E-commerce has many retail marketing techniques and strategies, but few are as impactful as brand activations. Brand activation is the process of creating an experience that serves to make people aware of your brand and make that first experience a highly positive one. Hence, activating your brand for the customers who interact with it.
The retail marketing event behind a brand activation can range from an in-store master class to an AR experience. It could also be as small as a discount tied to a holiday.
Whatever your retail store marketing strategy is regarding events, digital marketing can help you promote it and create more impressions, clicks, and ultimately, sales.
Let’s explore what a digital marketing strategy for brand activation should include.
Create a Dedicated Landing Page About Your Event
The first step is creating a dedicated landing page for the event. You can inform customers about your retail events through different channels, but it’s best if there’s a single page you can link to from all the channels.
For a limited product run, it can be a pretty simplistic page that advertises your products.
For an offline in-store event, you should have a more in-depth explanation of what the event is about, a way to book a place if that’s required, and directions to the place where the event takes place.
An added benefit of creating a marketing landing page is that it can be found through Google, giving you another source of traffic.
To make sure this can happen, you have to work on on-page optimization. You can analyze your website with an On-Page SEO Checker such as the one by SE Ranking to check whether page experience, usability, internal linking, and other website elements are in line with Google’s guidelines.
Set An Ad Banner Campaign for Brand Activation
A good digital marketing strategy for retail brand activations should include paid advertising along with earned and owned media. The thing is if you want the marketing campaign to gain as much traction as possible, paying for ads either in search or Google Display Network, is one of the fastest ways to do that.
Sure, it might be pricier than other methods, but it delivers results fast. It has a couple of added benefits on top of that.
If your brand activation is a seasonal discount or a product launch, it will likely increase CTR, and with a good customer retention strategy, you can offset acquisition costs. If you’re doing an in-store marketing event, localizing the targeting would keep advertising costs minimal.
Market Retail Event To Your Audience via Email Marketing
Arguably the most effective digital marketing strategy to promote brand activation experiences is email marketing. With email marketing, you’re working with an audience that is already aware of your brand somewhat, even if they didn’t make a purchase or made a purchase a long time ago.
Naturally, they will be more inclined to participate in your retail marketing event. Even customers who didn’t show high email open rates might be more likely to be attracted to an email that’s not just an average sales letter, but an invitation to take part in a master class or be the first to see the new product.
You can also include a referral strategy in your email campaign. Offer a discount or a small freebie to the customers who refer a friend to your retail marketing campaign, and you will get more attendees for a fraction of the cost of other promotion methods.
Reach Your Intended Audience via Influencers
Whilst SEO, PPC and email are usually the foundation of any retail marketing strategy, it can always be bettered with influencer marketing. While friends and family are certainly the most trustworthy source of advice, customers trust social media influencers as well. A recent study by Matter shows that 69% of consumers will trust influencers over brands.
Apart from the classic giveaways or discount codes issued to subscribers of the influencer you’re working with, you can try a new influencer marketing tactic — social media account takeover.
This retail marketing strategy involves an influencer temporarily being given free rein over a brand’s social media account, posting content on it, and engaging with customers in the comment section. It can be a fun and entertaining way to engage with customers, but you have to make sure your audiences have a cross-section. It’s best to reserve this for something special like an in-store marketing event or a new product launch.
Matter study also shows that consumers don’t trust celebrity influencers as much. So running an influencer marketing campaign with smaller, but more relatable personalities will grant better results.
Set Up a Co-Branding Partnership
Now, this digital marketing strategy might take a lot of brainstorming and planning, mainly because it involves more than one business, which is always harder to manage. A co-branding partnership is a marketing strategy that has two or more businesses partner on a campaign to share audience and authority, and drive more sales for both as a result.
Crocs is one of the brands that do this type of marketing often, collaborating with other big brands on limited edition shoes.
You can do a deal to make a limited edition product with a company that’s not a direct competitor, or you can involve a larger brand in promoting your products in an event that gains enough traction.
The brand you’re partnering with doesn’t have to sell the same products as you. For instance, if you run a musical instruments store and decide to throw a free-to-attend jam session for brand activation, you might partner with a local brewery to provide drinks.
You’ll have to think outside the box and find a retail marketing solution that will benefit both partners to sell them the idea.
Key Takeaways
- Brand activations and retail events are retail marketing strategies that create unique and enjoyable experiences for customers. As a result, customers are more likely to view the business in a positive light. These experiences can range from product launches to in-store events, or online hangouts.
- Brands need to promote these marketing campaigns to include more people in the event and maximize its effect.
- The first thing on the list is creating a landing page that can serve as a hub for customers to learn more about the event. This page will receive traffic from all of your marketing efforts, from SERP to email marketing campaigns.
- Running a paid ads campaign might be a great way to kick off a brand activation campaign, especially if you’re pressed for time.
- An email marketing campaign that includes referrals is one of the cheapest ways to appeal to customers.
