Shopfloor CASE STUDY: TRAFALGAR ELECTRONICS, RUGBY


Soci@l skills


Digital marketing and social networking are areas our adopted Turning Point retailer Trafalgar Electronics needs to master. We took Kirk Naish, training director of field marketing agency Gekko, to visit owners Ronnie and Lisa Ashley, to help them with their online presence


43


Whether you choose Facebook or Twitter, or other web-based media, it’s really a case of trying to decide what you’re going to say – you have to have a call to action Kirk Naish, training director, Gekko


that, but I think it will be useful in the future. We’ve done our website in-house, but it’s not the best.


Left to right: Trafalgar owners Lisa and Ronnie Ashley and Gekko’s training director, Kirk Naish


Ronnie Ashley: Social media and online are things we could do with some help on. We’re learning social media as we go. We want to get noticed and get products out there.


Lisa Ashley: It’s difficult and I don’t know how to do it. We have a Facebook account. Matt, who works in the shop, uses it, but we know there’s so much more we can do. Social media feels like a big beast


that we have to tackle, but we’re keen to do it. We need to reach a new audience and tell them what we do.


Kirk Naish: Do you have a database of your customers?


LA: We do.


KN: A lot of social media starts with your own customer base and them liking and sharing content you place on it. A lot of independents have a big network of customers and they use that database to solicit promotions and marketing activity, such as events that are coming up in-store. I would suggest taking that database, but you have to look at what permissions you have to use that data in certain ways.


RA: Our e-pos system allows us to ask new customers if we can contact them in the future and if they’re happy to give us their e-mail address. We have tick box options, such as ‘which website did you find us on?’ and ‘did you find us through the press?’ We’ve only just started doing


Social media feels like a big beast that we have to tackle, but we’re keen to do it. We need to reach a new audience and tell them what we do


Lisa Ashley, co-owner, Trafalgar Electronics


LA: We’re asking every new customer where they heard about us. We do some newspaper advertising, as our customers are of an age where they still get a local paper. Deciding what we do with our website is a big hurdle – it’s not enabled to do sales. It’s more of a shop window.


KN: Do you think you’ve got the demographic to do click and collect?


RA: We’re not sure.


KN: Fully transactional websites can cost quite cost a bit of money to put together and have a significant infrastructure behind them. It’s no good having click and collect if no one is getting the products for your customers at the other end. The inde pendents that do click and collect are the bigger ones, with several stores, as the scale of cost is less. I’m assuming your customer base is quite affluent and mature?


RA: It is.


KN: I’m wondering if the website is the first thing to do. Whether you choose Facebook or Twitter, or other web-based media, it’s really


a case of trying to decide what you’re going to say – you have to have a call to action. It could be an in-store promotion, activity or product that you want to direct customers to. You need to able to measure the effectiveness of it. It’s about trying to decide what you want to do with your social media and which platform is the best one to drive that.


Facebook is very popular because if you are going to look at co- funding some kind of activity with a brand, they will be more interested if you can target specific age ranges and demographics of customers.


RA: We like the idea of that.


KN: In terms of the cost for a brand to do a campaign for a two-week period, it’s relatively inexpensive.


LA: It’s so much cheaper than print advertising.


KN: It’s a good way to start, as you can dabble with a few little promotions to see which one drives the type of thing you’re looking for.


What do you think


Email the editor at seanhannam@ERTgroup.co.uk


?


February 2018 ertonline.co.uk


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48