4 channels and strategies for traffic acquisition

The so-called traffic thinking is where does your store traffic come from and how does it come? There are only four types of traffic sources: natural traffic, old customer traffic, cross-industry alliance traffic, and event traffic.

Let’s talk about organic traffic first.

First, let me ask you a question. When we pay to rent a storefront, what exactly are we buying? Maybe you will say that you are buying the right to use the building, or the space for the store, or the location, but in fact, these are not the cases. When you spend money to rent a storefront, what you are actually buying is traffic.

If there is no traffic, no matter how cheap your rent is, it will be useless to you. As long as there is enough traffic, you will enter the market no matter how high the rent is. Therefore, what you buy in rent is traffic, not the right to use, space, or location.

Now that we understand this, let’s talk about what is natural traffic? It is the traffic coming and going in front of your store.

The so-called natural traffic refers to customers passing by, who see the store, stop - walk in - buy - experience - leave - and spread the word to others. Our design should focus on this traffic conversion link:

(1) How many passers-by saw it?

(2) How many people stopped when they saw it?

(3) How many people stopped and walked into the store?

(4) How many people who enter the store buy things and how much they buy

(5) What experiences did the consumer gain after purchasing the product that are worth remembering and talking about?

(6) How many people who have used the product would recommend it to others? What would they say when they recommend it?

The above mentioned "passing by", so what does it mean to pass by? Does walking past the store count as passing by? Or does walking across the street also count as passing by? Or does walking diagonally across a distant vertical street intersection also count as passing by? Does driving past count as passing by?

All of these situations are considered passing by, even driving past counts. If he sees it in his car today, he may come to consume tomorrow.

In short, the larger the range of "passing by" you can expand, the greater your traffic will be. When we pay for a shop’s rent, what we buy is the traffic on this street. However, due to differences in design thinking, there is a huge gap in the conversion rate between “purchased traffic” and “visibility”! This will also lead to huge differences in operating results.

How to increase your chances of being seen?

So, how to expand the conversion rate from "passing by" to "seeing"? We have summarized 4 principles:

(1) The signboard should be eye-catching;

(2) There should be more signs;

(3) The signboard should be bright;

(4) The font on the sign should be bold.

This principle couldn't be simpler. It is the way businesses have been done for hundreds of years. The more successful the company is, the more it knows how to use it to the fullest.

In addition to the sign being large and eye-catching, the shop sign should also reflect the following elements:

1. Reflect the brand

2. Reflect the category

3. Have a logo

4. Have a brand slogan

5. Display of main products

Let's look at some specific examples of failed storefronts. I took a casual walk around my home and saw a store like this. The store name displayed on the storefront was "Jia Xiangcai" and the subtitle was "Ecological Sichuan Cuisine". I personally think that this storefront is not a qualified one. The stores next to it are doing very hot business and even have long queues, but from the photos, this store has few customers and the owner is standing at the door anxiously looking at passers-by.

Why is this sign unqualified? The three words "家香菜" themselves are fine, but what the hell is the subtitle "Ecological Sichuan Cuisine"? The boss may want to highlight that his dishes are all grown without pesticides, but ecological Sichuan cuisine does not stand up to scrutiny, and consumers do not have a strong perceptual resonance. If the subtitle is changed to a different sentence, such as "My boss's specialty is spicy boiled pork slices", I estimate business will be much better.

After seeing so many unsatisfactory door front cases, what are some good ones? You can take a look at the case of Yunhaiyao. The brand name is Yunhaiyao, the category name is Yunnan cuisine, and the best-selling product is wild porcini. The most important information of a store appears on the shop sign, and there are no strange conceptual words used. Good shop signs all have such storefront logic. If you are interested, you can check it out yourself.

The second point is the traffic from old customers.

The value of old customers is not only to develop their lifetime value and let them continue to repurchase, but also to let these old customers bring you new customers.

Therefore, we need to design some promotional slogans to encourage old customers to promote us after they make purchases, and we also need to design some interest mechanisms to allow old customers to bring in new traffic.

I won’t talk about slogans today. Instead, I will talk about how to set up a profit mechanism to encourage old customers to refer more people in. Let’s take the example of a beauty salon.

We designed a traffic-generating activity for a beauty salon in Hebei. We designed a 0-yuan experience for 10 skin-rejuvenation treatments worth 1,680 yuan.

Conversion is designed ten times, and the purpose of these ten times is to build trust, because the core of the medical beauty industry is to gain the trust of users.

Then, through ten in-store experiences, consumers are converted into users and become members.

After becoming a member, you will have the following benefits:

1. Members can get 10 points by introducing a friend to experience the game

Second, friends introduced by members also become members, and members can get 200 points

Points can be redeemed for cash or used to purchase other items in the store.

Why use points? In fact, you can also use money directly. For example, if you introduce a friend to experience it, you can get a certain amount of cash back. The friend you introduced also becomes a member and gets a certain amount of cash back.

However, if it is directly expressed in terms of money, it will appear too blatant. When members make referrals, they will be thought to have introduced me to the experience just for the money.

The essence of using points is actually benefit, but it doesn't feel as blatant as money. When you make referrals, you will feel more comfortable with it psychologically and it will reduce the psychological barriers of members.

In short, it is important to remember that maintaining old customers is the most important thing. Traffic is so expensive now, and the cost of acquiring new customers is getting higher and higher, which is five times the cost of old customers bringing in new customers. Therefore, it is necessary to set up a "super slogan" and "interest mechanism" to allow old customers to bring in new traffic.

The third point is the traffic from cross-industry alliances. I believe many people know this, which is to direct traffic from other industries. For example, if you are doing pediatric massage, you can cooperate with maternity and baby stores and let the maternity and baby stores direct traffic to you, or you can cooperate with kindergartens to direct traffic to you.

But in fact, the traffic of this kind of cross-industry cooperation is getting worse and worse. The reasons are as follows:

1. It’s already done badly

2. If you don’t have traffic, the stores that can cooperate with you to attract traffic will not have much traffic either.

3. The quality of drainage will not be too high

4. The stores you work with won’t promote your products to you.

But today I want to talk about the concept of "shared fission" of cross-industry alliances.

What is the concept of shared fission? All merchants organize an event together, and then consumers buy alliance coupons and can go to various stores to make purchases within one year, which can bring traffic to each merchant.

Of course, this kind of event where many businesses join together is nothing new, and people have been doing it for a long time. But there is a skill involved in being able to do it well.

The most important thing is: control all participating merchants to be able to actively participate.

For example, the organizers require every merchant who wants to participate to do the following to ensure that the event can be carried out to the maximum extent possible:

1. Invite merchants to participate in the event to set basic tasks and ensure that a certain number of people purchase

2. All store employees must forward the event information and promote this event in the store

3. Place a roll-up banner in front of the store to display information about the event.

4. Require the merchant to pay a deposit. If the merchant fails to do so, the deposit will not be returned.

The reason why activities where various merchants join together to perform fail is that merchants are unable to actively participate, resulting in consumers not being active in purchasing and feeling that there is fraud and that there must be something fishy with such huge benefits. If there are so many merchants, even powerful merchants endorsing them, consumers will trust them and, once fission starts, it will happen quickly.

Therefore, cross-industry alliances are definitely useful, but it depends on how to set them up. You need to find the right partners, set up a product that can impress customers, and finally, the partners can actively promote you. In this way, the effect will be much better.

The last one is activity drainage.

Activity traffic can be divided into daily activity traffic and theme activity traffic.

Daily activity traffic generation means that ordinary consumers see some discount information and then go into the store to shop. Of course, the discount will not be very big.

Here are two examples:

For example, you often see some restaurants setting up:

Monday: Mapo Tofu for 1 Yuan

Tuesday: Shredded cabbage for 2 yuan

Wednesday: Fried tomato and eggs

…

Sunday: Braised pork 7 yuan

This is a form of daily activity drainage.

For example, some communities hold red envelope draws every day. The winners will receive free food. If they cannot come, they can transfer the prize to their friends. The winners must also forward the promotional posters to their friends circle to further attract traffic.

The traffic generated by theme activities is usually quite strong.

For example, guess the winner of the World Cup and you get a free meal if you guess correctly.

For example, back to the 98 theme event

For example, employees play rock-paper-scissors with store clerks, and the winner gets free food.

By holding events, we can attract potential customers to the store to shop and thus boost customer flow.

Author: Wu Laoshi

Source: Marketing Learning Society

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