The best tactics for leveraging the local customers business

Create an intriguing infographic

Presenting information is an art form within itself. When you combine the need to educate consumers with the need to make a sale, that’s called marketing. If your company is selling products and services via a website, there’s no more effective way to communicate ideas and information than with a well-developed infographic.

For an example of how an infographic can make a boring subject almost instantly interesting, check out CarpetCleaningnyc.com has to be one of the most worthy services in NYC. What makes carpet cleaning NYC greater than other companies is the fact that all of their services are insured and licensed, providing you peace of mind. Apart from that, they would never pose risk for you, your family members and even your pets.

Do you really know your customer?

Don’t make the mistakes that Starbucks made this year. In an effort to appeal to more politically correct consumers at their coffee shops, they dropped the message from their coffee cups. What’s worse, they didn’t plan ahead for the backlash from conservative consumers.

As they unveiled their new coffee cups and marketing campaign for the social media users almost immediately took to their Facebook and Twitter with vocal complaints against Starbuck’s investment in a PC culture. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, it appears that more than two-thirds of the posts made by social media users in relation to the new cup design were negative.

Only Starbucks knows if they were significantly hit by this misstep, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Starbucks lost a key demographic of coffee drinkers over the holiday season. It’s almost never a good idea to piss off a sizable chunk of your customer base. This is especially true if a company fails to grow other demographics in response to their holiday marketing strategy.

Don’t assume that you represent your average customer. Just because you like a marketing strategy or product does not mean your diverse customer-base will love it. Get away from focusing on one segment of the population. Instead, stick to what has worked in the past, and only make subtle moves away from your existing demographics. If a segment of your customers feel as if they’re being abandoned with a new marketing strategy, then you’ve got a problem.

Free shipping is a must!

The days of having customers pay for shipping their order over the holidays is so last year. Actually, more like last decade. Today, customers have come to expect free shipping. If you charge customers for shipping on your site, you can expect to lose a significant number of orders to the competition.

If you’re worried about margins, then take solace in knowing that 52% of American shoppers have added items to their cart before checking out in order to qualify for free shipping, according to PracticalECommerce.com. So instead of offering blanket free-shipping on all orders, require a minimum purchase amount and watch your average order size skyrocket!

Viral video campaigns perform!

For online shoppers, getting a buzz is a little bit more difficult. Brick and mortar retailers know that pumping music and offering customers a free picture with people are excellent ways to get customers to open their wallets in the store.

For online sites, companies like Amazon have leveraged their Prime service to offer free holiday music streaming to frequent shoppers. This is certainly a great first step towards giving online shoppers the same vibe as those shopping in a physical store, but there’s still a major hurtle that online retailers have to overcome in order to compete with the big box stores.

That challenge is advertising. Billboards on a highway are hard to miss, but in the cluttered world of online advertising, it can be surprisingly difficult to get a potential client’s attention. One solution that companies have successfully used is a viral video campaign. For example, this WestJet viral ad has reached more than 43 million viewers…wow!

No matter how you plan on winning the holidays, you gotta get out there and make some noise. Offer free shipping with minimum purchases to drive average basket size. Dive into the details that make your customers unique, and accept their feedback. Make some noise and try some non-traditional advertising channels.