By Larry Stopa, E-Power Marketing
The Digital Education Series of Blog posts are designed to help IHA members take advantage of the marketing opportunities that the Internet offers.
The Internet has changed retail marketing in a number of ways, including the channels used to deliver your messages to your customers. Embrace those changes and you will enjoy sales better than ever.
Manufacturers will drive increased sales to its retailers, both storefront and online, by strengthening its brand online. I previously explored using online marketing to build branding with a strong website and with Social Media . What more can manufacturers do to drive sales?
Make it Easy for Customers to Find Where to Buy
Sure that’s obvious. So feature a web page informing customers how and where to buy your products. Include links to each of your retailers. Better yet, add a store locator where customers could search by city, state or zip code. These are all easy, yet effective ways to put your products in front of the consumers.
Strong Search Visibility Drives Strong Sales
The Internet has changed the way consumers shop and buy products. Search visibility can make or break a brand online. Effective Search Engine Marketing (SEM) can drive major sales revenues by making your brand more visible to customers.
But effective SEM is hard to come by. There are too many ineffective SEM sources out there. To learn what questions to ask when evaluating search marketing partners, check out How to Demand Truly Effective Search Marketing.
Respond to Customer Complaints
Your reputation, whether positive or negative, travels far and fast on the Internet. Make sure you diligently protect yours.
When consumers today have a problem with a product, they tell the world about it. Make sure to monitor comments about your products. Have a monitoring system in place including alerts, notifications, etc. for top sites within your industry and consider a social media monitoring platform to cover additional mentions.
When you read a negative comment, don’t become defensive. Apologize for the problem and do what you can to make the customer happy. Other potential customers will see your response and give you kudos for making it right.
Demonstrate Quality Online Customer Service
The World Wide Web makes the quality of your customer service very public. Read how TOMS Shoes handled customer service on Facebook. Again, other potential customers will see that.
Take these steps and your retailers will sell more of your product. If you ignore these online matters, you may never realize how many sales you lost.
Larry Stopa established E-Power Marketing in 1998. He has followed the evolution of the web and search engines to guide businesses on how to best use the always changing online marketing landscape.
Do you have a question or a situation about online marketing that you want to discuss? Email Larry Stopa at larry@epower.com
