Why a Digital Marketing Strategy is an Essential Part of Online Sales
A year ago, there were so many things you never would’ve thought to buy online. Sure, you might do a google search to find the best place in your area to buy the perfect suit to nail that interview or research where Google would recommend buying furniture online for the best lounge chairs for reading, but you always thought you’d go and try it out in person before committing.
Then a global pandemic hit, and our ways of doing things have shifted dramatically over the course of several months. Something you probably thought was totally ridiculous less than a year ago is now your reality: one of the biggest segments of furniture shoppers LOVE to buy furniture online.
Yes, we’re talking about millennials.
While you might judge your late-20-something cousin for trusting Amazon and Instagram for shopping advice, you’d be surprised to learn just how many people are buying furniture online. According to Tina Eaton’s article “Millennials Have Reshaped the Way We Buy Furniture” from January of this year, a whopping 47% of millennials are opting to click “add to cart” instead of clicking their seatbelt in for a drive to the local furniture store when it comes time to upgrade that sofa or dining table.
Ready to harness some of this market potential for your business? Here are some things you need to understand about why millennials love to shop online for everything, including furniture.
We’re all on our phones all the time, especially now.
If your business isn’t on social media, you’re late to the game and need to get started ASAP. Why? Right now, 60% of millennials use social media as a tool when deciding where to get new furniture, so you’re missing out on a good chunk of shoppers if you ignore these platforms.
You might not get an influx of new sales every time you post, but regular posting will give consumers a peek into your brand and keep your posts, and your name, in your followers’ feeds. Plus, if you put a small budget behind your posts of even a few dollars a day, each post will reach hundreds, if not thousands, of people in your area. When you do this, you can opt to have a call to action attached directly to your post, allowing users to access your inventory or what we like to call a “why buy” page on your website from simply tapping on your post, making it even easier to gain online customers.
Don’t get scooped by your competitors.
The top reason you should utilize social media for your furniture store is that online-only furniture retailers, big-box furniture stores, and most likely your local competitors already are, and they’re doing it well. Find where your brand fits best and utilize social to keep your brand relevant and top of mind.
While having a social media presence is important, posting frequently isn’t the only thing necessary to successfully leverage this critical tool for your furniture business. Managing your social media well is just as – if not more – important for the success of your furniture store’s platforms. Due to the collaborative nature of these platforms, there are always options for your past, current, or future customers to comment publicly on your content or post a review about their experience.
Your online customer reviews are priceless!
Across the board, shoppers have started turning to customer reviews for products and brands to decide if the business is worth spending big bucks on. How and how quickly you respond to these users is key. When there is a negative review, do you ignore it or hide it? No! Take the time to find out what went wrong and try to make it right, right there in the comments. This can turn what might seem like a negative into a positive opportunity to show how you’ll go above and beyond for your clients and builds trust with the millennial consumer. And when positive reviews come in, you can take those and add them to a testimonials page on your website so those not on Facebook or Instagram can see it!
Let’s be real here – it’s simply easier to shop from home in your pajamas than to get dressed, grab your paint samples, Pinterest boards, and photos of other pieces in your room, drive all over town to check out several local stores, drive back to the one you really like the sofa at, find out there’s not a fabric you like for it, go back to that other store… you get the idea. While millennials are the largest segment shopping online for furniture, other groups are logging on to shop as well, including 40% of Gen X and 36% of baby boomers, according to Eaton’s findings. With so many people at least doing preliminary shopping research online, you’ve got to have a website that is easy to use AND easy to find. This is where SEO comes into play.
Your business needs an SEO strategy.
SEO, or search engine optimization, is “the process of optimizing your online content so that a search engine likes to show it as a top result for searches of a certain keyword” according to Neil Patel, one of Forbes’ top 10 marketers. This can be a tedious process for those new to the SEO game, but thankfully there are great options available for businesses of all sizes to hire an SEO specialist to handle this for you. If you pair a great SEO strategy with an expertly-optimized PPC strategy, you’ll have the perfect 1-2 punch to ensure the searchers in your area who are looking for furniture businesses like yours find YOU first!
Create a cohesive digital marketing strategy.
How can you use this to your advantage? Utilize multiple digital marketing channels to catch them at every step – PPC for when they’re doing research, SEO to ensure your page comes up at the top of the search, Social to keep your name top of mind when scrolling through endless furniture and interior design posts on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. Even better – a collaborative effort between your in-store team and your digital marketing provider can help grow your online presence even further. As an example, if you’ve got a social media package through Media Caffeine you can trust that your front-facing posts and ads are handled, but then allow some of your in-store team to post in your Instagram and Facebook stories, so your clients can get a behind-the-scenes look at daily operations and current inventory pieces in real-time.
Embrace it – It’s easy to look at the trend towards online furniture shopping as a negative thing when you are stuck thinking that furniture HAS to be bought in a store. From side tables to lighting to wall decor even to in-home design consultations, so many aspects of the furniture industry are so easy to translate to online. And with a detailed, consumer-friendly, and professional online presence, it can be simple to translate those pieces that were once reserved for in-person shopping only to an online shopping experience with ease.
We are here to help!
Let the team at Media Caffeine help you transition seamlessly to a custom digital marketing presence to continue to grow your business while others continue to shut their doors.