Page 84 - Lighting Magazine October 2018

on the mark
Showrooms must be able to ship
items that are not stocked as fast as any of the competition.
From a brand-building standpoint, sending out 2 to 4 emails per month that focus on reiterating your showroom’s brand message is a minimum. These are not image-based ads asking the client to buy or advertising a sale. This is about pu ing the client in the crosshairs of building a local brand reputation and linking to the local community.
Is your DIGItaL Doorway open?
Is your website active or static? For the advanced AI (aka Arti cial Intelligence) to nd your site, it must be up to date and have usage. How o en are you posting to your website? Blogs of 1,500 to 2,500 words are essential, as are image and video posts. In fact, everything you post to social media must reside and link back to your webpage. This helps in keyword searches and other electronic ways to locate your business.
Hey sIrI & aLexa, Do you Hear an ecHo?
While the majority of this article is about the chal- lenges and needs of today, let’s take a quick look into the not-too-distant future. With the increase in voice technology, many people are si ing back and shaking their retail heads trying to gure this one out.
If you have yet to catch on to the marketing and communication skills needed to compete online, now is the time to get caught up or be le behind.
• The rst step is to get your digital doorway open and active.
• Second, make sure your website loads fast – as in very fast – and has an SSL certi cate for each page, including your digital catalog.
• Third, make sure that your geographical location is clear and easily accessible to the search engines. The phrase “near me” is a popular Google suggestion and indicates people are adding it to their search queries. By no means is this a comprehensive strategy for voice search; these are just some funda- mentals that you must put in place very soon.
It’s In my Heart
As you know, I was born into retail, and I love every part of it! To see good merchants frustrated with this landscape pains me deeply. If you are a show- room, ght hard as this storm will calm just before the next one rises.
As always, happy selling!  www.enlightenmentmag.com
Mark Okun is Business Contributor to enLIGHTenment Magazine and President of Mark Okun Consulting & Performance Group. He has more than 30 years of hands- on retail experience training and coaching sales associates in the lighting and furniture industries. Mark@bravo businessmedia.com
We know that all selling is a transfer of emotion, and humans do it best. To be successful, it is a man- datory and minimum requirement to be excited about the showroom you work in and for items you sell. Think of the emotion you feel when you share or pin an image you like. A level of excitement is there, yet it is an emotion that is self-induced. To harness the full power of emotion in sales, it takes two people. While emotion sells, it is critical to know what you need to be emotional about!
The emotion that is shared will always have something to do with the products that are presented — although in 2018 and beyond, the passion that needs to be communicated fully and emphatically is about the showroom’s reputation in the community and how they serve their clients.
Remember these points about the consumer’s journey:
1. If the item is what they want, no ma er where they nd it, they’ll buy it.
2. When the value presented to the client does not exceed the price asked, the client won’t buy it. Value is built before you ever see the customer.
3. When a bond is formed with clients in the marketplace – in both the real and digital worlds – they will be familiar with and like the “brand” that is local, and therefore be more willing to buy from you.
4. If the client base in your area is unfamiliar with you – or if they don’t like you – they won’t do business with you unless it is the only alternative.
It is my opinion that every showroom must be beating the brand-building drum harder and louder than ever before, both online and face to face. Digi- tal competitors will remind clients that they are the “low price, fast delivery” alternative to traditional retailers – even when they are not! – and they do this consistently through email. Are you willing to step up your digital marketing e orts?
80 enLIGHTenment Magazine | october 2018