Generating leads and more often, sales for retailers and distributors have taken a digital heavy path for over a decade now. Most of the time, branding campaigns are an afterthought, since providing steady recurring sales of products through any means, online or offline, has been the focus for our clients.
In regards to the types of sales and lead generation, we deliver for owners and marketers of retailers and distributors, it ranges from Product Listing Ads such as Google Shopping to Amazon Sponsored Products campaigns to Cost Per Click and Pay Per Click ads on Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Even though the ‘buy’ button concept did not take off for social media channels, there are social media efforts like Social Listening and Social Media Ads which tend to cost less than PPC campaigns that could be incorporated too as part of the overall media plan. For those seeking a longer-term strategy to maintaining sales, Search Engine Optimization and Content Marketing efforts are good investments to harness more traffic naturally and organically via the major search engines.
Another marketing tactic that should be used for retailers and distributors is Email Marketing using customer lists and lead lists which are then applied to drip campaigns or leveraging CRM mining to spur sales of certain products since email is still one of the more cost-effective marketing tools available. Online Videos on YouTube and certain social sites like Facebook at times generate conversions too, depending on the products and audience targeted, but typically it works better for branding and awareness instead. In some cases, we even provide custom lead lists as needed, as another option available for lead generation.
Any creative needed to support these retail sales campaigns and distributor promotions will also have access to our team of graphic designers, animators and video producers to build the layout, custom design and messaging needed. Also for SEO and Social Media campaigns, we have writers available that have retail and distribution specific experience to boost traffic, clicks and conversions via copy as well as artists that can create images, social media banners and infographics to be shared, boosted, promoted, bookmarked and incorporated into various campaigns and social media channels.
An area that seems to be underutilized quite often in the retail vertical, including distributors or sales purposes is Retargeting to entice former web visitors to click and convert. Remarketing can also be applied to email and CRM marketing automation efforts as well as social media channels too, with various promotional offers tested to determine which messaging leads to better results, especially across various demographics. Regardless the platform, retargeting Is a good tactic to stay ‘top of mind’ with potential buyers and long-term clients to increase conversions and maintain brand loyalty.
Another service we offer that tends to be overlooked is lead tracking of online and offline campaigns. It is not uncommon for us to work with various retailers and distributors that do not use reporting tools or have limited data on what is working across all their campaigns, beyond guessing and inferences. We like to apply analytics to all our campaigns since it helps us better optimize each program, which then improves results and ROI, since it lets us and our clients know where their money could be best spent.
