A lot of brick and mortar stores focus on retaining and getting customers.
Not surprisingly, it’s a lot harder to get new customers as opposed to retaining old ones.
Getting first-time customers to try out your product takes time and it costs more too, with the Harvard Business Review reporting that customer acquisition is 5-25x more expensive.
Alternatively, it’s a lot easier to sell to past customers. Since they have experience with using your product and they know about your brand—the success rate for a repeat purchase is around 60-70%. You usually don’t need to convince them with promos, posters and discounts.
Having said that, how do you ensure that customers will keep coming back for more? In this article, we’ll discuss why a WordPress blog can boost customer retention for your brick and mortar store.
Online presence is helpful
You might be a brick and mortar store but having an online presence can drive foot traffic to your business.
Just like your posters, a blog can help you attract customers.
The content doesn’t have to be too unique or trending either.
Mei Mei Boston—a food truck selling Chinese-American cuisine—has blog posts featuring recipes and informative content on foreign cuisine.
Creating a blog with WordPress
How can you get started? It’s fairly easy to create a website with WordPress. The platform offers thousands of themes and drag-and-drop templates. This means you don’t need to learn coding to start a website.
Once you’ve learned the basics you can continue to optimize and add features to your blog by installing free and open source WordPress plugins.
For example, the plugin News & Blog Designer Pack lets you display posts with 6 different layouts. Meanwhile, Simple Blog Stats enables you to see useful statistics—which are useful to your marketing efforts.
WordPress also offers hosting, customer support, mobile responsive themes, social media integration—and everything else you need to get your blog off the ground.
Some ways restaurants & retailers can get it right
Understanding what your customers need
When customers visit your website, they want to learn more about your business. They want to learn more about your products, find your location, make reservations and determine opening hours.
The Oatmeal has a list of to-dos that a basic restaurant website must follow.
Gramercy Tavern is an example of ideal web design because basic information such as location & hours, menus and reservations are immediately noticeable in the header section. If that’s enough, the black minimalist design and pictures of delicious treats can entice any visitor to make a reservation.
Additionally, the social media buttons, address and contact numbers are placed in the lower corner. This lets first-time customers know how they can visit the store and the social media pages they can check out if they want to find more.
Interestingly, Gramercy Tavern’s blog is a news and events section. It includes short posts about their events and recipes for customers.
Gramercy Tavern doesn’t have in-depth 2000-word blog posts about cooking recipes, cuisines and interviews. Instead, they opt for 200-word posts about events that customers can attend and recipes that they can make. Despite the length, it encourages customers to drop by and visit the brick and mortar store.
Finding influencers to promote your blog
Once you’ve created your own blog, the next step is to find influencers that can help you build a following.
Naturally, you’ll want someone that’s very popular in your location or your industry. If your business is based in Toronto, then target influencers in your area. If you want to target millennials, then find someone with a relatively younger audience.
Here are some questions you might want to ask:
- Are they followed by real people or by bots?
- Is this influencer relevant to your niche or industry?
- Do their followers like and share their posts?
- Will you get more conversions considering their audience’s size?
- Will they help you get a higher ROI?
- Can you afford the cost of the partnership?
Your answers to these questions will help you pinpoint the right influencer for your business.
For example, Tara Whitman (@taramilktea) is a lifestyle influencer that regularly collaborates with restaurants and cafes while she’s traveling. This post promoting Two Sis & Co—a Sydney restaurant—has gotten more than 48,000 likes.
One picture might seem like a small thing but a collaboration with an influencer can help your business gain a lot of exposure.
Wrapping It Up!
Having a blog can do wonders for your restaurant or food business. You can gain a lot of exposure, help first-time customers learn more about your business, promote events and provide relevant information to your customer base.
To get started, you don’t need to learn coding or design. Just create an account on WordPress and you’re on your way to building a loyal fanbase.
