One Simple But Powerful Way To Increase Sales in Your Brick & Mortar Business
The ability to communicate, motivate, and persuade your customer by creating a shopping experience that is enjoyable, informative, and personally gratifying is the key to building a strong brand. One of the most powerful ways to successfully achieve it is with visual marketing.
Visual marketing is the practice of using visual media – pictures, videos, gif’s, info- graphics, – to persuade and connect with your audience. Over the past few years, it has become the single most important focus of a business marketing plan, based on data & statistics that prove we are hard-wired as humans to learn & retain more through visuals. The popularity of social media which is driven primarily by pictures and image sharing, is further proof.
From a retail standpoint, using visual marketing can be compared to merchandising – which is the practice of displaying products in a way that stimulates interest, and entices a customer to make a purchase. With visual marketing, you can use images to enhance your message, attract attention, and persuade browsers to take action and buy. You can create a mood, give information, increase trust, define your brand/business culture, communicate value, and so much more.
How does Visual Marketing do all that?
Scientifically, it has been found that humans are wired to learn and understand faster through visual stimulation. We process and retain information better when it is presented visually. Visuals will make any marketing plan more powerful and more memorable.
The interests of today’s consumers are heavily focused on visual stimulation- being inspired by them, pinning them, producing them (selfies) and sharing them. Statistics have proven that visual content gets viewed more, liked more, and shared more on social media.
What are the Benefits of using Visual Marketing in Your Brick & Mortar Store?
First, remember that buying is an emotionally driven action, and using images to trigger moods & emotions is at the heart of any business owner’s marketing plan.
Second, the more tools we can use to foster a relationship with our customer without needing one-on-one interaction saves time & money.
Third, when done right, your visuals will not only create engagement, but have the potential to be shared on social media as user generated content that increases social proof and can drive new traffic to your store.
In order to grow as a business, you need to understand who your customer is and what their interests & pain points are so you connect with them. Visual Marketing can communicate how well you understand their lives, and how what you have to offer will bring value and that will benefit it in some way.
How can You Use Visual Marketing in Your Brick & Mortar Business?
Education – Provide information about your brand, your product, your industry, or you as an experienced authority.
Entertainment – Positive emotions are proven to be the most sales driven, and humor is the most shared positive emotion on social media. You can create a mood, tap into nostalgia, or tickle their funny bone.
Enrichment – Describe the features of your product and show the benefits of having them in their life – think about ease, convenience, confidence, comfort – focus on how it will make them FEEL.
Engagement – Use images that ask questions – have them make a choice, give their opinion, choose which they like better – online this is done very effectively with quizzes and polls, (quizzes are actually one of the most shared content on facebook) using this technique in your store will also give you insight into what your customers want and don’t want. It can also help increase social shares which will get your store more exposure online through social proof.
Brick & Mortar Best Practices
- Plan a theme in your store maybe around a season, a holiday or a product inspired topic. Use similar images throughout your space including dressing rooms & your front window to make a transformation.
- Try combining your own product shots or material that is provided to you by the manufacturer with stock photography of places or situations. For a list of FREE sites to find high quality stock images that are Royalty Free for business owners to use without infringement or requiring attribution that you can use both online & offline, click here.
- Target a mood to enhance the customer experience .
- Tell a story that guides your customers throughout the store
- Test different emotions within the theme of visuals to see which ones get the most reaction.
When you consider all of the visual components of your business as one big story, it will help you create a unique, recognizable and memorable experience for your customer.
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