Retail Marketing

Retail marketing is a set of actions that a retail store makes to effectively sell other brands’ products. These activities include purchasing products from other businesses within a specific field, promoting them, and establishing relationships with the audience.

Retail stores can be offline, like Walmart, or online, like Amazon. These two retailers are the most successful players in the retail game. According to Statista, Walmart earned $331 billion in 2019.

To succeed in retail, you need to sell quality products at competitive prices, create appealing and ergonomic packaging, and run engaging sales promotion campaigns to better communicate with your clients.

Let’s find out why retail marketing is important.

Check the three main reasons that make the retail industry an integral part of today’s economy:

1. Retailers help small manufacturers. Successful retail stores can help small family businesses by promoting their products directly to customers. That’s great for both parties since a small business can’t afford massive advertisement campaigns, and only a few people know about this brand. In exchange, the retailer has more unique goods to offer their customers.
2. Retailers gather data that manufacturers rely on. Retail stores collect data on customer behavior, while manufacturers don’t have direct access to this information. If both parties cooperate, manufacturers can produce better products based on customer feedback, while retailers can increase sales.
3. Retailers can make an ecosystem with manufacturers. Retail brands vary, based on what they sell, and so do the manufacturers. The manufacturer needs to sell products on the right platform. If you produce bicycles, it’s best to deal with well-known retail bicycle shops, because they can boost your production and sales. Not to mention that a well-known retailer can help your brand overtake competitors that don’t work with them.

Let’s learn about the types of retail marketing.

There are six types of retail marketing that include online and offline platforms:

1. Department stores like Target and Walmart. These are big retail stores that sell different product groups, including food, clothing, electronics, etc. in one place, but in separated and labeled areas.
2. Franchises like Starbucks and Wendy’s. Franchising allows local retailers to open stores with an established brand name, identity, production process, etc. It allows the franchiser to gain large exposure while store owners will surely make money thanks to the franchiser’s strong brand. /li>
3. Supermarkets like Aldi and Whole Foods Market. These stores focus on food but they also sell a variety of other household products with a narrower choice compared to department stores.
4. Malls and shopping centers like Tysons and Aventura Mall. These are large buildings that have several retail stores inside. They are popular because people can find everything they need in one place. Malls are designed to make shopping extremely comfortable, keep people there for as long as possible so that they shop more. That’s why, aside from shopping, people can eat food, watch movies, play VR games, and do all kinds of entertaining stuff.
5. Online retail stores like Amazon and eBay. Such shops are located on the internet, so people can shop from their homes using a computer or smartphone.
6. Discount stores like Dollar Tree. These stores are designed for people with lower incomes so that they can afford all the necessary products. Although the quality of the products in discount stores often explains why they are so cheap.

Let’s find out four basic principles that are relevant to any retail business.

These principles are often called the “4 Ps of retail marketing”: product, price, place, and promotion. Let’s consider each one in detail.

Product

In a nutshell, retailers buy products from manufacturers in bulk, so that they don’t need to open a store and sell directly to customers. The product is the primary factor in the retailing process, so you should build your strategy with a focus on the product.

Here are the four things you need to pay attention to considering the product principle:

• Type(s). It should be clear what kind of products you sell, so it’s best to work with specific product types, such as smartphones and related accessories.
• Features. If you are a smartphone retailer, you can focus on flagship models or sell affordable, budget phones. This depends on your budget and your target audience’s demands.
• Variety. The choice of products may vary from a narrow to a vast range of options. It depends on the same factors: your budget and audience. You can sell smartphones from one brand exclusively, or offer gadgets from different brands. It depends on the size of your shop, its location (online or offline), and how much money you can invest in purchasing, promoting, and selling products.
• Packaging. This factor influences the purchasing experience. Make sure your packaging is cohesive with the design of your marketing campaigns and branding. It’s great if you make your packaging ergonomic and environmentally friendly.

Price

Pricing can both attract customers to your retail store and scare them away. Carefully calculate your pricing and bear the following price-forming factors in mind:

• Market conditions. You need to analyze the market around particular products, as well as your competitors’ prices to find the right balance, and find out if retailing specific products is worth your while.
• Overhead expenses. No matter what you sell, you need to earn money from your business. If you want to sell products at lower prices than your competitors, make sure this strategy brings you revenue despite your overhead expenses.
• Product positioning. You need to set the price for your product based on its quality. If you sell an exclusive 100% natural handmade product, limited in quantity, it should cost more than mass-produced analogs. When you market this product, highlight all of these benefits.

Place

Think of where you are going to retail: online or offline. Let’s briefly compare these two options.

• Offline. Running a physical retail store requires money for renting and maintaining the location. On the other hand, what’s excellent about a physical retail shop is that it allows you to connect with local audiences face to face.
• Online. It’s cheaper to sell your products online, but it doesn’t mean it’s easier. You need to put a lot of effort into making your site convenient to use. Also, you need to make sure your brand is visible online, so you’ll have to invest in SEO (search engine optimization), online advertising, and content marketing to attract new leads.

Sometimes, it’s best to combine both online and offline retail. If you run a physical shop, you can attract people to it with many digital marketing tools. And vice versa, you can advertise offline to encourage users to visit your website.

Promotion

It’s critical to let your target audience know about your shop and products. Here are three more factors that form your success as a retailer:

• Advertising. You need to build an effective advertising strategy based on your placement, budget, and target audience needs. If your target audience is young, using Instagram ads in stories is a great idea. In contrast, older audiences are more likely to engage with ads on Facebook. You can also effectively advertise offline in many ways, including live demos, print ads, direct mail, etc. to boost word of mouth around your store.
• Public relations. PR is key to make the right impression of your brand. Loyalty programs, participation in local events, sponsorships, and charity drives are a few ways to build an image of a brand that takes an active part in the life of the community.
• Sales promotion. This is a great tool for driving traffic to your website or physical shop. Sales promotions incentivize people to make a purchase by offering discounts, freebies, giveaways, and sales programs. These methods are commonly used to increase sales and gain more control over the selling process in general.

Good promotions combine all of these factors. Let’s move on and outline a basic, universal strategy for retail stores.

Here are some practical tips that will help your retail store prosper.

Use email marketing

Email marketing allows you to create smart marketing campaigns to encourage people to learn more about your brand and, eventually, to buy from your shop. Aside from lead nurturing, emails help businesses keep their audience up to date, engaged, and entertained. By consistently sending email campaigns, you can build loyal relationships with users and turn one-time shoppers into brand advocates.

SendPulse allows you to send all kinds of emails, including automated onboarding, lead nurturing, order confirmation emails, and more, to support your customers at every stage of their buyer journey.

It takes little time and skill to create a flow of automated emails with SendPulse. Here are the five steps you need to take:

1. Register with SendPulse;
2. Create an event that triggers email sending;
3. Create email templates (you can do it in three ways with SendPulse for free);
4. Combine these emails in a sequence;
5. Launch your automation.

As a result, you will have a series of emails that SendPulse will send once the event is triggered (registration, purchase, subscription, etc.). It will look similar to this abandoned cart email sequence below.

Here’s a detailed guide on how to create and send automated emails with SendPulse.

Run Shopping campaigns with Google Ads

This type of ad is targeted at users that are looking for specific products. Since they are at the decision stage and almost ready to buy, it’s best to have your shop in that shopping block above other SERP ads and organic results.

Here’s a screenshot of the results for the query “Nike Jordans.” In the Shopping ad, you can see the product image, item name, the price, the shop name, and a value proposition — an additional incentive to click through the ad.

The pricing for this ad type depends mainly on the competition for particular search queries. You can make your bid based on cost per click or cost per 1,000 impressions.

Learn more about these types of ads here.

Use social media advertising

Facebook advertising allows you to target your ads very specifically based on user age, behavior, and interests, as well as use their precise location. Thanks to cheap pricing and a range of targeting options, advertising on Facebook can help your retail store reach different goals.

Firstly, you can increase your brand awareness by letting people know about your Facebook page. Secondly, you can encourage people to visit your website or store. And lastly, what’s crucial for running a business on a local scale, you can attract new leads to your brand based on their location.

Here are six steps you need to make to create your Facebook ad (spoiler: it’s simple.)

1. Navigate to your Ads Center.
2. Choose an objective.
3. Create an ad.
4. Define your audience.
5. Define the duration and budget.
6. Choose your payment currency.

You can learn more about Facebook advertising here. Using similar tools, you can create ads on Instagram, both in the News Feed and Stories.

Send SMS campaigns

This great tool will help your business reach a local audience. You can invite customers to your shop by offering attractive time-limited offers. Due to the emotional nature of shopping, some of your audience is likely to be hooked and purchase goods at your retail store.

SendPulse allows you to send promotions and transactional messages at affordable prices to add more channels for communication with your audience and make their shopping with your brand smooth and convenient.

Here’s an SMS that promotes new offers in a local Football Club’s fan store. It attracts people with the help of a lottery and aims to increase sales.

Use push notifications

A push notification is a short message that appears on users’ computers or mobile phones to keep them informed about new products and events in your shop. At a low price, you can notify thousands of users of sales and discounts at your retail store. Check out the web push notification below.

SendPulse also allows you to create these web push notifications in a flash. Follow these four steps:

1. Register with SendPulse;
2. Connect your website with SendPulse;
3. Collect subscribers to send notifications to;
4. Create your message and send it.

Here’s a more detailed guide on creating web push notifications.

Congratulations, you’ve learned the basics of retail marketing, so now you are ready to build your own strategy!

Last Updated: 22.03.2023