How Retailers Are Using Social Media In-Store to Boost Sales

In the online era, retailers have more competition than ever before. At one point, the competition came from fellow brick and mortar stores and business owners were dealing with customers face to face.

The rules of the game have changed but there are things like online reputation management and using social media to connect with customers to deal with, as well as the more traditional methods of interacting with them.

If you are running a retail store, there are ways you can use social media sites to give your in-store sales a boost.

The advantage that a brick and mortar store has over an online one is that you are dealing with customers who have decided to enter your premises. They are less likely to be casual browsers, like you would find online.

Your clientele is more likely to be motivated to make a purchase, and you can use location-based marketing to reach out to them during this window of opportunity.

Get your customers’ attention with location-based marketing

1/ Respond to your customers’ social media posts while they are receptive.

 

If your customer posts a Tweet or an update onto their Facebook page while in your store, you have a brief window of about two or three minutes during which they will be expecting a response to what they have just posted.

If your firm responds within that time, you will have the advantage of being able to have the customer’s full attention.

To be effective, the response needs to include a way to build a conversation with the customer or some type of call to action.

As much as social media is an essential part of your retail marketing, you should recognize that it isn’t always going to be 100% positive.

That’s normal. With every complaint and negative comment made on social media you have the chance to turn it around and make it into something positive (with tools such as LinkWiper), as long as you deal with it in the right way and do your best to keep your reputation intact.

2/ Use hyperlocal social monitoring tools to find social influencers.

 

Some of the social monitoring tools will reveal important information about your customers, such as their Klout scores, the number of friends or followers they have on social networking sites.

This information can be even more valuable than the size of a particular customer’s purchase on a single shopping trip.

Today’s consumers are likely to discuss a purchase using social media. Make a point of finding and rewarding influencers with a coupon or a special offer good for their next visit as a good way to reward new local customers and create goodwill that will be shared with others.

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3/ Share information about items through social media to encourage sales.

 

Your customers are likely to use social media to ask opinions about whether to make a purchase.

Use this medium to share the number of sales already made through the day, advise customers about number of units remaining on popular items, or make customers aware of special deals.

It can be your own way of driving customers toward the specific items you want to promote once you get customers into the store.

These suggestions for location-based marketing can help you to boost your brand to your foot traffic and they make a good addition to your other marketing methods.

In 2015, you will want to keep up with what your customers are doing, and most of them are already using social media.

Use it to boost your retail sales.