If you’re a successful retailer, you’re already good at operating your business. You know the how keep things moving smoothly, how to keep a steady profit coming in, and how to offer the kind of customer service that works best for your business. What if you could be better?
Optimizing the performance of your business can take you to the next level. You’re already profitable; why not see how much you can increase that profit? By increasing efficiency and using every dollar you spend on marketing carefully, you can optimize your returns right along with it.
Start with data
Any time you run a new promotion, whether it’s a sale, a marketing strategy, or a new advertisement, you want to know that it’s reached the maximum number of people in your field of choice and brought as many of them as possible into your store. Take a look at the numbers: how many people are entering your store on a regular basis? What are they buying most frequently? Once you have a baseline, you have a better idea of where you want to go.
Decide what your Goals are
Do you want to bring more people into your store? Increase sales to existing customers? Reach a new client base? Try to quantify those goals as much as possible. Once you’ve identified those goals and given them numbers, you can determine how to proceed.
Change Something
Try out a new in-store promotion; run a sale; improve your customer service practices. Then, go back to the data: how did your numbers change? Are your sales increasing? Are you bringing more people than before into your store? Take a look at the way each change affects your business. That will give you a better idea of how to improve each task.
As much as possible, keep your changes slow and steady. You want to know that you’re reaching new potential clients, but you don’t want to lose the ones you already have! If you see a drop in sales (which can also be measured by comparing the number of people entering the store to your sales data–not just by daily sales numbers, which can be impacted by a variety of different factors), go back to the way you did it before!
Also, as you’re making changes, keep your initial goals in mind. For example, if you’re aiming to sell more of a specific product, you’ll want to focus your measures on that product, not on the others in your store. Make sure you’re referring back to the data as much as possible to help guide you as you make these choices for your business.
Ready to start counting the number of customers who come through your store? Contact us to see how we can help.
