Top Tips To Create A Persuasive Sales Letter

 

 Retailing To Recruit

Retailing, from a sales perspective, is all about recruitment. The more people you bring in the door, the more customers you'll eventually have and make money for your company. To help increase efficiency in retail recruitment, some companies leverage social media networks in order to target potential consumers. 

On LinkedIn's "Inside Retail" blog, David Lodato states that one of the easiest ways to find out what consumers like and don't like is by surveying customer responses on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. In fact - according to recent research reported by Forbes - 70 percent of consumer decisions are influenced by their friends' recommendations or comments on customer reviews posted online (yes, it's true). That's a big reason why the importance of having an active social media presence is critical for your retail business to recruit, retain, and delight customers. Lodato also suggests hiring a social media manager to help connect with consumers on these channels.

On a similar note, retail expert Denise Lee Yohn has published "What's Your Customer Really Want," which states that retailers can see immediate results from using social media sites to understand their customers' wants and needs. Simply "listening" on these sites can give retailers valuable insight into what their customers are thinking and how they like to be communicated with.

Lodato also suggests using blogs and videos on your own website as another way to recruit prospective consumers who visit your site. Through the use of blogging, active site visitors can read about your key products and gain additional information to make their own buying decisions. Lodato recommends using a blog to push your company's social media efforts in an easy, conversational way that engages consumers at every level.

In retail, the "Four P's" of marketing (price, product, placement and promotion) are critical to your overall success. This goes for recruiting too! As part of your recruitment strategy, you've got to be able to effectively promote your products and services on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter as well as through traditional methods like cold calling and direct mail. In fact, there are a number of ways that you can use social media to promote your products. Forbes Magazine published a recent post that covered some of these strategies. Forbes author, Erika Morphy, states that retail executives should think outside the box and utilize their creativity in order to find new ways to sell their products and attract customers.

That's not all! You should also think about how you can utilize the traditional "Four P's" of marketing (price, product, placement and promotion) as part of your digital recruitment strategy in order to leverage traditional media like direct mail and cold calling while finding out what consumers are saying on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. 

In retail, price is all about attracting customers to your store and subsequently, recruiting them to buy your company's products and services. Once you've attracted them, you should keep them happy by keeping their expectations low. Once they're loyal customers, the sky's the limit because they'll come back to you time and time again! 

According to Lodato's LinkedIn Social Media Marketing blog post "Retailers Should Promote Their Products On Social Sites," retailers should offer discounts or sales on their products in order to attract consumers and make them loyal customers. Lodato also talks about using Facebook contests as an effective way of promoting your brand. The reason? Facebook offers retailers the opportunity to run contests, which helps them to attract new customers and get the word out about their business. 

Product is all about quality and, in retail, it's all about providing your customers with the best possible experience that they can expect from your business. For example, a great retail brand will make sure that their retail locations are clean and welcoming, that their products display well in-store and that they're fully stocked with inventory. If a consumer comes across a retail location or website where any of these things are missing or not up to par, it's likely they'll shop somewhere else instead. 

In terms of social media, you should make sure your products are displayed well on your company's Facebook page and website. That means that when consumers visit your business's Facebook page, they should be able to quickly and easily find their way around. In addition, your website needs to be user-friendly and easy to navigate so that the consumer can find what they're looking for quickly and easily. According to Lodato's blog post, "Retailers Should Promote Their Products On Social Sites," retailers can use Google Analytics' Visitors Flow report as a way to see which pages on their site have the highest level of traffic - as well as where consumers are coming from and where they're going after visiting their site.

Lastly, place is all about your retail location. Thanks to social media, consumers can voice their opinions about their shopping experiences on Facebook and Twitter and give you direct feedback on how to make your retail locations better. And even if they don't say anything bad about you, consumers will still share their good experiences with each other via social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. In order for this happen though, you have to have a big enough online presence that consumers are aware of. One of the easiest ways to do this is through content marketing! (Keep reading...we'll talk more about that in the section below). 

In terms of your retail locations, you need to make sure that they are easy to find and easy for consumers to get to. Consumers today will go out of their way (sometimes even out of town!) in order to find what they're looking for. This is why you need a strong presence in local search results on sites like Google and Bing. The main thing is that your store (or stores) show up in local search results when someone types in a location-specific query on Google or Bing, whether it be something short or long. 

Lastly, promotion is all about getting the word out and letting consumers know that your business exists. In other words, you have to be out there in order to be seen! There are a number of ways that you can promote your business in social media and traditional methods. However, one of the best ways that you can do this is with content marketing. 

In retail, content marketing is an important part of your overall promotion strategy because it helps you to build your brand and reach consumers who are interested in what you have to offer. Content marketing is essentially the distribution of information through various media outlets so that consumers learn more about what you have to offer and make them aware of your products and services. 

According to Lodato's LinkedIn blog post, "Retailers Should Promote Their Products On Social Sites," the best way to promote your business' products and services is by either putting products on display or hosting photo shoots of your products so that consumers can see them first-hand. Lodato also recommends that retailers use social media for this purpose as well as through traditional methods like cost per click (CPC) advertising. 

Lodato's blog also talks about using Twitter as a way of promoting your business.

Conclusion

Ultimately, it is your business' responsibility to convert new customers into loyal clients and provide them with a valuable experience that they'll remember. To do this, you must be able to effectively manage all aspects of your business, including all parts of your marketing plan. With that in mind, don't underestimate the power of social media and its ability to help you reach potential customers, no matter where they are in terms of their relationship with your brand. Keep in mind though that it is crucial for all digital activities to tie back into a single strategy in order for them to be effective.