Deck the halls with boughs of lolly
How can you add some sparkle to peak season sales? Richard Stevenson, managing director of Quick Brown Fox PR, has some top tips on getting your shop and your social media strategy fit for the festive period.
Ho, ho, ho, high street heroes! Christmas is just around the corner, the goose is getting nervous and it’s time to fully charge your marketing plans to electrify your sales across this festive season.
The obvious solution is Amazon, so to attract customers and get them to buy with you not online, creating the right ambience, specialist events and adding nice touches that cannot be replicated online has never been more important. There is very little point in going to town with festive décor, elf uniforms and shares in Mr Kipling if you are only going to attract passers-by.
Enhancing your online presence with the same level of festive
fun, advertising your events and promotions across social channels well in advance, and ensuring your existing customers know what’s going on through email marketing campaigns or loyalty programs are vital to increasing traffic in-store. Exiting customer-specific promotions and dedicated evenings
make those customers feel special, and let’s not underestimate the power of guilting customers into a purchase when they are feeling all warm and fuzzy from a bellyful of your shortbread.
The Christmas consumer is the least fickle of all shoppers,
oft filled with good cheer and/or mulled wine and coming into the store with the express intention of ticking off some of their Christmas present conundrums. Riper than Brie from that hamper that arrived back in
September, these consumers offer the year’s best chance for impulse, up-sell and down-right frivolous sales. First impressions matter at this time of year. Transform your
store with festive decorations, giving a warm and inviting feel. Consider window displays featuring best-selling electrical goods adorned with twinkling fairy lights or wrapped in festive bows, or step it up to full festive theme window displays – a trick that has worked for Hamleys in London for well over two centuries. Themed window displays and in-store décor attract customers, set the right ambience for gift purchasing, and help to get staff in the right mindset for cheery Christmas sales. Don’t underestimate the extra energy and enthusiasm staff will need to deliver the extra turnover during this period. Not every member of staff is happy dressing up as an elf and smiling inanely at customers’ screaming kids for 10-hour days, six- days a week, while fielding an infinite number of questions about the chances of delivery and installation before Christmas. (Yes, that was me back in the day… bah humbug). As the store’s most valuable asset, arguably the people you
need to keep happiest in December are your staff - and that means bonuses, incentives, treats and staff events to ensure they are fully engaged with festive sales activities throughout.
Demonstrations Taking the festive theme a stage further, there is no better time of the year for in-store events and demonstrations, complete with seasonal snacks or drinks, and a gift wrap service if you can afford the manpower and sticky tape. Gift-buying evenings, ‘top tech for the family’ days or demonstrations leveraging festive recipes using premium products in the booming SDA market are sure-fire winners, doubly so if backed up with a mince pie and a festive tipple. While events have always been a winning formula across retail
in the silly season, today’s time-pressed shoppers are looking to complete as much gift idea generation and purchasing as possible at a single destination.
Shifting The shifting tides of social media mean keeping your posts spread far and wide. The days when Facebook was king have long gone, with
Instagram and TikTok creating far more engagement with customers across almost all buyer demographics. Film a product demo or in-store clip on a smartphone, make it
fun, edit it down to under 20 seconds with any number of free apps, and it’s good to post. From staff building widow displays to the boss trying on that elf
uniform, it’s all good content for TikTok. As Luke Gammon of Wades noted at this year’s Retra
Conference, he did a short air fryer demo on TikTok and immediately sold 70 units via the store’s e-commerce platform. Powerful stuff.
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Not every member of staff is happy dressing up as an elf and smiling inanely at customers’ screaming kids for 10-hour days, six-days a week, while fielding an infinite number of questions about the chances of delivery and installation before Christmas
Pivotal The Christmas season remains a pivotal time for retailers, particularly on the high street, and keeping your marketing, décor, staff and events on point during this period is vital to make the most of the period. By creating a seamless integration of festive in-store experiences, incentivised staff engagements, and robust online strategies, it remains eminently possible to boost Christmas sales and lay the foundation for an enlarged loyal customer base year-round. Embrace the festive spirit - mulled wine included! Wishing you a prosperous and successful Christmas.
Digital Marketing 39
Digital Marketing
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