How to match your physical store to your online shop
When it comes to online and offline storefronts, you don’t have think of them as two separate things. On the contrary, being able to connect the two under one umbrella is recommended for new store owners. Make them match in a way that shows the consistency and branding your customers have come to expect from you. Here is what to take into account to achieve the desired similarities.
COMMUNICATION STRATEGY INDEX:
People are visual creatures. Don’t neglect to match the branding, logos, and colors of your two storefronts. If you do it right, people will hardly feel different when shopping online or in the store because of the attention to visual detail. Be sure to match special ads or sales, so whether passing by on the street or checking the site, your customers will be alerted to the same things.
Security is one of the most important components of any shop. Without proper security in the physical world, you run the risk of being robbed and never being compensated for it. This can have a drastic effect on profits and even company morale. That’s why a remote video monitoring service can be so effective when at the store in-person.
For online security, you can mirror what monitoring services do in the physical world. With your website, it is constantly sending and receiving information over the web and storing information. What hackers will try to do is intercept this traffic and inject their malicious code to steal and hijack your data, sometimes to give it to competitors and other times to hold it for ransom. They might even get your customers’ credit cards. To prevent this, you can purchase network traffic monitoring tools that detect if something suspicious is going on, so you can prevent hacking before it happens.
Your customer service is paramount to how people perceive your company. Not only is it important to have great customer service, but it is also essential to make it consistent across all your platforms. Have a system of responding to customer issues and stick with it. Give your online support team and your brick and mortar team the same training and scripts for when you address customer needs or concerns.
One way to make your customer base mad is to have different prices on the website than in the physical store. If they know they can get it cheaper online, they’ll stop coming in. Put a system in place that makes sure prices are matched every day.
Running a store online or offline alone is hard enough. Don’t make it harder to convert traffic between the two. Let them be mirror images of each other so you can grow your sales and prevent losing opportunities to grow your brand. That way, you can have a successful business and peace of mind.
Lots of brands fail to communicate effectively with their target audience because they lack a strategic brand communications plan. As a result, such brands struggle to gain market traction despite having decent products or services.The following article highlights the key components of a brand communications strategy that every company should strive to follow.
