Offline stores have no traffic? Try these 3 tips!

We know that whether it is e-commerce or physical stores, the importance of traffic is self-evident. No traffic means no sales, and no sales means chronic death. Especially now that offline physical stores are declining, it is even more difficult to obtain effective traffic. Not all companies occupy important geographical locations like McDonald's and KFC , and rely on strong brand effects to obtain huge traffic.

So is it really that difficult for other companies to obtain traffic?

Yes, it is difficult, but there is a solution.

Let's first look at a formula:

Sales = Traffic conversion rate per customer

This is the classic formula for sales on e-commerce platforms. We try to use this classic formula to solve the dilemma of offline store traffic, increase traffic, and achieve sales.

From this formula, it is not difficult to see that in order to obtain sales, there are three dimensions to consider:

• The first dimension is to increase traffic;
• The second dimension is to improve conversion rate;
• The third dimension is to use price leverage to drive traffic.

1

Let’s first think about how to effectively increase traffic from the first dimension. Traffic can be divided into three types: online traffic, offline traffic and self-generated traffic.

First of all, we focus on online traffic platforms

For many small physical stores, there are not many online traffic platforms that they can truly rely on in terms of economy and practicality. The main online traffic platforms include WeChat QQ social software, Meituan , Ele.me , 58.com and other life software.

There are others that I won’t list one by one. Of course, this has a lot to do with your own industry and the relevant attributes of the platform. In order to achieve good traffic-generating effects, the first step is definitely to increase exposure and rely on these large platforms to find your own precise customers, thereby increasing your own traffic. Where are your customers? That’s where you direct your traffic.

The second is offline traffic

So how do we increase traffic offline?

A very important point in evaluating your traffic is whether users will consume again. With this in mind, we can increase our traffic from what users can and cannot see.

There are a series of experience factors that users can see, such as store decoration, hygiene conditions, convenience of consumption places, whether there is WIFE, etc. You can also start from the psychological characteristics of users to create a feeling of hot sales.

Take advantage of social herd mentality and scarcity to attract consumers to shop in stores. For example, when many stores open, they will invite a bunch of people to show their support, making people mistakenly think that the store is very popular. The more popular the consumption place is, the higher the trust of consumers.

The second is scarcity. Consumer psychology is complex. If you give them everything you have, they may not want it. But if you set some thresholds, they may want it.

For example, limited time, limited products, and limited crowds. By setting these rules, users can feel a sense of urgency, thus stimulating consumption.

What users cannot see is actually our brand and service effect.

Some people may ask, how can I get the brand effect when I run a small business? This is a misunderstanding. Even the smallest business can develop into its own brand.

As long as your products and services occupy an important position in the minds of consumers within your sales area through your operations, you have established a brand.

The third type of traffic is self-generated traffic

Traffic can be created through various means of communication. In layman's terms, it is to create gimmicks to let more people know about products and services, thereby achieving sales.

For example, the Wenzhou Leather Factory went bankrupt, the bastard boss ran away with his sister-in-law, and all the products were priced at such and such yuan.
To celebrate the successful divorce, all products are 50% off.
Factory direct sales, clearance price

In addition to a series of gimmicks that can be used to hype up traffic, what you can also do when creating your own traffic is to leverage that traffic.

• Taking advantage of the momentum of holidays, there are a series of events including the Spring Festival, Lantern Festival , Qingming Festival , Mid-Autumn Festival , Valentine's Day, Christmas , etc.
• You can take advantage of hot topics, national affairs, and celebrity gossip by digging them out from Weibo's hot searches.

To obtain effective traffic, you can rely on methods such as increasing online traffic, improving offline experience, and generating your own traffic.

2

The first dimension is about increasing traffic as much as possible. So what should we do after we have the traffic? Faced with this huge traffic, improving conversion rate is the next thing to consider.

Specific ways to increase conversion rate:

• Design rules to reward users
• Focus on core fans and leverage the power of influencers
• Teach users to take control of it

Users need to be stimulated and rewarded. For many users, they will not consume if there is no cost-effectiveness, no free, and no cheap price.

For example, during the opening of a new store, users can share the message on WeChat Moments and collect likes, and after making a purchase, users can post photos on WeChat Moments to get price discounts.

After the new store opens, a points system will be adopted, where users will be awarded points based on their consumption. After accumulating a certain number of points, they will be able to receive price discounts and high-quality services.

Give out coupons. Give out coupons before consumption during the opening period. After the business stabilizes, give out vouchers after consumption to buy out the customer for the next consumption.

These may seem like common strategies, but they are still very effective.

The second is to attach importance to the power of core users and big Vs.

The way to value core users is to set up membership services, with different consumption thresholds and then different membership levels. The price discounts and services enjoyed by different membership levels are obviously differentiated, highlighting the value of members.

Watsons and major e-commerce platforms have done well in this regard. If offline stores want to build their own membership system , they can refer to their practices.

Make full use of the power of big Vs. Big Vs are a kind of communication lever. Their existence can make your products more trustworthy to consumers.

Many gourmet restaurants have strong control over this aspect. There is a TV on it, and on TV are interviews with food channels or well-known programs he has appeared on. When promoting it, it emphasizes that Chairman Mao likes to eat Changsha's stinky tofu.

The big V is an opinion leader. Can he use the psychological advantage of consumption? Since he has endorsed this, I can also give it a try.

Keep users in your own hands.

Only when users are in their hands can they be real users. More and more physical stores are adopting the strategy of adding WeChat friends, creating public accounts , and building communities . Because personal WeChat accounts, public accounts and groups have more social attributes and can also increase the stickiness between businesses and users.

The specific strategy is to join different local friend groups through WeChat QQ, build good relationships with the group owners, and add the friends in the group to your own WeChat. Another way is to add customers who come to the store as friends to get discounts.

Prepare a QR code on the back of your phone to make friends and add WeChat in different places locally.

Integrate these friends into your own friends, build your own user group, and provide various product information and promotional information in the group and your own WeChat account.

Chain stores must set up their own WeChat public accounts , and by following the public accounts, they can get membership rewards and small gifts, which will pave the way for the push of product information and promotion information in the future.

After the traffic comes, what you need to do is to improve the conversion rate. There are three small measures to improve the conversion rate, design rules to reward users, and it is the core users and the power of big Vs to keep the users in your own hands.

3

Next, let’s talk about the third dimension: using price leverage to drive traffic.

High-frequency consumption drives low-frequency consumption

Real estate developers use low-price strategies to attract large shopping malls such as Walmart, which brings in huge traffic, and the value of other locations of the property naturally goes up, thereby achieving profits through other locations.

The top consumption place in the shopping mall is catering, because the catering industry is a high-frequency consumption in comparison and can bring huge traffic. By placing catering on the top floor, the other floors can also bring traffic and realize consumption.

If Xiaomi Home relied on mobile phones as the only product category, the traffic would definitely be limited. However, when there are a series of products such as rice cookers, mobile power supplies , speakers, bags, Mi Rabbit, etc., with more categories and more high-frequency consumer products, the overall traffic will naturally increase.

It is not difficult to see from these cases that if you have a low-frequency product, you must find high-frequency product consumption to drive it, otherwise it will be difficult to generate traffic no matter how good the product is.

Low-priced products drive high-priced products

Low-priced products can screen out price-sensitive customers, who are also target customers. By designing certain strategies, they can also be led to high-priced products.

For example, I have seen a restaurant promoting its signature dish for one yuan. When chatting with the owner, I found that its geographical location was not very advantageous, but it brought in a lot of traffic by relying on this gimmick.

When people come to a restaurant to consume, they definitely order more than one dish. You may not make money from traffic products, but you can make money through other product lines.

Complementary products achieve overall sales

A movie theater may not make money from movie tickets, but it can make money from popcorn. A bar may provide peanuts for free, but it can make money from drinks.

Giving you a low-priced product or even a free product to consume, and achieving value-added profits through complementary products, a measure that many offline physical stores can take.

Price is a lever. People are naturally sensitive to price. The overall sales volume of products can be greatly increased through high-frequency consumption, low-priced products, and complementary products.

To increase traffic and achieve sales, the work still needs to follow the same formula:

Sales = Traffic conversion rate per customer

What you need to think about is how to increase traffic, how to obtain valuable and accurate traffic, improve conversion rate through various strategies, use price levers to leverage traffic, and achieve sales.

Source: Marketing Inn