The explosion in the growth of social and digital media has revolutionized how businesses operate. Inherently, it has affected sales both online and offline with the latter being the most significant victim (Business Victoria, 2018). Misguided Company, is an example of a business that has been forced to focus on online traffic sales. As a result, it has become too expensive to maintain the physical shops compared to the online shop. There is a need to address strategies in which the business can utilize to retain a physical presence and exploiting the advantages of online shopping. The purpose of this paper is to delineate on the strategic measures that Misguided Company can implement to fully use the opportunities in social and digital media to improve sales from offline shops compared to the online shop.

Background

Misguided Company is a business that specializes in retailing clothing for women aged between 16 and 35 years of age. Despite its profitability, the company has witnessed losses when it comes to its offline shops with some of the physical shops being closed down. As a result, it is deemed expensive to maintain physical shops. Physical shops provide a sense of gratification especially for commodities of feel and fit compared to online marketing.

1. Pre-Purchase

The initial step is to provide a social media plan that is to define the brand. Creating a brand will aid in understanding the distinguishing factors with competitors.  The process can be achieved by following the behaviors, interests, and demographics of the audience. The digital plan will aid in collecting data including customer relations management and social media usage. The information will provide input relating to how users interact with the business both online and offline and aid in developing content that is target specific.

The next step is identifying brand campaign objectives which will target customers across varied social media and digital platforms. The content produced should promote customers’ need to sample products within the stores physically. The plan is to develop personalized content that is crucial to user engagement. Customers would be required to crawl the website improving brand awareness and loyalty. The best approach would be to use the social media influencers such as Beer. She can be documented having an experience shopping at the physical stores where she will entice the customers to access the stores (Chaffey, 2017) physically. According to the RACE model, the best option for improving brand awareness is informing the customers (Business Victoria, 2018). The plan will ensure that individuals would want individualized experiences which will encourage in-store sales.

The subsequent phase is to target customers through amplification of content through advertising. Advertisements can focus on user-experience in stores rather than online. For instance, an ad can contain customers having experience at the store while using computer gadgets such as the iPad (Business Victoria, 2018). The same experience that customers get online is similar to offline with a twist of ability to physically sample the products. The best approach to the plan is through significant control to the online advertisement which are expansive containing banners, social searches, and personalized emails.  The DRIP communication model emphasizes that companies should use a different approach for customers to differentiate the businesses within the same line of operation (Chaffey, 2017).

1. Purchase Phase

The subsequent step is to create and nurture advocacy concerning the brand where the business will boost offline sales which offsets the increased online sales. The process for this would require Misguided to have a customer reward system. The system will involve using social influencers including Beer. More social influencers are necessary to reach more customers. In the communications plan, the store can use social influencers as well as die-hard fans to keep them involved. Scenarios can be encouraging the fans to shop at the stores personally which would help reward reviews (Business Victoria, 2018). Reward reviews entail an increase in engagement of brand both online and offline where customers are publicly accredited for their participation by the social influencers (Hanlon, 2013). The social influencers will have to interact with the customers who will exceed their expectations of shopping offline compared to online shopping.

1. Post-Purchase

The plan should also involve the expansion of customer relations to drive online support. The reason is that online customers are real customers and can consequently influence offline sales. The company should be involved in what is happening in the online community. The process will entail monitoring closely the social pages that Misguided possess. It is optimal that the company always reply to any queries and concerns that the customers may have in the online community. According to the PoE model, setting of ethernet is crucial to guiding what material is put on the internet. As such, there is a need to include review sites where the influencers can encourage offline sales through review comments (Business Victoria, 2018). The company can opt to have reviewers gauge how shopping in-stores is more comfortable and user-friendly compared to online sales.

Conclusion

Misguided Company has a lot of potentials if social and digital marketplaces are exploited to realize the full benefits. The paper has provided succinct strategies the business can use. The hope is that the company will boost its offline sales parallel to online sales to maintain its success so far.

References

Chaffey, Dave. (2017). Introducing RACE: A Practical Framework To Improve Your Digital Marketing. Smart Insights. [Online]. https://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/race-a-practical-framework-to-improve-your-digital-marketing/ [Accessed 5/3/2019]

Hanlon, Annmarie. (2013). How to Use the DRIP Model? Smart Insights. [Online]. https://www.smartinsights.com/traffic-building-strategy/offer-and-message-development/use-drip-model/ [Accessed 5/3/2019].

Business Victoria. (2018). Use Social Media for Business. Available at http://www.business.vic.gov.au/marketing-and-sales/eCommerce-and-digital-technology/social-media-for-business/using-social-media-to-boost-business [Accessed 5/3/2019].