If you have an established physical store and a decent social media following, that is your starting point to build traffic to your online store. Break the silos between your physical store and online business for successful revenue streams. Do not panic if you are seeing less footfall in your stores – instead,  adopt omnichannel strategies to succeed.

People who come to your store will also be comfortable buying online because your brand has already established credibility in their minds. On the other hand, your website customers may like the convenience of store pickups to save shipping costs and immediate receipt of their items.

Here are some ideas to increase your online revenue by adopting omnichannel strategies from day one.

1. Use Facebook posts that lead to website purchases Change the type of content you have been posting on social media. Content must move away from fulfilling the traditional goal of pure branding, towards driving conversions. Now is the time to start posting product carousels that lead to your online store. These posts should be done multiple times per day. Our experience says that these posts have the ability to bring at least 6 – 10% of your fan base to your site; meaning that if you have 100,000 Facebook fans you reach 6,000 people with each post with zero ads spend.  More tips on Facebook campaigns for eCommerce.

2. Use your store purchase data to build the right audience for your online store

Since your store draws an audience that is interested in your products, you must utilize this knowledge to acquire the right target audience for your online site. Download the list of customers from your CRM (as a simple excel sheet of their email ids) to create a Facebook Lookalike Audience campaign. Facebook helps you find more users of profiles similar to the one you upload. By starting with a relevant audience, you maximize the ROI on your ad spend.

 3. Get your store visitors to opt-in to receive email or browser push notifications

At the store check-out counter, offer a limited time coupon for first purchase on your website. Ask your customers for their email id or to opt-in to receive browser notifications at the time of redeeming the coupon, to stay updated with rewards and personalized offers in the categories they purchased. More about browser push notifications built for eCommerce.

4.Unify your loyalty program

Use the mobile numbers of people enrolled in your store loyalty program to send text messages asking them to redeem their points before they expire. Allow them to use these on the online site too. Enrich your text messages with product recommendations based on their purchase history, leading them directly to the online site.  People would rather buy stuff than lose their points if you make it easy for them. Offer them coupons (cross-sell categories based on their last purchase) that they can use to make online purchases.

5. Unify your inventory and keep more choices online if you have to cut your store’s inventory 

This effort will save your stocking costs and floor space, and give your customers a reason to go to your online store and discover more products. Your store can evolve to become a showroom, with lots of space to host events to build community engagement, as well as pick-up points for online orders.

6. Testing the waters?

If you are in the early stages or still building your website, create a Facebook store to start off, and to test the online affinity of your Facebook fans. This method is a great way to start on your online endeavor before going all out.  Also, experiment with a smaller number of delivery locations, possibly closer to your stores before making it universal.

Please contact marketing@unthink.ai to learn more.