Even throughout positive economic time periods, owning a retail store can be a difficult industry to find success in. However, in recent years owning a brick and mortar store has become even more difficult due to the heightened amounts of online shopping that many consumers have been doing. With a lack of shoppers coming into stores, it makes it more difficult to justify the amount of space that a store needs to rent, along with coordinating shipping deliveries and hiring people to work in the store.

Since more people are shopping online, it’s more important than ever for brick and mortar stores to create an enjoyable and efficient shopping experience for consumers. It’s also imperative that each store has a distinguishable “brand” that consumers can quickly identify and have positive feelings towards.

Not sure how to create the ultimate shopping experience for your consumers or build a styled brand that fits with your business? This is where a brand ambassador can help your store rise to the next level.

What Is A Brand Ambassador?

If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of a brand ambassador, you should think of them as a specialized consultant. They’ll talk to you about your current sales numbers along with the numbers that you ideally want to hit. They’ll also discuss your current audience and demographics that you’re targeting and propose if you should widen or narrow the net of who your brand is reaching out to.

Many brand ambassadors will also perform research on what other stores that are similar to yours are doing, and then they’ll propose changes to your store based on their market research. This could involve making changes to your storefront so you’ll attract a different kind of customer, or it could involve changing the interior design of the store so consumers will have a different feeling as they walk through.

A brand ambassador will also talk to you about your marketing strategy to ensure that you’re attracting the right kind of consumer. They’ll discuss your logo design with you and suggest whether or not it’s time for an update. They’ll also take a look at your website and your social media strategy. Below, we outline some of the more specific steps a brand ambassador may implement for you and your store.

Utilizing Social Media To Reach Your Ideal Target Audience

An extremely important way to reach many consumers is through social media. This will allow you to build more brand awareness along with allowing you to connect with past customers or prospects.

Your brand ambassador will want to use social media to ensure that your company’s story is being told the right way and that you’re using the same kind of language across each social media platform.

Your brand ambassador will make suggestions for you to keep viewers engaged. Some of these could involve posting fun Instagram shots or inviting people to view special content on their Facebook page. Your brand ambassador may also suggest that your company put a discount code in the group from time to time so that your customers will feel like they’re getting “exclusive” content and will be more likely to stay in the group too.

Perform A More Target Online Ad Campaign

Your brand ambassador will be an expert in knowing who your target consumer audience is - and they’ll know the right places to reach them. On top of having a thriving social media campaign, it’s likely that your brand ambassador will want to have you run online ads as well.

With targeted ads, if someone lands on your website but doesn’t convert, it’s possible for you to have your ads appear for them on other webpages. This keeps your brand at the forefront of their mind. You can also set parameters on the ads. So if your target audience is men in their 50′s, you can set the ads so that they won’t appear for women in their 20s. Even better, many of these ads are pay per click (PPC), so you won’t have to pay for anything unless a prospect clicks on your ad.

Curate Your Inventory To Your Audience

Your brand ambassador will also want to ensure that the items your company supplies fit with who you’ve said you’ve wanted to reach. If you’re attempting to target women in their 20′s, you don’t want to have an inventory that seems more applicable to women in their 50s. Since you can see what your customers are buying, keep track of the top trends that do well in your store and attempt to stock similar items in the future.

Overall, utilizing a brand ambassador is a fantastic way to help your business find its ideal audience and reach out to the main consumers you’re trying to target.