One of the key issues affecting physical businesses is that once a customer leaves a store they have… well… left. It sounds strange to say that since it would be a bit impractical for a customer to spend every waking moment in your space but what we actually mean is that when a visitor leaves the premises, your business becomes very much “out of sight, out of mind” and retargeting can help.

What we’re actually talking about here is branding, familiarity, and attention. A key factor in building a successful business is capturing the attention of a potential customer and becoming a familiar brand. The most obvious example of this is the McDonald’s golden arches which are instantly recognizable the world over. Without this conscious recognition, odds are extremely against a prospect becoming a regular customer.

Rule of Seven

The rule of seven is an old marketing rule-of-thumb. Basically, it states that a potential customer needs to be exposed to your marketing message or branding at least seven times before they take any action.

Of course, this is just a general axiom and not set in stone. A prospect could purchase from you after seeing your brand for the first time or they may be repeatedly exposed to it and not take any action until dozens of marketing attempts later.

The reason for this is three-fold. The first issue is that they don’t know your brand and are unfamiliar with it. In fact, odds are that the first few times they encounter your marketing, it may not even register in their minds.

The next hurdle is that even if they start to recognize your brand, they may not need your services or products just yet. By not being exposed to your marketing enough, when they do need your products they may have already forgotten your business and go with a competitor.

Finally, we come to trust. A prospect has become familiar with your brand and recalls it when they require to buy — but you have to gain their trust. Like meeting someone new, building trust takes time which again requires more exposure to your brand.

If you successfully jump all those hoops then acquiring a lifelong customer gets exponentially easier. The question that now remains is how can you expedite the process?

Retargeting Ads

A retargeting advertisement is a fantastic way to create awareness and breed familiarity with your brand. It is an online ad that is served to prospects who have encountered your marketing at least once and you’ve captured some kind of contact information, or visited your website via their internet browser.

As a customer who you’ve collected information on surfs the internet or scrolls through their social media, they are presented with ads for your business through a retargeting service. The effect of this is that even though they may have only visited you once they can be sent multiple retargeted ads to build awareness for your business. This can then lead into creating a personalized customer experience down the road.

Now that we know the issues of building familiarity with your brand and what a retargeting ad is, there are a few questions left. In part two of this series we’ll discover how to build a list of contacts for your physical space and how to retarget them.