Everyone has feet, and most people like putting shoes on them. So much so, that, according to the National Shoe Retailers Association, the world of footwear is a $48 billion industry. Safe to say, people are pretty into shoes, but there’s a lot more to it than basic necessity and style preference.
In order to market effectively to such a diverse and robust audience, it’s crucial that you understand the differences in preference and behavior across your target market. An easy way to do this is to create buyer personas for your types of customers, so you know who you’re trying to attract and how to tweak your approach on a client-to-client basis.
In a perfect world, you’d know everything about everyone you’re marketing to so you could really know and use what makes them tick. Unfortunately, that perfect world is impossible to live in, but if you create a few characters that you can assign your audience to, you’re one step closer to getting there.
Similar to a lot of the retail industry, customers significantly value their personal preferences, which often promotes a pretty high level of brand loyalty. Creating and working towards a consistent message or brand image can help differentiate your business and consequently find those loyal brand followers of your own. But doing this isn’t as easy as it sounds, and beyond understanding your customers with buyer personas, there’s still a lot you can do to optimize your marketing and drive more leads to your site.
By compiling and bidding on a focused list of keywords most opportunistic for your company, you can facilitate higher levels of exposure on search engines. Catchy calls to action in your ads are important, but high-intent keywords are your best friend. Focus on prioritizing them throughout your bidding process in order to ensure you’re catching the people with just that — high-intention!
If you sell designer heels, someone looking for hiking boots visiting your site is wasting everybody’s time. Lucky for you, someone figured out a way to sort that out! If you haven’t done your research into negative keywords, there’s no time like the present. In short, they’re used to eliminate your ads from popping up when people search for something your business can’t really help them with. So, the business selling designer heels could implement negative keywords like “hiking boots” or “running sneakers,” so everyone searching for anything shoes doesn’t just get lumped together. It can save you time and money while also helping you attract the most worthwhile traffic for your site.
In retail marketing, social media should be another good friend of yours to help you build and present a strong brand image. You can use your social media pages to communicate your value proposition, and to build a community around your brand. You can engage with customers, advertise on heavy-traffic platforms, and try to get your target market excited about what you have to offer.
In the retail industry, sometimes email marketing gets a bad rap. You don’t have to clog your leads inboxes with offers and calls to action, but an appropriate balance is beneficial. Confirmation emails can help with remarketing efforts, and simple ratings/reviews can be facilitated through email campaigns and are heavily valued by shoppers everywhere.
With consumers facing a plethora of shoe retail options, a clear value proposition, consistent social media, and some crafty keyword work can go a long way.
For more shoe marketing tips, tricks, and trends, check out the WordStream blog.
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