10 ways to attract private traffic to physical stores

In the past few years, due to the rise of e-commerce and the impact of the epidemic, the business of offline stores can be described as bleak, but in the end, offline stores still have a certain value. This year, the situation has changed, but it also requires certain skills. Let's take a look at the article I shared about 10 gameplay strategies for attracting traffic to physical stores!

In recent years, with the rise of e-commerce and the impact of the epidemic, physical business has become increasingly difficult. But it is undeniable that the value and advantages of physical stores are still irreplaceable. In 2023, offline business has also ushered in a comprehensive recovery and outbreak.

However, many bosses are complaining that they have been organizing activities and spending a lot of money, but there is no traffic to their offline stores, and they don’t know how to attract traffic efficiently.

This article will share 10 strategies for attracting traffic to physical stores for your reference and study.

1. Recruitment and drainage

Recruiting and attracting customers is an effective strategy for physical stores to attract customers. Usually, experience officers or partners are recruited to assist the store in carrying out promotional activities to increase customer flow and sales.

Suitable for physical stores such as catering, retail, and beauty, especially small businesses seeking rapid growth and brand exposure.

1. Specific steps

• Clarify goals and strategies: First, you need to clarify the goal of traffic generation, whether it is to increase sales, improve brand exposure, or attract new customers.
• Develop traffic strategies: including promotion rules, time, format, etc. of the event.
• Formulate incentive policies: Set incentive policies to encourage recruiters to actively promote. This can be commissions, discounts, gifts, or points rewards.
• Execute promotional activities: Work with recruiters to execute various promotional activities, such as online promotion, hosting events, sharing coupons, etc.

For example, a newly opened restaurant can conduct a "delicious taster" recruitment activity to increase its popularity and attract users in a short period of time. In line with the promotional theme of the recent festival, users share their taste tasting experience on social platforms or in Moments. If certain conditions are met, the restaurant can provide free meals and a certain commission as an incentive.

2. Cooperation with surrounding merchants to attract customers

Physical stores can collaborate with other nearby businesses to jointly launch promotional activities to increase customer traffic and boost sales.

It is suitable for physical stores such as shopping malls, shopping centers, retail stores, and restaurants, especially those located in busy commercial areas or business districts.

1. Specific steps

• Find partners: Look for surrounding businesses that are related to and complementary to your own business and establish cooperative relationships.
• Jointly design a cooperation plan: Agree on a cooperation plan, including the content of promotional activities, participating merchants, promotional methods, etc., to ensure mutual benefit.
• Design promotional activities: formulate promotional activities to attract customers, such as joint promotions, shopping coupons, cross-store discounts, etc.
• Joint promotion: Partners can jointly promote activities through social media, leaflets, electronic screens and other means.

2. Implement promotional activities

Implement well-designed promotional activities to ensure smooth promotions and attract customers to buy.

For example, a bookstore can cooperate with a nearby coffee shop to launch a "Coffee and Book Appreciation" event during the National Day holiday. After customers spend a certain amount of money at the bookstore, they can get a coffee shop drink coupon. At the same time, after customers spend a certain amount of money at the coffee shop, they can get a bookstore discount coupon. The two merchants jointly promote the event, attracting coffee and reading enthusiasts and increasing customer flow.

3. Limited-time special promotions to attract customers

Physical stores can offer special offers within a certain time limit during holidays to attract customers to shop in the store.

It is suitable for physical stores such as retail, clothing, catering, and electronic products, especially for industries with large demand for purchases and gifts.

1. Specific steps

• Determine special items and time limits: Choose popular or new products and offer special discounts for a limited time during the holiday season, and make sure the discount is attractive.
• Produce promotional materials: produce promotional posters, flyers, electronic screen broadcast content, etc. to highlight special products and limited-time promotion information in stores.
• Online promotion: Use multiple channels such as social media, store websites, and emails to promote special promotions in advance and attract customer attention.
• Store layout: Place discounted items in prominent locations, design attractive displays, and use promotional materials to highlight discounted items.
• Customer service: Train employees in advance to ensure they are familiar with special offer information, provide quality service, and help customers choose their purchases.

For example, a clothing store can launch a special sale on a holiday, offering a 15% discount on all clothing, only on that day. By promoting in advance, customers can be attracted to come and buy, which can increase sales. At the same time, store staff actively assist customers, giving them a good shopping experience.

4. Experience activities to attract traffic

Stores that meet certain conditions can hold in-store experience activities on weekends or holidays to attract customer participation.

It is suitable for physical stores such as retail, beauty, catering, entertainment, experience stores, etc., and is especially suitable for industries that require customers to have an in-person experience.

1. Specific steps

• Determine the experience projects: Determine the experience projects that are suitable for the recent holiday themes, which can be trying new products, tasting special dishes, DIY handicrafts, etc.
• Design activity content: Design detailed activity content, including experience process, interactive links, reward mechanism, etc.
• Promotional activities: Use multiple channels such as store promotions, social media, flyers, etc. to carry out extensive publicity to attract customer participation.
• Make an appointment or sign up in advance: Encourage customers to make an appointment or sign up for the experience in advance so that it can be pre-arranged.
• Provide quality experience: During the experience activities, provide high-quality products, services and experiences to leave a good impression.
• Incentive to purchase or recommend: After the experience activity is over, encourage customers to buy related products or recommend them to friends to increase conversion rate.

For example, a coffee shop can hold a "coffee tasting experience" event to let customers taste new varieties of coffee and explain their characteristics and production process. Through social media promotion and in-store posters, a large number of coffee lovers can be attracted to participate, increasing the popularity and customer flow of the coffee shop.

5. Short video traffic generation

Short video traffic generation is to attract customers to shop in stores by creating attractive short video content and spreading it through social media.

It is suitable for physical stores such as retail, beauty, catering, clothing, and tourism, and is especially suitable for visual products or services.

1. Specific steps

• Determine the content of the short video: Design attractive short video ideas, which can be product displays, special events, store highlights, etc. Store addresses, contact information, or holiday special promotion information need to be included to facilitate customers to obtain store information.
• Make exciting short videos: Use professional equipment or smartphones to shoot short videos, keeping them concise, interesting and attractive.
• Choose the right platform: Choose a short video platform that is suitable for the target audience, such as Douyin, Kuaishou, Xiaohongshu, etc., to publish short video content.
• Actively promote and share: Encourage employees and customers to share short video content to increase exposure and attract more customers.

For example, catering stores can combine promotional information with filming a video showing the production process and environment of special foods, or invite some food experts to share it on social media platforms to attract users to come and taste it.

6. Salon drainage

Salon traffic generation is a strategy to attract target customers to stores by holding various salons, lectures, seminars and other activities, thereby increasing brand exposure and customer flow.

It is suitable for physical stores such as beauty salons, fitness, education, fashion, and health, and is especially suitable for service industries.

1. Specific steps

• Determine the salon theme: Determine the salon theme based on the store’s business characteristics and customer needs, such as beauty and skin care, health and wellness, fashion trends, etc.
• Invite experts or celebrities: Invite industry experts, celebrities or opinion leaders as guests to increase the appeal of the event.
• Develop an activity schedule: Design a detailed activity schedule, including speeches, discussions, interactive sessions, etc., to ensure that the activity content is rich and colorful.
• Promotion: Use social media, store promotion, partner promotion and other channels to carry out extensive publicity to attract potential customers.
• Advance registration and confirmation: Encourage customers to register in advance so that the number of participants can be properly arranged.
• Carefully prepare the event site: ensure that the event site is warm and comfortable, provide necessary facilities, and create a good experience for customers.

For example, a beauty salon held a beauty salon. Well-known beauty experts were invited to give skin care lectures and provide free skin tests and skin care advice. Through social media promotion, a large number of skin care enthusiasts were attracted to participate, which increased the beauty salon's popularity and customer flow.

7. Rewarded interactive traffic generation

Offline stores can increase store traffic and promote sales by holding prize competitions, raffles, etc.

It is suitable for industries such as retail, catering, entertainment, tourism, fitness, etc., and is especially suitable for shopping malls or commercial complexes.

1. Specific steps

• Determine the form of the activity: Determine the form of interactive activities with prizes, such as raffles, puzzles, competitions, etc., and combine them with recent holiday themes.
• Determine the prizes and rules: Determine the prizes, which can be discount coupons, free products, gift cards, etc., and establish clear rules for participation and winning.
• Promotion: Use multiple channels such as store promotion, social media, flyers, etc. to carry out extensive publicity to increase the popularity of the event.
• Organize events: Organize interactive events with prizes at the set time and place to attract customer participation.

For example: a clothing store holds a "lucky draw". Customers can participate in a lucky draw once if they spend over 500 yuan. The prizes include free coupons, discount coupons, coupons for a certain amount of money off, and exquisite small gifts.

8. Free welfare traffic diversion

A strategy to attract customers into the store by offering free gifts or samples, thereby increasing brand exposure, customer traffic, and potential buyers.

It is suitable for physical stores such as retail, beauty, food, health products, household goods, etc., and is especially suitable for industries that require trial experience.

1. Specific steps

• Choose freebies or samples: Choose popular, representative products as freebies or samples.
• Develop activity plans: set conditions for distributing free gifts or samples, such as adding corporate WeChat accounts, promotional activities, etc.
• Promotion: Use multiple channels such as store promotions, social media, flyers, etc. to widely publicize free gifts or samples.
• Provide quality service: When customers receive gifts or samples, provide enthusiastic and professional service to attract customers to stay and make further purchases.

For example, a cosmetics store can launch the "National Day Beauty Festival, enjoy free trials" event. Customers can choose some products for free trials in the store. During the trial, professional beauty consultants are also provided to answer customers' questions and provide usage tips.

9. Group buying to attract traffic

Physical stores can also launch group buying activities to attract customers to form teams to purchase products or services.

It is suitable for physical stores such as retail, catering, beauty, sports equipment, home appliances, etc., especially for industries with diversified products.

1. Specific steps

• Determine the group purchase products: Choose popular or best-selling products, set a group purchase discount price, and ensure that it is attractive enough.
• Formulate group buying rules: set rules such as the number of group members, group buying time limit, group buying price, etc. to form a group buying mechanism that attracts customers.
• Promotional activities: Use store promotions, social media, and advertisements to promote group buying activities and attract more people to participate.
• Encourage sharing and invitations: Encourage customers who have participated in group buying to share and invite more people to join, forming a chain reaction.

For example, a home appliance store holds a "Group Buying Carnival, Enjoy Discounts Together" event. Users form a group with friends and family to buy home appliances together for a better discount. For example, a group of 3 people can get a 10% discount for each member; a group of 4 people can get a 15% discount for each member; a group of 5 people can get a 20% discount for each member.

10. Holiday-exclusive gift packages

For example, during major holidays like National Day, merchants can launch exclusive holiday gift packages or product combinations to attract customers to buy and increase sales and customer traffic.

It is suitable for physical stores such as retail, beauty, food, cultural and creative products, and home furnishings, and is especially suitable for industries with private brands or special products.

1. Specific steps

• Determine the gift package content: Design attractive gift package content, which can be a specific series of products, hot-selling combinations, limited edition products, etc.
• Formulate gift package discounts: Set a preferential price for the gift package and ensure that the discount is attractive enough to attract customers to buy.
• Design promotional materials: Create posters and flyers that highlight the features of gift packages to attract customers’ attention.
• Promotion: Use multiple channels such as store promotion, social media, flyers, etc. to carry out extensive publicity to increase the popularity of the gift package.
• Display the gift package carefully: Place the gift package products in a prominent position and design an attractive display to highlight the features of the gift package.
• Provide professional advice: Train employees so that they can explain the contents of gift packages to customers and provide professional advice.

For example, during the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day, a gift shop can launch a "family reunion gift package" that includes moon cakes, furniture decorations, tea and other products. For example, all products originally valued at more than 500 yuan can be sold at a price of 400 yuan, making users feel affordable. And set a limited quantity to reflect the value of the product.

11. Final Thoughts

The above are the 10 physical store traffic diversion strategies shared. In addition, there are some other methods of diversion, such as using queuing "support" and other methods. However, this method is a bit biased. It is feasible if the store products themselves are good. If the products are not good, don't do it. I personally don't recommend doing this, you need to be cautious.

In fact, there are many ways to attract customers. The key lies in how you discover and how you do it with your heart. You can learn from others' experience, but the methods you learn from must match your store and products, otherwise you are just being self-indulgent.

Author: Yan Tao WeChat public account: Yan Tao Sanshou