Every brick in the path to purchase holds unique opportunities.
The world of furniture retail is a constantly shifting and evolving landscape – more now than ever before. This year, in particular, poses an uphill fight for industry growth, with projections of +2.8% over 2019 – the slowest projected growth since 2016. Customers have changed the way they shop, find inspiration, seek solutions and make actual purchases. The clutter created by the presence of ever-increasing competitors is only exacerbating an already fragmented marketplace. As a result, it comes as no surprise that one’s battle plan (AKA marketing strategy) is essential for not only success, but survival as well.
From a business perspective, it’s all about driving a stronger margin and increasing sales. The cornerstone of such desirable ends lies in an absolute understanding of who your best customers are. True analytics combined with transactional purchase data will isolate and identify your highest value clients, what they buy, their purchase cadence, and establish what their lifetime value is to you. Knowing your customers inside and out is the first step in acquiring new ones and retaining the precious souls you already have.
Understanding what triggers your prospects and how they enter and behave upon the great purchase path is critical to connecting with them. Whether they just purchased a new home, are remodeling their current one, or entering a new life stage (new family, empty nest, retirement) – the goal is to walk beside them with engaging content and messaging so you’re relevant and top of mind come purchase time. In addition to the reasons why your customers want furniture, you also need to know what drives them to make a decision. Their behaviors, attitudes, psychographics, and of course, demographics are the links to developing an effective communications strategy. A plan which integrates channel, content and message, connecting and driving your prospects online and in-store – ultimately resulting in conversion.
To achieve the optimal pay-off of a final sale, you need to deliver the in-store experience, products, service offerings, and brand alignment that the prospect has seen and now expects. If you can execute and deliver the entire journey successfully, you will have created a new best-customer and someone who is not only willing to continue to engage with your brand, but advocate for it.
