First of all, this study was done by Constant Contact, a company with a vested interest in providing email marketing to businesses large and small. That being said, it is still an interesting view of what your retailers are thinking.
What’s interesting is to see how much importance small retailers are putting on all things digital. Even word-of-mouth in this study includes online reputation generated from social media and reviews. After that, five of the next six tactics also have a digital component to them.
We have to go all the way to the bottom of the list to find the more traditional tactics. Unfortunately, in many marketing departments we spend most of our time, effort and money on the items at the bottom of the list because over the years we’ve gotten very good at helping our retailers use these tactics.
Now, we have to keep with the traditional but expand to the digital. Offering a system that provides co-branded landing pages is a relatively easy first step toward a cohesive digital strategy. A co-branded landing page, much like a newspaper ad template, combines brand assets with dealer input and then works on the dealer’s own website, in an email effort, in your dealer locator, in Google search, for banner ads and even as a link on their Facebook page.
While digital is still a moving target, where we will never enjoy the stable processes we’ve come to appreciate in traditional media, it is critical that we become proficient at helping our retailers with their digital marketing efforts.
Local marketing is being reinvented and we have to find our new customers in new places.