This post begins a series on how bridal retailers can establish a ‘system’ to manage their marketing and customer relationship efforts. Before we begin outlining the system, let’s discuss how marketing has evolved.
I (and many others) believe that we are in the middle of a dramatic change in the way businesses effectively promote their products and services. A decade ago, our basket of marketing tactics might have looked something like this:
- Billboards
- TV/Radio commercials
- Print Ads
- Leads lists
These techniques, based on interrupting the consumer, have become less effective as our society established tools to block “outbound” messages. Caller ID, TIVO, iPod/MP3 players, and SPAM filters have all contributed to the decreased effectiveness of these marketing channels.
Brides have begun shopping (and learning) in a whole new way and it is our job to adapt. Brides seek out their information using search engines (Google). The average bride performs dozens of searches per day and will sit behind her desk gathering information for hours before she visits a bridal shop. She’ll spend time compiling a list of shops to visit. Will you be found?
With this premise established, I plan to outline a system for managing “inbound” marketing efforts over the next few blog posts. Here are some questions to think about while waiting for the first installment:
- Is your bridal store positioned to leverage advances in technology to effectively spread the word about your products and services?
- If a bride searches Google for “bridal shops in <your city>” what page do you show up on?
- What are you doing to convert every bride that visits your website into a lead?
- What is remarkable about your bridal shop’s brand?
- What are you doing to nurture your leads after you’ve established a rapport?
- Does your bridal shop software allow you to communicate with your customers and leads on their terms?
- What are you doing to turn your brides into evangelists for your shop?
Stay tuned via Email, RSS, or Twitter. You are not going to want to miss this series.
Follow the links below for the rest of this series: