Back to store - How to prepare for the 2021 back-to-school season in-store!

Summer is for most people synonymous with vacation, sun and relaxation. Offices are running at a slow pace, and so are projects. It's also the ideal time to focus on fundamental tasks and prepare for the back-to-school season, a busy time for retail.

In this article, I'm going to share some tips to best prepare your network to drive more customers to your physical locations! This is done by using the power of local digital marketing and local pages Google Business Profile, Facebook Places, and Store locator.

Here are a few points that are worth considering during this summer period:

1. Always up-to-date data:

First of all, all the information publiées on your local pages must être complètes and accurate. This will allow you firstly à your stores d’être well référencé, and secondly d’offer a qualitative client experience. 

Your hours are likely to change during the summer, think à update them for the September rentrée. You can also take the opportunity to set the exceptional hours for this end of the year for holidays. 

Also, check all the information available on your pages and update it if necessary (address, phone number, attributes, secondary URLs, link to your website, etc.).

2. Recent images of your stores:

Take advantage of l’été to organize photo sessions of your establishments. L’idée is that you can take photos of the storefront, of the interior, of your staff or the products you offer in store to share this content on your local pages.

If you do not wish to call on professionals to take the images, you can ask your store managers to take 5 minutes to take some nice photos with their smartphone, making sure the result is of quality (the photos must be framed and must not be blurry). You can also organize some workshops to train them to take photos showcasing the establishments and their products.

Also take a look at the images you have already posted and ask yourself: do these images still reflect the inside or outside of my store? If not, consider deleting them. You can use the new images to complete your pages.

3. Up-to-date services and products:

Your Google Business Profile pages, Facebook, and your Store Locator should be digital storefronts for your establishments. It's essential that users can easily get an idea of what they can find in-store.

To achieve this:

• Take the time to update the available services in your stores for the back-to-school season. Do you offer Click & Collect services? Is a wifi connection provided? What payment methods are available on site? etc.
  
• Based on your category of establishments, you have the ability to add on your local pages your featured products.
  
  Select a few products you would like to highlight for the back-to-school season, and add them so users can view them. You may also have new products planned to launch for the back-to-school season; feel free to add them and showcase them on your pages to reach as many people as possible. 

If you are restaurateurs, you can also take a moment to update your menu on your local pages so that they are à up to date for the é September back-to-school.

4. Organic or paid local campaigns to promote your stores:

A good way to boost your SEO or increase your visibility and in-store traffic relies on publishing campaigns on your local pages. 

Think à prepare posts for the rentrée to share with users your actualités, your événements, your promotions or any other actions that will be available à the rentrée in your stores. These organic posts have recently had an impact on indirect searches performed by your customers! 
To être even more effective, think à combine organic campaigns à paid campaigns or local ads on Google and Facebook.

5. Quality review management:

Why not take a little time this été to review the posted reviews on your local pages? This will allow you d’identify the axes d’improvement for your stores and to défine a plan d’action to améprove your offer and l’experience of your customers. 

You could également take the time to consult the most récent reviews and to catégorize by thématic. Based on this, you could then rédraft a bibliothèque of réponses génériques with some réponses to the most fréquent reviews posted on your local pages. Responding à these reviews can be time-consuming, by relying on this set of généric answers you will be able to more easily and quickly respond to your clients' reviews. 

Furthermore, the more you will have d’reviews published on your local pages, the better your référencement will be. In this sense, you can take the time to réfléchir à the best way to manage reviews on your pages.

For example, you could add in your établissement a sign with QR code to dépose a review. There are many techniques and tips to encourage your customers à régulièrement dépose reviews after their store visits. 

You can also equip your stores with tablets so that your customers can

leave a review directly, which will allow you to easily measure customer satisfaction and take action accordingly.

In conclusion:

Summer is the ideal time to prepare the local SEO strategy for your network.
One of the key points of a local listing management strategy is to frequently update the information on your local pages. Google takes into account the information updates because it will consider the listing contains correct information and thus of good quality for its users.
Complete and frequently updated listings will therefore allow you to gain visibility and reach more internet users.

Do you want specific support to prepare for the back-to-school season?

Feel free to contact me by message :)

To learn more, discover our other articles on the subject:

• Boost the visibility of your points of sale with local ads
• What are the benefits of Facebook ads for a retail chain?
• The benefits of Google local campaigns