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4 Tips to Lead an Effective Marketing Campaign for Your Store

March 27, 2020/0 Comments/in Marketing & Sales, Online Marketing and Website Development /by StrategyDriven

Executing an excellent marketing campaign is even more critical for brick and mortar retail stores than it is for other types of businesses, such as those that operate solely online. With the majority of American consumers now buying their shopping over the internet, retail stores need to be able to keep up with the market by creating an efficient advertising strategy. If you are looking to lead a marketing campaign for your store, read on for some top tips that are available.

Don’t Forget Physical Marketing Strategies

Although many new retail businesses choose to focus their energies on developing sophisticated marketing strategies online, you should not forget that the central location and driver of your campaign is your store. From the layout of your retail space to the roles of cashiers in driving sales, most of your marketing needs to be based on physical strategies. For instance, to entice customers into your business, you should consider investing in custom window decal printing services. They can help to develop eye-catching visual art that can spark the interest and imagination of potential customers and freshen up the look of your business to customers who have been with you for a long time.

Advertise All Year Round

Although many retail stores focus their campaigns around the most competitive times of the year, such as during the holiday period or at the same time as a big sale, you must be able to drive sales all year round. This can be beneficial to your company as advertising throughout the year will enable you to attract the attention of consumers when there is less competition for their attention. Not only this, but they will be able to remember your business when they need it during the high seasons, allowing you to generate and nurture leads that you can then capitalize on in the future.

Track and Analyze Your Campaign

However, as a leader, it is paramount that you can drive your campaign to success by analyzing the effects of each of your methods. Not only will this show you whether your methods have been effective but tracking your metrics and KPIs can also help you to make effective changes to your strategy. You can do this by focusing on the channels which have garnered the most interest from potential customers. You can track your campaign by using marketing applications, hiring a digital marketing company, or by simply looking at the stats that are provided by website generators, such as WordPress.

Get Your Employees Involved

As a manager, you should be able to motivate your employees to have a proactive and positive effect on your campaign. Marketing is a team effort, and your employees are likely to be the individuals that are in direct communication with visitors to your store. This allows them to push sales to customers, including add-ons and deals. They can also participate by sharing your business’s online campaigns on social media websites, contributing their ideas, and even adding content, such as guest posts for your blog.

How Much Does Geofencing Marketing Cost? A Helpful Guide

March 27, 2020/0 Comments/in Marketing & Sales /by StrategyDriven

Around 71% of consumers prefer more personalized ad experiences. Examining the cost of geofencing marketing will teach you a lot about the value you’re getting out of a campaign.

About 3 out of 4 consumers complete an action after receiving a message thanks to location-based marketing. With geofencing, you can target exact audiences in precise areas and drive sales your way.

Even if you don’t get sales, geofencing still increases brand awareness, so it’s a win/win strategy. Nonetheless, how can you be sure you’re getting your money’s worth?

Here’s what you should know about the price breakdown of geofence marketing:

Geofencing Marketing 101

A geofence is a virtual boundary that defines a specific geographic area with GPS (global positioning system) or RFID (radio frequency identification). When someone enters this defined area, your business’s advertisement will appear on their device/smartphone. They could also see a message, update, or other notification about your promotion.

Strategically placing geofences around certain hot spots will encourage customers to check out your business. This includes competitors’ businesses.

CPM

Many geofence companies charge based on CPMs. CPM stands for Cost Per 1,000 Impressions. Dividing the number 1,000 by the rate will tell you how many impressions to expect.

For instance, a $14 CPM rate equates to 71.428 impressions. This means your ad or notification will appear 71.428 times on people’s devices as they pass through your geofenced area.

Geofencing campaigns usually charge rates between $15 to $17 CPM. Higher-end geofencing services could cost up to $25. However, costs could also depend on the following:

Number and Size of Geofences

Other marketing companies charge based on the amount and size of the geofences they build for you. Some charge $5 per geofence while others prefer a monthly fee of $20 or more.

The cost is largely determined by the size of the geographic area you’re geofencing. A larger geofence typically costs more than a small geofence. For this reason, you could easily get 10 to 20 geofences out of a $1,000 Google geofencing budget.

This is a good option for business owners that have a limited marketing budget.

Take the Professional Route

Using your own marketing software will give you the biggest inside scoop. Square Marketing pricing starts at $15 per month. Researching different kinds of geofencing software also gives you a better idea of pricing rates.

Warning: Learning about geofencing and marketing takes a lot of time and effort. Mistakes could cost you big time.

It’s safer to hire trusted professionals to execute a geofencing campaign for you. Their skills and expertise are worth the money! Feel free to find out more about the top geofencing companies through the aforementioned link.

Let Geofencing Benefit Your Business

BIA Advisory Services predicted that location-based marketing spending in the U. S. will increase to $38.7 billion in 2022. Still, the cost of geofencing marketing also depends on how many other features are included in it. For instance, social media notifications and advertisements cost more in the geofencing world.

Companies offer different levels of transparency. More information translates it into higher costs. It also might cost more to convert an existing marketing campaign into a geofencing one, but you’re better off late than never!

Boost your business – learn more about the services we offer. We’ll take your brand to the next level.

How 3D visualization can be a key marketing strategy

March 20, 2020/0 Comments/in Marketing & Sales, Online Marketing and Website Development /by StrategyDriven

Marketing is one of the top ways in which you can promote your business. Being able to create an effective marketing strategy can make or break your brand: a good one can bring in new customers, while a bad one can mean you’re being spoken about for all the wrong reasons.

You want to stand out from the crowd and also from your competitors, which can be tricky in itself. How can you do this? You could consider using the techniques that some of your rivals might not have, such as 3D vizualisation. This may become more common as technology evolves, so get ahead of the curve and see why you may want to use 3D visualization in your marketing strategy.

It’s a bit different

Although the novelty factor that is linked to an application will wear off over time, people will try to get the most out of it until then – and can end up with great results. This technology may still be relatively new, but more innovation will follow in time. So, start using this now and you will benefit from it in the long term.

It can help with 3D thinking

Your marketing may have been displayed as a two-dimensional interface – but now you can take this to a new level. People can now visualize your marketing in 3D, rather than just in 2D, and you will get a significant benefit from this. This could even include realistic 3D property CGI images.

You can use it in virtual tours and demonstrations

You have the chance to use new ways to engage, connect with and delight your customers by using 3D environments. With virtual tours, you have the opportunity to use immersive video experiences, especially in areas such as real estate, and other industries.

Having a 3D experience can help you put a customer inside or outside of a virtual sphere. Again, you have a great chance to demonstrate how a product can work or to show its benefits.

Use it in sales presentations

Sales teams are relying more and more on using items such as tablets and other mobile devices when presenting to customers. So, by using the capabilities of these items and 3D technology, you can help to present complex information in new ways. If you want, you also have the opportunity to make promotional games that give audiences a realistic experience of a product or service.

Avoid costly errors

In industries such as real estate, for example, you can use 3D visualization to help you to check any flaws on a model before you finalize any details. This means that you can view the result before the product is created, and any issues can be solved beforehand. You’ll be able to save money, resources and time by doing this.

You keep your clients happy

Being able to present a client with a virtual tour of their item will please them. They have the opportunity to see the interactive visual product before the structure is built. Designers can also benefit, as they can show customized building designs, and they can easily make changes at no extra cost.

Marketing First, Technology Second

March 17, 2020/0 Comments/in Marketing & Sales /by Luis Pedroza

Whenever someone asks me to define marketing, I tell them that a marketer’s primary responsibility is to differentiate because when two competing products are perceived as being the same, consumers are forced to make their choice based on price.

Tech-First Paradigm

A major downside of living in a tech-centric society like ours is that many of us now use a technology-first lens to view the world around us. Too often, product managers are taking the easier route of emphasizing technical features and benefits instead of crafting a compelling brand positioning strategy that identifies and fills a perceived gap in the minds of consumers.

Let’s face it; technical superiority is usually short-lived. Just think about all the mobile phones you have personally owned. If you compare leading mobile phone brands based on their actual technical specifications, you’ll find that from a speed, memory, and graphics perspective, many brands are incredibly similar. Yet, each of us has specific brand preferences. I have personally witnessed long lines of people waiting for hours in bad weather just for a chance to purchase the newest iPhone.

No Brand Strategy

Depending on your source, somewhere between 75% and 90% of all startups will fail. When founders are asked why their startups have failed, the top three reasons given are 1) a lack of focus, 2) too much competition, and 3) insufficient demand. If you think about it, each of these reasons is a symptom of a poorly formed marketing strategy. A lack of focus equates to a lack of positioning. Too much competition comes from not enough differentiation, and insufficient demand probably means your brand lacks a reason for being.

Why is Brand Strategy Important?

The world’s most successful brands have well-defined brand strategies that include a differentiated positioning and reason for being. The gold standard example of brand positioning is when Apple created its Think Different campaign. That’s when Apple repositioned itself as the go-to computer brand for those who want to be creative. From that moment on, every Apple touchpoint (tech, software, and features) was intentionally designed to help people be more creative.

Not an Afterthought

As a consultant, I’m often asked to help brands create a brand strategy after they have already developed a product. Unfortunately, this is a suboptimal approach. Positioning a brand after launching a product, is like pouring the foundation for a building after the building is built.

Brand Positioning

The essence of brand strategy is positioning. Select a positioning that gives your consumers a clear choice versus the competition. An effective brand positioning is crafted and honed until it occupies a differentiated and meaningful space in the minds of consumers – a space that cannot be easily replicated by the competition. Differentiate on attributes that consumers care about and solutions that consumers would prioritize when choosing between brands. Remember, just being different is never enough.

Find your Own Space

A consumer’s mind is like a big city with lots of individual neighborhoods. Neighborhoods are known for offering different things – think Chinatown, Little Italy, the suburbs, uptown, and downtown. Just like selecting a place to build a physical structure, it all comes down to location, location , location. When picking a space in your customer’s mind, you have to consider who your neighbors will be and what the neighborhood trends are. Is there a direct competitor next door? Is the neighborhood popular? Or, is the neighborhood in decline?

Focus

Distill your brand positioning down to a battle cry. Concise brand messaging is easy to share and remember. These slogans help keep your positioning top of mind while providing a true north for selecting on-strategy activities and building brand associations.

For example, LinkedIn’s “Connect to Opportunity” does an effective job of explaining what the brand stands for and its reason for being

TOMS’ “One for One” slogan communicates the company’s focus on social caring and the emotional benefits of the brand. As a result, its “One for One” campaign is one of the all-time most popular cause marketing campaigns.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos has publicly referred to the company’s mission statement as the guiding force behind his leadership decisions many times throughout the company’s history. Since it began in 1994, Amazon has had a clear focus and a solitary reason for being. Amazon is “a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.”

Stand Out

Humans, by nature, are creatures of habit. To get people to stop what they are doing and consider something new, you need to do something different. Just listing features and benefits is not going to cut it.

We live in a hyper-competitive world where consumers and stakeholders are overwhelmed with stimulus and competing messages. The average American reads roughly 100 text messages a day and is exposed to over 20,000 advertisements a week. As Sir Richard Branson famously said, “If you want to stand out from the crowd, give people a reason not to forget you.” So, first, change your paradigm and find your unique reason for being. Then, use your tech to bring that unique proposition to life.

About the Author

Luis Pedroza is a global brand builder and author of Lean Brands: Catch Customers, Drive Growth, and Stand Out in All Markets. He has held leadership positions with iconic global brands and has worked in many international markets. For more information visit www.luispedrozaauthor.com.

Tips for Outdoor Signage

March 16, 2020/0 Comments/in Marketing & Sales /by StrategyDriven

Visibility

Although the design of your outdoor sign is crucial, the creativity and effort involved will go down the drain if you don’t think about visibility. The objective of it all is to make your target audience know that your product or service exists and they won’t spend a lot of time looking at your sign.

Your goal should be to stand out but not go overboard in the process as this can make your audience take a considerable amount of time to actually figure out what your business is all about. Built-up signs are a great way to achieve this. It’s highly advisable to keep your signs simple and straight to the point. They should also be appealing and placed in locations where people actually see them.

When your audience understands what your business is all about by viewing your signs, they will be more likely to walk in and make a purchase. On top of this, signs that stand out are more shareable as they are different from other signs that consumers are used to seeing.

Less Is More

Now, the actual content or message you put on your business signs should be brief and concise. Going with the ‘less is more’ way may seem like the absolutely wrong thing to do, but actually it’s not. As already mentioned, people don’t spend much time looking at signs. So, your sign needs to grab their attention with as little information as possible.

Don’t plaster a whole paragraph of text or a rainbow of colours on your sign as this can confuse your audience. Instead, use simple words and brief messages that will arouse interest in your audience.

Remove The Clutter

To add on to the previous point, it’s important that your outdoor signs only have essential information about your business/brand and product. You may be tempted to share everything about your business on the sign, but this goes against the previous point. Remember, you should keep the text on your signs simple and brief. Remove anything that may seem unnecessary. Intuit recommends that signs should have a maximum of 7 words.

Including more content only makes it difficult for your audience to read and understand the information you are conveying. Something worth trying is designing your signs with a lot of white space and some text and graphics to catch the attention of the public.

It’s totally normal to want your sign to have an assortment of beautiful images and graphics. However, you should not use too many to the extent that your signs become illegible.

Studies suggests that at least 35% of your sign should be white space. So, remember this when designing your next outdoor sign for your business.

Choose Attractive Colours

Next, you need to think about the colours you are going to feature on your sign. Colours are closely related to your business/brand identity. Your audience will see the colours in your sign before anything else. Studies note that 80% of brand recognition is done based on colours.

Placing light shaded letter on top of dark background in a popular choice for many businesses. You can also use trendy, vibrant and bright colours as they are able to draw the attention of your target audience much faster.

Use Easy-To-Read Fonts

So, using fonts like Comic Sans on your outdoor signs is not the best idea. Your choice of font can be the difference between having an ordinary sign and a sign that your audience actually loves and shares as it’s so unique from other signs out there.

Choosing the right font that matches the identity and style of your business is very important. When you pick a good font, people will not struggle to read your sign. A bad font can disappear into the background and make your sign look dull and cluttered.

Also, heavy fonts are known to blend together making letters to seem combined and wavy. Using all Caps letters in your text may seem like the appropriate thing to do to make your message loud and clear, but this is not the case. Huge letters can easily disrupt the visibility of your sign.

Some simple but attractive fonts that you can use on your outdoor signs include Display, Helvetica, Sans Serif, and Serif fonts. These fonts stand out adequately and they are easy to read when combined with images and graphics.

An important point to note is that you should not use more than 2 fonts in one outdoor sign unless it’s really necessary. Always go with 2 fonts that match your brand identity and style. You will never regret this decision.

Choose Suitable Materials

There is no need to design a perfect outdoor sign that can effectively market your business and boost sales if you are going to use a poor material. The beauty and creativity of your outdoor sign can only be appreciated if has a suitable base or canvas. Rough or uneven bases are difficult to print on, so you can expect the print output to be sub-standard.

Choose the right material will ensure you end up with the perfect outdoor sign. Some materials are considered better for specific type of signs. For instance, acrylic is suitable for indoor signs used in stores and businesses. It is definitely not the best material for outdoor signs.