Building Your O2O Funnel

Building Your O2O Funnel

Table of Contents Executive summary.... 3 Get More Shoppers.... 5 Local Search Matters.... 6 Don t Get Left Behind... 7 Building Your O2O Funnel... 9 Step 1 Create a solid local marketing foundation... 9 Step 2 Collect online and in-store metrics... 11 Step 3 Get creative... 12 Step 4 Measure conversions and financial impact... 13 Conclusion... 14 Sources... 15 sweetiq.com 2

Executive summary We all know that mobile and other digital technologies are changing the way we shop. But rather than turning all of us into full-time online shoppers, these technologies are actually putting the emphasis back onto to brickand-mortar stores. Today, 93% of retail sales are fulfilled offline, but the shopping process is starting online. Shoppers research purchases on their mobile devices, but when the time comes to make a purchase, they show a clear preference to spend their money in a physical store. It s also important to understand that shoppers searching online aren t looking for your brand first: for every shopper searching for a brand directly, three are Googling Store Type + Location. If you re not easily found online, you re missing out on major sales opportunities. The power of local search is precisely why it is so important for businesses to build their online to offline, or O2O, funnel now. Getting found online, and converting those online searches to offline purchases, is the fundamental challenge facing retailers today. As new mobile and location-based marketing technologies are evolving quickly, it is only more imperative to build your O2O funnel today. A strong local marketing foundation will serve you well now, helping you to turn online consumer activity into offline sales. It will also prepare you for the future of location-based marketing ensuring your brand will be successful for years to come. sweetiq.com 3

Key Takeaways vv Brick-and-mortar stores are more important than ever as they connect customers to your product and deliver your full brand experience vv vv vv O2O conversions drive sales: Online to offline digital marketing influences up to 3.6 trillion dollars in consumer spending Optimizing your locations for local search is essential, as it demonstrates your customers clearest expression of intent Offline transactions are driven by online research: price, brand, good reviews, and location Don t know where to start? Local marketing and analytics companies, like SweetIQ, can help. We can help you build your O2O funnel by maximizing your locations findability, and helping you build strategies to capture shoppers expression of intent, and ultimately drive shoppers to your front door. Our goal for you is simple: get more shoppers, make more sales. 93% of retail sales are still fulfilled offline but the decision process starts online. 3 Mohannad El-Barachi, CEO SweetIQ Analytics Corp. sweetiq.com 4

Get More Shoppers Turn online searches into offline purchases. Mobile and other digital technologies are changing the way we shop: Online and mobile media impact around 40% of offline shopping, 1 with online to offline digital marketing influencing up to 3.6 trillion dollars in consumer spending. 2 Digital and mobile are clearly having a huge impact on retail. But, the brick-and-mortar store is as important as ever: 93% of retail sales are still fulfilled offline but the decision process starts online. 3 Mobile plays a huge part in the decision-making process purchases may be made offline, but much of the research that goes into a purchase happens online, before a customer even walks through your door. Retailers need to learn to harness the power of local search, by building their O2O funnel, to drive shoppers to their front doors. The more shoppers who find you online, the more shoppers who walk through your front door and make a purchase. Online to offline digital marketing influencing up to 3.6 trillion dollars in consumer spending. sweetiq.com 5

Local Search Matters Consumers begin the shopping experience online - conducting local searches and researching purchases - but when the time comes to acutally make a purchase, shoppers clearly favor a brick-and-mortar location. In one survey of athletic footwear shoppers, 88% of consumers preferred to visit a store to view and try on the footwear, rather than purchase online. 4 Physical stores are here to stay, and they are more important than ever in their ability to connect the customer to the product and deliver the full brand experience. 5 Though most consumers are making purchases in brick-and-mortar locations, it is essential to allocate attention and resources toward digital, and especially local search, as online experiences build brand preferences and drive shoppers to physical locations: Online search will drive top-of-funnel activity, improve brand credibility, and increase the overall sales pipeline. 6 sweetiq.com 6

Don t Get Left Behind Local search is only going to become more important in the future. New technology is quickly evolving that allows for more precise and better direct local marketing. For example, the implementation of beacons into brickand-mortar locations lets marketers measure how many shoppers who found them online actually walk through the door. Then, coupons and other purchasing incentives can be sent to the shopper as they browse your brick-andmortar store. Learn more about beacons here. Retailers need to build their O2O funnel now, so that in the future, they are ready and able to tie-in new technologies to their local marketing platform. sweetiq.com 7

Why is local search so critical? It demonstrates the clearest expression of intent. A consumer is telling a search engine (and the brands that know where to look) exactly when, where and what she wants to buy. Online search actions can include looking for nearby locations, comparing prices, looking for phone numbers, and getting directions to a store. Consumers then leverage what they find online to complete their purchase offline. These online to offline transactions are driven by price, brand, good online reviews, and location. 7 And consumers aren t searching by brand first, they re searching for the items they want to buy. For every shopper searching for a brand directly, three are Googling Store Type + Geo-modifier, so getting your local search marketing right gives you a better chance of attracting more shoppers to your stores versus just optimizing your own website. To get these shoppers, and the 3.6 trillion dollars of buying power they bring with them, retailers need to appear in local search results, and need to learn how to build their O2O funnel: You must plan strategies to maximize your locations findability, capture shoppers expressions of intent, and drive consumer behaviour to increase your in-store foot-traffic. Follow the four steps listed below to build your own O2O funnel. The ultimate result: more shoppers and increased sales. sweetiq.com 8

Building Your O2O Funnel Step 1 Create a solid local marketing foundation Get found. Build your data store. Findability is a straightforward concept get listed accurately across the internet, to help customers find your brick-and-mortar locations. The concept is simple, but yet many businesses, including some of the biggest brands in North America, are not keeping up with the task, and their listings on Google+, Bing, Yelp and other sites are incomplete or inaccurate. Don t let this happen to your brand. Keeping on top of findability means you need to build a data store, and manage all of your location data systematically. Do you know the hours of operations of each one of your locations? Are they listed correctly on the internet? Are all phone numbers and addresses correct? Implement a system to ensure you are accurately collecting and disseminating this information. Confirm you are systematically listed everywhere that matters to you. Want more information on findability? Check out SweetIQ s whitepaper on Findability here: Findability Whitepaper sweetiq.com 9

Use the correct business category Get verified Add store branding Add your opening hours Add videos Get mapped correctly Add a business description Add photos Getting listed, alone, is not enough. Make sure your listings are optimized. On your Google+ page, don t just include your business s name, address and phone number, but take the time to enter hours of operation, descriptions, branding, and photos. For many of your customers, Google, not your website, is where customers will interact with your brand: Consumers are 3 times more likely to use a search engine to find a store s location than going directly to a company s website. 8 Manage and respond to online reviews. 72% of buying decisions are influenced by online reviews and rankings. 9 Reviews let you know how your customers interact with and perceive your brand. Leverage this customer experience by implementing a review management strategy and responding to reviews appropriately. Need more help with reviews? Download the white paper below. Review Management 201 White Paper sweetiq.com 10

Step 2 Collect online and in-store metrics Start collecting data and key performance indicators listings performance, keyword rankings, keyword coverage, share of voice, review tracking. Think about competitor benchmarking, and what is specific and important to your industry. Collect in-store data too (which will become easier and easier with new technologies, like beacons). Build a dashboard that will display all of your data and key performance indicators in one place. Data collection and analysis is key to measuring the performance of your O2O funnel moving forward. Learn to harness the power of local data and analytics: The promise of omnichannel retailing is an explosion of new data from social, mobile and local channels. This provides an unprecedented opportunity to understand not just customer transactions but also customer interactions such as visits to the store, likes on Facebook, searches on websites, and check-ins at nearby establishments. 10 Use data and analytics to gather the impressions your online presence makes, and tie those together with your in-store impressions and customer engagement. sweetiq.com 11

Step 3 Get creative This is the fun part. Use the information you gained from your data analysis to create engaging and exciting local marketing campaigns. We know consumers use their mobile and digital devices while out shopping. In a survey conducted by Deloitte 84% of shoppers used some type of digital device for shoppingrelated activities before or during their most recent store trip. 11 But we also know that mobile users often only have a general idea of what they re looking for leaving a lot of room for influence through marketing campaigns. 12 Local marketing campaigns can include loyalty programs, discounts, coupons, promotions, or anything else your savvy marketing team can dream up to entice online searchers to become in-store shoppers. By building a strong local marketing foundation, you can also learn the best ways to share, and target, your local marketing campaign. If you know that the majority of your customers are accessing your brand through a Google search and using your Google+ page, share discounts and promotions on Google+. It s time to leverage the inherent power of your local search channels. sweetiq.com 12

Step 4 Measure conversions and financial impact This is ultimately what your O2O funnel is all about turning online activity into offline sales. Measure increases in key performance indicators, impressions, and both online and offline conversions and engagement. Then calculate the dollar value of your O2O funnel. This data will show you how optimizing your local search game can lead to major increases in shoppers, and ultimately, sales. Want an example of the financial impact of local search? Here is an actual calculation we did for a major U.S. pharmacy chain: Over one year we measured 10 different keywords that drove local search. Those 10 keywords generated 104 million requests locally. Further analytics showed us there was a 3% click-thru rate, a 30% off-line conversion rate from online marketing campaigns, and a $105 average in-store spend. We did the math. Local search means $100 million dollars in sales just to that one pharmacy chain alone. Local search matters. Local searches Online conversions In-store shoppers Sales sweetiq.com 13

Conclusion Building your O2O funnel is essential to remaining competitive in today s retail world. Consumers are using mobile and other digital devices to lead them to their offline purchases. Retailers must learn how to guide this process. The first step is to get found online. This is an important step, but it alone is not enough. Retailers also need to collect and analyze data to learn how to capture shoppers expressions of intent and influence shoppers offline behaviour. A strong local marketing platform will allow you to convert online searches into offline purchases. sweetiq.com 14

Sources 1. BIA/Kelsey, 2014 2. Greg Sterling, Screenwerk, 2014 (http://screenwerk.com/2014/04/01/e-commerce-grows-o2ospending-still-at-least-10x-larger/) 3. IAB, 2013 4. MillwardBrown Digital. Navigating the New Path to Purchase. https://www.millwardbrown.com/ docs/default-source/global-solutions-downloads/channel-optimization/navigating_the_new_ Path_to_Purchase_MBD.pdf 5. Deloitte, 2014. Omni-channel: Rethink, reshape, revalue Retail Study 2014. 6. MillwardBrown Digital. Navigating the New Path to Purchase. https://www.millwardbrown.com/ docs/default-source/global-solutions-downloads/channel-optimization/navigating_the_new_ Path_to_Purchase_MBD.pdf 7. Nielsen, 2014. Mobile Path to Purchase. 8. Mediative, 2013. 9. Denise Lu, Mashable, 2013 (http://mashable.com/2013/09/02/yelp-reviews-infographic/) 10. Erik Brynjolfsson, Yu Jeffrey Hu and Mohammad S. Rahman. 2013. Competing in the Age of Omnichannel Retailing. MIT Sloan Management Review. 11. Deloitte Digital. 2014. New Digital Divide. 12. Nielsen, 2014. Mobile Path to Purchase. sweetiq.com 15

SweetIQ helps you leverage the power of local search to increase your findability and convert online traffic to in-store shoppers. @mysweetiq linkedin.com/company/sweet-iq CREATED BY: sweetiq.com 1.888.573.5228 Sweet IQ 2015 All Rights Reserved