A Retailer's Recipe for Success in 2020: 7 Key Must-Haves

2019 was just really, really good. Here are some of the highlights.

Low unemployment rates.
Great wage growth across all levels of business.
Record growth in the stock market.

Have there been some speed bumps? Of course there have been. None of us wanted to wage a tariff war with our biggest importer of goods that we can make high margin on. Amazon, Wayfair and our some of our multi-channel manufacturer partners continue to invest in online and create many hurdles for the traditional furniture store.

But, all in all, we saw steady growth across all of our markets with our client base without a drastic increase in expenditure to accomplish those feats. Margins continued to climb steadily, cash on hand is more available and it seems whatever holes existed from 2008 are almost filled up.

Typically, you would expect a singular vertical focused ad agency to take a lot of credit for this success. As the CEO, I am here to tell you we will not. It doesn’t mean that our collateral, strategy and content did help make the success that much better but everything in 2019 was set up to be good. We just made it great for our partners.

However, I am here to tell you that 2020 is not going to be as easy. We all know that even years are never good news (especially every four of them), and our good years coincided with big players having great years, which means they have money to spend.

Here is a recipe you need to make sure 2020 can be successful so that you don’t fall victim to the outside factors.

Spend 30% of Your Ad Budget on Digital

Is at least 30% of your media budget going towards digital media, not digital tools? Software and tools, though necessary, don’t move without an audience.

Leverage OTT (Over the Top)

Leveraging OTT is a supplement to broadcast verses a digital buy. It is important to know your audience when making a decision on which one to utilize. Learn more here.

Use Text or Live Chat

Customers prefer convenience. It’s not about ease of use on you. It’s about shifting your habits to match what the consumer wants. Learn how R&A does live chat.

Measure Engagement

Every media can be measured, including social media. Take the number of actions done divided by the number of people reached and use this as your engagement metric. This will give you a baseline on how to improve your content.

Split Test Email Subject Lines

Email has been around for a while. Split testing subject lines will give your email campaigns the best opportunity for opens, which can lead to sales.

Leverage B2B Sales Tools

You care about the communities you are in. Gain back incremental market share through B2B sales tools for realtors, the chamber, unions, etc.

Geofence Mobile Devices

Attract new customers through address based geofencing campaigns. Additionally, leverage conquest geofencing in high traffic areas to penetrate consumers (coffee shops, DMV’s, hospitals, Football Friday Night).

You can check off some of these boxes right away with the tools packaged in R&A Engage. Start implementing tools like Realtor Rewards, text request, and dynamic website reviews to engage your customers at every step of the furniture buying process.