As a furniture retailer, it’s likely you’ve devoted a decent-sized budget to a variety of marketing campaigns to drive more traffic to your digital showroom. With every dollar spent, you might be wondering: “Will this marketing inquiry lead to a sale?” 

While using marketing dollars to drive traffic is an effective and smart tactic, you might be missing out on tremendous value if you’re not leveraging the digital data you could and should be gathering. If you’re not collecting your visitors’ information — including contact and personal preference information — then you’re losing out on two important opportunities: you can’t follow up with them and you can’t learn more about them.

There are affordable ways to leverage digital marketing to increase the ROI of your marketing spend. By using the five tactics below, you will start seeing your digital database grow and learn how to take advantage of all of the data you’ve collected to increase sales.

5 WAYS TO LEVERAGE DIGITAL MARKETING FOR FURNITURE RETAILERS

1. OFFERS

Consumers are attracted to offers, plain and simple. When it comes to creating an offer that consumers can’t resist, try to remember this: the better the offer you provide and the more time sensitive it is, the more likely they will visit you in person. If you can get them in your furniture showroom, then you can greatly increase your chances of closing the deal.

Even if you do offer the same deal to everyone else that comes into the store, you can still make consumers feel special because they’re received the offer and you can always make it time sensitive to create a sense of urgency. Personalization, coupled with strategic timing, can go a long way.

2. RETARGETING

You’ve spent a lot of money on driving people to your website. How do you get them to come back time and time again?

One of the most affordable ways to maximize your return on your marketing spend is to make sure you are retargeting your past visitors with a message on other websites that they visit. This is what’s called retargeting, and it can be a very effective (and affordable!) way to make sure visitors remember you over the next week (or more) after they have visited your website.

Your retargeting efforts can be even more successful if you’ve collected relevant data from interactive experiences on your website that will tell you more about the visitor’s preferences and needs. This allows you to create a personalized message to that visitor through retargeting, which keeps your spend low and shows them relevant advertising.

Here’s a great example: imagine someone visiting their Facebook page and seeing an ad for the sofa they were browsing two days ago. Or maybe they’re reminded of the special offer they received on another website they’re browsing. If you’re collecting data from your visitors, then all of this is possible and extremely affordable.

3. CALLS TO SCHEDULE APPOINTMENTS

During the off-season, your sales team can do a variety of things to keep past consumers engaged. One of the best things they can do is call past customers and:

• Check in to see if they need any help with a new furniture purchase.

• Remind the consumer of the latest offer they received.

• Express how easy, comfortable and accommodating an in-store visit would be.

The goal of these calls is to schedule an appointment as our data shows that a visitor is 32% more likely to come to your store if they make the commitment to schedule a time to meet with someone. People don’t like to be the person to stand someone up  — it’s human nature. Better yet, if they do schedule an appointment, it’s more likely they will make a purchase.

“People don’t like to be the person to stand someone up  — it’s human nature.”

Putting an internal process in place for these follow-ups can be a big job, however, and it might make sense to outsource appointment setting to a specialized firm. The outsourced firm can learn about your furniture store and become part of the sales staff with their entire focus being on making the web visitor feel special. It’s all about making the consumers feel like they have a dedicated consultant that will help them at a time that is convenient for them while receiving the best customer service possible.

4. E-MAIL NURTURING

E-mail should be a large part of your nurture marketing strategy. Send a follow-up e-mail with the visitor’s assessment results after they’ve completed an interactive experience. Send one once they’ve confirmed an appointment time. Put them on a nurture track after you know their preferences. The ways you can use e-mail are endless; e-mail’s ability to engage consumers should not be underestimated.

5. FACEBOOK RETARGETING

It’s safe to assume that if someone is online reviewing furniture, then almost every one of those people have a Facebook account. One of the lesser-known abilities that exists within Facebook is that if you have someone’s e-mail address, then you can pay to appear in their Facebook feed. Pretty convenient, right?

Since you already have data associated with this e-mail address, you can make your Facebook advertisement as personalized for that consumer as possible. It’s affordable and it gives you a way to stay top of mind with someone who has already indicated they are ready to buy furniture.

One of the biggest ways to increase your Inquiry-To-Sale metric is to have a compelling reason consumers need to visit you, and to stay in front of them while they are in the decision-making phase. Using these five tactics to leverage digital marketing will increase your ROI for your marketing spend and drive sales to your in-store furniture showroom. 

By collecting relevant data through your website, you can leverage consumer information to nurture inquiries, putting you years ahead of the competition.