How Can Retail Advertising in the UK Boost Your Retail Business?
The last two years were unpredictable for British retailers, from adhering to lockdown norms and pivoting their operations to evolving in the changing market. The pandemic presented vast challenges to every business in the country. You might have also noticed the inflation in essential goods and the disruption in the supply chains.
It also pushed British retailers to change their business models and retail advertising strategies. Now that normalcy is returning to the country, you can plan more strategically with a retail advertising agency.
Even during COVID, the total volume of retail sales only fell by 1.9%. It shows the vast potential for growth and prosperity in this particular industry. Many businesses were able to discover new revenue streams during the pandemic era.
This landscape constantly evolves in the UK, and retail advertising has become more vital than ever. Retailers are looking for innovative ways to promote their products and services, from the busy cities of Belfast and Birmingham to the small towns that cover the country.
You must know that the growth of e-commerce portals is also an enormous threat to your traditional retail business. You must learn from the best retail advertising examples to sustain yourself in the competitive landscape.
The country’s diverse and vibrant population allows you to showcase your products and services. You can develop multicultural campaigns or localised promotions to speak about the unique needs of each community.
Do you want to find the best ways to stand out in the challenging marketplace?
Keep reading if you are a seasoned marketer or just stepping into retail advertising. It is the best time to explore the industry and grow as a successful retailer in the UK.
Firstly, you have to understand the following;
What is Retail Marketing in the UK?
Retail advertising in the UK is about marketing strategies to promote retail businesses and their offerings. This type of advertising consists of direct mail marketing, TV, radio, and digital marketing methods.
The retail industry accounts for much of the economy of the UK. Supermarkets and independent shops are all part of the market. Shopping in the UK is also very convenient for consumers.
If you want to create the backbone of your retail marketing strategy, you have to pour the six ‘P’s into your marketing formula:
- Product
- Pricing
- Place
- Promotion
- People
- Presentation
Product is the Main Attraction
What you are selling creates the biggest attraction for your retail advertising strategy. It must resolve a particular problem and have some desirability in the market. Thus, you must consider your products while creating your retail advertising plan.
Pricing Impacts the Purchase Decision
Everyone wants to squeeze the most value out of their purchases. In the retail industry, there’s little you can do with the price when competitors also sell products at almost similar costs. You can consider launching short-term discounts to boost your sales and retail marketing strategy.
Placement Will Grab Customer Attention
So you go to a store, and the proper product placement will instantly grab your attention. You will see flashy shelves, bright displays, kiosks, and banners that will turn your head. Thus, placement also plays a critical role in your retail advertising plan.
Promotion Will Lure Interested Customers
You have put effort into promotional activities to build interest in your products. Marketers often use various promotional channels like direct mail, social media, email marketing, and other digital marketing tools.
People That Represent Your Brand
You don’t want to hire Tom, Dick, or Harry for customer interactions. A retail business needs charismatic professionals to educate its customers about its products and services. Your business must consider training its representatives to make the retail advertising plan successful. Their advocacy will be essential to winning over more shoppers.
Presentation Makes Offerings Attractive
You could be selling simple groceries like your competitors. Yet, how you present your brand can make a difference in your retail marketing strategy. Have you seen those Apple ads that emphasise minimalism and clean design? There’s a reason why Apple has become a trillion-dollar company. Their presentation is simply flawless, and nothing beats that.
Still, cracking the British retail industry could be a vast challenge for new players. You have to understand specific trends to make your way through and survive.
“Technology contributes to innovation, efficiency, and mobility, but failure to adopt it can threaten the survival of many businesses.” – PostGrid Sales Manager.
Trends in the British Retail Industry
The COVID pandemic has changed the market’s dynamics. The retail industry has a significant shift in demand and business models. Here’s what you need to know about the trends;
Rules of Competition are Changing
The retail landscape will become more competitive over the next decade. E-commerce businesses will continue to push the retail industry to seek new revenue streams. Still, more companies are joining the industry with their retail advertising plans. The competition rules are changing due to the low cost of starting a retail business and foreign competition.
The big retailers will dominate the mid-price market with a retail marketing strategy. At the same time, the market will also polarise between the extremes of luxury and value products among consumers.
The Changing Demands of Future Consumers
Do you need help identifying the demands of consumers? You must know that consumer demands are constantly evolving with time. It is not possible to understand this with an old retail marketing strategy.
You need digital tools to understand and track their preferences. It would help you to solidify your retail marketing plan. For example, you can launch technology-driven surveys using PostGrid’s Print & Mail API.
The War of Location is Hitting Hard
Every consumer is looking for an excellent experience, irrespective of the location. They are comfortable with shopping from digital, physical, and hybrid shopping setups. Thus, you must consider creating a seamless brand experience across all channels. Your retail advertising plan can play a significant role in streamlining your shopping experience.
So how can retail advertising drive more sales and increase brand awareness? Let’s dig deeper and answer your question;
Importance of Retail Advertising for British Businesses
It Helps Businesses to Stand in the Competitive Market
As we said, the British retail landscape is highly competitive, with small and large players. Thus, it would help if you found unique ways to stand out from the competition.
The relevant retail advertising will help you promote your products and services and attract more customers.
Boost Your Sales by Converting More Leads
Promoting your products and services on different channels can generate more foot traffic to your store. It would also influence prospects to become paying customers. A retail marketing strategy with promotional offers, discounts, and other incentives can also help get additional customers.
Making a Name in the Market with Retail Advertising
When operating in a competitive market, you need a name. Positive emotions, experiences, and quality should characterise your brand. You can build brand awareness in Britain with an effective retail marketing strategy. By creating compelling and memorable ads, you can achieve this. It gives the perfect opportunity to ensure repeat business and long-term relationships.
Don’t Be Generic; Focus on Targeted Marketing
You can only expect some people to visit your retail store and shop. Focusing on a more targeted approach to specific customer segments is vital. Retail businesses do this to tailor their advertising campaigns according to the needs and preferences of customers. Using data and analytics can increase the likelihood of a sale.
Understanding Consumer Behaviour
Your retail advertising plan needs to evolve with changing consumer behaviour. They are more conscious and discerning these days. Only brands that align with their values and beliefs can win their trust. Thus, your retail marketing strategy should promote products and resonate with your prospects on a deeper level. It would make your retail brand more trustworthy.
Ready to implement your retail marketing strategy? Are you looking for some suggestions?
Best Tips for Your Retail Marketing Strategy in the UK
These tips for retail media advertising would not only help drive sales but also contribute to your long-term business success;
Setting Up Promotional Pricing Campaigns
There’s a reason why people rush into those Black Friday sales. Good discounts can attract customers like honeybees to flowers. Thus, you can launch promotional offers for a limited time to gather many people into your store. They will buy the products and return for your excellent customer service. Yet, it would help if you had enough stocks to satisfy their demands.
For a retail marketing plan example, we can consider the retail chain Sainsbury’s. They often run vast sales to attract people to online and offline stores. Their retail marketing strategy becomes much more effective with a loyalty program. It helps them drive repeat customers and higher sales. You can also launch a similar retail advertising campaign with a direct mail platform.
Organising in-Store Events
These days, people are looking for engaging shopping experiences. Thus, more than having good products needed, you must give them a compelling reason to visit your store. For this reason, consider organising in-store events and making your retail advertising successful.
You can also incentivise the shoppers to participate in these events and be a part of the shopping experience you are trying to build. Contests, quizzes, games, and other activities can create interest among customers. You can launch a direct mail campaign to inform prospects about such events at your store.
Building a Solid Loyalty Program
You must know that attracting new customers is five times more expensive than retaining existing ones. Thus, it would be best to focus on building a solid loyalty program. A retail advertising strategy would help maximise your customer relationships.
Your loyalty program should provide an exclusive experience for different customer levels. Going creative with the points system is vital to engage them for a long time. A direct mail API can help you implement a strong customer loyalty program.
Increasing Impulse Buying
Many people don’t even think when they see a limited-period offer. The sense of urgency pushes them to make a purchase impulsively. Thus, you can also integrate this into your retail advertising message to create hype. Make sure to mention there’s a limited time and inventory. And they won’t be able to get this opportunity again in the future.
Be a Local Player
Most of your customers are from the neighbourhood and live one or two streets away. Thus, your retail advertising messages should specifically focus on local customers. It can build a sense of community and belonging in them. You will need a direct mail platform like PostGrid to buy local listings to start your retail advertising campaigns.
So, you might have a couple of ideas by now. Yet, a more detailed plan would have been more effective and helpful. Isn’t it?
It would help to have a solid retail marketing strategy to differentiate yourself from competitors. At the same time, you have to consider your target audience and their pain points. Then, you will learn the best way to target them with your retail advertising plan.
Here’s how you can cook your retail media advertising plan;
Put More Focus on Into Your Target Audience
You could be running a toy store, grocery store, supermarket, jewellery store, apparel store, pawn shop, etc. Your target audience will always have different requirements and preferences depending on your industry. Thus, it is vital to segment by gender, age, income group, location, needs, wants, and other metrics.
The more specific your retail marketing strategy, the easier it will be to align your products with them.
Here’s how you can understand better about your target audience;
- Gather insights about your current customers to learn about the type of people shopping at your store.
- Look at your online analytics to understand who is interacting with your brand.
- Launch a competitor analysis to learn who’s engaging with them and why.
Learning about the target audience is the first step in your retail advertising plan. Next, you need to work on your business values by;
Understanding the Position of Your Retail Business in the Market
There’s already vast competition in the retail industry. It would help if you had to determine factors that would differentiate your business from the competition. For this stage, start thinking from your customer’s perspective to learn how they perceive your retail store.
It could be a noteworthy retail marketing method because people buying from your store will care about telling you their likes and dislikes. You will gain a better idea of your positioning statement and be able to inform your other customers about how your business differentiates itself.
Here’s what you can do to define the position of your store in the market;
- Understand what differentiates your store from others.
- Determine which market segment to want to attract.
- Develop a clear vision of the brand idea that will pull customers.
- Create a unique value proposition that reinforces the promises you make with your brand.
Taking the Full Advantage of Omnichannel Marketing
A single retail marketing strategy is going to be ineffective when you are competing against so many players. You need to utilise multiple channels to spread the message. You can build brand recognition by providing a unified experience to the customers. Thus, you should implement both traditional and modern marketing methods.
Retailers prefer combining direct mail with their digital marketing efforts. It helps them draw better results from an effective retail advertising strategy.
Here are some best practices that we suggest to our clients who run a retail store;
- Learn how potential shoppers are engaging with your business.
- Create a complete customer journey to understand discovery and purchase.
- Start with small campaigns when choosing a new target audience.
- Analyse consumer data and tweak your strategy as you progress.
Implementing Promotional Tactics
Are you launching retail media advertising with online and offline approaches? It is crucial to consider the best promotional tactics.
This strategy will help you for the following reasons;
- It would help you to attract more visitors to your physical store. An attractive discount on your first order will attract more customers to your business.
- A powerful online presence would help your retail business build brand awareness.
Ask the following questions to yourself to implement the best promotional offers;
- What is the best time to provide promotional offers to boost sales?
- Will the promotion work best offline or online?
- What products will need promos to get attraction?
- What type of promotions can generate the highest rate of interest?
Define a Budget for Retail Advertising
You need a particular budget to implement your retail marketing strategy in the UK. Some ideas require additional expenditures for proper implementation. These are some points you need to consider for the expenses of retail advertising;
- The type of retail advertising approach you will use to reach your target audience (direct mail or digital marketing)
- The customer’s lifetime value
- The strategic goals you want to achieve
- The scale of your marketing approach
Pushing Your Retail Marketing Strategy with Direct Mail
Using direct mail has been one of the best marketing tools among marketers in the UK. In fact, according to Nerdwallet, direct mail can have an open rate of 90%. Even Royal Mail says that 70% of people feel more valuable with direct mail than email.
So, you have more chances of getting shoppers with direct mail marketing. It will give far better visibility and mouth publicity.
But do you have the misconception that direct mail marketing could be expensive? There’s no need to rely on traditional direct mail. Modern technology makes direct mail marketing one of the best channels for retail advertising.
Many British businesses are investing in direct mail marketing to expand their businesses. PostGrid’s Print & Mail API is an effective tool for retail advertising. It can help you attract more shoppers and easily retain existing ones.
Here’s How Direct Mail Can Boost Your Retail Business
Higher Response Rate Showing More Interest
Email communication has a significantly lower response rate than direct mail. Most importantly, people often consider email ads spam instead of helpful. In comparison, direct mail enjoys an incredibly higher response rate of 37%. Shoppers consider direct mail to be more personal, direct, and tactile. Yet, you must be very careful with your marketing message to ensure this rate in retail advertising.
Personalisation Leaves a Personal Touch
It would help if you had personalisation in your marketing material to leave a better impression on your customers. Direct mail allows you to make your pieces more personal and relevant. The correct retail advertising needs you to touch your customers’ pain points.
Trustworthy Tool to Even Reach Seniors and Millennials
Is your grandfather familiar with digital ads? But we can guarantee that he will be familiar with direct mail. Similarly, millennials might know about digital ads but love direct mail. They would even treat it as novelty items. Thus, physical mail is a reliable marketing tool for retail marketing.
You need the right tool to launch your retail media advertising campaign. The platform should be cost-effective and relevant enough to get the best ROI for your retail business.
Using PostGrid Print & Mail for Retail Marketing
Whether you are a new business or an old retail player, PostGrid is the ideal solution for every retailer. Print & Mail API is an effective tool for retail marketing with tailored messages and offers. You can expect higher engagement rates and increased sales with our platform.
Need convincing reasons on how? Here’s what you should know;
Targeted Marketing to Reach Your Audience
You could be focusing on a specific neighbourhood with your retail marketing strategy. PostGrid lets you reach any audience with personalised messages, promotions, and coupons. It would help you target the audience that is more likely to show interest in your products and services. Increase your chances of conversion with our direct mail platform.
Improve Your Brand Awareness Efforts
Every retail store needs brand awareness to establish its name in the market. You use our platform to improve your brand’s awareness and visibility by reaching the right audience. Our direct mail tool helps you use eye-catching designs and messaging to catch their attention. The best retail advertising assists you in gathering more traffic to your physical stores.
Cost-Effective Retail Marketing
Retailers can use our platform to launch highly cost-effective campaigns, unlike other advertising channels such as digital ads, social media, television, etc. You don’t have to break the bank if you are launching a large-scale campaign. We help you ensure high quality with minimal human error.
Measurable Campaign Results
We allow our clients to track the effectiveness of their campaigns, messaging, and offers. It can provide valuable insights for your future retail marketing campaigns. Refine your approach to expect a better ROI.
Sign up now to boost your retail marketing strategy.
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