Visual impact. How visuals affect store sales

Today, competition in the footwear segment of fashion retail is constantly growing, sometimes acquiring aggressive forms. Your competitors are not asleep, and you yourself try to be on the alert all the time. The situation is aggravated by the fact that in the conditions of constantly growing competition, buyers no longer have any kind of constant affection, they choose a "favorite" store on the principle of "cheap-convenient-near the house." Meanwhile, in 80% of cases of completed purchases, the buyer makes a choice based on the emotions that arise during the shopping process. How to influence the decision-making by the buyer using visual means of influence, says expert SR, business coach Sergey Zhamkov.

Sergey Zhamkov - CEO of EventMarket, an entrepreneur with 12 years of experience in sales. Co-owner of the franchise of the unique Saas-service for identifying visitors to the Hunterbase site, which allows you to determine the contact details of site visitors who have not even left an application and increase sales, co-founder of the Battle of Franchises project. Expert in scaling business through event marketing, the author of a step-by-step methodology for attracting grants / subsidies from the state to private business. Since 2007, he has been professionally organizing massive online events. Business coach, coach.

Competition among shoe stores is constantly increasing. Competitors are lowering prices, you have to keep track of what and how they sell - which models, at what price, what stocks they spend, what discounts they give, how their sellers work, etc.

The whole situation is further aggravated by the fact that in the conditions of constantly growing competition, buyers do not become attached to any particular store, but make their choice on the basis of banal and logical criteria:

• price;

• location;

• quality;

• “Like-dislike” (the only subjective criterion in the list).

What to do in such a situation? Reducing prices is a strong drop in profits, and already hard. Changing your location is too difficult, and you won’t get anywhere from your competitors, because you are not alone in the market. It is often impossible to influence the quality of shoes; it depends on the manufacturer. It remains only to influence the opinion of the buyer.

Surely you have already heard the following statistics: in 80% of cases of completed purchases, the buyer makes his choice on the basis of emotions that arise in the process of visiting the store. Even now, in a crisis, the final choice largely depends on what the buyer sees, feels, hears and feels in the store. And the key to the growth of your sales is hidden so that you, as the owner of the store, take responsibility for influencing these 80% of cases, using all the surroundings, space, interior, your employees, their appearance, ability to conduct a conversation and much other that your retail business has and what you can influence.

The situation when the store is located on a walkable street where several more shoe stores are located is not uncommon. The same as in the case of the location of the store in a shopping center.

Therefore, it is necessary to create such an atmosphere inside the store that most visitors form a state in which they are most inclined to make an emotional purchase.

We will tell in more detail how to do this.

Posters, pictures and photos

The first thing you need to start with is what affects the customer the most - visual tools. It is known that the vast majority of people on the planet perceive information precisely visually, and only then in some other way.

One of the most effective visual tools is

Images that you use inside the store.

Many shoe store owners make a big mistake when they don’t use any images in the interior at all. Some people make it worse - when they use images that do not affect the motives of the behavior of potential customers.

Let's see what image themes affect the buyer, his psyche and behavior:

- to a male audience: sex, success, violence;

- to the female audience: relaxation and rest, smiling people, communication, children.

You can’t even talk about sex, erotic images attract men like a magnet. Many brands are building their advertising and promotional campaigns on this. The main thing is not to overdo it with this topic, erotic subtext requires a sense of proportion.

The topic of success attracts a man, since the evolution and development of civilization made him the main earner in the family, so he is interested in everything related to success. Therefore, images of winners in sports, awards, images of successful business people will work well.

The theme of violence also comes from the deepest motives for fighting and winning, but this should not be taken literally: the store will work well with images of fights, sports, which will create the right state and mood for a male audience.

Now we will analyze female images, or rather, one - relaxation and rest, since with the rest of the motives (smiling people, communication and children) everything is simple and clear. Relaxation and relaxation are usually depicted in the form of walks, sports and yoga in the fresh air, a family picnic.

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How to use all these images? You need to understand that the images attract the attention of visitors to the store from far away, that is, not directly or indirectly, they make your client walk through the store and get closer to the image and, of course, look at the shoe models presented next to it. Therefore, you need to put shoes in the way you would like visitors to your store to move inside. Best of all, if the product group located under the image matches the style of what is in the image, for example: if the poster advertises classic shoes, traditional values, then make a composition from the classic models of shoes under this image.

Recommendation: it would be better if for the design of your store you will conduct a special photo shoot and shoot all the material, and not download all the images from the Internet. Photo posters made just for your store will definitely work better. A significant plus to this - you will have the opportunity to shoot models in the new collection of your shoes, which will also positively affect sales.

And again: each image must be large, clear, bright and located at eye level.

You can test different images by setting them over different product groups, and then look at the sales reports for each of these product groups, which models began to sell better and how many, which remained at the same level of sales. This way you’ll understand which picture works best.

When using such a simple test, you find out which image works well and which doesn’t work very well, you can use successful images in the outdoor advertising of the store. This will work better than anything else.

Selling video

This visual tool is more powerful than images, and when used correctly, it is the most powerful tool for influencing the customer in your store.

Its production cost is an order of magnitude more expensive, since you need to buy and hang plasma panels or a projector in a store, shooting, editing and other stages of work are not cheap, but video is a great opportunity for you. You need to be careful with the projector so that the image is clearly visible from different points; in case of using the projector, the lighting should be well played out.

How to use a selling video:

1. Firstly, this is all that we discussed in the chapter on the image: the same motives that influence people's behavior will work well in video format, only it will be stronger, everything will be in motion, dynamics, and the impact on your clients' subconscious mind will be more.

2. Short videos with special offers. Best of all, if these are complex offers aimed at increasing the average bill - for example, “Buy shoes for yourself and your wife and get a gift ...”, “Bring a friend and received a discount”, “Third couple for free” and others. When preparing short videos, it is important to consider two points: the video should not contain dry information about the special offer, it will be too boring and uninteresting; The video should be emotional. The video should contain all the information about your special offer.

3. You can record yourself as a store owner in a video and show customers interesting combinations of products. Or you take two models of shoes - male and female - similar in any elements in style and present them in the video as a “couple in love”. And put on them a price more favorable when buying together than separately.

4. A promotional video in the style of a fashion show, with the demonstration of several models in the same style and suitable clothing. In the end, make a special offer for them at a better price.

5. Video demonstrating the practical properties of shoes and their durability. For example, a demonstration of comparing how to tear two pairs of shoes, stretching them between cars - “someone else's” and “yours” (the theme “Violence”, which works for the male audience) will work very well. At the end of the video, you take two pairs of shoes and clearly demonstrate how strong the seams and materials of your shoes are in comparison with competitor's shoes. Naturally, your shoes should look more durable as a result of this experiment.

Crowds of spectators who want to see how such a severe experiment on shoes will end will be gathered next to such a video. And if your sellers will promptly and unobtrusively offer to try on these shoes at the end of the video, it will be much easier to sell.

Video is essentially your sales manager who does not ask for food, does not ask for wages, does not complain about anything, and is always at work on time.

Among other things, the presence of a video inside the store, in which the current special offer is constantly being spoken, makes your sales assistants quickly memorize the conditions of the current promotion, and they will fly off their teeth. With a video tool, you don’t need to send salespeople to sales training, the main thing in the video itself is to make the right presentation and record the sales language. And sellers will already be forced to memorize everything the way you say.

6. Educational videos. You have probably seen such TV shows as Smak or Fashionable Sentence, which demonstrate an expert opinion on what is good and right and what is not. So you can just become this expert who will teach all visitors how to properly care for shoes, or how to choose shoes, how to choose shoes for rainy weather, etc. If you demonstrate to your customers the criteria by which they can choose the “right” shoes for themselves, you will rise incredibly high in their eyes compared to competitors. Your competitors will simply “pair” the shoes, and you will help to choose it correctly. Customer gratitude, positive feedback, and increased sales are guaranteed to you in this case.

If you make a series of such useful videos, burn them to a disk or flash drive, brand them with the logo of your store and give them to customers when buying shoes. This will be your unique "trick".

How to lure a customer into a store using video

Everything is quite simple here, everything that we talked about above with you can be put in a shop window that looks at the stream of people moving past your store. This will attract more people to the store. For example, a video in which an experiment is performed on two pairs of shoes, tearing them between machines, will attract attention very well, especially if it will be recorded as emotionally as TopGear commented on their experiments. People will stop to watch, and the task of your managers or promoters is to invite such spectators to the store to try on shoes.

But, let’s say, it’s better not to put complex special offers of the “Two pairs of shoes at a special price” format in the window because this is an offer that solves the problem of increasing the size of the average check, rather than attracting customers. But to attract customers it is better to place videos with a very favorable price for any one specific shoe model. For example, you choose one shoe model from your entire assortment, for which you make the biggest discount, and give it away at practically cost. And put this offer on the monitor, located in the window, in order to attract and lure people passing by. And it’s already the task of your sales managers to competently advise the visitor and choose the other shoe model (for which you will already have an extra charge) because it simply suits more, or buy the one with the offer + one more.

Of all these and other tools, it is necessary to create a strategy where you clearly plan how you control the behavior of the buyer inside your store: how you attract it, make you pay attention and go inside, along which route you direct it inside the store, according to what special offers you miss it, how you delay it, how you bring it to the fitting and, ultimately, to the purchase. Only I adhere to a clearly developed strategy, it will be possible to achieve real results.

This article was published in the 145 issue of the print version of the magazine.