responsive and there to answer your visitors’ questions. Customers will feel more comfortable knowing you’re a real person.
Are you ready to build your community and strengthen your business on social media? Linkeo’s Community Managers are here for you: We handle every aspect of your e-reputation. Beyond social media, we’ll help you with your newsletters, online reviews, and more. At Linkeo, we know what it takes to create a winning community management strategy that expands your visibility across the Internet. With more than 20 years in the industry, we’ve already helped over 20,000 small to medium-sized business owners like you.
Promote Your Store With Online Reviews
Never underestimate the power of online reviews. They strongly influence the decision-making process, offering real reassurance to a new prospect. Reviews are also great for client loyalty, making it easy to stay connected on the web.
For a retailer, reviews are essential. Seducing a customer begins with trust, and reviews can build this for you. When customers read positive reviews, they can relax knowing that someone was already happy with your product or service.
Of course, there’s always the risk that you’ll score a low rating or face negative comments. But the possibility of subpar feedback shouldn’t scare you. Negative reviews actually offer the opportunity for you to show off your professionalism with a tactful response. In the face of wildly unjust feedback, stay calm. Ask the customer for more details so you can get to the bottom of their dissatisfaction and show that you care.
Customer reviews make up an essential component of your e-reputation and therefore, your web conversion strategy. And as always, if you need a little extra hand the Linkeo team is ready with our advice and clear steps to take to build the e-reputation you seek.
Run Online Ad Campaigns
In the scope of your digital strategy, ad campaigns play a major role in convincing new prospects.
For channels, you can choose from Google Ads or social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. The advantage of these digital channels lies in their brilliant, advanced targeting techniques. This way, you won’t waste money advertising to the wrong people or displaying ads that don’t work. Before you launch your campaigns, you need to reflect on your buyer persona or ideal client.
In a Google Ads Campaign (previously known as Google Adwords), your company is featured on search engines and partner sites. Unlike organic SEO, which takes longer to take effect, this method has instant results. Your Google Ads will target your campaigns based on several factors, including keyword specificity, age, and keyword location. You need to choose the search terms you want your ads to appear in. A Google Ads Campaign is fairly simple to set up but success requires that you pay attention and follow your performance. We recommend that you monitor your Click-Through Rate on your ads: A high Click-Through Rate means that your campaign is on the right track. If your CTR is low, you need to rethink your strategy and redesign your marketing.
Facebook Ads is a highly effective platform for attracting new clients to your store. As the name suggests, these campaigns take place right on Facebook. Facebook lets you set up the call-to-action BUY button, to encourage your customer to take that next step. While Facebook campaigns work well for acquisition and building client loyalty, they are often considered a long-term strategy. Retargeting offers another angle—you can recycle your ads and display them to people who have already visited your store at least once. You can also personalize your target but this requires more prep work and reflection.
As far as pricing goes, both Facebook and Google Ads operate on a cost-per-click basis. This means that you only pay for the ad if someone clicks on it.
So, that’s all for our five digital tips for retailers. Are you ready to get started? Check out our blog Retailers Online to take it a step further and empower your next success with digital marketing!
