Brick-and-mortar online business marketing strategy

When combining the brick-and-mortar shop with the online store, you have an inherent advantage over your competition when they are only in the online store space or the brick-and-mortar-only market. Navigating the troubled waters of supply chain issues, dodgy economic times, and varying customer experiences with online stores - your combination of your brick-and-mortar online business might be your best asset to drive forward and gain market share. Via a good marketing strategy, strong customer experience, and lean costs of operation leveraging your brick-and-mortar shop you can be poised to drive brand and grow your customer base.

Why Brick and Click?

A massive surge of brick-and-mortar stores opened their online stores during the Covid-19 pandemic to continue operating. The most significant advantage that was born was BOPIS (Buy Online Pick-up In Store), giving customers the flexibility to still get their goods from sources they were familiar with. New marketing including digital marketing had to take place to announce store openings, product offers, and social media push to explore the new experiences. Brick and Click was officially a "thing" and car parks had designated pick-up areas to receive your online shopping goods.

Digital Marketing Strategy for the brick-and-mortar store

When considering your marketing plan, your market research is going to have to be expanded to audiences beyond the normal footfall of your store. The combination of shipping to customers as well as selling in-store will add complexity, yet, add sales. The traditional marketing techniques will now have to consider the online marketing funnels of your digital marketing all the while combining your Point of Sale (POS) system with your online store so that you can leverage and lower your operating costs. Email marketing is now also going to be a big driver to announce sales, new products, and customer experiences. The addition of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and content marketing will enhance your online presence, while before that would have been pretty limited. New activities in marketing automation for your marketing campaigns will gain additional interest from your target audience. And with positive experiences, and good reviews your social marketing will have key benefits and will assist in engagement and testimonials.

POS integration with your online store

With the above-mentioned consolidation, managing your inventory is key to ensuring you don't oversell items - this means your online store and your brick-and-mortar store have to be in sync when it comes to available items, sizes, and colors. The likes of Shopify have a POS system that directly integrates with your online store and makes payments easy for Brick customers, all the while converting click customers online through the same payment gateway. A card reader sits next to your POS system and this consolidation is encouraged for all brick-and-mortar businesses.

Promoting your online store

The biggest cost problem is shipping between both methods of shopping. While there is time and fuel to consider for BOPIS, shipping costs are eliminated. However, a lot of Brick and Click stores offer free shipping when the average basket value makes it worthwhile to have the conversion profitable. This helps customers plan better their purchases and ensures that they can load up their shopping carts, and avoid the trip. Some Brick stores have delivery services or have their own delivery vans for local deliveries. Grocery stores in the UK for example have this service with Ocado, ASDA, Tesco, Iceland, and several others. Free shipping gives customers the choice to physically enter the store or trade time for home delivery.

With your store being online, you have the full set of tools to advertise, have SEO and drive your Socials and even network with your partners for affiliate marketing. One of the biggest opportunities is in social media marketing since if it is done correctly, your reach can expand beyond traditional borders and have a national audience and even international. Your marketing efforts via email campaigns can take on promotional cycles that can drive online sales and even specials to come to the physical store.

Summary

With your marketing goals and strategy in place to leverage both the Brick and Click channels, you might find that marketplaces have additional appeal, offering Digital Wallet payments, and even wrapping/gifting services can all make the experience so much easier and positive. If you are looking to be in the Brick and Click business, and are looking to enhance your POS/Online store to drive your digital marketing strategy, feel free to reach out to us at wish@thegenielab.com