3 Marketing Lessons From the Great Retail Meltdown
For example, if your company has a brick-and-mortar space, consider using it to do product demos or to handle scheduled appointments or to do live Facebook video broadcasts to answer questions from customers. Consider using your retail space to host live seminars or guest speakers or to partner with other organizations on live events that can be recorded and shared on social media. Unless all of your customers live in your same city and come visit your business in person, you need to think more broadly about how to market your business—by using your store/retail/brick-and-mortar location as a hub of activity, but not as the only destination.
3. Focus Relentlessly on Customer Experience
Another insight from the retail meltdown is that consumers are less interested in logos, labels and big brands than they used to be.
Instead of buying a fashionable new outfit from a stylish brand at the mall, the new way for people to demonstrate their social cachet is to spend money on real-world experiences (like nice restaurant meals, travel, or exclusive events) that can be broadcast and shared with their friends on social media. People are more worried about looking good on Instagram and Facebook than they are about looking “cool” in real life.
The lesson for your business? There is opportunity here to reinvent your business as a premium customer experience. Don't let your company become a commodity; in an era of online shopping and experience-driven consumerism, the mainstream "mass market" is fading away. So the big opportunities now are for companies that can create a one-of-a-kind customer experience and become a niche brand with a loyal customer following. Give your customers an experience that they will want to share on Instagram.
The Great Retail Meltdown has been a cause of worry for many people in the retail industry, but for most other businesses this is an exciting era of new opportunity. Pay attention to what consumers are telling you: They want to shop online; they want exciting, share-worthy experiences; they want to buy from companies that are ready to re-imagine the in-store experience and make the purchase process easier and more enjoyable and seamlessly integrated between “in person” and online.
Gregg Schwartz is the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Strategic Sales & Marketing, an industry-founding lead generation firm based in Connecticut. His company helps technology companies and various startups and small-to-mid-size businesses in the B2B sales category generate sales leads and improve their sales processes.