8 local store marketing tips for multi-site retailers

Retailers were once the heartbeat of local communities

There was a time that what made retailers great was that they were the heart of their local communities. A single store that made an impact. That store that everyone bought from, supported and celebrated. However, as retailers expand to more and more stores, the need for brand consistency often leads to the same blanket message in stores across the country. Now, as shoppers trend towards shopping locally and valuing the experience, it’s important that retailers get back to their roots. So, here are 7 tips to help you deliver local retail marketing campaigns that drive revenues. 

1. Create store profiles.

The first step is to create detailed store profiles so you have visibility of your stores and everything about them:

• Store location and size
• Available fixtures and fittings, including their size and orientation
• The store manager and regional manager responsible
• The economic status of the area
• The top performing products and product categories. 

With so many stores, it can be challenging to stay on top of and maintain this information. But without it, you’ll never be able to run effective local campaigns. You need to be able to tap into local events and place the right messages in the right places, but you can only do that if you know what you have to work with in each store.

2. Use local knowledge of store managers.

Think back to your brand’s first store and what made it great. It may have been the high quality products, the unbeatable low-prices, or a really unique compelling value proposition. But there’s one thing that every first store has in common. It was the relationship between the owner and the community. 

Your store managers can replicate that again. They have fantastic insight into the local community, the area and the people. Because they’re part of it, they will be on top of the local events that are happening, the products that sell well in each area, and whether they will expect to be busy on certain days or certain times. 

3. Create unique messages for every store.

If you’re wondering what the most powerful way to not come across as a big corporation is? It’s to have genuinely personalised messages in-store. Don’t just change the name, but create something that’s truly unique, genuine and represents the community. Use social listening alongside input from your store managers to share and tailor messages that appeal to your audience. 

If you’re a clothing retailer with a store in Scunthorpe, maybe you have your national “50% for Summer” message. Change the signage for that store to “50% off clothing for The Gathering Fest”. It’s a simple change but will make all the difference to your customers.

4. Customisable artwork templates.

Obviously, the above is easy to do in a single store, but much harder with 100 or 1000 stores.

A great way to facilitate this local messaging, is to create a national campaign and then let your store managers customise certain parts of your marketing.

Ask your artwork team to provide editable templates so that you maintain brand consistency throughout. If you have a system to manage your in-store campaigns, use auto-artwork to simplify this process. This will allow you to easily customise and review artwork in the system, track revisions and get digital proof of sign-off. 

Additionally, you will need to agree with your print partner upfront that they can commit to this customisation across prints. 

5. A single source of truth for your in-store marketing campaigns.

With such potential variation in your messaging, it’s important to stay on top of changes and make sure any suggestions are approved before going to print. If you are managing 1000 stores – or even 100 stores – allowing such customisation is a recipe for disaster without the proper processes in place. 

Ensure you have a system that manages your marketing campaigns from briefing to execution and holds all the relevant information about your campaigns. Additionally, you need to provide relevant access to the involved stakeholders. This will ensure you have a single source of truth from marketing, creative, stores and suppliers to keep your marketing campaigns on track. 

6. Activate online and on social media.

Local marketing campaigns don’t just live in stores. Your stores’ local online and social media pages can amplify your in-store messages too. Use the same targeted messages to tell your online community following about your in-store offers or events to drive foot traffic to your stores. 

By aligning your online and in-store messages you create a consistent omni-channel experience for your customers that will drive revenues. 

7. Conduct remote audits.

Despite all of your planning, things can still change and go wrong with your campaigns. Therefore, you need an efficient feedback loop between your in-store installation teams and head office marketing managers to ensure in-store display compliance. 

Issue checklists with each campaign so you can audit in-store campaigns. Additionally, if you allow on-site team members to upload photos, you can see for yourself if displays are installed correctly. And if not, you will find out straight away to efficiently resolve any issues, without waiting for a regional manager to visit. 

8. Gather insights from local retail marketing campaigns.

If you’ve set up everything correctly, you will now be sitting on a gold-mine of information about your stores. You will have a plethora of store information, details of all your campaign data, and your POS data for revenues. 

Combine this information for retail marketing campaign insights: 

• Was there an uplift in the promoted product category? 
• Did certain display placements have a bigger impact on in-basket items? 
• Did certain locales respond more favourably to your messages?

By analysing this information, you can really understand the effectiveness of your marketing messages in different areas, and see the impact your campaigns have. 

Level up your local retail marketing with Colateral.

At Colateral, we empower retailers and brands to deliver impactful campaigns in every store. Our retail marketing software enables marketing managers to collaborate with stakeholders to plan, execute and analyse campaigns with full accountability and traceability. Additionally, we give marketing leaders insights from every store and facilitate clear communication between the head office and stores to create powerful messages on a local level. 

Learn more about creating local retail marketing campaigns that drive in-store revenues by requesting a chat with one of our team.  

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