Six Tips To Help You Increase Retailer Engagement

As a brand, your campaign reach is dependent on your retailers publishing and sharing your content. So how can you tailor your program to drive higher engagement with your independent retailers?

We've outlined six tips to help you increase retailer engagement based on our experience working closely with brands and retailers.

1. Mobilize Your Sales Team

Sales reps are an essential part of educating retailers about a brand’s products, informing them about what’s going on internally at the company, and helping them with marketing initiatives.

Try introducing a Rep Incentive program! Hold monthly/ quarterly contests to see which rep can reach a certain goal (getting the most retailers signed up, promoting content, enabling automation, new contacts added/ updated etc.) and award with local ad $, gift cards, or good old fashioned recognition.

Here are some additional tactics we’ve found to be successful with sales teams: Post Launch Tactics to Keep Reps Mobilized & Promoting the Program

2. Create Marketing Content for The Path to Purchase Funnel

The journey to move a prospective buyer to a loyal customer of your business has different phases and paces. Think of this path to purchase as a funnel. Create content that resonates with consumers at every stage of their buying experience.

Create Inspirational Content to increase awareness and interest with an authentic, emotional connection. This content engages the widest number of consumers, aligning with potential buyers that are in the awareness and interest stages of the path to purchase. Educational Content builds trust with the consumer through valuable educational content that informs by demonstration, instructions, and data. Local retailers trusted expertise earns consumer consideration and establishes them as a credible source of information for both new and repeat customers. Concentrated at the bottom of the funnel is captivating Promotional Content used to increase both online and in-store sales. Promotional content resonates with consumers in the evaluation, purchase, and loyalty phases of the buying journey. It works best when targeted to an audience who you have already created an emotional, trusted connection with through Inspirational and Educational Content.

3. Provide Content Variety and Personalized Segmentation

Think about your content mix. Since your retailers might not carry a particular product, it’s important to have a well-balanced mix of content options available at all times.

Consumers (& retailers!) value personal, tailored experiences. Shoppers also crave product insights from social media and review sites. While retailers cannot control external content, they should try to influence it. Brands who provide campaigns and content that align with their retailers’ businesses are more likely to see an increase in retailer engagement. The goal is to build authenticity that strengthens retailers’ bond to their customers in a chaotic online environment.

Promoboxx makes it easy to segment your retailers’ content preferences and communication needs through the use of Custom Fields and Filters.

4. Provide Retailers with Tools for Ongoing Education

It’s imperative that local retailers are educated on the basics of digital marketing and the value of the insights gleaned from such campaigns. It’s not always about being a digital marketing expert … it’s about being a responsible business owner.

Empower retailers by providing the necessary tools to learn the basics of digital marketing. Try hosting a Digital Education Webinar Series throughout the year, covering topics such as “Facebook 101,” “Understanding Google Analytics,” “The Importance of Video,” and more. Consider a monthly newsletter with retail marketing tips, highlight available campaigns, share Promoboxx “Pro Tips” to drive action in the platform, or announce an upcoming event. Give them the knowledge so they can easily do the work for themselves.

5. Quarterly Retailer Network Health Check-ups

Brands should be conducting quarterly audits that verifies retailer data for maximum accuracy and increased program engagement. It is important to suppress locations that are no longer in business or have moved addresses as it is to add new locations and user contacts. The retailer network must be updated on a regular basis to ensure the brand message is being delivered to the right contacts.

If your program has been live for some time now, you may be experiencing “retailer fatigue.” Enrollment emails, campaign reminders, and strategic emails aren’t moving the needle. Now would be a good time for a network review. Take the time to understand who is currently active, who is slipping away, and who is not using the tool. From there, we can deactivate fatigued accounts and import a fresh set of retailers to target. Contact your Promoboxx Customer Success Manager to schedule a Network Health Check today.

6. Utilize Locally Targeted Ads

Consumers today are digital, and they expect to be able to engage with a brand or a store on their phones, on-the-go, whenever the need is there. Local advertising is a powerful way to reach customers. Promoboxx Local Ads extends the national brand’s content, targeting, and media mix to local retailers, where both benefit from reaching nearby customers on mobile devices. Independent retailers are an essential part of facilitating brand growth and engaging with the right consumers. Local Ads delivers a campaigns-based approach designed to maximize conversions that you just don’t get by going direct to Facebook. It’s easy and designed to convert.

Local Ads helps strengthen the relationship between brands and their retailers to extend advertising reach and ultimately sell more inventory. By investing in independents, brands are able to more effectively engage consumers in a way that is mutually beneficial to both retailers and the brand.