I’m probably not alone in thinking that last Christmas was anti-climactic from a retail point of view. Despite the barrage of sales that started long before Boxing Day it seemed that the only time you could see people shopping was the few days immediately before Christmas, usually the preserve of the last minute shopper.

While the December figures are not yet available, The Australian Retailers Association recently released their sales figures for November 2011. They showed no growth for the month despite interest rate cuts and early Christmas bargains.

These figures show that Australian retailers need to find new ways to encourage shoppers to visit their stores rather than leaving them to shop online or not at all. From a consumer perspective there a few things that could drive shoppers back to traditional stores:

Staying up to date

The Internet has allowed fashion savvy shoppers to see the latest collections without having to wait up to months before they reach our shores.
Online store such as ASOS have meant that consumers can buy the latest pair of boots at the push of a button, with free shipping to sweeten the deal.
But with no way to try before you buy online, retailers could benefit from making sure the latest stock is available as soon as possible.

Price

Price is a massive factor in most shopping decisions and the lower mark-ups for online stores makes shopping there very attractive. This isn’t the fault of retailers themselves; shops pay higher rents, staff need to be paid regardless of sales and then they need to generate enough profit to stay afloat.

However it isn’t just price that’s the issue here. Many stores started their sales early without great results. When Boxing Day did roll around the large department stores only saw small crowds gather to snap up bargains. David Jones only saw 500 customers in the first hour.

There is a fine line between offering bargains and causing sales fatigue. Consumers have come to expect lower prices, and pre-Christmas sales probably took the edge of the sales that began on Boxing Day.

Service and store ambience

Personal service is one of the few areas that can’t be replicated online. If a customer has a positive experience with a salesperson in a store they will be more likely to return than if they felt like they were being served by the Grinch.
The same goes for in-store ambience. One of the other attractions of shopping in store is being able to browse through the products at your own pace. Well laid-out stores that know their demographic can make the shopping experience a much more positive one.

Offer something different

Stores that offer something different are more likely to grab people’s attention, and a lot of this comes down to marketing and knowing your target demographic.

Whether it’s stocking a certain niche brand or an in-store gimmick stores have to give consumers a reason to leave their laptops to venture to the shops.
While online shopping is here to stay and many people are choosing to save instead of spend, making the overall shopping experience more enjoyable could convince us to get out of our pyjamas, turn off our computers and head to the local shopping centre.

Hamburgers probably aren’t the first thing to come to mind when you think of social media. But for Wimpy, a South African restaurant chain, their buns delivered quite a bonus.

To promote their new Braille menus, Wimpy made just 15 buns with hand-crafted Braille messages spelt out with sesame seeds. The recipients of the resulting hamburgers then spread the message to 800,000 sight-impaired South Africans. How’s that for amplifying a message about a unique brand differentiator?

It’s also a great example of the ability of social media, in this case newsletters produced by key organisations, to target a message at a very specific demographic.

Australian’s continue to embrace the internet in increasing numbers, and mobile is the big mover.

Nielson Online Ratings recent report on the state of the online market in Australia provides some interesting figures that marketers might want to contemplate. For example, 89% of Australians are online, with 73% of us being active at least monthly. The gender split is pretty close to 50:50. Sixty per cent of internet users are over 35 years of age, reflecting the age profile of the country, so yes, you can market to a mature audience via the net. Since 2009 we’ve doubled the time that each of us spends online. We view more pages and are visiting the website of major retailers in much greater numbers.

And we’re browsing on the move. There was a 71% increase over 2011 in the number of people accessing the internet using mobile devices. Forty three per cent of men own a smartphone compared to 31% of women. And whilst there is a definite skew towards the 18-44 demographic, 22% of smartphone users are over 50, and 41% are over 40.

An unsurprising but key statistic is that smartphone ownership is much higher amongst higher income earners than low income earners.

The tectonic shift in media use continues, and as we noted last month, marketing managers are following the audience into the online world. What this current report reveals is the importance of taking mobile browsing. Do you deliver a web experience that works brilliantly on the small screen?

A survey conducted by the Australian Marketing Institute shows that most senior marketing managers are increasing their use of social networking,  other Web 2.0 applications and online advertising.

Against a modest average increase in marketing budgets of 3.5% in 2012, digital channels look like gaining at the expense of print and TV advertising.

Digital channels offer many benefits to marketers. These include the ability to better measure the response to ads, to control the spend depending on results and the opportunity to develop direct lines of communication with consumers. Online ads can also be targeted very precisely at people who are searching for specific products.

The shift in marketing activity. | Image credit: Australian Marketing Institute.

This doesn’t mean traditional forms of advertising are on the way out. Each mode of communication has its advantages. Print, TV or radio advertising can be very effective in making first contact and creating that initial brand recognition. Digital channels then offer great opportunities to provide more information to potential customers and to further develop the relationship.

Social media and digital marketing aren’t magic bullets. Success with digital marketing relies on so much more than just setting up a Facebook page or randomly scattering advertisements across Google’s suite of products. Sure, there are costs involved in working with a professional digital marketing partner, but given the much improved results they can achieve compared with going it alone, it’s an investment well worth making.

How does this compare to your marketing? Do you find you are using more digital mediums or are you sticking with traditional marketing? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

We’re launching our new website just in time for Christmas, you lucky devils!

We’ll have some news and updates coming up soon, include an all new showcase section, but for now please enjoy the doggy disco.