By Jason Beckerman, Unified
For retailers,
the secret to acquiring new customers, and maintaining them long-term, will
always come down to price and value. With this in mind, it’s critical for retailers
to leverage the massive social media ecosystem to usher customers down the
purchasing path.
Digital
influences and touch points are becoming ever-present in the lives of shoppers.
In fact, a recent study found that
more than half of grocery sales are influenced by online shopping. A staggering
amount of those shoppers are using digital coupons as well.
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Social
media has been incredibly beneficial for retailers and grocers. Next year,
social budgets were expected to swell to over $50 billion. Retailers of any
size and within any industry must keep this number in mind as it signals the
explosive growth of social media marketing — and that it’s here to stay. By
leveraging social media platforms to better understand and reach various
audiences, these campaigns allow marketers to create strategies that
efficiently identify potential customers, provide value to the customer in a
clear way and ultimately inspire in-store traffic.
As
a result, the best way for retailers to ensure their digital strategies are
driving foot traffic within physical stores is by committing to take the
necessary measures to convert online searchers into offline shoppers.
Digitally-Minded
And Economy-Proof
While
traditional supermarkets are economy-proof in theory, demand for convenience
and price cuts have increased substantially in recent years. How do
brick-and-mortar grocers compete as Amazon and other online marketplaces
threaten to crack their foundation?
In
order to amplify in-store traffic and overall sales, retailers and grocers
should be thinking about where their customers, both new and old, are spending
the majority of their time — online and on their phones. They must come up with
digital marketing strategies, focused largely on social media platforms, that
allow them to drum up customer interest and entice them to sign up for online
accounts with coupons and features that make shopping at the store more
convenient.
Giving CRM Some
TLC
The
ultimate goal retailers should focus on is acquiring customers. One of the most proven social tactics for acquisition and
upsell is to tap into existing CRM lists, including current account holders,
for exact targeting on Facebook and other social platforms.
This
accomplishes a few different things. First, it ensures that
the brands can reach exactly who they want including prospects, customers, or
loyalists with specific content; second, it allows them to build lookalike
audiences off these list for new acquisition efforts and increased targeted
reach; and third, it allows retailers to learn the habits, behaviors and
preferences of each audience type.
Mobile, Mobile,
Mobile
Shoppers,
more often than not, will turn to the brand or retailer that provides the most
convenience and ease of use for their interactions. They want to be able to
reach out to a store whenever they want, from wherever they are.
This
makes mobile shopping more important than ever, and it’s a trend that will only
continue to increase as Millennials and Gen Z shoppers grow to become the
supermarkets’ largest audience.
When
a grocer is activating a social media campaign, it’s imperative that they
ensure that the majority of their ad placements are geared toward mobile
devices. This gives them the ability to gain maximum visibility with shoppers
no matter where they are, at any given moment.
The Price Is
Right
To
entice the user to click through to a web site and take action, messaging in a
social campaign should be centered around weekly coupons. This ensures all
messaging appeals to the two main drivers previously mentioned — price and
value.
Once a customer clicks through to sign up,
benefits should be listed in five clear bullets, reiterating the savings, along
with easy online ordering, recipes and more. This creates a consistent and
powerful message that appeals to crucial factors, such as price and value, for
the majority of shoppers.
If a retailer is able to develop a campaign that
reinforces their CRM on social platforms, meets customers on mobile and secures
preferred prices on goods, they should begin to see instant success in
converting customers through social campaigns. Furthermore, by using CRM lists
as a means to suppress existing customers, a brand and retailer can effectively
reach brand-new shoppers as needed, regardless of whether they were on-the-go
via mobile placements.
These tactics will allow marketers to
optimize their use of social platforms to drive online traffic to their web site,
and consequently increase offline traffic to stores.
Jason Beckerman
is CEO and Co-Founder of Unified. His 15 years
of enterprise software experience spans the marketing, SaaS, and financial services
industries. As CEO, Beckerman oversees Unified’s product, technology,
operations and organizational strategy. Prior to his experience in marketing,
Beckerman’s career began in the financial services and SaaS verticals,
including positions at Merrill Lynch, Siebel, and Salesforce.com. Jason
received a B.S. in Entrepreneurship and Information Systems from Quinnipiac
University and a M.A. in Organizational Leadership from Gonzaga University.
