Hardware Retailing The Industry's Source for Insights and Information
It goes without saying that marketing and advertising are immensely important for your business to bring in new customers and engage with current ones. But, if you’re an independent home improvement retailer, most likely marketing is not your only or primary hat.
When you can’t dedicate a lot of time or energy to marketing, there are a few tasks you can still do each week to stay on top of your marketing. A recent HubSpot article outlined 10 tasks that excellent marketers complete every day to stay successful, and here we share five of our favorites for independent home improvement retailers.
1) Study the competition. Pay attention to what your competition—whether they are a big box retailer or another local business—is doing for marketing and advertising. Subscribe to their weekly flyers, watch or listen to their TV or radio ads, visit their website regularly and follow them on social media to see what they’re doing and see places where you can fill in your own gaps.
2) Take a closer look at yourself. In the social media world, it’s called social listening, and it’s a great way to see what others are saying about your business. Do a Google search of your business, read through and respond to your reviews on Yelp and pay attention to what is being posted on your social media pages.
3) Create interesting content. Seems like a no-brainer, but consistently creating new, interesting and engaging content, from blog entries to social posts to videos, goes a long way in your digital marketing strategy. Compelling content is one of the best ways to engage with current customers and reach new customers, and it improves your ranking on search engines. Use a social media content program to schedule posts and keep you on top of posting.
4) Nurture customer relationships. Set aside time each week to answer customer emails and comments and messages on social media. If you have a customer email database, choose a few customers and send them a personalized note, thanking them for their business or inviting them to see what’s new in your store.
5) View your stats. Marketing is flush with all kinds of data and stats, which can be overwhelming. Choose a few key analytics to look at each week, such as website traffic or how many people shopped because of an ad. Checking stats gives you an idea of what you’re doing is actually working.
Learn more about marketing in a post-pandemic world here.
