22 Mar Brick and Mortar Digital Marketing
What Your Digital Marketing Team Isn’t Doing!
Brick and Mortar Stores have a lot of catching up to do on the digital frontier, and that includes more than simply creating a Facebook account. According to a recent study on The State of Retail in a Digital World, brick and mortar retailers not only find themselves at a disadvantage when dealing with the worldwide web, but they may have brought it on themselves.
It appears that the majority of executives from physical stores reported that their senior digital leader isn’t responsible for multichannel integration and was promoted from within (meaning that they are learning as they go), rather than hired for their previous talent from the outside. Therefore, digital progression may not be their specialty. The study also showcased the opinions of the majority of executives questioned which said they didn’t feel their senior leadership teams understand the digital needs of their customers. And, these opinions continue because 81% of the brick and mortar retailers agree that their websites aren’t as effective as they could be nor are they addressing the needs of the new mobile shopper. Therefore, if nearly half of those business owners questioned (47%) do not feel as though their investments in digital media have been adequate, why don’t they fix these underlying digital marketing issues?
Traditional Brick and Mortar store owners may not possess the knowledge to understand and solve this issue. Digital Marketing requires a totally different mindset and approach; an approach which requires a different type of experience and talent that most people typically don’t develop unless they already have experience. Digital Marketing changes almost as quickly as we know about it. “There are constant updates which seem to materialize out of thin air and demand immediate action at a time when the stores are under enormous margin pressure, are being cautious about budgets generally and have in-store and online inventories to manage (WWD).” Therefore, finding the right executive team to help compete with a business which is always in motion, can be the most difficult thing to grasp and determine for traditional brick and mortar store owners.
The biggest thing that traditional brick and mortar stores may be missing, then, is the fact that they are not necessarily looking for strictly technical engineers to build them a website and then take care of their online presence, but brand ambassadors. Digital marketing and advertising now needs more of a personal PR focus than ever before, which can be hard to accomplish when so many things and people need to be taken care of right in front of you.
This is why so many people have hired Internet Marketing companies like Webociti to not only optimize the website so that more people can find it, but advertise, and personalize the website and the company as well. Today’s consumer is looking for a connection that they just won’t get at a huge store, online presence, or from a strictly salesperson. They need to feel like a special customer. Teams like Webociti can make sure that your customers are targeted through successful search engine optimization and advertising. In this way, the customers who are searching for you can find you, and you can get to know them on a personal level to build even more brand loyalty and keep doing business.