3 Retail Breakthrough Hacks to Increase Profits

Retail expert, Salena Knight from Australia, joins the The Next 100 Days Podcast to share some highly useful marketing hacks. You don’t need to be a retailer, but if you are then this podcast will truly help the marketing of your retail business.

 

Salena was a fascinating guest. Here she is on the actual recording. Looking stunning. And what a lovely smile! (One of us had just admitted he couldn’t spell her forename – it’s NOT Selena, it’s SALENA!).

Salena Knight

Salena has a decade of experience. She has helped her own retail business grow and helped hundreds of others to grow too. But she started life as an Arborist, or tree surgeon to you and me. She got the job of dealing with angry customers. With trees, people either love you or ‘want to stab you in the eyes with a fork’. She got more of the latter. With that background, she became expert at explaining things to these customer.

Back in 2008, Salena opened her own retail store focusing on sustainable children’s products. As a new parent, she didn’t have a family or friends who were pregnant. She decided to create a store with a community feel. A welcoming place. She baked in authenticity, her clients loved it.

After a while, she outgrew her stores. She didn’t know what to do if she didn’t have a job. It was a wake up call. She sold the stores.

One of her suppliers suggested she write a book about opening a retail store. The book became a course. It was about how to. The course was the beginning of where she is now. She now works with all kinds of retail businesses throughout the world, online and bricks and mortar.

She seeks out the different. Then changes up the marketing for her clients.

I’m not a coach

She’s a bossy boots! Salena realised she was providing real value. Her mentor suggested she had a lot of knowledge people want to access. If she didn’t share that knowledge for a fee, she was denying people an opportunity for growth.

Salena works with people for 12 months. After 6 months, a lightbulb goes on. It’s then people realise her guidance (she’s not a coach) really does make sense. She helps people do things differently, tweaking stuff, to make more money.

Salena advises you not to rely on FREE stuff. You need stock and marketing budget to realise your big goals. People start businesses but fail to have enough money for marketing. In the first couple of years of a start up, 80% of your time should be focused on marketing.

Retail is changing, you better change too

90% of transactions are still made in a physical store. Doesn’t mean your store will grow without much better marketing. This is where Salena hacks retail marketing.

Hacks are when you get into systems to make something better. Salena is lazy (don’t believe it) she uses SAAS solutions to get stuff done.

Here are Salena’s Retail Breakthroughs

#1 You Need an ONLINE presence

Have a website with your opening hours, what you have in your stores. Have pictures of your staff. Allow people to feel part of your store’s experience. Salena helps people with low or no cost hacks to alter your marketing activity in your store.

#2 Make Sure You CUSTOMISE Descriptions

It is super easy to scope the information from the manufacturers website and drop it onto your own website. Yes, do that. BUT, take time to pull out the top 100 products and get your staff to customise those descriptions.

In her own store, they marketed a fluffy penguin. Called Pete. He ended up being placed around the store, in different places. So their description had “Pete’s very mischievous, your may find him turning up in different places. And yes, he’s 10 cm tall, but when your child spills peanut better all over him, don’t worry Pete comes up fantastic after a wash”. That skyrocket them on Google, but allowed them to charge more for the product. They’d sell loads of Pete. Others described him factually. Dispassionately.

What do your clients say. Mine the reviews for the words they are using. It means that the customer can connect to your brand. Write in your client’s reviews. Did they re-use the product afterwards?

Is this a Millennial thing? Salena mentioned she listened to Clare Taylor on Marketing to the Millennials. https://thenext100days.org/116-clare-taylor-marketing-to-millennials

Salena mentioned Anthropologie– the store. She loves going to their stores and their emails. She’d love to be a BOHO woman. Aspirational.

 

#3 Use Facebook Audience Insights for FREE to Get a lot of Data on Your Customers

Think about the aspirations of your customer. Facebook allows you to get to know so much information about your customer.

Seek out Facebook Audience Insights.

“Using Audience Insights, you can get aggregate and anonymous information such as:

• Demographics — Age and gender, lifestyle, education, relationship status, job role and household size
• Page likes — The top Pages people like in different categories, like women’s apparel or sports
• Location and language — Where do people live, and what languages do they speak
• Facebook usage — How frequently are people in your target audience logging onto Facebook and what device(s) they are using when they log on
• Purchases activity — Past purchase behavior (i.e. heavy buyers of women’s apparel) and purchase methods (i.e., in-store, online)

And you can view this information for three different groups of people:

• People on Facebook (the general Facebook audience)
• People connected to your Page or event
• People in Custom Audiences you’ve already created (an audience made up of your current customers)”

 

Salena highlights those other pages your customers like. One of Salena’s clients was so inspired by this information, she found that her clients ALSO like Sarah Wilson I Quit Sugar.

Salena changed some of her skin care products to say SUGAR FREE. She saw her clients also appreciated “Cruelty Free”. That took some time, but now allows her products to be stocked in lots of stores with VERY strict standards.

#4 Add an Upsell to Your Thank You Page

People are in their peak purchasing moment just when they click buy. So why leave money on the table by wimping out and just saying Thank You.

#5 Customise the Your Order is On Its Way Emails

You are super-cool for ordering these items. Just in case you forgot what you ordered, here is the list. Then add some real personality.

– our team of packers will be as quick with your order as a chef who chopped chilly on his way to the bathroom…random. It’ll come quickly and in a good condition.

#6 Be Sure to Get Your Customers to Buy What They Need

The biggest way to lose business is NOT trying to get people to buy more. You are cheating the client otherwise. Do not assume the buyer understands what they need. Help them.

Give them what they want, sell them what they need.

Another client’s average order value was $60. By getting them to focus on selling one little thing extra ($10 pair of earrings). It had to be tailored to the customer. Within 4 weeks their average order value went up to $119. People felt appreciated. The customer was saying you get me what else can I have that will make me feel good.

#7 Don’t Outface People With Too Much Choice

Have a Secret Selection for Beautiful Skin. Make it easy for people to buy.

CONTACT SALENA

Salena is running a webinar on the number one way to get and extra $1000 into your business within a week. It’s a challenge session.

Live Breakthrough Session – click this link.

https://salenaknight.com/breakthrough

Or find her on Facebook. In the UK, you may want to watch the replays.

100 Days Podcast is brought to you by Graham Arrowsmith and Kevin Appleby