Online retailers have their limitations when it comes to serving customers on an urgent basis. According to Google/Ipsos, nearly 80% of shoppers go to store to buy when they have an item they need or want immediately. Retail stores are still in high demand and this is one of many reasons.
Now, question is, how to keep these customers engaged with your store? In other words, how to drive constant results from your in-store marketing tactics? The answer is retail store profiling.
Retail store profiling or simply, store profiling is the process of centralizing the information related to your store, location(s), customers specific to the location, suppliers, and marketing assets. The information is stored in store profiling software. Accessible through web and mobile both, it provides you with store-specific marketing techniques.
Store profiling has a rich history of serving local to international retailers. We have discussed one such example of IKEA, later in the article. You will also learn the process of managing in-store marketing campaigns and finally, a software recommendation to aid your store profiling.
First, let’s see how store profiling software is improving your in-store marketing efforts, customer experience, and bidding management.
How Store Profiling Software Improves In-Store Marketing
1. Provides centralized management for all your in-store marketing campaigns
Store profiling software keeps all the previous, current, and upcoming marketing campaigns in its database. So, you can easily weigh up past campaigns and easily build new marketing requirements for new campaigns.
2. Sends store-specific marketing collateral
Marketing collateral is an umbrella term for brochures, flyers, videos, e-books, and more. Store profiling software keeps track of location-based variations and sends only relevant marketing collateral to your store.
3. Identifies accurate production estimates and quantity
Production quantities differ from store to store. The software lets you come up with the right production estimates, saving your overall investment and budget allocation. The material to be produced can be anything from store signage to brochures.
4. Sets up digital signage solution
Digital signage provides dynamic information both real-time and recorded as per location, time, situation, and customer(s). The displayed information is fully automated yet a customer can interact through a touch screen or user control. Store profiling software profiles these digital assets based on the store locations and their respective customers.
5. Offers store portal to reorder assets based on location
Store profiling software has an in-built store portal. You can use this portal to enter as well as access marketing information for the store. Reordering store-specific assets count as another major advantage along with the ability to inform corporate of store profile changes
How Store Profiling Software Improves Customer Experience
1. Defines targeted customers based on location
Store profiling software takes in customers’ demographics, buying habits, and other relevant information for targeted marketing. Campaigns trying to sell a new product range, or offering a discount, can be targeted to locations where the promotion would yield optimal results.
2. Performs easy store segmentation as per the defined metrics
Storesegmentation is one of the major advantages of using store profiling software. You are free to create personalized store lists (distros) to promote your deliverables. The software processes its database to filter out stores as per your submitted metrics. The metrics can be based on demographics or something highly personalized such as ‘the store tier for a certain product category’.
3. Ensures marketing collateral inventory never goes out of stock
Store profiling plays an active role in offering you the latest inventory updates. So, you can stock your marketing collateral as per its present need and its demand in the future without wasting any additional resources.
4. Assists with the latest trends to match customer’s ever-changing requirements
Other retail stores are not your only competitors, you also have to deal with the digital rush. While your store is doing good, for now, the progress can falter anytime in the near future. Start with the hypothesis, “your customers are always on the lookout for the latest trends”. They may not be ready for change yet, but your keenness to modernize your store as per the shift keeps you on the level.
Your store profiling software stays updated with the latest information. It offers you recommendations as per your location and previous selling history.
How Store Profiling Software Improves Bidding Management
1. Follows vendor-agnostic approach to maintain competitiveness and creativity
Store profiling software is independent of vendor influence. Irrespective of how good a vendor(s) has/have proved for your marketing collateral in the past, it suggests the options as per their current standing. Popularly known as the vendor-agnostic approach, it facilitates competition among different vendors to level up as your first choice. The approach has been influencing in-store marketing efforts across different stores.
2. Encourages collaboration with multiple suppliers on project tasks
The software allows collaboration with multiple team members and suppliers. You can limit their access as per their project role and specific requirement. Each member can access only permitted modules.
3. Manages entire commercial print vendor process
After customer segmentation, this is another reason why profiling software is the core of in-store marketing’. The software weighs various printing options and collaborates with the selected vendor(s) to print the required materials. The process is quick and covers all the necessary marketing attributes specific to the store.
4. Compares bids from suppliers
Besides your store information, the software also keeps suppliers’ information, their bids, work samples, and past collaboration, if any. This makes the bidding easier. You can quickly scan through their profile and select the preferred vendor.
5. Organizes RFQ jobs to suppliers
The software lets you create RFQ jobs for suppliers. Suppliers are notified instantly and have the option to collaborate and send their quotes for the designated task. This helps accelerate the production and distribution process to speed up marketing ROI.
How Store Profiling Software Improves In-Store Marketing Strategies
We mentioned some of the distinguished benefits of having store profiling software for your retail stores. Now, how the brands are actually using its benefits to accelerate their in-store marketing strategies.
Let’s understand with the following example from International Business: The New Realities:
IKEA: The leading global retailer of specialty furniture
- IKEA targets moderate-income households with limited living space.
- The firm’s culture emphasizes consensus-based decision-making.
- Incorporates customer feedback and design preferences from diverse markets
- Rewards employees and motivates suppliers despite varying business customs and expectations from country to country.
- Keeps designs standardized across markets yet be responsive to local preferences and trends.
- Delegates adequate autonomy to local store managers while retaining central control.
How To Manage In-Store Marketing Campaigns
In-store marketing campaigns have a limited scope for promoting their campaigns. While you can anytime go online and share your store promotions, the majority of the users take action only when it’s accessible online. Very few of them ever decide to step into the store.
Another way to promote is through poster ads, coupon cards, club membership, discount vouchers, and scratch cards that are valid only for in-store shopping.
Now, how to come up with such marketing collateral that influences people to become your loyal customers. You know, it’s easy, ‘just get them printed right’. It has to be eye-catchy and worthy of finding a place in their bags.
Steps To Manage In-Store Marketing Campaigns
1. Create a project plan
You need to set a certain timeframe within which you intend to complete the project. The stages and designated resources need to be defined as well. To do so, draft a project plan that also covers the following requirements:
- Outline campaign objectives and business goals
- List the required materials such as copy, artwork, and fonts
- Specify printing standards such as quantity, size, and paper type
2. Choose the right print vendor
Store profiling software can help you list down all the major vendors. To know if they are reliable enough to sign the contract or not, ask for the following:
- Samples to evaluate the quality
- Produced material from previous work
- Past clients’ references
3. Review proofs and suggest changes, if needed
Before proceeding with the printing process, ask your vendor how many revisions they are fine with. Sometimes vendors only proceed with 1 free change and charge for further improvements.
4. Approve the final proofs and place your order
When you have the material that ticks all the prerequisites, make sure to ask others’ opinions before finalizing it. It may look marketing-ready to you, but people (potential buyers) can have different opinions as per their understanding. Place the order when you have the green signal from the majority.
5. Proceed with your successful marketing campaign
By this step, you have covered the major milestones. Starting from vendor selection and project planning to asking people’s opinions, you have gained enough knowledge of what works for your store.
Next, you are ready to launch your in-store marketing campaign.
Advance Your In-Store Marketing With The Store Profiling Software Now
Distro is a centralized end-to-end distribution tool. It offers you accurate store profiling, marketing collateral allocation, and bidding management.
You can also integrate reordering and shipment tracking with carriers like UPS, FedEx, and others.
Distro leverages your in-store marketing campaigns and boosts your sales revenue. Book a demo to learn more about store profiling and how it blends in with your current store management.