Digital Marketing Is More Science
Than Art
Fortunately
modern digital marketing is more of a science than an art with opportunity for
measurement, making comparison and/or return on investment calculation far
easier than purely traditional forms of marketing.
Unfortunately,
one of the strongest (46.2%) factors that the attending jewellery retailers had
already identified as a key growth strategy, better customer experience,
is a difficult aspect of the customer journey to express in the digital
marketing world.
It had
already been stated during the day that a customer engaged through a
multi-channel experience, both online and in-store, was worth 130% of a single
channel shopper, clearly many of those attending understood the value that
could deliver to their business.
In order
to address practical aspects of digital marketing that the jeweler shop owners
could largely deal with themselves I focused on a number of key tools.
2.
Maps
With
Google attributed to over 90% of desktop searches and an even higher proportion
on mobile, this part of my talk focused on Google’s location marketing based
opportunities.
Mobile
internet will become ‘The Internet’ over the next few years and businesses need
to ensure that the location aspects of search that mobiles automatically offer
are dealt with as a priority.
Google’s
local business listings (formerly Google places) now know as Google+ local
offer retailers one the most effective tools to make their shop visible to
searching consumers. There is no excuse for not having your business listing(s)
set up, claimed and ideally optimized for the key products and services that your
ideal consumers may be searching for. Of the course the very fact that people
are searching suggests they didn’t have a destination in mind.
Local Search
Strategy
Consider
how far your existing customers travel when defining the extent of your local marketing
and then ensure that your Name, Address and Telephone number are referenced
(along with your website where relevant) on all online content. For example,
the content, links and meta tags of your website, your (and others) blogs,
forums or news site comments, social media profiles & posts and in image
and video file naming.
For local
businesses not only is the internet a great leveler of the marketing ‘playing
field’ but in fact when it comes to local searches you often have the upper
hand. Larger organizations tend not to have a cohesive online marketing strategies and rarely have budget allocated in
such a way to enable them to match what you can achieve.
3.
Video
Jeweler is
a very visual product, in fact, it is fair to say that without the ability to
see the product from different angles and see it worn, you don’t really get an
understanding of its appeal. It is also true that getting across the value to
the consumer of the service level you offer as a business is very difficult in
words.
Even using
images, it can be difficult to represent both of these key aspects of the
consumer shopping experience. Therefore using video is a great way to get your
message across, and better still represents a largely untapped search marketing
opportunity on a local level.
Using
sites like YouTube, PInterest, Flickr and instagram, businesses can engage with
those who appreciate the visual side of shopping and improve your search
marketing at the same time.
The double
edged sword of rich media is that despite its effectiveness in communicating
the unique selling points of your product or service, it is generally not
beneficial for search optimization compared to use of words in your website content
and it can have an impact on the load time of your site, particularly on mobile
where the patience of the consumer is at its least.
4.
Community
Moving on
to the social side of marketing, retailers need to keep in touch with their
customers (and potential customers) on a regular basis, in an ideal world
becoming almost like their social secretary, advising on events they should
attend planning their purchases and keeping them up to date with product
knowledge and fashion trends.
This can
be done via a number of means including email, social media and forum or blog
sites. Of course the postal system offers a traditional alternative but be
creative with how you use it, don’t simply bombard people with adverts, make
physical communication special, perhaps via invites, gifts or exclusive offers.
Physical communication should always include a link to the online world,
whether a website address, reference to social media profiles or even a QR code
depending on your audience. Often a mix can be useful to determine which your
consumer contacts prefer to use.
One of the
aims of your social media should be to create a community, this could be an
exclusive club for customers, a loyalty based elite group for regulars or high
spending customers or simply an opportunity for anyone with an interest in your
product to influence the environment you provide. An example could be asking
consumers to vote on the content of next week's shop window display.
Make sure
that you know the consumers that are local to your store(s) as there is little
point inviting a shopper to in-store events who visited whilst on holiday if
they live hundreds of miles from your shop.
Within
your ‘communities’ you need to focus on 3 key elements.
§ Educate – teach
your consumer group about your product, demonstrate your knowledge and how them
shop like an expert. This can also help take the focus off price and on to the
value of your quality or service proposition.
§ Excite – make
communication and the shopping experience fun, create a buzz with challenges,
adventures and competitions. Making winners of consumers can often help convert
them to shoppers.
§ Involve – if you
want a customer led business why aren’t you asking your customers what they
want to see in your shop, how they should be served and making them part of
your creative team. This can be done online and/or in store and enable you to
identify influencers
You can
also monitor what is being said about your business and your local area on
social media, link up with relevant causes, other businesses with a similar
customer base and maybe even those that you have considered competitive,
assuming they are happy to. You’d be surprised the impact of offering choice to
your consumer on the overall spend and it doesn’t have to cost you a penny.
Link all
of the above with your PR, notifying press and community groups of the things
you are doing to create awareness, build relationships and provide support.
5.
Practical
OK, now
down to the basic practical tasks you can do to improve your local and social marketing.
None of the below need to cost you a penny, so avoid those that impose a cost
to establish.
§ industry websites, professional membership organizations and
supplier outlet lists etc.
§ involve yourself with relevant local forums and community
websites
Create a
record of what details you have put where and keep them updated as necessary, include
images and video links if possible and reference Name, Address and
Telephone number as well as website and social
media links where they are offered.
Don’t
forget to integrate your online and real world marketing and consider that
those engaged online may be a specific customer group, a different mix of
product (or service) may be more relevant to them, more fashion focused
perhaps.
If you
offer extra benefits for customers such as a ‘ring cleaning’ service, make it
feel to the customer that it is something special for them, not just part of
the standard service.
However,
all of the above should be part of a strategy plan with measurable objectives
and key targets and milestones. Trial different approaches and don’t be afraid
to remove elements from the mix is they don’t appear to add any value.
