This is the 7th article of Retail Store Marketing Guide.
Many retailers don’t realize the value of returning customers. National retail chains already have the latest CRM software and staff for data mining and follow up. Some of them do a great job to increase the returning customer rate.
As a local retail store owner, you can benefit from email marketing in two ways. You can bring in new customers to your store and also increase your returning customer rate via email marketing. Let’s talk about both options with some examples.
Bring in New Customers to Your Store via Email Marketing
Email marketing is an affective way of bringing in new customers to your retail store, and it has the highest long term ROI between all online marketing methods. Think about all the fairs you attend, local events you sponsor, or participate. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to ask for the email addresses of attendants. You can also use several online marketing methods to create quality, permission based email list to promote your retail store.
Remember the basic rules of email marketing. Your email list needs to be permission based, therefore no spamming is allowed. If you start sending spam emails to prospective customers who didn’t sign up for your list, it will hurt your brand more than it will benefit it.
Make a list of all possible occasions you can start asking people for their email addresses. In local events, running small drawings would be a good idea to increase the number of emails you collect. Enter your email address, and enter a drawing to win a t-shirt type of thing.
The key here is, to contact these people asap. If you have collected email addresses on Sunday during a local event, don’t wait for monday, send them a thank you email on sunday evening right after the event. Constantly keep in touch with an informative, quality newsletter.
If you run a quality and niche newsletter, they will stop by your store sooner than later. Remember, do not keep promoting your store on every email, do a soft promotion. Focus on the niche and the local events.
Increase Returning Customer Rate via Email Marketing
Once the customers are in your store, it’s easier to collect their email addresses. Kindly ask at the register if they like to be added to the email list to receive coupons and special news. You will be surprised how many positive responses you will get.
If you are having difficulty collecting email addresses by simply asking, try being creative and run promotions in the store to collect more email addresses.
Offer a last minute coupon at the register if they enter the email list, or a local event invitation if they accept to be in the list. Be creative, and come up with smart promotions within your niche and local culture to increase the signup rate for your email list.
Once you have their emails, similar to the first part, you need contact them and keep in touch frequently. But again, remember, do not bother them, offer them lots of quality and free content. Remember to check out my email marketing guide for further email marketing techniques.
If done right, email marketing is the gem of all online marketing methods. A quality, followed, smart email newsletter is a long term, recurring investment with a great ROI rate. Do it right the first time, and enjoy the benefits of email marketing for your local retail store.
*This article is a part of 10 article series; “10 Ways to Increase Retail Store Sales via Online Marketing“. Remember to read the other articles in this guide to increase your store’s foot traffic and sales.
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