Increasing Footfall to Your Retail Business

Alan presents the first in our three-part series of how to increase customers and footfall to your retail business. Filmed in on Location in Leeds City Centre during our Leeds Event.

Note: This transcription has been generated with AI and there may be errors present. 

 

So we’re right here in the middle of Leeds City Centre, running a pop up business school event sponsored by Leeds City Council, Leeds bid, and Hammerson the owner of Victoria in Leeds. And today, we wanted to do a video for you specifically, if you have a retail venue. And today’s video is all about getting footfall, or customers into your store, because when you’re a retail store, you have a physical location on a high street or on a street in a town centre. And you have to get people to come to you. So you would put your shop on the busiest street. But that is now particularly expensive to do. And these techniques that we’re going to look at today, we’ve got a series of three videos that have five different ways each video to get footfall to your thoughts, and get customers into your business. Because just putting your shop on the high street is no longer enough. So this particular video was inspired by a conversation I had in a cafe with a cafe owner about who her customers were. And she said to me, that her customers were the people that walk past her Cafe, and that footfall in her area had gone down. So her customers had stopped coming in. And I thought that was a fascinating conversation. Because she didn’t see it as her job to get people to come into the cafe. She saw it as her job once people were walking past to then convert them into customers. And that is not true. Business is changing. Now, you have to be the one that drags people off the street into your store, you have to be the one that gets people into the city centre to come to your store. It is no longer good enough just to sit in your store and wait for someone to come past. So one of the top ways to get people into your store is to do something eye catching. People are walking up and down the high street every day, and they’re into their phones, they’re talking to people, they’re not paying attention. And you need to do something eye catching to capture these people’s attention to get them to look at your store to consider coming in. Abercrombie and Fitch did this by putting semi naked attractive men with amazing sex packs. It was not an Abercrombie and Fitch model. But they put those people outside that is eye catching. different stores have done it in different ways. Bright colours, loud music, we saw in diesel earlier today, they had a fluorescent coloured blow up tank in the window, they’re trying to grab your attention. And as a business with a shop, you need customers attention so that they know to come into your stores. Number two is the Facebook checking. And combining digital with real life physical in a store is a magic way to tell people about where you are. So if you can find a way to get your customers to check in to your venue whilst they’re there, that then shows up on their friends feeds to show them where they have been. So if you’re a cafe owner, is there a way you can get people to check in if you’re a shop owner, can you get people to check in online whilst they’re there, if you can get people to check in those people’s friends will see where your business is, and give social proof that people are buying from your business and bring more customers in. Number three is also a combination of digital and physical. And it’s about getting social and getting your customers to share what they’re doing. I saw a fantastic example this for a business called I tailor. And what they did was when they sent out the new shirts or suits to their customer, they told their customers that they could have 10% off their next order if they took a photo of themselves in the new shirt or suit and posted it on Twitter or Facebook with a certain hashtag and tagging them in it. So what they’re giving their customers to do is to shout about their new products. And they’re bribing them with a 10% discount. And then all of that customers friends see the new products they have bought, and it was a fantastic way for them to create their business. So in your shop, can you get people to take photos of them trying on the clothes, or have them buying a coffee or the sandwich or tag themselves in it and tag their friends and tag you in it. The more social you get, the more people will know about your business. Number four is leaflet dropping or giving leaflets. And actually we’re here outside hotel shockula in Leeds right now.

And there is a lady outside just behind me, who’s giving out vouchers to get people into the store. So she’s actively trying to get people in the street into the store. The second way you can do leaflets is leaflet, drop the houses, the offices, the apartments that are closest to your shop, you need to tell people about what you’re doing and drag them in. So number four, is leaflet dropping. And actually, whilst we’re outside hotel shockula brings me nicely on to number five, which is tasters. Quite often what we need to do is give someone a sample of what we do to build the trust when it’s good to get them to buy the product. And number five hotel shopper is a master of when you go in there, they have a sample trade. And they’re always giving you a sample of their latest testers. And that activates the law of reciprocity, which is where if you give someone they’re more likely to buy back. So can you give out tasters of what you’re doing? Because it’s easy for food businesses, samples of the coffee samples of the chocolate samples of whatever it is, it’s slightly more difficult for clothing businesses. But can you do a free thing about matching your colours? Or what would go well with what what can you give out as a taster for your business? Those are the first five ways that you can drive extra footfall extra traffic to your local business to increase your sales. This is part one of a three part series to help you increase footfall and customers. So tune in next week for part two, which will have the second five ways for you to increase traffic to your shop. Hit subscribe for the latest videos from the Popup channel to help you build your business. And I look forward to helping you grow your business.