By Mateo Miramontes, Business Value Consultant
The retail industry has undergone massive changes in recent years. Online shopping has long since upended traditional retail, channeling billions of dollars from brick-and-mortar cash registers to website clicks. But some things haven’t changed: people still enjoy in-person shopping, especially the touch and feel of products and the need for human interaction.
In fact, some retailers have noticed that their online businesses aren’t as successful as their physical stores for that very reason. That’s why many brands have chosen to integrate their online and in-store experiences. Some have launched brick-and-mortar showrooms that allow their customers to touch and interact with a selection of products, then buy their favorite items online and have them shipped to their home or office.
These same retailers are searching for deeper insights into their customers’ behavior to help ignite sales. Technology can help with this search, allowing companies to uncover buying trends and target customers more accurately.
The hybrid edge
We’re seeing top retailers deploy these hybrid approaches by leveraging a range of new technologies. New in-store Wi-Fi solutions from Cisco, retail cloud technologies from Oracle, and frictionless check-out systems from Amazon, are just some of the retail innovations that are helping brands improve the customer’s shopping journey and drive increased sales — both online and in physical stores.
Today, brands are tracking shopper behavior and preferences from their online and digital marketing teams — transferring that knowledge to their brick-and-mortar operations while integrating leading-edge technologies to make in-person shopping faster, easier, and more enjoyable. At the same time, they’re leaning on IT teams to capture insights from their customers’ in-store shopping activities to optimize product selection, store layouts, and marketing campaigns.
Still, challenges remain. For example, many retailers’ IT and marketing departments are challenged to work together productively and understand how new technologies can help both teams. Consumers, for their part, can struggle when interacting with new technologies and may fail to appreciate their value without access to helpful messaging – before, during, and after visiting the store. Since customer adoption is key, brands must learn how to market the benefits of the technology effectively and communicate how it improves the customer’s shopping experience. This is almost as important as the technology itself.
The power of great marketing
Knowing how to communicate the value of these technologies — and helping sell retailers on the investment required — doesn’t always come naturally to tech companies. However, it’s what Mainstay, a leader in technology marketing, excels at. We’re specialists in helping technology companies communicate the value of their solutions in ways that leading retailers and their end-consumers can understand.
We work with technology vendors to develop value-based marketing messages, practical use cases, and efficient campaigns that match the vision of their retail customers. We also create user adoption strategies that employ a crawl-walk-run approach so customers can grow into their technology solutions seamlessly over time. Our partnerships with global tech innovators have helped grow their presence throughout the retail industry, from household brands looking rejuvenate their business to tech-forward companies seeking to reinvent the shopping experience.
To learn more about how Mainstay helps technology companies market and sell their solutions to retailers and other B2B enterprises, visit www.mainstaycompay.com.
