Offering customers an online shopping option is a basic requirement for nearly any business these days. Even operators who were slower to adopt are now jumping in to ensure shoppers stay engaged with their local store. It’s a good long-term strategy for growth and survival.
Many busy store operators have benefited from comprehensive, turn-key ecommerce platforms such as ShopHero that make migrating your store online relatively simple. Following the onboarding and initial startup, many owners breathe a huge sigh of relief and settle back to watch online orders steadily grow.
Some do grow. But unfortunately, some don’t, at least initially. The difference? Value-focused, consistent online marketing and engagement vs. a hopeful, “If I build it, they will come,” approach.
Getting Into Shoppers’ ‘Trust Flow’
Today’s shoppers are deluged with information and offers, all available at their fingertips in their online worlds. While much of this information is screened out or ignored, buyers do love to engage with people and brands they know and trust.
That trust is given to sellers who provide consistent value and useful insights and information with a personalized, authentic touch. And therein lies the rub. The majority of independent retailers don’t have resources to create engaging social media posts for three separate platforms three times a week, complete with stunning images, recipes and clever sayings. Plus many shoppers engage through email, and appreciate weekly (or even more frequent) updates on sales, specials, holidays, and other personally interesting topics.
Who has time for that, especially in today’s labor environment?
Many have tried the freelancer route - often a niece or nephew who is a whiz at social media or is studying computer science at the local college - with mixed results. The trip wire usually isn’t incompetence with the technology or tools. It’s providing a consistent stream of relevant, engaging content that shoppers find valuable and worthy of their time and trust. That type of solution is typically only available through expensive agencies or specialists.
Personalized, Automated Engagement
Automation can often provide a more cost-effective solution, but at the expense of feeling impersonal and generic to the shopper.
An ideal solution must provide a constant stream of content that is fine-tuned to your industry and type of community, on topics your shoppers are truly interested in. Posts should include beautiful graphics, recipes and interesting facts and insights. And all communications must be personalized with your branding and colors.
This type of ideal system is now available to any size retailer. The ShopHero Prism marketing automation platform has married deep experience in grocery retail messaging and stunning graphical content with personalized automation that customizes all communications to your store’s branding. The result is the best of both worlds: consistent, engaging, valuable content delivered to your shoppers at a price any retailer can afford.
Take Your Ecommerce to the Next Level - Automatically
If you’ve made the commitment to ecommerce and are now wondering how to get the most out of your investment - both from a financial and shopper engagement standpoint - now is the time to look into automated online marketing. You can engage shoppers online and drive more online sales through your branded platform at a cost that was previously not possible.
Turn that premature sigh of relief into a chuckle of satisfaction as you watch online shoppers you previously only hoped would come, actually engage and shop in the immersive ecommerce experience you built for them.
