Five powerful tactics you can use to bring your brand identity in-store
If you operate a retail business, you know how important it is to display your brand. But, unlike in the online realm, you face real physical constraints. You can’t just pay a marketing company to create the whole lot for you.
So in this article, we discuss the practical matter of bringing your brand identity in-store. The goal is to enable you to better communicate with your customers if they decide to visit you in person.
Remember, more than half of buyers – around 64% – want to work with brands that share their values. So communicating this via your retail design is essential. Here are five powerful tactics you can use.
1) Play with scent
Many brands use scent as a way to differentiate themselves from the competition. Grocers, for instance, will frequently pipe the smell of baked bread from the bakery at the rear to the doorway at the front to get people in the mood to shop. Department stores do something similar with their various perfumes and potions.
Creating a scent creates a new type of association between you and your customers. Instead of simply relying on the visual, you generate a deeper and more intimate connection with them.
2) Get your salespeople to reflect your brand voice
If you take branding seriously, your company will undoubtedly have a so-called “brand voice.” Summing up, it’s essentially the tone of voice that you use for all your online marketing communications.
A great way to make this tone of voice more concrete is to teach it to your sales staff. The more they get used to the type of approach that you want them to take, the more rounded your company will appear to customers. In other words, there won’t be a big mis-match between how you sound online, and what actually happens in-store.
3) Change your lighting
Many brands use bright white lights to illuminate products. The reasoning is simple: the brighter the display, the more likely customers are to see and choose products.
But that’s not always how it works. Clothing brands, like Hollister, for instance, deliberately make their stores darker to fit in with their company persona. Customers are used to their moody online presence, and so they expect something similar in-store.
4) Make sure your music is true to your brand
It’s also a good idea to think about whether your music genuinely reflects your brand’s values. If you are going for a laid-back approach, then playing heavy metal at high volume over your shop speakers probably isn’t ideal. Practically all top stores pay close attention to the music that they play.
Each track helps to keep customers motivated and captures the brand’s sentiments (even if they didn’t create the music in the first place).
5) Keep all your themes, logos and signage consistent
If you can, try to avoid mismatches between your online and offline visuals. It’ll confuse customers. And, in extreme cases, they’ll wonder whether your store is the same one that they interacted with online.
Usually, it’s best to hire a company to do both digital and physical marketing for you. This way, you can keep everything absolutely consistent.
Photo by Christiann Koepke
