Using Online Marketing To Get Foot Traffic | Small Biz Marketing Specialist
small business marketing strategies

Using Online Marketing To Get Foot Traffic

Wondering how you can get online shoppers into your brick and mortar store this holiday season without breaking the bank with expensive online advertising?

It’s a topic I talk about with JJ Ramburg on MSNBC’s Your Business in a segment titled Turning Online Customers Into Offline Shoppers

NChannel reports that 71% of shoppers believe they will get a better deal online than in stores, yet 94% of total retail sales are still generated in brick & mortar stores

Here are the 8 top strategies small business owners on Main Street can use to drive online traffic to foot traffic:

Audit Your Site (from a marketing perspective)

  • Do the text and images resonate with your core customer? If you’re market is 45 – 55 year old women, then you want images and text they’ll relate to.
  • Is there more talk about the customer than you? Most sites just brag about themselves with “we we we” talk; use more “you you you” speak
  • Does the site get people excited to come to your store? What will they get there that they can’t get anywhere else?
  • Content – Are you sharing valuable content? In multiple formats – text, pictures, audio, video?
  • Realize it’s not about price – create an “experience” and people will pay anything for it

Social Media

  • Use analytics to determine what content works best and what time(s) to post
  • Diversify your content – post lots of pictures (words tell, pictures sell), but also share valuable content, and use video (extremely powerful!)
  • Ask questions, engage and interact
  • Be fun! Showcase fun time at your store (customers laughing, having fun)
  • Use social to tell your brand’s story – what you’re about, why it’s “special” to do business with you
  • Social proof – post reviews, get customer testimonials, get customers to leave reviews
  • Show how your product/service solves a problem (people want results!)
  • Have customers post pictures on their page (and tag you) and/or your page
  • Run a contest
  • Tweet special promotions in the store – exclusive offers only instore at specific times

Small Business Marketing Campaign

Email Marketing

  • Send targeted offers to targeted customer groups for in-store only specials

Location/SEO Based Marketing

  •  Shoppers are mobile – hit them up with a deal as they’re passing by
  •  Make sure your site is optimized for SEO and mobile to get found in online searches
  •  Make sure your site is listed in relevant online directories (NAP critical)

Coupons

  • Everyone loves a deal but I hate discounting. Instead offer freemiums – people LOVE free stuff!

Reputation Management

  • Make sure you’re responding to online reviews
  • Encourage online reviews from customers in your store – they boost SEO

Build Your Network

  • Partner with local stores
  • Alignable – a great online resource to network and share promotions with other local businesses

Customer Retention

  • The money is in the customers you already have – leverage that! It’s “cheaper to keep ‘er”

What are you doing to drive online traffic to your offline brick and mortar location?

               
stacey

About Stacey Riska

Stacey Riska, aka “Small Business Stacey” is a serial entrepreneur who is passionate about saving small business and rebuilding Main Street. She helps small and local business owners become a #SmallBizMarketingWiz by teaching them marketing strategies that get MORE: MORE leads, MORE customers/clients, MORE sales, and MORE money. Stacey is the founder of Small Biz Marketing Specialist, THE go-to place for marketing tips, techniques and strategies that get results. Stacey is also the creator of the Daily Deals for Massive Profits Training Program, an online video training program that teaches small and local business owners how to use daily deal sites like Groupon to skyrocket their business growth and get massive profits. In this program she teaches from experience, as it was the key strategy that transformed her coffee and smoothie business from being $500K in debt to a 7-figure profitable business. When not saving the small business world, she enjoys sipping red wine, eating chocolate (who doesn’t!) and spending time with her amazing husband.

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About the Author smallbizmarketing

Stacey Riska, aka "Small Business Stacey" is a serial entrepreneur who is passionate about saving small - and not so small - businesses one marketing plan at a time. She helps business owners become a #SmallBizMarketingWiz by teaching them marketing strategies that get MORE: MORE leads, MORE customers/clients/patients, MORE sales, and MORE profit. Stacey's in-demand "Small Biz Marketing Success Coaching and Mastermind Program" is transforming the businesses - and lives - of those who want wealth, freedom, and market domination. Her highly acclaimed book "Small Business Marketing Made EZ" lays out the 6-simple-step plan to get your marketing into ACTION - literally and figuratively. Stacey is also the creator of Cups To Gallons, the place where independent coffee, smoothie, juice bar, ice cream, dessert and snack shop owners go to learn how get into lucrative catering so they stop selling by the cup and start selling by the gallon. In this program she teaches from experience, as it was the key strategy that transformed her coffee and smoothie business from being $500K in debt to a 7-figure profitable business. When not saving the small business world, she enjoys sipping red wine, eating chocolate (who doesn't!) and spending time with her amazing husband.

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