The Complete Guide to Digital Marketing in Retail Companies

Digital marketing for retail companies is one of the most essential tools in the current context. Those organizations that are unable to position themselves in this regard, creating and implementing good strategies, tend to be quickly overtaken by their competitors, mainly due to the high degree of dynamism that we experience.

With that in mind, we prepared this guide to inform you about the relevance of digital marketing in retail, learn about some of the main related concepts, and discover what must be done to achieve success with this type of initiative. Keep reading!

What is the importance of digital marketing for retail companies?#

Digital marketing is a specific derivative of traditional marketing that encompasses all efforts and initiatives that use electronic devices or the internet in order to explore the market and leverage the value propositions of companies. For the execution of digital marketing, it is common to use the most diverse channels, such as search engine sites, social networks, e-mail lists, blogs, and other online tools to connect with current and potential customers.

Although traditional marketing may still be present in printed newspaper and magazine advertisements, in communication via telephone calls or at physical points of sale, digital marketing is growing continuously and with the tendency to overcome offline strategies.

In fact, the main objective of digital marketing is to understand most of the techniques used so far in the world outside the internet and then adapt and translate them, increasing their reach and generating scale gains that could not have been imagined before.

In the retail world, companies that started investing in e-commerce quickly realized that this is a very interesting way to generate revenue, thanks to a series of conditioning factors that digital marketing offers: lower costs, innovation, strategies dedicated to an objective, and also more specific tools that help manage customer relationships.

Although there are still customers who prefer to go to the physical store to see and try the product, online shopping is gaining prominence due to the technological facilities offered by e-commerce. More and more people are becoming adept at this type of choice. A survey conducted by NZN Intelligence reveals that 74% of Brazilians already prefer to shop using the internet.

The enormous competition between brands and the existence of a hyperconnected customer, fully informed and more likely to change if they are not offered what they want, meant that any company that valued itself was forced to have an excellent online presence.

Today, the number of retailers that insist on remaining only offline and end up having to close their doors due to competition with those that offer their products via the internet is growing year after year.

To prevent this from happening, it is important to use digital marketing not only to take care of the image of your online business, but also to create a set of internet presence initiatives that work in an integrated manner, allowing you to attract customers and sell products also through this means.

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What is a sales funnel and how does it relate to the concept of persona?#

Sales funnel is a term that refers to the process by which companies guide customers when buying products, especially when attracting and selling online. The definition is correlated to the steps taken to find interested people, to open a negotiation and, finally, to sell the products to buyers.

The typical sales funnel takes place in several phases, which differ depending on the business model that is adopted. Today, there are several approaches to the subject. But generally speaking, a sales funnel has three clear divisions: top, middle, and bottom.

At the top of the funnel, there are the stages of capturing and generating leads, which are those people, among your target audience, who are being reached by your marketing initiatives. It is common to correlate this stage with the awareness phases, in which potential buyers learn about the existence of your products and show an initial interest in learning more about them.

In the middle of the funnel, people are exposed to more specific characteristics of the products and also to the conditions of sale. That way, they can assess whether they really want to buy and what are the attributes they will take into account to make the decision.

At the bottom of the funnel, there is the purchase decision, a possible negotiation of the terms and conditions, ending with the transaction itself. It should be noted that the customer can withdraw at any time from this funnel, which has this name precisely because the number of stakeholders at the top tends to be greater than the number of those who reach the end of the process and actually generate revenues.

There are digital marketing strategies and tactics that work directly at each of these stages. In this context, companies started to use the concept of persona. It is different from the simple definition of a more generic target audience.

With the persona, a fictional character is created with all her well-defined characteristics. It’s as if she were someone who represented the target audience. In this way, it is easier to understand your pain and use them in exercises to analyze your interests, helping to establish better solutions to serve you, both in terms of products and in the communication expressions that will be used.

What are the best digital marketing strategies for retail?#

Before starting any digital marketing initiative, it is necessary to define what the general objectives of the business are and unfold them to each product group. Of course, the more results you can achieve, the better. However, it is not always feasible to attack all fronts simultaneously, so it is necessary to speak out about what is a priority.

Expand the customer base? Introducing a new product to the market? Use a lower margin product and then work on the lead to sell others with higher added value? All of this must be thought out in accordance with general business plans. Digital marketing actions should never be isolated - they need to be worked in an integrated manner with other sectors, such as market intelligence, logistics, and finance.

Good digital marketing strategies start from identifying certain points, such as the demographics of those customers you want to reach, the delivery capacity, the viability of offering discounts and, especially, a budget, which will be used to finance these initiatives.

In addition, digital marketing must be focused on consumer experiences. It should not serve as a mere advertisement for products, but it must be part of the overall sales process, increasing the customer’s perception of value, making them buy more, engage with your business and become a promoter of what you sell.

What are the 4 best digital marketing practices for retail?#

Something very important that must be said about digital marketing is that it evolves at a considerably faster speed. While traditional approaches could be successful for decades, in the online context, several of them end up being overcome in a few years, or even months. This is because we have never seen such a great search for innovation as the one that is happening now. But even so, some practices continue to stand out.

1. Do the segmentation#

If you don’t know who you want to sell to, you’re unlikely to succeed in your initiatives. Defining the audience is the first step in successful campaign planning. Discover the best ways to attract the right people to your sales funnel and also what the discourse is and what sales promises are most capable of converting them into customers.

2. Make decisions based on data#

Management using information that can be transformed into indicators is already something consolidated in companies from the most diverse sectors. But this issue was raised to another level due to the advancement of technologies. And when it comes to digitally established commerce, the capacity to obtain and process data is intrinsic.

Therefore, it is essential to be aware of what the data says, to look for other databases available in the market and to always use them in the best way. Believe me: if your company doesn’t, another one will.

3. Maintain an omnichannel presence#

Create a position and disseminate your messages on the most diverse existing platforms. It is necessary to evaluate the best way to do this, because, sometimes, the established line of dialogue must vary according to the network. Twitter, for example, has very different characteristics from those we see on Facebook, and so on.

It is important not to neglect any of them and to work to occupy as many spaces as possible, including integrating with offline initiatives, if you identify that this could be profitable.

4. Invest in content production#

One of the most efficient ways to attract leads, especially to the top of the funnel, is to invest in the creation of content related to the products you sell. It’s important that the content is on your site, on your own or partners’ blogs, and also on your social networks and email campaigns. It must be attractive, easy to read, true and direct.

When you adopt a line of content that communicates with advanced SEO techniques, it is possible to increase your digital presence, including through organic traffic, something that can maximize your results while reducing costs.

What are the best digital marketing tools for retail?#

There are several tools that can help your company put its digital marketing strategies into practice. They range from systems that serve to automate routines to solutions for some specific areas.

The use of email marketing is something that has been adopted since the beginning of this type of action, due to its high degree of reach and good conversion rates. Today, there are certain tools, such as Mailchimp and Active Campain, that work focused on this, offering platforms that allow creating models and sending in a simplified manner, including providing performance indicators.

Another tool that is being widely used is the integrated system that allows something known as BOPIS. This is an acronym, in English, for something that can be translated as “buy online and get it at the store”. It is a very interesting option, since, on the one hand, it reduces logistics costs, while, on the other, it increases the chances that your company will offer better experiences for customers.

Something that is gaining more and more space is the development of own applications. Until then, they were only adopted by large companies, due to high costs. However, in addition to the fact that the investment to create something like this has decreased, the associated benefits are very interesting.

This is because they allow direct access to various behavioral data of your customers, making it possible to personalize your interaction with them, offering highly customized offers.

What are the digital retail marketing mistakes that should be avoided?#

The most common mistake when a retail company decides to adopt digital marketing is not being completely clear about who its audience is. When this happens, all investments can go downhill, and decision makers may end up giving up, thinking that this implementation does not bring results, when, in fact, this was due to an error.

Knowing who your ideal customer is will ensure that your actions are in tune with their interests, pain, and problems. And in this way, the chances of converting become significantly higher.

Additionally, setting clear and measurable goals will offer guidance and help you better assess your success in digital marketing. So, if your goal is to increase traffic, improve social engagement, or win more leads, set a measurable goal so you can follow up.

Companies also fail to create a process for documenting initiatives. When this happens, there is no continuous learning, and future initiatives may be conducted through trial and error. Without a record of what is being done, it is difficult to correctly assess the effectiveness of each action.

A basic mistake that is observed in those who are starting out is to think that simply creating a company profile on social networks is digital marketing.

Those who do so usually end up posting and interacting with other users in a way that is completely disconnected from business strategies. In fact, it should be just the opposite, and the presence in these networks should reflect exactly what was defined in the first place.

Digital marketing for retail companies is, without a doubt, essential. The massive use of technologies is a path of no return, and future generations tend to be less and less willing to buy from companies that do not have or that work poorly their online presence.

That’s why we invite you to visit Wikimee. Our solution allows you to integrate, connect and energize all your initiatives aimed at people, content, processes and operations related to digital marketing. Contact us and schedule a demo to learn more!