Technological evolution together with an increasingly widespread interconnectivity have made it necessary to change the methods of using digital, in order to encourage collections and the acquisition of new users. It follows that understanding how to exploit this potential has become decisive thanks to the use of a marketing activity such as the Drive to Store. Drive to Store means the set of actions aimed at bringing customers from the web to the point of sale, with the aim of increasing visits to the store and consequently sales. This activity plays a fundamental role both for the retailers themselves and for companies that rely on a vast physical distribution network.
A Drive to Store campaign is based on the main theme of traceability: Footfall Analysis is its key element. Footfall Analysis means the analysis of the "walkability" at the point of sale, or a post-analysis aimed at measuring the increase in physical visits, in a specific physical place, with the aim of attributing them to the campaign. The analysis can only concern the number of natural persons who enter the point of interest following exposure to the campaign or it can be accompanied by additional data such as socio-demographic information, the distance from the home to the point of interest or the best points of sale registering the highest number of entries. A further opportunity is represented by the possibility of monitoring any in-store purchases made with the aid of vouchers, discounts/rewards conveyed with the campaign message.
How to bring customers into the store
Customer experience
For some time now, the focus of the in-store experience has shifted from the product to the customer. Retail is no stranger to this dynamic, consequently, the theme of customer service becomes of primary importance, as it becomes the main variable with which the customer chooses whether to buy or go elsewhere. The customer asks for the opportunity to discover, customize and request personalized advice on the product or service.
Advertising
Advertising promotion can be a valid ally for generating traffic to the point of sale, as long as it is planned in a flexible and omnichannel way. From this point of view, data and technology play a fundamental combination to create a real-time and highly measurable offer: an example is Programmatic Advertising which shares the same dynamics as Drive to Store. Not only that, another possibility is to convey, for example, discount codes within the campaign that are valid for certain periods of time and can only be spent in the store in order to create a connection between online and offline.
Omnichannel
The integration between offline and online, or omnichannel, is the first variable to take into consideration when planning a Drive to Store campaign: obtaining data associated with the customer is an essential key to understanding. Obtaining data and processing it in real time is an imperative that no retailer can ignore.
Digital and physical represent two sides of the same coin and form a virtuous circle by collaborating and reinforcing each other. Investing in a Drive to Store campaign means strengthening and consolidating the customer experience. For the realization of an omnichannel strategy, rely on E-Business Consulting, an agency specialized in digital marketing, which is able to support you in developing a project, from online to offline, for your store.
