Retargeting for Retail

( The Basics )

Compared to any other method, Facebook currently (as of Sep. 2019) provides the most affordable and effective platform for transforming the brief conversations with your real-world customers – into lasting ‘online world’ connections and likely repeat sales.
As a retail salesperson, you will have developed a set of skills that are centered around communicating and connecting with real people. In this article, we explore one viable method by which you could extend that connection to the ‘online world’, without having to master completely new (geekish) skills, or having to spend large amounts on advertising.
Compared to any other method, Facebook currently (as of Sep. 2019) provides the most affordable and effective platform for transforming the brief conversations with your real world customers – into lasting ‘online world’ connections and likely repeat sales.
Facebook vs. Google vs. Email   
If you are in the business of selling your products and services primarily in the ‘offline world’, where you meet and talk to a lot of people, you are in a good position to create a solid base of online repeat buyers. Provided you have a system that connects the two realities, the ‘real world’ and the online world.
The online world has in many ways become the primary reality, at least in terms of being accessible to others. You will have to make some relatively minor adjustments to your current sales pitch and incorporate the ways to connect the ‘offline’ with the online, while continuing to make the same volume of sales as usual.


How to connect Off-line and On-line worlds   

Setting things up on Facebook

Facebook's Business Manger

Facebook Page options and settings
To be able to run a Facebook re-targeting campaign, you will need to have your presence on Facebook established, as a business. For that, you need a Facebook Page.

Within your FaceBook page, you will have access to the Ads Manager, which is the control center for your campaigns, individual ads, and your audience-building configuration. This is the interface through which you can interact with Facebook’s artificial intelligence.
Your typical Facebook re-targeting campaign usually includes a series of ads and posts, combined with the process of building your ‘look-alike’ audience. This is something that is usually planned in advance as a set – and then ‘dripped’ for publishing on Facebook during a certain period.
The Facebook ads are (currently) quite affordable and provide the best return on investment, for a retail business of any size.
In your daily dealings, you will then incorporate a number of new elements, designed to bring your customers and prospects to any of your online properties. After the initial setup, it all becomes part of your daily routine and it works on auto-pilot.

Our Retargeting Plans and E-commerce Websites

We have put together several Retargeting Plans, which are designed to accommodate different needs. The Starter plan starts at $500 but has otherwise no fixed price, as the price and the volume of work will depend on the starting position and the goals of each client. If you haven’t got a Facebook page and no (re)targeting system in place, this is the plan that you will want to start with. Please fill out the Contact Form to get in touch and tell us a bit about your business.
Currently, we also offer a Combo package of a WordPress-based e-commerce website, with the Starter Retargeting plan included. They are optimized and integrated to work seamlessly together. Promo: Artisan/Retarget Combo

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Facebook Retargeting vs. Google vs. Email

Image representing Google Ads

 
Google-centric retargeting is built on the assumption that you don't know very much about your prospects and you're just casting a wide net, based on the keywords that anyone may use. The goal is to make your business show up high in the search results, for those particular keywords.
The competition to be on the first page of Google's search results is fierce (and can get rather expensive). You're up against some big businesses that are investing some serious bucks and have SEO teams working for them.
Graphic - image representing Email

 
Email marketing can still be effective. Being able to acquire your customers' email addresses makes for a very good contact point. Which can also be used to 'feed' the Facebook's AI, in order to build a look-alike audience.
However: people are bombarded with email offers and pushing too hard can get your emails treated as junk mail, in no time. Also, preparing the email campaigns and newsletters generally requires a lot of time and a very different set of skills, compared to the ones that you have developed, as a real-world salesperson.

The reality is that most 'offline' retailers don't really know what to do with their email lists, even if they have one.

Facebook Logo

 
Facebook's system is much more direct and personal, compared to the keyword-based approach.
Their AI (artificial intelligence) is able to create a custom audience based on the data that you will need to 'feed it', such as the email list of your customers, the people who liked your posts or your page, your followers, and even the people who have at any point (after you install the Facebook 'pixel') visited your website.
Your typical Facebook retargeting campaign would involve a series of ads and posts, combined with the process of building your 'look-alike' audience.
The Facebook ads are (currently) quite affordable and provide the best return on investment, for a retail business of any size.

How to connect the Off-line and On-line worlds

In other words, what are the contact points between the online and the offline worlds?

The Online Properties

For a starter, you will need to have some online 'properties' in place, in order to direct your offline prospects to them.

Your primary, most essential online properties are your website (which you also need to conduct sales online), your Facebook page and your Google listing (to appear in Local search results).

Some online properties would be the ones you 'own', like your own website. The other ones, like your Facebook page - you 'rent', so to speak. The Local business Google listing is also a rental property, but most people effectively treat it as a utility that 'just happens to be there'. Which is a very important subject that requires a separate article.

Your Facebook page is what represents your business in the Facebook universe.
Yes, you can have it for 'free', but you are on Facebook's territory and they dictate the terms. They are known to change those terms and their system's interface on the fly and without much notice.

Many people who invested a lot of effort into building elaborate Facebook pages, found it all being replaced with a completely different set of options and had to start almost from scratch.
For this reason - ideally, you would want to have something you 'own' (or have under your control), to be the focal point of your retargeting efforts, such as your own website.

Which means that the main contact points will always be the links, (technically, hyperlinks), such as: brandnuvo.com or google.com, which are the addresses that lead to your online properties.

If your links are easy to remember, you may not even need to depend only on the printed materials to be the delivery method, but you will still need to hand out the printed materials, such as business cards and flyers that include those links.

The Story

We usually have a 'story' or several stories that are told to potential customers, during the interaction leading to a sale.

You will now have to find a way to mention the name of your business (as found online) and a link to it, in your 'spiel' (or your story).

You will need a pretext and a 'smooth' way to make it sound natural, but after a while, it will become a second nature, as you become more aware of the fact that you are nurturing your online presence at the same time as you're working to make daily sales.

Having a weekly draw, with an expensive product as the prize - if they just answer couple of questions (anonymously) so that you could create a better product, or simply asking the person to go and like your Facebook post or a page, because ... you fill the blanks.

The Pixel

The most important bit to understand is that every instance of your bringing someone to your online property, to just have a quick peek - will be duly noted by the Facebook's watchful eye and be used towards building the profile of your best prospects.

Facebook has something that became known as 'Facebook pixel', which is a short script that you include in your website's code, which then sends the info to the Facebook mother-ship, every time anyone comes to visit.

This data is then available to you as graphs and charts, similar to Google's Analytics, but built around very different data points. You don't have access to the individual actions of specific persons, but you can see the numbers that correspond to your campaigns. These are the so called 'metrics', which is really the only way that you can measure the success of your retargeting efforts.