You’ve been dreaming of this day ever since you first got online. The day you can finally pull off that perfect transition from online marketing to offline retail marketing, and not lose a single sale in the process.

Well, it can still be tricky. In this blog post, we will walk you through everything you need to know about successfully marketing your online brand to stores. We’ll cover everything from marketing strategy to execution, and how to make sure you don’t lose a single sale along the way.

Marketing Strategy

You’ve probably heard the saying ‘Know your target audience’. It’s a timeless piece of advice, one that applies to marketing just as much as it does to cooking or speaking. Your marketing strategy is the plan you’ve come up with to attract the right audience to your products and services, and inspire them to action. When it comes to marketing your online brand, you have a clear audience – stores. Therefore, your marketing strategy should revolve around attracting retail business to your site.

The first step in forming a sound marketing strategy is to define your target audience. Who are you targeting with your marketing, and what are they looking for? This is the question you need to ask, and it should be answered with precision. When developing your strategy, you must keep in mind that retailers have specific needs and expectations; be sure to cater to those needs when designing marketing material.

Where Are You Publishing?

It’s important to establish yourself as a credible and authoritative source for your target audience – in this case, stores. One of the best ways to do this is to establish yourself as an expert in your industry. There are plenty of platforms where you can do this, like Google Docs, LinkedIn, and Medium. Once you’ve published something on one of these sites, all of the other stores in your industry that are also monitoring the activity will see your work, and consider you an authoritative voice in your industry. You can then use this to your advantage – be sure to include references to reputable sources that support your claims, and make sure your writing is free of spelling errors and other signs of amateurism.

How Are You Going To Position Yourself?

One of the things that makes your industry so attractive to stores is that there’s a clear position of authority – or at least perceived authority – available for those who promote themselves as experts in the field. The question is, are you going to take advantage of this, and claim this position for yourself? That is the question!

There are a few different ways to go about doing this. One option is to build your own brand, and position yourself as the go-to person for the industry. You can then use your personal brand to attract retail business to your site. Since you’re the expert in your industry, you’ll be able to inspire confidence and trust in your clients. The flip side is that this can be very time-consuming, and a lot of work. It might also be difficult to get started, as you’ll need to build a brand and establish your authority in a field that is probably quite unfamiliar to you. 

Personal Branding Vs. Expert Marketing

Another option is to build a brand that is synonymous with expertise. For example, if you’ve written a blog post that is exceptionally well-written and authoritative, pitching yourself as the expert to promote that blog post would be a very effective strategy. The upside is that, once you’ve established yourself as an expert in the eyes of your target audience, you’ll be able to quickly build your personal brand, and position yourself as an authoritative voice in your industry. The downside is that this isn’t the most original idea in the world, and someone else might already be doing it. If you want to avoid competition, you’ll need to either A) find a way to establish your brand quickly, or B) find a way to make your brand stand out from the crowd.

Key Point

Once you’ve settled on a marketing strategy, the next step is to create key goals and objectives for the coming months. These goals and objectives should then be distilled into a single compelling narrative, a pitch that will help guide all future marketing activity. To finish off the strategy section, let’s revisit the concept of credibility. Credibility is an important concept to grasp, especially if you’re new to marketing. Once you’ve established yourself as an expert in your field, customers will be more likely to believe your claims about your products and services. If they don’t believe you, they might just as well not be reading your pitch – which could potentially result in a lost sale.

Hopefully, these examples of expert industry positioning have given you some good ideas on how to market your online brand to stores. Keep in mind that every industry is different, so there’s no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to marketing. For this reason, it is always a good idea to sit down with your brand adviser, or someone with extensive knowledge in the field, and put together a solid plan that takes your industry and your business into consideration. With the right plan in place, you’ll be able to transform your online marketing efforts into a profitable and sustainable business – making your new offline world a whole lot less boring!