With research showing that 40% of all mobile searches today have some kind of local purpose, it is understandable that more and more businesses are now implementing store locators as part of their marketing mix. At its core, a store locator is a function that helps customers find the location of a specific physical store and directly guides them to your place. You can integrate a store locator feature to your business’s website, mobile app, or social media channel. This feature is even more meaningful when you have multiple stores to operate. If you’re still quite sure about the essence of this function, then this article is just perfect for you. Today, we’ll give you the 6 reasons why a multiple store locator can bring your brand closer to your customers.
Attract footfall and improve sales performance
First and foremost, some benefits of a store locator are obvious. Integrating a multiple store locator means that you’re empowering your prospective customers for your business to find your physical stores more easily. But more than that, this robust feature can trigger the customer journey by enriching your information when customers conduct a local search before purchasing. According to statistics, local search has been thriving lately with impressive numbers:
- 69% of people from 18 to 39 frequently use mobile devices to research products before purchase.
- 8% of mobile searches for local business information lead to a purchase.
- 88% of consumers, searching for a local business, call or visit the store.
- Stores that improve 20% of the accuracy of location information can see an increase of 216% in their conversion rate.
All in all, facilitating your potential customers with as accurate location information as possible makes them more likely to contact you and visit your stores. And a multiple store locator can do that effectively and efficiently.
Increase traffic to the website and generate leads
When people use a store locator to find your store location, it means that they have to visit your website. This results in increased site traffic as well as strengthened brand equity. You can expose your brand to a wider range of audiences, some of whom can be new potential customers. Furthermore, it is not just traffic to your website that a multiple store locator can improve. It is worth the investment in optimizing your store locator so that it helps you gain search traffic for your main website or e-commerce site too. By doing so, a multiple store locator is capable of providing measurable results for your organization to track.
Moreover, in addition to using a multiple store locator to display a map, opening hours, holiday hours, address, and contact information, store owners can also leverage this powerful feature to generate leads. It can be done through contact forms and quote requests and even requiring customers to make bookings. In the post-purchase phase, they can be used for customer service opportunities or to display ratings and reviews for the specific location.
Boost search engine ranking
Another benefit of a multiple store locator that is equally important as the 2 mentioned above, yet usually overlooked by store owners and operators, is boosting search engine ranking. Search engines like Google reward businesses that provide helpful content, the kind a multiple store locator provides, with higher search engine rankings. A higher ranking in search results means that your store is more visible and prominent to audiences, leading to a sense of trustworthiness and credibility. The fact that people are more likely to click on the first and higher results appearing on the search engine results page approves this idea.
Furthermore, as store owners and operators, you can optimize your multiple store locator to reflect customer behaviors. People nowadays are actively utilizing online search to learn about products or services, and compare them together in terms of prices, ease of use, locations, etc. In other words, a well-built store locator that can help you rank higher in the results (for local, direct, and indirect searches) will help enhance the quality of site traffic as well. That means you can have more qualified leads which are more likely to be converted into sales.
Strengthen relationships with customers
Repeat buyers are so vital to every store that store owners and operators are constantly coming up with new strategies to keep their customers coming back. It’s a fact that consumers tend to be loyal to businesses that they can easily find information from. Customers need as much information they need as possible to make buying decisions. And being able to fulfill that is a fundamental step to successful inbound marketing campaigns.
A well-functioning multiple store locator will provide your customers and prospective customers with more of the information they are looking for. The information that a store locator can cover include your store locations, opening hours, etc. Particularly for businesses with multiple locations, customers can discover which outlet has the product they want or is the nearest to their current location, and information about location-based discounts.
That helps your customers save a lot of time, money, and effort fulfilling their needs and wants with your business. With that being so, you’ll gain their trust and loyalty from your customers, nurturing your relationships with them for the long run.
Save time and streamline physical store operations
Just think about it: How many times a day do your store assistants need to pick up a call from a customer who is lost finding the way to your store? How many messages asking about opening hours do you have to reply per day? Constantly receiving and answering phone calls or messages from customers for such basic information is not worth it. In fact, it can eat up your staff’s time and effort that can be used for other more important tasks otherwise.
Placing this information on your website through a multiple store locator will free up your in-store staff members to do what they do best. In other words, by making information that your customers usually need already available and handy for them to reach, otherwise they may have to contact your business to obtain, a store multiple locator saves you a lot of time and helps streamline your store operations.
Gain valuable data and insights
One of the major benefits of integrating a store locator into your website is that you can collect valuable data. You can have precious insights about your customers by using website analytics tools to monitor where exactly people are searching from, their demographics, how often they search, etc.. This data can be later on utilized to continually optimize your store locator.
Furthermore, this feature also helps store owners and operators like you with your marketing mix. For instance, you can plan and build location-based marketing strategically thanks to the information you get from your multiple store locator. Recently, location-based marketing, also known as geolocation marketing, is going strong as there are more and more stores leveraging it to target potential segments better. That results in more fruitful marketing campaigns and increased brand awareness and brand image.
In a nutshell
A multiple store locator can bring business multiple benefits. All in all, the advantages of the multiple store locator feature is undeniable. After this article, we hope that store owners and operators like you will consider integrating such a robust function into your system. With that, not only do you improve your business performance immediately but it also benefits you in the long run.
If you find this content useful, feel free to leave a comment to let us know, and visit our blog page daily for more in-depth articles! Should you have any further questions, don’t hesitate to contact us! We, ConnectPOS, will be always supporting you on the way to your business success!
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