For a business owner, thinking about the best marketing strategy is like watching a shooting star in the sky. You’ll never know when is the best time or the perfect setting until it shows up. This may sound astronomical rather than commercial but as a business owner, you know that it takes a lot of patience to find a wishing star or the best approach in your business ventures. You do understand that there should be a perfect combination of marketing strategy. Talking about a perfect combination, it is where the O2O business model or online to offline marketing strategy comes in.
What is O2O?
The O2O commerce or online to offline marketing strategy simply means connecting offline services to online customers. A kind of business strategy like O2O is a smart way to attract potential customers from online channels and eventually make purchases in physical stores. Online to offline or O2O marketing is a process to identify customers online by sending emails and newsletters, social media platforms, and mobile applications that is the trend nowadays. Strikingly has these special features to support and empower business owners who want to run an O2O company when they create a website with us.
While an offline marketing strategy seems a bit off compared to online tactics to get more customers and sales revenue, still it remains as an organic foundation to complement a business online presence. It is like dragging online customers to check on physical stores where they can pick up or return the items they purchased online. This is a very effective and successful marketing strategy that most business owners understand. An O2O service can help your business get desirable results if properly conducted.
Image taken from Bahia Blanca website
With Strikingly, we have tips and ideas to share on how you can make your business website with us and understand the O2O or offline to online marketing strategy. Nowadays, an O2O business has more opportunities to succeed rather than focusing on one strategy only. You can run your business online while having a physical store where your customers can engage with storekeepers and even pay using their cards or smartphones. We’ll elaborate O2O marketing strategy by presenting our user's cases to help you get a framework on how it works.
How Does O2O Business Model Work?
Image taken from InBlooom Handmade bar website
There are so many ways on how to apply O2O business strategy to your company, but one of the commonly known ways are as follows:
- Click-and-collect - your customers can shop or buy products online and they can collect it from a local shop or physical store. This is an effective O2O service that works for many businesses.
- Online Shopping and Store Visit - We are aware that most people nowadays are using the internet to make online transactions. While many people are used to shopping and paying online, there are some who prefer to see the item first before they actually buy it. A local store with an online presence is empowered with the O2O marketing strategy. They have two different options depending on their customer’s preference. Suffice to say that a physical store with a business website gets more traffic on both online and offline visitors because they use a complementing business strategy like O2O.
- Allowing Return and Replace on Physical Store - Your customers may need to return or replace an item purchased online. By allowing this in a physical store, it gives them a hassle-free experience. Moreover, a positive customer service experience can turn them to returning customers in the future. Your business will always get a good impression if you have a very flexible solution to your customers’ issues.
How can you apply the O2O business model with Strikingly?
- Allow Online Activities in Physical Store
Ample payment options and a customer-first shopping experience are just a few ways to allow online activities to happen in a physical store. Make your customer feel special and prioritized by giving them more options and a level-up experience when they visit a local store. Online setting empowers customers to shop freely, it means no interruptions or delays, no need to fall in line with the cashier, and they can check out as fast as they can. If these online activities are happening in physical stores, you have provided the best customer experience using O2O. As you can see, online to offline marketing strategy is not as complicated as you think. They serve as a perfect combination to fill in the gaps with each other. While other people are content with the product images and information online, some customers are optimistic and specific that is why they want to see the actual product in a physical store.
- Personalized Shopping/Service Experience
Image taken from Datable Services website
In physical stores, you have the actual feel of the customers behavior and preference. Making your customers feel at home when they shop online or visit your local store is a challenging part. However, the O2O business model makes it simple. While you have the information of how and why customers buy something online, you can apply this to a physical store. You simply have to understand the trend or the stats in your online shop and it might work offline. One way or another, you have the resources to use and see if it works. Understanding your customers’ behavior and preferences can be done using a mobile app, email marketing with surveys, and even conducting a poll on your social media business page. Why do you need to ask every customer who walks in on a physical store to fill-up a survey form when you can have them scan a QR code that will take them on an online survey. Simple, fast, and easy ways to help your customers experience personalized shopping. Strikingly provides features and experiences to help our users simplify their tasks from obtaining customer info to taking up surveys. With our Custom form you can personalize your message and engage with your customers inquiries directly to your inbox.
- Mobile-First Design to Anchor Physical Shop
Image taken from Strikingly Showcase template
A mobile-first design can help anchor your physical shop online. Having an online presence is not enough these days. Your business website should have a mobile-first design. Why? We all know that people tend to use their mobile phones more than personal computers. If your business is not mobile friendly, not only that it will not rank well on Google search, but you are missing thousands of potential customers using smartphones. Your online business presence is significant to increase more sales on offline stores. Turn your online visitors to offline buyers by making your site mobile-ready. With Strikingly, we have a mobile app feature that allows you to manage your site anywhere and anytime you want. Provide a good customer service experience by adding a responsive mobile design for your website.
- Have a Flexible Marketing Strategy
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There are many factors affecting many businesses in so many ways. By having a flexible marketing approach like O2O, where you have offline and online presence,you are most likely to get opportunities in both. A flexible marketing strategy means having a deep understanding of the factors that affect your company. Some of these factors are as follows:
- Customers preferences and desires
- Competitors strategies
- Company product knowledge
- Company workforce, skill set, and performance
In the end, you can’t really have a perfect setting for your business to grow. You only have to grab one opportunity at a time. If you have two opportunities such as O2O, you are lucky enough to have a complementing source of information that you can use to get desirable results. Take advantage of the opportunity when people visit your online and offline shop. A perfect example would be a restaurant. A food business doesn’t only rely its success on the sumptuous dishes but also delivers high-level customer service.
Image taken from Strikingly Mediterranean Template
Strikingly gives opportunity to business owners and startup founders who want to give their brand the kind of online presence that will stand out. We have multiple template designs that you can choose from to make your business look professional. You don’t need to gain knowledge with web designs or codes because we made it simple and easy for you to create a website in just a few minutes. With the team of web developers and designers to back you up, all you need to do is to upload your products on our Simple Store feature and start getting more sales when you hit publish.
Once you create a website for your business, your job doesn’t end there. Strikingly makes it simple and less complicated for our users to promote their website online. We have several features you can use to reach offline and online customers. You can send newsletters and emails, add a downloadable mobile app for your site, and reach your social media followers through online and offline SEO. Offline SEO means recommendations and reviews from customers who have experienced your online store as well as visited your physical store in the past. You can create a section on your website where positive reviews and testimonials appear as a magnet to gain trust from new customers. Strikingly loves to give you the best opportunity to improve your business strategy. While O2O marketing is possible with our features and services, you can be confident that we make a great effort in putting our user’s experience first.
