Smart-e or Smart-pants Retail Marketing & Advertising: How are we doing?

Retail Marketing First lets take a look at some elements of retail marketing that prompt purchasing and customer loyalty

Where are we at? Ambience of store Luxuriant, opulent, eminence Merchandise 10,000s linked, only 100s of own Own not promoted / highlighted enough Customer Service Number at top, but does not Stand out as a strong point Store Communication Doesnt tell me to buy Doesnt tell me what or how to buy

Where are we at? Visual Merchandising Very good, photography, Magazine etc. Price / Value Not promoted, not suggested Quality of Service Not promoted, not suggested Uniqueness Ambience suggests this as Does quality of photography Convenience Not promoted, not suggested

Recommendations Merchandise Must really make our products stand out More of the Focus on boxes Can we have price and click to order in these Highlight ours in the directory and searches Magazine is gorgeous but must focus on our products more Can we have price and click to order in these Use seasonal prompts (Mothers Day) Tell editorial their job is to sell our products. Review some of the hot retail sites. Emphasis too much on featuring products at present.

Recommendations Customer Service The number is great BUT That just isnt enough Lets shout about it. Lets even call it Customer Care Lets have links and graphics suggesting good service all over the place Lets have a whole page to tell people how proud we are of our service. Lets really go out of our way to deliver it. Write some procedures. Brief the staff.

Recommendations Store Communication Where are the seasonal promotions Where are the offers Where are the prices How do I actually buy something? Why not tempt me with something irresistible. Possibly even FREE!

Recommendations Price / Value Lets be proud of the prices We could even be expensive and proud of it Lets tell them out the exclusivity and uniqueness Site ambience already helps here Lets have some great £ sign graphics Old English, high quality, but good reliable, dependable value

Recommendations Quality of service Need help? & Customer Care links on home page please How do we source / select products How are the manufactured What guarantees are provided What quality of materials What workmanship About Smarte link a bit too investor orientated. What about the consumer. We are not raising money, we are making it!!

Recommendations Convenience One click ordering? How and when is it delivered Will you find my house What if I am out Why is this better than high street shopping Weve done the hard slog No queues No transport problems etc… Lets remind them of this stuff

Retail Marketing In summary, Lovely new redesign Next phase needs to fix:- Merchandise Customer Service Store Communication Price / Value Quality of Service Uniqueness Convenience

Advertising Now lets take a look at how we get the customers into our store. Here I accept that you have limited marketing money, although I do have some concern that you are focussing on keeping operations going as opposed to making sales the main focus.

My ideas in summary Criteria for success Joint Venture Shared advertising Mass Underground advertising Guerrilla marketing Online advertising

My ideas in summary Criteria for success Cost per £ spent Cost per visitor Be analytical and kill anything that doesnt work immediately. E.g PR 3k per month, 4 placements, 100k readers of publications, 10k readers of page 7, 500 of column read the article to the end and see your name. 1 visited the site. Cost per user £3000! E.g. FS Property

My ideas in summary Joint Venture Does someone have suitable distribution Promote in their store Promote in their adverts Promote in their direct marketing Promote on their Intranet / Internet Promote in their s Promote on web sites where massive traffic

My ideas in summary Shared advertising Does another organisation need to talk to the same customers Who has compatible brand values What about your suppliers

My ideas in summary Mass This stuff really works well It is very cheap to buy Could we go the wrong side of legit?

My ideas in summary Underground advertising Find some big retail queues Find some big exhibitions Hand out big offers

My ideas in summary Guerrilla marketing Get every site and his dog to link you Get all the search engines sorted Tell google about the above Create micro sites Send micro sites to editors MLMs, News groups, etc. Stop all operation for 3 days and do this

My ideas in summary Online advertising I know you had some problems My last 3 campaigns 8%, 5% and 3% CPM (not.3%) < 8k banners Click here grey windows buttons Topical (foot and mouth, mothers day) Larger than banner graphics Drop poor visited tenancies, go for the users big time. 16m impressions on FS home. 800k on property.