Storytelling is the most effective tool available to brands, and it doesn’t just come from well-crafted copy and a smart marketing campaign. Businesses can also use retail and merchandising services as an effective branding tool, attracting customers to their storefront through creative and expressive displays. If your merchandise has been lacklustre to date, here is why you might be missing out on a great branding tool and an opportunity to convert.
Express the look and feel of your brand
Online engagement might be the way of the future, but it pales in comparison to having a beautiful display right in front of you in the flesh. Merchandising is a great way to educate the public on the look and feel of your brand, whether that is loud and bright or chic and moody – the choice is yours. You can also control things like lighting and scent branding, which can really super-charge your branding experience and not be replicated online.
Highlight your best-sellers
Clever merchandising can save you from having to steer customers to your best-selling products or services, and rather the merchandising concept can centre around these pieces. This is a very effective branding tool as it informs your customers what your key offering is and actually draws them into where you want them to be in your physical store. In the same way, we unconsciously respond to a clearance table and bargain bin – you can do the same with your best-selling hero offerings.
Show your customers you are made for them
When doing a brand campaign online, you simply need to put in some demographic information and that ad finds the ideal customer. It’s not always so easy with a physical storefront. If you put some thought and creativity into our store merchandising, you can actually speak directly to your ideal customer – male, female, teenage, high-income-earners, and really any segment. Once you have established this branding function, your customers will start to know if your offering is or is not for them and they will respond accordingly. Work with a retail merchandising company to create a look that appeals to your unique customer type.
Push sales without looking like it
Great merchandising makes you want to spend time and money in a store, without feeling like you are being pushed in any direction. If your conversion is not strong despite the foot traffic, then your brand journey might not be delivering to what it should be. Clever merchandising can tell your customers a lot about the product, how to use it, and what to expect, giving your sales team a ‘light touch’ approach. Revenue is always the goal, but your store doesn’t have to feel that way if you set things up creatively.
Brand cohesion
Does your merchandising look like an extension of your social media presence and website? If the answer is no, then you should be working harder to create seamless brand cohesion that is quintessentially your brand. This will alert customers that the store they are passing is the same one they see online, and worth a look inside. If you can coordinate as many touch points as possible, you won’t need to work as hard to attract new customers as all of your channels will be working in tandem to convert the masses.
Don’t underestimate the power of merchandising and work to include this powerful branding tool in your sales and marketing strategy. Once you get it right there will be limited seasonal tinkering and you can just build on your strengths and respond to the feedback you receive from customers who are interacting with your store’s look and feel.
