Re-evaluating how you market your store can be hard work, but it’s a necessary evil if you’re going to make the most of the budget, writes Greenwood Retail's Bernard Eaton …
It’s coming to the end of another hectic day at your store, and you get that call or email from the ad agency or rep asking: “We’re on deadline, what do you want me to put in your adverts this week?” The prospect of stopping what you’re doing to compose an advert brief in the next 30 minutes is, quite frankly, appalling. So, you find yourself saying, “Oh, just repeat last week’s ad …”
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. I was once told by an independent retailer with five large stores: “Marketing? I haven’t got time for that nonsense!” Unsurprisingly, they eventually went out of business. Most owners of independent retail businesses are time poor and often stuck for new ideas when it comes to marketing their businesses.
The term ‘marketing’ refers to anything and everything about your business which may be seen, heard or experienced by your customers and, most importantly, your future customers. It’s not just your advertising, but everything about your company image and its relationship with your marketplace. The look and presentation of your people, premises, vehicles, merchandising, etc, and your advertising, too, all factor into the complete spectrum of any marketing plan. Advertising is just one element of your marketing plan.
Here, I’ll look at the essentials for an optimised local market advertising plan for a physical retail store.
Advertising is essential to maintain a steady flow of customers, and to at least maintain your market share, as well as increase it. However, advertising is also expensive, intangible and time consuming. It can also be difficult to understand and be very confusing, not least due to the ever-expanding range of digital media channels now available.
The truth is that most advertising does not work very well. This is not the fault of the method of advertising or the type of media channel, be it traditional print or digital. It is the fault of the advertiser, or designer. So, don’t shoot the messenger.
The problem is almost always with the message.
If your advertising is not paying you back by way of measurable increased footfall, enquiries and sales results, don’t book another ad until you’ve considered the following points:
Review your advertising style
Don’t waste your money trying to be too artistic or humorous. Simple direct response marketing works best, regardless of whether the media channel be traditional or digital. Use a good headline to grab attention. Your advertising should convey something interesting, attractive and desirable to your audience. In other words, it should provide some incentive by way of an event or offer, or announce something new and exciting such as a new collection or showroom.
Think of something that would cause you to visit a store, and advertise it in a clear and simple way. Then create an urgent call to action, ideally with some kind of limit or deadline – for example, “Come and help us celebrate 75 years in business and save up to 40% at our Birthday Bonanza this Saturday and Sunday,” or “Clearing All Winter Stock! Sale Now On! Every Sale Item Half Price or Less! When it’s Gone it’s Gone!” Importantly, keep it simple and clear.
Understand your customers
Where are they? Define and prioritise the main postcode areas from which 80% of your business comes from. Who are they? Consider the profile of your existing customers and that of the next group or generation you would like to see more of in your store.
“Think of something that would cause you to visit a store, and advertise it in a clear and simple way. Then create an urgent call to action, ideally with some kind of limit or deadline”
The best way to do this is to have a sample of your customers profiled by a data specialist. The latest consumer databases contain a staggering wealth of information about your customers. Your data specialist will identify the most relevant facts and provide you with a full report. This then enables you to source additional lists of new prospective customers in your market who will best respond to your advertising initiatives.
The response rates from your own customers will be the highest by far. During Greenwood sales, we have seen over 25% footfall response from a retailer’s own database, using direct mail. The results from bought-in lists are increasingly impressive too. We have seen a staggering 12% footfall response from a well-sourced bought-in list of new prospects. The profile information can help you more accurately target new customers from a whole range of other media too.
Define your optimum advertising budget
Alan Sugar once declared that he’d “written books on advertising”. Then came the punchline … “cheque books,” he boomed in his inimitable fashion, with a wry smile on his face!
It’s too easy to waste money on advertising. You need to work out the optimum marketing spend for your business and stick to it for the year ahead. The simple industry standard is that between 5 and 7% of your annual turnover could be spent on all advertising and marketing initiatives for a proactive retail business looking to increase sales.
How to split the budget between different media channels
Make sure you spend the majority – say 80% – on what you know works best from experience. We see that traditional methods still work very well, especially television, direct mail, press and radio. It may be that certain newspapers or radio stations have been effective in the past. If you haven’t done so recently, it will be worth a review of your advertising rates, especially press rates, which have dropped dramatically in some areas – in line with circulation and readership.
Direct mail is still, in our current experience, the single most effective sales-generating method by far. You simply can’t beat the physical presence of a letter pack thudding onto the floor, containing your personalised written invitation to a special event.
However, the results of electronic media are rapidly improving, and some of your budget ought to be used to try these new channels. If you don’t try them, you’ll never know. It’s well worth employing a specialist to guide you through the fast-changing maze of digital and social media, especially if you are not very tech-savvy.
You can now target campaigns geographically through social media. Web, SMS and email campaigns can also be very effective. But, for the traditional bricks-and-mortar big-ticket retailer, digital and social media do not yet replace the traditional methods. Try using digital and social media to support and enhance your traditional advertising campaigns.
Your website is also very important. Keep it up to date and review it completely every year, as things are changing quickly. For example, at the time of writing, Google have announced that websites which are not tablet- and smartphone-friendly, will be blocked from Google search results!
However, we believe that independent retailers would do better by making their website a tool for driving in-store footfall rather than trying to take on the big online retailers with their own – expensive and time-consuming – online store.
Test and measure your advertising
We’ve all heard of Lord Leverhulme’s famous summary on the cost of advertising: “I know half of our advertising is wasted. I just don’t know which half!” There’s certainly some truth in that statement, even for the most diligent and experienced marketing people. With any new ad design or with any new media channel, you can’t know the outcome for sure until you try it. Therefore, it would be almost criminal not to measure and record the response.
Again, direct response advertising is not only the most effective and cost effective, it is also a lot easier to measure. When it comes to the end of a defined sales event, you’ll know what you spent and you’ll know what you took. If you are doing mostly brand-building advertising, it will be very difficult to measure.
A complete revamp of your advertising plan can save you money and increase your sales – I hope I’ve helped you understand where to start.
Bernard Eaton is the MD of Greenwood Retail, a professional retail sales promotion service. This article was published in the July issue of Furniture News magazine.
