Recipe for In-Store Sales and Success: Bridging the Gap Between the Physical and Digital

It’s no secret that digital especially mobile-first technologies have not only changed the way customers shop, but also the way retailers boost in-store sales. From how we use our smartphones to discover stores and products to what we want our purchase experiences to be like.

Not to mention, eCommerce retailers who are armed with all the data around their customers’ visiting, browsing and buying behavior.

They use this very data to reach the right people, at the right time- with the right offer.

There is a form to request a demo or get more information at the end of the article. So please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or want access to our store analytics or re-targeting ads platform.

If you’re here, as a physical retailer you’re most likely evaluating where your store or chain stands. How can you boost in-store sales by tapping into digital technologies? How can you build a bridge between your physical brick-and-mortar and the chaotic digital world your customer love?

You Don’t Have To Distribute and Sell Online, But You Need To Attract and Market Online.

As a starting point, consider asking yourself:

1. How can I learn about my visitors and customers so that I can send more effective and personalized offers?
2. How do I digitally attract my ideal customers to come and buy from my physical brick-and-mortar store?
3. When and How can I re-attract or retarget customers to keep coming back to my store?

All good questions- and the answers are right here.

1. Get Your Hands On Accurate Customer and In-Store Data

While eCommerce retailers track everything to offer better offers and experiences, physical retail stores remain data blind spots.

Beyond basic data points like footfall and total sales, brick-and-mortar stores fail to track customer activity, behaviour or patterns.

As a physical retailer you need to make sure that you’re not missing out due to a lack of high-quality data!

A simple, cost-effective and convenient approach would be to choose an all-in-one in-store analytics and targeting platform, like Pinoffer.

A platform that tracks and analyses all of your in-store customers, activities and sales.

Our dashboard specifically, tells you everything that happens in your store(s) or branch(es). Who your customers are, how much time they spend in your premises, what they like, what they buy, when they buy, how many leave without buying, how many come back and more.

To give your sales an even bigger boost, our platform uses this data to uncover shopping patterns and preferences.

That way, you can easily run interest and preference based campaigns and take your marketing and sales game to the next level (more on this later).

2. Digitally Target Ideal Buyers for In-Store Purchases

On an average, smartphone users in the US spend more than 3 hours a day on their mobile devices.

In essence, mobile can be a rewarding targeting and marketing channel. A channel to acquire your ideal customers and drive in-store traffic and purchase decisions.

A. Geo-fenced Proximity Targeting

Geo-fencing or Geo-targeting simply put, translates to targeting potential customers around a particular location. In this case, your physical brick-and-mortar store.

Although geo-localised technologies have been around for a while, too many retailers make the mistake of bombarding passersby with countless out-of-context offers. Be it through Google and Facebook ads or real-time notifications.

Here geo-targeting solutions like our platform, can help avoid those mistakes.

Essentially, you can direct relevant in-store offers and ads to ideal customers who are in the proximity of your store based on their mobile device location.

Remember: you can specify radius down to the last decimal. So, say you want to target people in the same mall as your store, you can!

And wait there’s more.

Combining location with other targeting factors like age, gender, etc can be a great way to reach and influence ideal buyers when it’s most convenient for them to stop by your store. Get in touch with us to learn more about how you can start leveraging geo-fencing and drive in-store sales.

3. Re-targeting Past Customers Online or On-Mobile

Today, physical retailers need to make sure that their stores remain relevant places where customers want to come back to. Again, digital can be the best hook.

A.  Facebook and Google Remarketing

What better way to expose past customers to personalised offers than reappear on two of their favourite platforms. We’re talking about targeted Facebook and Google ads.

With Pinoffer for instance, you can target promotional offers to past buyers based on a bunch of other factors. Factors like shopping history, proximity to your store, their preferences etc.

Your ads could be offering discount coupons for in-store purchases exclusively to past customers who’ve gone cold. Or like Macy’s, you could be advertising specific products to frequent buyers.

As long as you avoid spamming the wrong offer at the wrong time, targeted ad campaigns can be huge stepping stone for in-store sales.

B. Personalised SMS Retargeting

With a read rate of 98%, , SMS campaigns can expand your physical stores’ boundaries into your customers’ mobile devices.

For your SMS campaign to work, you want to make it as relevant and non-spammy as possible.

Again, location can be a key targeting factor. Say, if you want to send ‘exciting discounts,’ it makes sense to SMS past customers when they’re near your store.

Purchase history can be another targeting factor. You could be running campaign to announce new stock or first day of sale to your highest spenders. You could also be SMS-ing discount coupons to say customers who bought from you two months ago.

Needles to say, Pinoffer’s retention features let you do all of this, and then some.

In the long run repeat customers or the lack of them can make or break a business. You can make sure that you end up on the winning side.

At the end of the day, the more you connect your physical store to the digital world, the more in-store sales and revenue you’ll end up generating.

Get in touch with us and learn more about how you can take advantage of digital technologies and boost your physical retail sales.

It’s time to get creative with digital!