As if the credit crunch followed by the recession wasn’t enough, now we’ve got swine flu to add to the general sense of doom and gloom; just as people were beginning to talk about possible green shoots as well. Still there’s no point in sitting back and feeling depressed, the businesses that will survive and prosper are the ones that work hard at offering their customers what they want.
A recent survey* of the best ways to boost sales found that the most effective tactic was to carry out time limited or stock limited promotions. These seem to give people a sense of urgency and make them more relaxed about parting with their money.
The next best way was to foster a sense of brand loyalty with points, clubs etc. This obviously only works for trade outlets in the world of tiles and stone, as not many consumers are going to be shopping for the products on a regular basis unless they are working their way very rapidly up the property ladder, which is not very likely in the current housing climate.
The survey was actually for e-commerce sites but the points above are still extremely relevant as were the next few although you need to think more about how to apply them to our industry. The next was adding customer reviews and ratings - a bit more difficult to do in store granted, however a variation on this is the recommend a friend promotion which encourages people’s natural tendency to talk about their own experiences to friends and acquaintances by adding an incentive to do so.
Then came product videos on site, which in our world equates to room sets and images of the products in situ to demonstrate more about the product than one tile or piece of stone slab can do. And lastly offering gift wrapping, personalised notes etc.; now whilst I can’t see much call for gift wrapping tiles, this point is all about offering something extra, be it a delivery service or help in loading heavy purchases into the customer’s vehicle, in fact anything that makes the customer’s life easier and will mark your business out from the competition.
Whether you use these particular tactics or come up with some more of your own, the important thing is to be acting to improve sales and capture the business that is out there, rather than doing nothing, waiting for the inevitable end, as that is the way to make it just that – inevitable.
*source = Marketing Sherpa April 2009 Ecommerce Benchmark Survey N=1,481
