7 Marketing Techniques Every Retailer Should Know

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What is marketing for stores?

Marketing refers to all the activities that a company plans and executes to get customers to buy the products it wants to sell.

Market research and promotion are part of marketing. If we further narrow down the scope to stores, it can be translated as “the cycle of planning, promotion strategy, sales, and after-sales service that is carried out for the purpose of selling products that meet customer needs and increasing profits.”

7 marketing techniques to increase store sales

There are many methods of marketing, from classic ones to those that have been proposed in recent years. There are many types, and many people are confused about which one to choose for their company.

This time, from the perspective of “increasing store sales,” we will focus on seven marketing methods that can be expected to be effective.

1.Digital marketing

Digital marketing, as the name suggests, is a marketing method that utilizes digital technology, especially data obtained through digital technology.

Although it is easy to confuse it with other terms, the scope narrows in the order of marketing > digital marketing > web marketing.

Web marketing is digital marketing that is centered around the Web.

In recent years, marketing activities rarely do not utilize digital media and IT technology.

There are probably very few stores that do not disseminate information at all on their website or SNS, and that there is no information posted on review sites.

Website access history, user registration information, Twitter review analysis, etc. are important data that stores can use, along with POS data and customer lists, and are indispensable information for planning measures. Therefore, digital marketing can be said to be an important basic method for stores.

Also, the basis for all of this is the content provided by the company, and the types of content are text, images, and videos. In recent years, more impactful videos have become mainstream, and the size of the video marketing advertising market continues to expand year by year. Against this background, President Nakamura of HumanCentrix, a video production and distribution company, says that the role of video in content, which is the basis of digital marketing, is becoming more and more in demand.

2.O2O marketing

O2O is an abbreviation for Online to Offline, and refers to attracting customers from online (digital media such as websites) to offline (physical stores, etc.).

Not only online → offline, but also the reverse offline → online is called O2O. A derivative form is O2O2O (on air to Online to Offline), which uses TV as a starting point to attract customers from smartphones to brick-and-mortar stores.

This method of increasing customers and sales through O2O-related measures is called O2O marketing. Typical examples of such measures are issuing coupons through social media advertisements and email newsletters. From there, you can encourage customers to visit your store and make purchases.

The reason for using digital media as a starting point is that it is possible to notify a large number of targets at a lower cost than producing printed materials such as flyers, posters, and direct mail. Although it depends on the method used, digital media has the advantage of being easy to measure, so it is often used to understand cost-effectiveness.

Additionally, there is a term OMO (Online Merges Offline) that is compared to O2O . This is a relatively new concept proposed around 2017, and is a marketing method that is conscious of the fusion of online and offline.

Nowadays, the use of smartphones, collaboration of digital data, and utilization of big data have become commonplace, and OMO, which uses digital data as a starting point and utilizes digital and analog (offline media such as printed materials) without distinction, is also attracting attention. We are gathering.

3. Relationship marketing

Relationship means “relationship,” and “a marketing method that increases sales by building long-term, good relationships with customers” is called relationship marketing.

Specific measures include analyzing sales information and taking different approaches to each segment, and acquiring customers’ personal information and distributing coupons on their birthdays. An increasing number of measures are being taken to strengthen relationships with customers using SNS such as LINE, Facebook, and Twitter.

For example, a shopping district can use LINE to regularly send information about daily events, new product points, discount information, etc., which connects customers with stores, creates a sense of familiarity with them, and ultimately encourages them to purchase products. There are examples where it has been effective.

In terms of building good long-term relationships with customers, it has something in common with content marketing, which involves providing valuable content to turn potential customers into fans of your company.

In relationship marketing, the key point is how to gain contact with customers. You will need an address to send a DM, an email address to send an email magazine, and a friend registration to send information on LINE.

Therefore, it is necessary to get people to register their personal information by giving incentives such as “If you register, you will receive advantageous information” or “We will give you a coupon.”

4.Buzz Marketing

Buzz is a word that describes the buzzing sound that bees make, and in colloquial language it means gossip flying around (like bees). Many of you have probably heard of the word “buzz.” From this perspective, buzz marketing refers to “a marketing method that (intentionally) creates gossip, topics, and word of mouth to spread the word and increase awareness.”

For example, by challenging yourself to do things that you wouldn’t normally be able to do, or by providing topics that make people want to poke fun at you, you can attract users’ interest and encourage the spread of the word. The key to getting many people to spread the word is to prepare content that people will want to share with others. In buzz marketing, various media such as real scenes and websites serve as starting points for topics, but SNS plays the main role in spreading the word.

Buzz marketing tends to involve companies and stores intentionally spreading information, so if you don’t do it well, you run the risk of being viewed negatively. There has been a case where a local government’s PR content featuring an anthropomorphic eel became a major issue due to its misogyny, so consideration must be given to various aspects when designing content with buzz in mind to avoid causing unexpected controversy.

5. Area marketing

Area ( area ) is also used in Japanese, but it means “region, district.” Area marketing refers to “a method of dividing a region into areas and conducting marketing that is appropriate for that area.”

Based on a commercial area analysis, we divide the area into areas with many children, 10km surrounding competing stores, etc., and implement marketing measures that match regional characteristics.

For example, if your store sells products targeted at young women, you could consider posting your products in areas where many women in their 20s and 30s live within the store’s business area.

GIS is used as the basis for segmentation. GIS is a geographic information system, which is a database that contains information such as maps and store locations in layers. Furthermore, by combining smartphone location information, it becomes possible to create complex segments such as “women who visited a store in a certain period and who lived within the 23 wards.”

6.Diversity Marketing

Diversity is a word that means “variety.” It refers to a marketing method that accepts diversity in values, gender, age, etc., and provides products and services that match each person’s values.

This includes not only visible attributes such as being Japanese, male, and being in their 60s, but also attributes such as being “highly environmentally conscious” and “healthy-minded.” By sending messages that match their attributes and values, rather than messages that are tailored to everyone, you can gain sympathy from customers and make it easier for them to purchase your products.

7. Viral Marketing

Viral is the English adjective for virus, meaning “viral.”

Viruses spread quickly, so this refers to a marketing method that spreads the virus quickly and widely through word of mouth on the Internet. It is used almost synonymously with word-of-mouth marketing.

When purchasing products and services, many people place importance on review sites such as @cosme and Kakaku.com, as well as reviews posted on SNS posts, as a source of information, so viral marketing that spreads positive word-of-mouth is effective. It can be called a method.

On the other hand, users have a strong sense of disapproval of reviews that clearly reveal the company’s intentions, or reviews that are paid in kind and concealed as advertisements, which is known as stealth marketing, so stores are working on viral marketing. Care must be taken in this case.

summary

When selecting a marketing method, it is recommended to consider which methods are effective in solving your company’s problems and whether they can be tackled without difficulty.

In recent years, the speed of technological innovation has been rapid, and customer purchasing models and appropriate marketing methods are changing one after another. In order to select the method that is suitable for your company, it is important to collect information on a daily basis.