A strategic digital marketing plan is crucial for retail brands looking to grow online visibility and profits in today’s competitive ecommerce landscape. As an industry-leading marketing and creative consultancy, Creatives On Call partners with retail brands to craft data-driven digital strategies that attract customers and directly impact key business metrics.
We will provide an overview of essential components to include in an integrated digital marketing strategy tailored specifically for the retail sector. Following best practices around audience research, goal-setting, search engine optimization (SEO), paid ads, mobile experience, email marketing and analytics can significantly boost website traffic, brand awareness and bottom-line revenue.
Research Your Target Audience
Gleaning actionable insights on your ideal customers represents the foundation for effective retail digital marketing strategies. Who are your best prospective buyers? What messaging motivates them? The more thoroughly brands understand shopping motivations and behaviors, the more touchpoints they can optimize.
Key areas for retail brands to research include:
- Demographic attributes like age, income and geography to build buyer personas.
- Website analytics providing engagement data and traffic sources.
- Social listening and surveys uncovering brand sentiment and values.
Combine data sources using customer relationship management (CRM) platforms. Building a single view of high-value customers focuses efforts on the moments that matter most. Keep learning about your audience as an ongoing initiative through testing and analytics rather than a one-time effort. As market dynamics shift, so do customer needs and priorities.
Utilize Creatives On Call’s seasoned retail specialists to get a head start with research expertise and industry connections. Our discovery phase bridges knowledge gaps to inform strategies that intimately speak to buyers.
Set Measurable Goals
As a retail store owner, clarifying business objectives and setting specific key performance indicators (KPIs) provides tangible benchmarks for digital marketing success. Rather than vague notions of “increased visibility,” smart retail brands identify targeted, trackable goals.
Strategic objectives can focus on driving direct online conversions or multi-channel support. Consider setting defined monthly targets around:
- Website sessions
- Organic traffic
- Ranking for key product keywords
- Reduced cost per click
- Email subscriber growth
- Social media reach
Creatives On Call first works to deeply understand retail clients’ core priorities before proposing goal-driven digital solutions. Are you looking to establish thought leadership? Generate online sales? Smooth seasonal revenue peaks and valleys? Drive foot traffic to brick-and-mortar locations?
Aligning business goals with analytics makes tracking progress and optimizing efforts moving forward easier. Instead of budget-draining initiatives, focus digital marketing around what matters most to see substantial revenue impact.
Focus On Search Engine Optimization
Search represents a pivotal early touchpoint along the retail customer journey. Over half of shoppers begin product research on Google and other engines. Winning prime placement in those results through SEO is essential for discovery and conversions.
On-page optimization encompasses technical enhancements allowing search bots to better index relevant pages:
- Keyword research to map site content with high-intent queries
- Metadata tags providing clues into page topics
- Logical information architecture and internal linking
Mastery of ever-evolving SEO best practices requires specialized expertise that Creatives On Call provides. Our technical teams implement site enhancements while monitoring rankings.
Link-building also signals authority to search algorithms:
- Guest blog posts on industry websites
- Local directory listings
- Strategic public relations (PR) outreach
Overall, an SEO strategy coordinated with conversion rate optimization (CRO) gives brands the online visibility and architecture to influence early decision-making. Complement with paid ads for real-time exposure during moments of peak buyer intent.
Connect with Creatives On Call’s retail search specialists to execute the ongoing optimization required to maintain rankings. Consistency pays dividends in lower customer acquisition costs and long-term organic growth.
Leverage Paid Advertising
While SEO focuses on organic rankings, paid advertising lets retail brands target prospects actively searching for products in real time. Pay-per-click (PPC) platforms like Google Ads surface listings directly into search results, which shelters brands from continually fluctuating algorithm updates.
When coordinated strategically along other digital initiatives, paid ads offer extreme flexibility. Time promotions with email campaigns, adjust budgets to hit monthly lead targets or geo-target customers around a store opening.
Best practices that Creatives On Call applies for retail PPC campaigns include:
- Competitor and keyword research
- Dynamic remarketing
- Enhanced ad extensions
- Dayparting targeting
- A/B testing ad variations
- Landing page optimization
The external expertise required to configure, launch and optimize profitable paid ad accounts often provides the best return on investment (ROI) on ad spend versus handling internally. And with cross-channel data and visibility, unlock even more impactful omnichannel experiences.
Optimize for Mobile Experience
Considering much retail site traffic arrives via mobile, delivering seamless user experiences (UXs) on phones and tablets makes or breaks sales. Clunky, difficult sites frustrate customers and communicate brand apathy.
As retail user interface (UI) design specialists, Creatives On Call’s retail teams obsess over creating intuitive, seamless mobile shopping journeys. We ensure:
- Responsiveness across all devices.
- Sub-2-second page load speeds.
- Logical information architecture with minimal scrolling/pinching.
- Prominent calls-to-action (CTAs) like click-to-call.
Additional personalization opportunities exist through geo-targeted mobile ads, Short Message Service (SMS) couponing and push notifications based on opt-in data. We test placement and messaging to determine what best motivates your customers.
With UI/UX strategy expertise and user-centric mobile design, Creatives On Call guides technical roadmaps tailored to every merchant’s business objectives and customer expectations. Our research-backed enhancements optimize each tap, swipe and click across your retail experience.
Utilize Email Marketing
During decades of ecommerce evolution, retail web automation has endured as a vital retail engine driving substantial revenue. Thanks to unmatched reach, segmentation precision, personalization capabilities and always-on availability, strategically designed promotional emails motivate purchases, retain loyalists and reengage inactive subscribers.
Recommended functions for retail email marketing success include:
- Website pop-ups and content upgrades that collect emails in exchange for lead magnets
- Retail web automation that launches targeted behavioral messages
- Promotional templates that highlight time-sensitive deals
- Abandoned cart reminders that win back customers
- Segmenting subscribers based on purchase history and activity data for unmatched relevance
Innovations like interactive content unlock new opportunities, so email performance can always be optimized. Work with Creatives On Call’s retail email experts to develop permission-based lists and responsive templates that boost engagement season after season. Fine-tune messaging to motivate your customers while maintaining compliance, deliverability and inbox favorability. Our constantly-tested, proven best practices mean more loyal subscribers and revenue.
Analyze and Refine the Strategies
Understanding what works for retail branding and direct response efforts is possible only through relentless testing and data analysis. Establishing success metrics and monitoring performance reveals best-in-class initiatives to double down on and underperformers to eliminate.
Ongoing analytics capabilities to leverage include:
- Google Analytics implementation tagging campaigns and quantifying engagement
- Connecting CRM data for customer lifetime value (CLV) tracking
- Split testing ad creative, CTAs and more
- Analyzing email delivery and conversion metrics to optimize future sends
Testing, refinement and agility drive retail stores ahead regardless of climate. Tap Creatives On Call’s analytics experts to advise ongoing optimization fueled by actionable retail data. Our teams highlight what resonates through granular engagement tracking, illuminating paths to maximize marketing ROI.
Digital Marketing Strategies From Creatives On Call
As an industry-leading marketing and creative consultancy, Creatives On Call specializes in helping retail brands solve their most pressing marketing challenges. We aim to drive business growth through data-backed digital strategies tailored to each client’s unique objectives and customers.
With a team of 15,000+ marketing and creative associates, we leverage the ideal experts needed to deliver best-in-class solutions quickly and efficiently. Our retail specialists tap into customer data and insights to inform innovative omnichannel campaigns, loyalty programs, digital experiences and more — all while maximizing brand connections. From large-scale initiatives to specialist support, our collaborative approach means tangible digital marketing results.
See how Creatives On Call helps leading retail brands connect through creativity. Contact us to explore our retail marketing services and partnership opportunities.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the main objectives of a retail digital marketing strategy?
An effective retail digital strategy aims to increase brand awareness and engagement, drive website traffic and online sales, enhance multi-channel experiences, smooth unpredictable demand cycles and lower customer acquisition costs over time. Individual objectives ultimately depend on each retailer’s core priorities — whether establishing thought leadership, generating online revenue or driving offline foot traffic.
What digital channels should retailers focus on?
Top retail digital marketing channels typically include paid search/display ads, organic search/SEO, website experience optimization, email marketing, social media engagement and mobile apps or ads. Retailers achieving the greatest success take an integrated, omnichannel approach, coordinating initiatives across channels to motivate and nurture customers through online or in-store purchases.
How can retailers measure the success of digital marketing campaigns?
Start by clarifying business objectives, then set specific KPIs to track, like website traffic, keyword rankings, conversion rates, cost per lead, email open rates and social engagement analytics. Connecting campaign efforts directly to high-level growth goals through retail analytics provides critical insight to understand campaign impact and optimize performance.
