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Common retail marketing mistakes

Industry News 2 August 2022

Retail marketing refers to the comprehensive strategies that a retail business employs to attract customers and make sales. While many retailers understand the importance of retail marketing, not many know the common retail marketing mistakes they must avoid.

Here are the most common retail marketing mistakes you need to know

Poor budgeting

Marketing campaigns require financing. Failing to budget is therefore planning to fail. You need to have a quarterly or annual budget for marketing expenses such as gifts to customers, customer surveys, printing publicity materials, catalogue displays, etc.

Poor market research

Poor market research is fatal. An in-depth understanding of the market dynamics allows you to execute marketing campaigns properly. In-depth understanding refers to the demographics of your customers, such as age, occupation, gender, income levels and what type of value proposition appeals to them. You can invest in relevant apps and tech to identify and target your market niche.

Manual operations

Manual used to work before digital advancements found their way into retail spaces. Retail marketing is about conveniently managing of the entire process, from marketing to sales. You, therefore, need to have systems that help streamline processes like managing purchase orders, increase efficiency by integrating your point-of-sale (POS) systems with your back-office for product and inventory information, reduce errors and save time.

Poor tracking

In any retail marketing campaign, you need to have goals, but even more importantly, you need to keep tracking the results of every campaign and check if they align with your goals. Ask yourself if your marketing campaign is about attracting new customers, retaining them, generating sales or just building relationships. Always remember that good measurement leads to good management. To assist retailers, Guzzle provides in-depth reports to retailers for every catalogue cycle.

Not utilising multiple channels

The retail space has changed tremendously over the years especially during the Covid era. Gone are the days of focusing purely on marketing to attract shoppers to brick-and-mortar stores. Instead, you need to have a multifaceted marketing campaign encompassing your own active website, online marketplaces and brick and mortar stores. Apart from the print and digital catalogues, Guzzle has an unrivalled 120,000 subscribed mailing list which you can be allowed to take over to send out custom newsletters.

Poor visibility

Visibility is about ensuring your brand and products enjoy sufficient audience market share by being seen and noticed by potential shoppers. While traditional platforms like radio and television still offer great marketing opportunities, you can also capitalise on the power of social media, blog posts and online platforms to market to the right consumer audience. Guzzle has a strong social media presence with accounts on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Guzzle also hosts The Retail Talk, a content blog where articles and relevant information pieces, product launches, retail trends, product developments, regulatory developments, retail insights and tips, etc., are published.

Making too many discounts

Your discounts and promos must be well timed to avoid sending the wrong message. For business savvy and conscious shoppers, constant low prices and discount translates into inferior products. One simple way to work around this is by offering discounts for different product categories at different intervals. Guzzle allows you to tailor seasonal catalogues that cater to changing consumer needs in different seasons and different times of the calendar year.

The mistakes listed above must be avoided to reap the benefits of a good marketing campaign. You can count on Guzzle, which captures 20,000 products on special each week from major retailers across the country. As a retailer, this is a great opportunity to have one of your own digital and print catalogues with the potential to reach over 700 000 users each month who browse over 11.4 million catalogue pages.

Guzzle