Adjusting your sails with urgency
It goes without saying that big brands like Kmart, Bunnings and Harvey Norman are to be admired for the way they’ve been adapting in the current circumstances. These brands have been keeping their stores open for as long as possible and while doing so, have ensured resources and ads are directing customers to make online purchases. You’ll likely have noticed the repurposing TV ads in particular, ensuring messaging is appropriate and meets the needs of customers in these unusual times.
But these brands have not only adjusted, they’ve adjusted with urgency!
Here’s a few examples:
When's the last time you heard Mitre 10 (or even hardware store) mentioned on the news? It’s probably because Bunnings has become the new name in Australia for hardware store. Even on ABC where they can't use brand names, they get mentioned because politicians are talking about Bunnings in their press conferences.
Despite these stores remaining open, their high frequency of ads are all about the online space, click and collect and contactless delivery. They're hammering in with urgency, to ensure they become the ONLY retail outlets at top of mind.
Bunnings recently bought Catch, a massive online sales platform in Australia, with existing shipping and digital assets. This is a clever strategy to make sure they don't just have the brand profile, they also have the distribution and broader supply chains.
These stores aren't just competing locally, they're trying to make sure global companies don't muscle in on their territory!
That's just a few examples of what the big brands are doing, but what could you do to protect your market share too?
1. Audit all of your marketing activity and ensure what you're doing is effective and conveying the right message.
It’s likely now is NOT the time to pull back, especially if you already have a good 'cost per conversion' rate for online sales. Make use of your communication/ad platforms and importantly, communicate messages clearly and regularly.
2. Reinvest staff labour time.
This might mean changing things around by allocating a team member to get as much stock online as possible, with the very best descriptions and photos. This is especially important if you’ve closed your doors or reduced hours. Don’t forget also to research your competitors - if theirs is better or has more info, do more.
3. Rejig shifts.
This will ensure your online store or enquiries can be open for direct human assistance for extended hours. Customers love it when they get a response at 9pm or when you offer them a Facetime call to check out some product! This one might require a bit of negotiation with staff who work the usual 9-5 hours, but with more flexibility than usual it’s likely there’ll be cooperation.
4. Play to your strengths.
Make sure you clearly articulate what you do to neutralise the strengths of your competitors. For example: Is your delivery faster? Do all of your profits stay in your state?
5. In your social strategy, touch on more areas than simply selling.
By this we mean, subtly reminding people of the charities you've genuinely connected to, your ethical supply chains, educating people on your products or investing more time into working with those community partners is all time well spent.
6. Connect Facebook Pixel and Google Tag Manager to your website.
Even if people aren't buying right now, you're collecting data of who may be interested in the future and in today's world, data is everything.
7. Question everything you knew about retail.
When this is over, sure many people will go back to visiting bricks and mortar stores, but FaceTime, excellent online commerce and genuine customer service via Messenger will become the norm - and you should be investing your utmost care into giving those some wow factor.
We're always measuring market share, ensuring our clients enter these times with strong foundations and discouraging complacency. Proactive brands already have a strong database of customers because they've already been neutralising their bigger competitors. But if you haven't done that, then there's no better time to start than now!
The big brands raised some very big sails to adjust and are moving at a rate of knots. So if they can adjust the sails on their big ships, it's time to put all hands on deck to go full speed on your yacht!
*Note that we don't agree that those bigger stores should have remained open and respect the smaller stores for putting the community and people before profit. Indeed, putting people first is a nice message to tell.
