Techniques and tools to promote a lift chair store

[corn2015]

HI.
One of my clients runs a lift chair showroom. I've had success with getting them more business using local citations. I'm interested in looking at what other techniques and tools would be recommended that can help drive traffic and calls to the business.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Cornelius!

Good for you for getting your citations underway for this client. Without actually being able to audit the specific business, my suggestions will have to be general. Some things I'd consider:

1. If you feel that the number of citations you've built isn't resulting in as many calls as you would expect, the first thing I'd focus on is how usuable the website is. If you've earned good rankings and citations are taking potential customers to the site and the phones aren't ringing, then website quality issues could be causing conversion issues. There could be website improvements you could make for both desktop and mobile users that could increase conversions.

2. How well do you feel you understand this business' customer base? The product in question would make me want to research this as thoroughly as possible. For example, is the product mainly purchased by elders, some of who may not be as tech-savvy as other groups and who might be more trusting of offline forms of media? Or, is it the children of parents who require a lift chair? What age group would these children be who are making purchasing decisions? Is your marketing geared to this age range and trust signals they most trust? Or, is it, perhaps, differenty-abled people of all ages, many of whom are going to be super tech savvy? I'm afraid I don't have the market research at hand to answer these kinds of questions, but if it were my client, I'd definitely want those answers to be sure that everything my agency was producing was appropriately geared to the right audience.

3. How are you doing with reviews? Are numbers and sentiment commensurate with competitors' review profiles or is there a deficiency there that a well-implemented review acquisition program could remedy? If your customer is having trouble getting going with reviews, consider a paid product like GetFiveStars

4. How's your content? Do you have useful, fresh, unique content of high quality on the site or could there be issues with thin, unhelpful content that is failing to persuade users to pick up the phone?

5. Don't overlook the power of images. Google has been quoted as saying that images on Google+ Local pages can measurably increase click-through rates. Have you got the best possible images there?

6. Don't overlook video marketing. It's seriously powerful in some industries. Anecdotally, I was consulting with a business at one point with a user base made up primarily of elders. The info was that most of their clients weren't very apt to watch much online video, but they did watch DVDs. The company found a way to inexpensively produce high quality, short DVDs which they mailed to prospective customers so that they could see the product in action. These videos can, of course, also be published online for a user base that is comfortable with YouTube, etc., but again, be sure you know the audience.

These are just some ideas off the top of my head. I hope they are helpful as starters for brainstorming. Good luck with your marketing!

[LesleyPaone]

I have a client in this market, I can give you tips that they use. Let me ask one thing, is it e-commerce with prices listed on the site? Or is it show room only purchases?

[corn2015]

I would love to get some tips. It is both a physical showroom and an e-commerce site.

Cornelius