Marketing and advertising may be one of the most overlooked aspects of a busy independent retailer’s day. Maybe the time you spend on marketing is something that doesn’t seem to have a very good ROTI (return on time invested). What if there were some fairly easy things you could do that would optimize your marketing efforts and let you spend more time on taking care of your customers? Let’s take a look at some basic but powerful things you can do to bump up the ROTI on your marketing strategy.
Open Up to Automation – A modern, up-to-date POS system will handle many of your email marketing tasks for you, almost effortlessly. After the initial set up, your system will be sending out emails to customers to welcome/thank them for signing up to your loyalty program, after they have made a significant purchase, and after a set amount of time in which you haven’t heard from them. A good system will also manage your loyalty program, most of the time with minimal effort on your part.
Optimize for Mobile – Your website is one of the most powerful marketing tools you have. It speaks volumes to those who land there, but they have to be able to find you in the first place. Spend a few hours making sure your website is optimized for mobile search. Keep image sizes to a minimum, don’t use Flash (Apple devices will not load Flash elements, so HTML 5 and/or Java are better choices), and make sure your site adapts well to the size of mobile screens. Many small elements and buttons will be annoying for mobile users, so keep those to a minimum.
Use Facebook Events – Events are one of the best things small retailers can do to promote/market your business, and Facebook Events is a very good way to let your customers know you are hosting an event. Events should be a weekly part of your store’s marketing program by now, so make sure everyone knows about them! 
Videos are a great way to introduce your followers to what your event will entail, so enlist a tech savvy employee to produce a few videos, or use your smartphone and do it yourself.
Re-think your Loyalty Program – Again, your POS system can be your best friend when it comes to loyalty programs. A quality system will either have a loyalty program built in, or will be capable of integration with third party providers. Loyalty programs integrated into your POS will save you so much time and will also provide you with benefits such as data collection and personalization.
Although it isn’t possible to properly market your business without putting in some time and effort, you can optimize those marketing efforts fairly easily. Just by implementing the tips above, you will soon begin to see more of a return on your time investment in your marketing strategy.
