For brick-and-mortar retailers, it’s a no-brainer:
If you want to get your target audience to buy from you, you need to get them into your store.
This gets harder and harder to do so as time goes on.
For one thing, foot traffic to brick-and-mortar stores has been steadily declining in recent years—no doubt due to the steady growth of eCommerce. And, of course, you still have to compete with the many other brick-and-mortar stores in your area—who are likely pulling out all the stops to attract your potential customers to their shops.
All that said, it’s worth mentioning that most consumers actually want to continue shopping in-store (as opposed to going completely digital).
Needless to say, if your brick-and-mortar store doesn’t provide these accommodations, your target audience won’t have much reason to check you out. Moreover, if your audience doesn’t know you provide these accommodations, it might not even cross their mind to stop by.
In this article, we’re going to take a look at some of the key things you need to do to attract more foot traffic to your brick-and-mortar store.
But first, we need to clarify something real quick…
Why Focus on Increasing Brick-and-Mortar Foot Traffic?
In the intro, we mentioned that while consumers currently still prefer shopping in-store, the tides are quickly turning in favor of eCommerce.
So, if the decline in brick-and-mortar shopping is set to continue, why should we even keep trying to generate in-store foot traffic? Why not just throw in the towel and go completely digital altogether?
First of all, consumers are much more likely to convert when visiting a physical store than when visiting a website. Depending on the industry, in-store retailers typically see —as much as seven times higher than the average eCommerce conversion rate.
Secondly, cart abandonment is much lower for brick-and-mortar stores across the board. A survey by Barclaycard shows that only 24% of in-store shoppers abandon a potential purchase, compared to 41% of online shoppers.
Not only are in-store shoppers more likely to make a purchase—they’re more likely to make larger purchases, as well. Whether this means buying more valuable products, or simply more products, the fact is that your brick-and-mortar shoppers typically spend much more than your online customers. These shoppers provide a ton of value to your business—and may have more potential value than you realize. So, even as the general focus shifts toward the digital consumer, you’ll still want to continue catering to the needs of your in-store customers.
Three Prerequisites for Brick-and-Mortar Success
As you work to attract customers to your brick-and-mortar location, there are three key things to keep in mind.
First, your physical store needs to deliver on your customers’ expectations. As mentioned earlier, this may mean a variety of things, including providing access to products, streamlining transactional processes, and delivering quality customer service. Your brick-and-mortar stores should also provide unique and innovative experiences that help differentiate your brand from others (and that make your store worth visiting in the first place).
It’s also important to desilo your eCommerce and brick-and-mortar stores in the interest of creating a truly omnichannel experience for your customers. As we’ll discuss, this is essential in some cases—and always beneficial even when not 100% required. For now, just know that separating your physical and online stores will often lead to a poor experience for your in-store customers.
There’s no point in getting customers into your store if it’s not going to enhance their experience or lead to growth for your business. So before you start looking to increase foot traffic, make sure it’ll be worth doing so for all parties involved.
Getting Your Online Shoppers to Visit Your Store
For starters, dig into what your online customers want to receive from their typical brick-and-mortar experience. Use this information to evolve your in-store processes accordingly.
For example, if your online customers often request faster delivery times, consider offering BOPIS and BORIS services—making the benefit of these options clear to your audience:
If your online audience wants a more hands-on and immersive experience when engaging with your brand, use your online presence to set their expectations. Nike, for example, has made numerous mentions of its new Nike Live concept stores on the brand’s website and social media channels:
Speaking of your online presence, you might also choose to get a bit more granular in terms of whom you attract to your brick-and-mortar store. For example, you might develop in-store only promotions or events specifically for people on your mailing list, or who follow you on a certain social media platform or belong to a certain audience segment.
Once you’ve convinced your online customers to head to your store, you’ll need to ensure they know how to get there. This means updating your online profiles on any channel where your brand is hosted or active, including your website, social channels, and business profiles on Google My Business, Yelp, and any other online directory.
If you have multiple locations, be sure to clarify and confirm that the information provided is accurate across the board. You don’t want your online customers, for example, to trek all the way to a specific location only to find that the hours are listed incorrectly on your website.
If you can show your online customers what they stand to gain by checking out your brick-and-mortar store—and you make it as easy as possible for them to visit—you should have no trouble getting them in the door.
Enticing Passersby to Stop into Your Brick-and-Mortar Store
Even if your store is located in a highly-trafficked area—and even if many of the people who pass your store belong to your target audience—there’s no guarantee you’ll generate substantial foot traffic.
One way to steer them your way is to tap into the modern consumer’s tendency to use their mobile phone throughout the in-person shopping experience.
As we’ve discussed before on PostFunnel’s blog, GPS targeting can effectively grab your audience’s attention at just the right time, providing just the right offer to convince them to step inside.
GPS targeting comes in a few different forms:
- Beaconing, which allows you to target specific passersby with personalized offers based on their engagement history
- Geofencing, which lets you serve up ads (via Google and social media) to individuals who use specific search terms within a certain geographic area
- Geotargeting, allowing you to target specific audience segments within a given geographic location, delivering highly-relevant ads to their mobile device
You also want passersby to know they can continue using their mobile devices for shopping purposes once they enter your store. Do this by:
- Offering free WiFi, which can increase visitors’ time in-store and propensity to spend more money
- Promoting price match guarantees, inviting visitors to shop around online while actually inside your store
- Providing in-store tablets for locating items, requesting assistance, and making purchases
Again, it’s not enough to just offer these services; you also need to ensure your target audience knows you offer them.
It’s also important to make location-specific adjustments to your individual stores in order to attract foot traffic in different areas.
Here, you might tweak, change, or even overhaul:
- The products you promote in different locations
- The promotions you offer in different stores
- The design and theme of your store altogether
Now, this is pretty obvious in some cases; you’d clearly take a different approach with your New York location than your store in California. But it can be easy to ignore all this when your various stores are mere miles from each other.
Still, it’s vital to recognize that each store sees different audiences—and will need to be adjusted accordingly in order to attract visitors. Take Starbucks, for example: While all locations are easily recognizable as Starbucks, each is unique in its setup, look, and overall feel.
The idea is to give each of your locations that certain something that makes them their own. In turn, you’ll provide an experience to your specific audiences that they absolutely couldn’t have gotten anywhere else—even at your other locations.
If you can promise a unique, engaging, and valuable experience to your audience before they even walk in your door—and follow through with providing it—you won’t have to worry about a lack of foot traffic for long.
But…
You might have to worry about moving to a bigger location.
