Digital Marketing

Don’t Be A Wallflower

Wallflower[ wawl-flou-er ] noun: any person, organization, etc., that remains on or has been forced to the sidelines of any activity.

Consumer shopping habits are changing faster than ever before, the true, reasons are complex whether it’s the increasing difficulty moving around our cities, or wanting to use our free time more efficiently to engage with what is important to us, or simply because it’s more convenient and flexible, but the constant is; more and more shoppers are doing their shopping online at such a rate you can almost hear the whoosh of the sales moving the brick-and-mortar to online.

This article is not about how you can use your inventory control systems to know what sells and makes you money. Or how to use CRM solutions to stay in touch with your clients more effectively. Nor is it about how to create a more engaging experience in your store to keep people continuously flowing in. The truth is you should already have been doing this for a long while now, your store’s front window is a marketing mediumthat costs you money to operate 365 days of the years, retailers need to figure out how to lower your Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) as low as possible, while increasing Customer Lifetime Value (CLV).

This article is about how to engage current customers and potential new customers to shop online for your products. You can no longer afford to sit on the sidelines waiting for your customers to come through your doors, you must reach out to where they are doing their shopping right now, in their homes, in their favorite coffee shops, at work, etc.

Just walk down any major shopping street or shopping mall in any city in North America, and you’ll see one thing you have, that they don’t have, what the big store names don’t have which is soul or personality, to a very large extent today’s retail scene has been gentrified by “accountants” and “bean counters” and these brands depend on either marketing like having celebrities posting their pictures with their merchandise on social media or big discounts.

The First thing you need to do is take your ecommerce space seriously, I still see online stores with Flash banners, which always makes me wonder what in the world are these people thinking and doing, if you don’t care why should the visitors to your web site?  In all probability your physical store is open at least 60 hours per week, doesn’t you e-store also merit some love J ? If not, why would you expect any success with your online presence?

 Online shopping is a visual medium vying for attention in a very crowed space, (fun fact to Amazon the difference between a page loading in 5 seconds vs 6 seconds would be $1.6 Billion US dollars). Whether it’s Amazon or Walmart online, most online shopping is impulse shopping and this is where you can make a difference let your uniqueness or as the brain people like to call it “Unique Selling Proposition”. My first recommendation is you hire a professional on a regular basis to work on the technical side of your online e-store to ensure its technically up date, do you really want to become an engineer (trying to make a point)?

Then either hire someone (a company, an employee, a friend, a sibling, offspring, etc)  on a permanent basis or learn how to use some of the same tools big companies are using to continuously engage with their target audience (you don’t need to be an engineer). Whoever you choose to take the lead ensure 2 things that you’re always part of conversation, after all it’s your business, it’s your vision, it’s your story can no one can tell it as well as you.  Second it must be replicate-able, just because your friend or offspring decide to move on your online presence should not be allowed to falter.

The reason you need to engage with your target audience is because today’s shoppers seek out businesses that match their expectations and standards.

Today nearly 75% of North American adults use some sort of social media, who hasn’t used YouTube to learn how to do something? You cannot afford not to engage with this audience.

By engaging with customers on social media like

Build your brand loyalty

Connect with advocates or influencers for your brand

Direct valuable traffic to your website

Establish genuine relationships with customers

Gain valuable insights into customer preferences Increase Web Traffic

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