Take Advantage of Independent Retailer Month: 5 Tips & Tricks

1. Define (or Redefine) Your Brand

Small business owners and employees are usually busy running a handful of tasks. Which means sometimes, brand image and mission may be relegated and pushed to the bottom of the priority list.

Independent Retailer Month is great because it gives businesses a chance to freshen up their image.

When it comes to branding, the internet is an indispensable tool. Independent businesses can leverage their online presence to connect with modern day consumers. A virtual brand presence includes your website, social media, email campaigns and any ads you publish.

To craft a strong brand presence in indie retail, you need to ask yourself questions like if the message you want to convey is the same across all mediums? If the colors and imagery are going to match in tone and style? Is the wording you use appropriate for the demographic you want to reach?

By answering these questions, and others like them, you can start to hone in on your brands messaging which will, in turn, help you better connect with your intended audience. In this case, fans of independent retailers and small businesses.  

If you want to learn more about revamping your online presence, this blog, Why Digital Branding Is Important, will show you how. 

2. Create and Utilize Great Content

This month, the hashtags #IndependentRetailerMonth and #indieretail will be trending, which means it is the perfect time for independent businesses to take advantage of the attention and win some new consumers.

Use this month to create content that spreads awareness about your brand and generates potential new leads. Engage with customers on social media by developing and implementing a video or graphic strategy. You don’t need to invest a lot of time or resources on social media posts, just make sure your content aligns with the type of consumer you wish to reach.  

Getting content to appear in search engines—such as Google—can also bring in new buyers. If you haven’t started, now is a great time to start implementing SEO practices into your marketing strategy like writing blogs related to the products and services you provide. Blogs provide information, let you connect on a personal level with your audience, and can help brands establish authority on a subject.

If you sell artisanal soaps, for example, a blog explaining which natural ingredients can heal dry skin would provide useful information while also being relevant to your market. This content can organically lead readers to some of your top-selling or new soaps designed to address this problem specifically. Stronger blogs increase the likelihood of your content appearing in searches.

Learn more about how this works in our blog, 5 Ways to Generate Leads for Your Business Online.

3. Remodel Your Website

After you have defined your brand and created some content to engage your audience, consider revamping your website. A website is often the first digital touchpoint customers have with your business. Therefore, you should ensure it speaks true to your core brand and messaging.

Parameters to consider are design — whether the layout is helpful to buyers and easy to use, message — if your website embodies the tone and purpose of your business, and compatibility — meaning your site should be optimized for mobile users.  

As you remodel your site, keep in mind that the ultimate goal is to increase growth and conversions. Investing in your website will pay off as users can easily find your content, engage with your brand, and even make sales actions. On top of that, a website can essentially act as your brands main hub where consumers can keep up to date with everything you have going on as a growing independent business.  

To learn more about what factors to focus on when redesigning your website and how to improve your website’s performance, check out How to Redesign a Website In 9 Steps.

4. Delve Into Market Research

Without understanding your audience, a marketing strategy will rely on gambling and randomly guessing where to spend the most time and effort. Use Independent Retailer Month as a starting point to develop a better marketing strategy for your small business that utilizes real market data.

Your existing consumer base can give you plenty of insight on what’s working already. For instance, as a small business, you can analyze why your customers are choosing your product. This information can help you in targeting similar consumers or highlighting features in your product on which you didn’t previously focus.  

You can also collect data from reviews and consumer feedback to understand some of the pain-points your buyers have and how you can fix that as a small business. After analyzing their problems, you can provide a better solution and thereby increase the customer experience overall.

To understand which insights are most valuable and how you can gather and use that data, watch this informative video on Why is Marketing Research Important? 

5. Strengthen Your Account Passwords

Your small business in indie retail will probably be very busy engaging with people in person and online during Independent Retailer Month. Use this opportunity to head over to the security settings in your platforms and devices to strengthen them.

“For small businesses, that number [cost of downtime] drops to the lower-but-still-significant tune of $137 to $427 per minute.”

As a small business, you may not have the resources to recover from a cyberattack. Proactively protecting yourself from one, on the other hand, can save you time and money down the road.  

A simple way to start your business security journey is to set up multi-factor authentication (MFA). MFA policies help to ensure that users are who they say they are and adds an additional layer of security to your network. On top of that, multi-factor-authentication can eliminate the need to rely on easily hacked passwords.  

To learn more about how MFA works, watch this animated video on What Is the Definition of Multi-Factor Authentication?

Using Independent Retailer Month and Other Trends in Your Strategy

Your business can use this month as a steppingstone to revamp your brand and increase leads. Clarifying your image, creating content that represents it, understanding your audience better, and redesigning your mediums are all ways to reach more people.  

Take these tips and use them to level up your business during this year’s Independent Retailer Month!

Business trends are a good way to keep your brand in the conversation among modern consumers. Learn how to incorporate other trends like Independent Retailer Month by listening to Impact’s webinar on 2023 Business Trends.