Awareness
Awareness is when a customer becomes familiar with a brand through advertising, word-of-mouth or social media. Retail marketing can be utilised to increase awareness of a brand by reaching potential customers at the right time and moment.
To gain a better understanding of what type of consumers are currently aware of your brand and how much they know about the brand, retailers need to conduct research and analysis. This might include activities such as customer surveys, social media outreach and analytics.
A wealth of information can be obtained from research and analytical data, including the location, age, gender, devices used, and interests of your customers. Understanding exactly who your customers are and how they are discovering and interacting with your brand can be incredibly informative for developing strategies to increase awareness.
Advertising also presents a significant opportunity to boost awareness. There are lots of different ways to advertise a retail brand including in store marketing such as events and promotions, traditional marketing such as press releases and TV ads and digital marketing such as having a website and using social media.
Consideration
Consideration is when a consumer realises that they have a need that must be met. The consumer actively considers whether or not to buy the product or service on offer. Retail marketing can be utilised to increase conversions of those in the consideration stage of the customer journey by highlighting that your brand can meet their needs and that it matches their core values.
Advertising and marketing alone is no longer enough to increase purchases. It has become more common for consumers to trust and rely on the opinions and words of others, particularly friends and family, when making purchases.
An effective way of getting your brand into the consideration stage of the customer journey is by prominently featuring testimonials and reviews on your various channels. Your retail brand's ethos might be better understood by potential consumers if you share how your brand has helped existing customers.
The majority of consumers prefer to engage with brands that share their values, such as sustainability, and those that are perceived as having an authentic purpose. Sharing your brand values and ethos with customers can be achieved through advertisements, social media posts and store window displays and signage.
Purchase
The purchase or decision stage of the customer journey is when a consumer has considered your brand and your product offering and is now ready to make a purchase. This is a crucial moment for retail marketers to capture their customers details whilst also making sure the sales process is as streamlined as possible.
Capturing customer details such as name and email address at this stage means that you now have their contact details, which can be utilised for email marketing. Email newsletters featuring offers and promotions are a great way of retaining and encouraging repeat customers.
It's also important that the purchase process has as few steps as possible. This not only helps improve the experience of the customer in store or online but it also builds a positive association with the brand.
Retention
The retention stage of the customer journey will help the consumer decide whether or not to visit your store or website again and make a repeat purchase. This stage is crucial for increasing brand loyalty.
Offering excellent customer service is a great way of increasing customer retention and brand loyalty. From having trained in store staff to help with queries and handle returns to an online customer service team that can answer questions over the phone or via an online chat, ensuring that your customers feel valued and listened to is essential.
Customer retention and brand loyalty can also be increased in a variety of other ways such as loyalty programs, discount codes, engaging email newsletters, referral programs and offering fast delivery.
Advocacy
The final stage of the customer journey is advocacy. This is when the customer spreads the word about your brand or products either via social media or word of mouth - whether it's good or bad.
Advocacy strategies must include proactive ways to deal with criticism and showcase praise. If a negative review starts trending on social media, brands must react in the correct way. They need to be agile in their response by contacting the customer, accurately assessing the situation and resolving the issue in a positive way.
Equally, a retail brand needs to know how to capitalise on positive feedback. Whether it's showcasing customer reviews on your website or highlighting positive press coverage of your brand, keeping an eye on what people say about your brand is essential to its success.