How omnichannel brands can scale offline store sales via marketing channels

Authored by Sujoy Golan – Chief Business Officer, Vizury

The modern world is dictated by consumer experience. With consumers spending over 12 hours  every day interacting with media devices, it has become important that brands build or  strengthen their digital presence. That being said, digital convenience cannot replace the  experience of checking out a product in the store. Technology has allowed brand marketers to  meld the two to design online-to-offline experiences to enhance and improve the shopping  experience. Consumers can now browse products online and pick up the products from the store  later. No matter which channel consumers choose to interact in, they expect flexibility and  personal touch.  

Three Key Challenges Faced by Retail Brands 

Even then, retail brands have to deal with certain challenges in the marketplace that threaten to  affect their visibility, recall, and sales. In such a scenario, where the retail industry is constantly  evolving and being impacted by various factors, brands must be nimble and adaptive to remain  competitive and meet the needs of their customers. What then is stopping them from becoming  more adept at driving sales?  

• High Advertising Spends, Less ROI: Brands have been traditionally relying on advertising to  not just drive customers to their digital channels but also drive awareness about their offline  stores with the goal to drive foot traffic and offline sales. However, these ad campaigns have  been inefficient in driving customers to the stores, leading to high advertising spend and less  ROI.  
• High Traffic, Low Conversion: Currently the website conversion rates as per industry  standards vary between 0.5-2%. This implies there is a huge drop-off from product/cart  pages. There can be multiple reasons why this may happen. Due to this, brands are losing out  on a huge segment of customers that are researching and exploring products on web/app but  would prefer to make purchases offline. The plain old store-locators on website/app fail to  capture real-time inventory of hyper-local stores, eventually disappointing the customers at  your offline stores and delivering poor CX.  
• Low Open Rates on Traditional CRM Marketing Channels: Current marketing channels being  used for CRM campaigns such as email or SMS have poor open rates and fail to capture  customers’ attention with the objective of re-engaging and driving repeat purchases. Low  open rates can be due to a number of reasons such as a lack of personalization, poorly  targeted email lists, or uninteresting subject lines. Exploring alternative marketing channels  such as WhatsApp can help reach a wider audience and improve overall marketing results.

How can brands address these challenges? 

Brands need to focus on bringing in synergies between offline and digital channels. They can  actively tap into the digital traffic with an omnichannel presence to connect consumers to their  offline stores. Connected retail solutions can help integrate with the brand's digital touchpoints  capturing how customers are engaging with them, and keeping track of their buying and spending  patterns. 

Segmenting customers based on behavioral data 

Tracking these behavioral data points allow brands to identify segments of customers that show  high product-level intent and launch dynamic campaigns to capture this segment before they  drop-off from the purchase funnel. Insights gained from tracking behavioral data points help  brands understand what their shoppers want and streamline this experience. They can  proactively give online shoppers an option to discover at home or try-and-buy products at their  hyper-local stores. 

Enabling shoppers that prefer to shop offline with “Try at store” option 

Brands surface their hyper-local inventory dynamically on digital channels allowing customers to  check product availability in the nearest stores based on their location. This ensures a seamless  shopping experience for customers without having to worry about the desired product going out  of stock.  

Apart from the website, brands should engage with customers on their go-to channel, like  WhatsApp, allowing them to discover and reserve the product for ‘Try-and-Buy’ through the  messaging app without the hassle of scrolling through the e-commerce site. 

Drive higher footfalls and sales at offline brand stores 

The data captured with customers’ primary details and their interests, enables brands to enrich  their customer database and run hyper-targeted campaigns to engage and activate high-intent  customers at the right time. Allowing brands to nudge these hot leads to drive higher walk-ins to  your brand stores and deliver a seamless shopping experience for your customers.  

Deliver connected online to offline customer experience 

The challenges of the retail industry can have a significant impact on a brand's bottom line and  its ability to remain relevant in an increasingly competitive market. In order to overcome these  obstacles, retailers must be strategic and innovative in their approach. Finding new and creative  ways to engage with consumers, while streamlining operations, will help brands drive sales and  retain consumers.