Are your retailers asking how you’re going to help them drive foot traffic to their stores?
You’re not alone. We asked brand experts from GE Appliances, Shaw Floors, and Cargill how they team up with retail partners to run localized advertising campaigns to stay in front of both new and existing customers.
Brand Experts:
1. The path to digital marketing success begins with education and understanding.
Example Local Ad on mobile display for Cargill
Retailers are typically very busy people with limited access to time and resources. If they are accustomed to certain traditional ways of marketing, even beginning to approach a new frontier like digital can understandably be intimidating and overwhelming.
“There’s this level of familiarity with digital that is just not there for a lot of our retailers. The more we can make it easy for them and really just educate them on the reach and the efficiency of it, the better. There’s so much opportunity, but it can be kind of scary.”
– Gina Thesing, Cargill
In order to alleviate these initial anxieties, you have to start by providing education. Guide inexperienced retailers to have a better understanding of digital marketing options, strategy, and execution.
Local retailers need simple solutions, so the more you can package everything up and make it easy for them to do (and do it well), the better.
Example Local Ad on Facebook for Shaw Floors
2. Break the perception that social is “free.”
It may be free for a retailer to create a social media profile for their business, even to develop a great local presence and following, but it is no longer enough. In order for them to build their audience and continue to engage both existing and new customers, they are going to have to pay to play and make their business known.
“I think that there’s still a perception that anything that is related to social is free. So what we find ourselves having to do is educate people that it is not the way it works anymore. We have to educate them on both the value of it as well as the cost as an advertising mechanism.”
– Todd Callaway, Shaw Floors
Related content: Shaw Floors Amplifies Foot Traffic in Local Showrooms [Case Study] >
3. Differentiate between national and localized campaigns.
Example Local Ad on Facebook for GE Appliances
You do not want to inundate local audiences with the same message coming from both the national brand level and the local retail level.
“What we try to do with our national campaigns is really tell the GE Appliances story and say who we are as a brand. With our localized campaigns, it’s all about letting customers know about specific offers and real calls-to-action.”
– David Calvert, GE Appliances
Differentiate your creative. Use your large scale marketing efforts to tell your overall brand story, and use your localized campaigns as prisms to tell your brand story from a local vantage point while also providing specific offers. After all, the retailer is the point of contact where marketing is made actionable, inspiring customers to come into the stores and make a purchase.
Related content: GE Appliances The Great American Kitchen Event [Campaign Page] >
4. Show them the results, and you’ll create value.
If you want to show retailers the true value of doing local advertising on digital channels, it all comes down to numbers and visible results.
Compare Paid Social to Organic Social
There are traditional measurements often weighed in social media marketing like consumer reach, engagement, click-through rates, etc. Compare the results here on local ads campaigns to what retailers might expect on an organic piece of content so they can see the difference that advertising funds can make.
Survey Your Retailers
Anecdotal evidence provided by surveys and other communications can also provide valuable insights into the results of a local advertising campaign. Items to consider:
“We were really interested in what we surveyed our retailers about: Did you see new people in your shop? Are these ads driving traffic? Are you seeing people convert from other products to ours? Those kinds of things.”
– Gina Thesing, Cargill
Cargill mobile ads lead to a mobile-optimized landing page displaying local where-to-buy information for consumers.
Show retailers real results, and they will only continue to participate in localized brand campaigns with growing confidence and finesse.
Related content: New Balance Drives In-Store Sales at Fleet Feet Locations [Case Study] >
Promoboxx Local Ads powers the campaigns between GE Appliances, Shaw Floors, Cargill, and their retail partners. With Local Ads, brands simply and effectively extend advertising funds, sophisticated content, and targeting capabilities to resource-strapped retailers, benefiting both by reaching new local customers on mobile devices and driving them in-store.
New Balance Drives In-Store Sales at Fleet Feet Locations [Case Study] >
5 Tips to Create Facebook Ads That Turn Digital Traffic into Foot Traffic >
Shaw Floors Amplifies Foot Traffic in Local Showrooms [Case Study] >
Convert Impressions into Customers with Facebook Targeting >
