5 Ways to Use Internet Marketing to Boost Retail Sales

Many retail businesses, especially smaller local companies, don’t bother to use the internet for their marketing efforts because they don’t think it will help them. This despite the fact that many of these places have seen their sales drop dramatically in the last 5 to 10 years. Where do you think that business is going? Online and to your local competition!

No matter what your retail business is, internet marketing can make a difference. Here are five ways that retail internet marketing can boost your sales.

It will help more people find your brick and mortar store. You think that going online is all about having a fancy website? Think again. Even local businesses that do everything out of a single brick and mortar location can benefit greatly from marketing themselves online. Why? Because people don’t use the Yellow Pages anymore; they just Google for a store near them.

A study out just a few years ago found that 70 percent of people looked online first when trying to find local businesses, and if they couldn’t find what they were looking for quickly, they moved on to a competitor. At the very least, this means that you need to make sure that your business is listed on directory services like Google Places, Yelp, and CitySearch. Building out these directory listings is part of any Local Search Optimizing campaign. That way, when people search for “scooter repair Lincoln,” your Nebraska-based mechanic shop will pop up. Just make sure that you keep all information current and keep an eye out for any complaints that people put in the comments so that you can address them or you may drive people away rather than drawing them in.

Local SEO (“scooter repair Lincoln” is an example) can be a great boon as well. SEO, or search engine optimization, essentially involves identifying and utilizing common search terms that relate to your business so that when people Google (or Bing) that search term, your business is more likely to show up.

It can expand your customer base outside of your location. Even by just following the above suggestion, there’s a good chance that you’ll get some new customers, but in this case, we’re talking about the fact that the internet can make you global. Yes, that means creating a website, and this isn’t just something you can put together in five minutes. You want a fully-functioning retail site that’s easy to navigate and has a shopping cart so that people can place orders online.

The benefit of doing this, of course, is that you’re no longer just selling to people in your town, city, or even region; your customers can come from anywhere in the country – or even the world! Of course, those people still have to find your site before they can buy, which means diving into SEO by building your site with keywords in mind and adding ongoing content like a blog. Those kinds of things will help to keep you near the top of the search rankings and bring more people to your page. Additional considerations if you decide to do this are logistics. Be prepared to think through fulfillment of those orders.

It can tell you what people really want. One of the best things about marketing online is that you have access to analytics that tell you things like how many people are coming to your site, where they’re coming from, which pages they go to, and so on. Using that information, you can get a pretty good idea what potential customers are really interested in buying. For example, if you own a sporting goods store that sells footballs but most people seem to be more interested in your article about pads and equipment for peewee teams, you might want to think about investing in some of that merchandise.

The beauty of analytics is that you can constantly gauge interest and plan your inventory based on what your potential customer is looking for.

It can make you an expert. By writing things like blogs and white papers and making informational videos, potential customers will come to your site and start to feel like you have expertise in your field. Why does this matter? Because most people are far more likely to buy things from someone who seems to know what they are talking about.

It’s the same thing that businesses have asked their employees to do for years inside the actual brick and mortar store. The difference here is that you’re not just interacting with a single person, but potentially thousands. If you can convert even a few of those people into sales, it’s a big win.

It can help you to forge relationships. When you make a sale, you don’t want it to just be a one-time deal. It costs a lot less to keep an existing customer than to find a new one. Internet marketing provides a wealth of ways for you to continue your relationship with a customer after they’ve made a purchase, including email campaigns, newsletters, and social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

You can use these mediums to help further build a sense of trust with your customers, increase your brand awareness, and promote new products and services. With Facebook and Twitter, you even have the ability to instantly communicate with any of your followers by writing comments back and forth, making your interactions even more personal.