How to increase footfall with low-cost actions
Let’s understand the importance of footfall.
With footfall or foot traffic, we can measure how many people visit our physical store. It’s helpful to understand market trends and determine the percentage of customers who leave without buying anything.
Retail footfall analytics is an integral part of shop business strategy. Most shops have sensors on the front entrance to count how many people pass (divided by two to get the actual visitor count).
Understanding this data, you can learn customer behavior and use that to identify peak times, staffing needs, and the general performance of your shop.
So, now that you have made the essentials arrangements and understandings, how can you work in this way to leverage more customer traffic to your physical store?
1. Footfall: Build customer loyalty
Returning customers are the base of any successful business entity, so you should examine ways to encourage customer loyalty.
Offering discounts or incentives to returning customers is one option. You may choose to provide a discount on a customer’s second or/and third purchase. However, well-established loyalty schemes are beneficial in this direction, and if you have direct competitors in the local area, they can help you stand out from the crowd.
2. Recruit influencers to promote your shop through your loyalty program
Influencer marketing is not only for e-commerce to get more product reviews on social media.
You, too, can leverage the power of influencers by inviting them into your store. You can make them subscribe to your loyalty program, offer them special prices, offers, and discounts, and give them many opportunities to take photos.
3. Offer click and collect.
If you have an e-commerce site, give the option to customers to register to your loyalty program and pick up their purchases for free at the store. This is one of the most straightforward ways to generate footfall.
Even better, you can increase purchases while you offer your services through a loyalty marketplace, as customers from other companies or e-shops can explore your offerings and have the chance to collect them at the store.
In this way, better familiarity with your brand can occur, and you have the chance to convert them to your loyal customers too. According to research, 69% of shoppers who buy online in-store made additional purchases when they visited the retailer.
4. Organise in-store sessions
In-store workshops are great for attracting new visitors and building more solid customer relationships in the process. Find a topic relevant to your niche and offer free learning sessions with special discounts for your loyal members after the class.
Many retailers are already performing this.
5. Make your existing customers coming back
Gaining new customers into your store is moving, but don’t overlook your existing customers. Nourish your relationships with people who’ve purchased from you in the past so that you can drive repeat visits. Stay top of mind by keeping communication alive via email and offering customer-exclusive offers only for members. Use the platform of your loyalty give them freebies and experiential vouchers like the workshops mentioned above.
6. Footfall: Advertise your store and products by joining other marketplaces
Promotion is one of the oldest methods, but it still works very well. This is precisely the beauty of living in today’s digital age is that robust advertising solutions are more accessible than ever. Marketplaces for products or services allow your shop to access much more potential visitors and make them consumers.
Moreover, both the Facebook and Google platforms offer great audience targeting options that let you get in front of people from specific locations and certain demographics. You may use these tools in your advertising efforts to put your store on the radar of potentially loyal customers.
7. Support customers to bring a friend.
Is there any better idea to get more people through your doors at no cost?
Encourage your current customers to bring a friend or two. You can even make a promotion out of it, like the wadata referral program that makes you gain coins by inviting your friends to use the platform. Imagine now the flow, and you can get the whole picture at a glance.
You have connected your business to the wadata marketplace. You also have a custom loyalty program for your business, so you can trigger your loyalty app users to invite their friends. In the meantime, other users can find your offerings via the connected brands of the marketplace.
And in that simple way, you can have more loyal customers than ever.
Bring more customers to your shop today!
