Affiliate marketing is booming in the last few years as one of the top furniture marketing ideas. This method lets furniture retailers collaborate with publishers like KOLs and KOCs to promote their products. The publishers have their specific group of followers who listen to their opinions, thus helping you to reach people more efficiently. The best thing is you only have to pay commissions when customers purchase on your site via an affiliate code, making a high ROI for this strategy. Your product link will have a reference code to trace back to the publishers who’ve successfully driven customers to purchase.
When customers make an online purchase, you can collect their email addresses for your future email marketing purposes. After building an email list, you can design suitable email campaigns for your customers, from promotions to discounts to personalized emails for special groups of customers.
Consider loyalty programs to keep customers coming back. Some ideas for furniture retailers are offering discounts or free items when customers reach a certain level of the value spent.
Another option is offering rewards for people who refer their friends to your store. This brings you new customers and makes the existing ones happy. Word-of-mouth is a powerful marketing method that can help you grow significantly. If you already have wonderful products, you only need a few incentives for customers to introduce others.
For tech-savvy customers, you should make the checkout experience as pleasant as possible. Think about offering mobile payment methods like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Paypal, along with traditional payments via cash, credit, debit cards, etc.
To do this, investing in a homeware and furniture POS system that supports multiple types of payments will be a big help.
Augmented reality is increasingly applied in digital marketing and is loved by some of the largest furniture retailers like IKEA. An app like IKEA Place allows shoppers to use their phone’s camera to view the furniture items in their rooms, helping them to visualize how the products would look in their environment. Retailers are embracing this technology as a cool way to display furniture online and provide a joyful and interesting experience to customers.
Click and collect is a creative idea for furniture companies. Customers can place an order online and get notified when the products are ready to pick up in-store or at other designated pickup locations. This method utilizes the convenience of online shopping plus the experience of seeing and touching the real furniture in person.
Defining your target customers is important if you’re launching a new product or opening a new store. Here’re a few aspects to classify customer segments:
Demographics: Individual customers (young couples, families with children, university students, people who just move homes, people with specific needs or interests, retirees, etc.) and business customers (based on the size of the office). For each segment, customers will have different criteria to make purchase decisions, for example, price, design, quality, comfortability, multi-purpose features, etc.
Reasons to buy: to change old furniture, to furnish a new house, to buy a gift, to change the look of the home, to furnish an office or a commercial space, etc.
Furniture stores make a profit by purchasing products from a factory dealer at a wholesaler price point and selling them to customers with a higher markup. Most furniture stores have an 80% markup from their supplier’s price. If you can control your operating costs efficiently (such as marketing costs, rental costs, payroll, etc.), you can have a good profit margin selling furniture. Check this article on how to start a furniture business if you’re interested.
Marketing furniture to the public can be a challenging venture for a small business owner. Furniture pieces are items that consumers purchase only on occasion. Most furniture items have a higher price point than other retail goods and convincing the consumer to make an investment is crucial to an effective advertising campaign. There are several furniture promotion ideas that can be used to help you reach your target market.
Networking with real estate agents allows you the ability to showcase your furniture in a new home or open house setting. Empty houses may not sell as well as ones that are properly staged and typically you will be able to work out an arrangement that will benefit both parties. This is a good way to reach a key target market -- new home buyers -- who may need new furniture for their future homes.
Increasing foot traffic is vital for a furniture store. This is typically not the type of store that the average customer visits on a regular basis. To get more people in the door, advertise a giveaway or raffle event. You can pick older inventory that isn't moving and use this as your giveaway. Promote this event in your local media and through direct mail campaigns or door hanger advertisements to generate more interest.
Free refreshments are a powerful enticement to many people. Holding an annual customer appreciation event with free food is a way to thank existing customers and entice potential new customers to come into your store. Send out personalized invitations to your existing customers and utilize your local media to promote the event. You can also contact the local chamber of commerce for assistance in holding a customer appreciation event -- they may even work with you to supply the food.
In tough economic times, retailers with high-ticket items often suffer the brunt of slow consumer spending. To combat this, you have to make it easier for your customers to buy furniture. If you can, offer in-store financing with no credit approval, or drop the interest rate on your company's credit terms. Consider lowering your prices and holding two-for-one events to generate more consumer interest.
The furniture industry is undeniably competitive. Given the growth of smartphones, the internet and social media, an online presence today is, without a doubt, essential in marketing any furniture brand effectively.
With a surge in online purchases over the last decade, furniture companies have been pushed to propel their digital presence to drive better returns, stronger branding and a greater digital presence.
Furniture Promotiinal Sales EventYet for smaller businesses, running an effective digital marketing campaign in-house can be challenging. At the end of the day, marketing invested wisely first comes from sound strategy. Without proper planning, marketing campaigns could end up in jeopardy, resulting in a negative ROI (return on investment).
Consider this, in a small country such as Singapore, we have a multitude of stores selling furniture. Furniture of all sorts parade stores, and a single search on Google for that sleek piece of furniture, would flood your customers’ search results with never-ending alternatives.
Bear in mind that regardless of your marketing objective, i.e. branding or store visits, the final goal should contribute to generating revenue, in the long term, at least.
Are customers able to purchase directly off your website? Or do interested buyers have to travel all the way to your outlet before they can make a purchase?
The very first step in furniture marketing would be to identify your objectives. Needless to say, this is the crux of every strategy as you can better plan, adapt and optimise your marketing.
There’s no sin in being 100% retail. Neither is there any glory in an eCommerce strategy that is ROI negative. A retail focus simply means that your digital strategy is poised towards driving store traffic.
Naturally, having the option to purchase online is a game-changer. This game-changer provides highly demanded benefits unseen by the naked eye, convenience and, as your reputation grows, reliability.
Naturally, having the option to purchase online is a game-changer. This game-changer provides highly demanded benefits unseen by the naked eye, convenience and, as your reputation grows, reliability.
Well, that’s true, to a certain degree. Most people would certainly love to get a feel of the furniture before they buy it.
However, we’ve also seen new customers buying high-end furniture directly off our client’s website. These could be customers who would first drop by your retail outlet, and then purchase online days later. The reason? Convenience and reliability would be the simple way to put it.
Having the option of online purchases indisputably increases the chances of a sale, and of course, the chances of you being one step closer to that hitting that monthly sales target that’s ever-demanding.
Who knows? Perhaps you’ll get a huge bonus at the end of the year too, having surpassed your annual sales target. But furniture marketing isn’t about luck. It’s about precision, analysis and calibration. And this, first starts with accurately determining your marketing objectives.
Alas, if you answer ‘no’ to any of these questions, it can only mean one thing. There is likely more that you can do with your current digital marketing strategy. This applies even if your furniture is exquisite, extravagant and tailored only for the crazy rich, pun intended.
Whichever your niche, having a strong online presence is extremely important. A game-changing online marketing campaign with accurate tracking can be executed within days. Yet assembling quality data takes time to complete.
As with all other industries, reaching out to potential customers for brand and product awareness is the first step to grow your furniture business.
Within every marketing strategy, having a crystal clear comprehension of your products and the type of audience they cater to is of utmost importance. A fundamental understanding of your audience allows you to plan, execute and achieve results with greater efficacy.
For example, if your products appeal better to people with higher income aged between 35-65, we should make sure that we cater our messaging, budget and targeting towards this demographic.
