A common phrase furniture retailers hear from customers is “just looking”. However, savvy retailers need to understand how customers move from “just looking” to buying. This is even more important for big-ticket purchases like furniture that come with a more complex buyer’s journey.
As part of your marketing strategy, you need to consider all buyer’s stages — awareness, consideration, decision, and delight. Focusing solely on the decision stage may seem to be the best way to generate more sales as compared to targeting customers in the other stages, but the best marketing plan incorporates strategies in all four buyers’ journey stages.
Let’s explore how to shift your furniture marketing strategy in 2024 to help your shoppers move through the stages before and after the decision stage.
In an election year, TV ad spend becomes much more expensive and may not be a cost-effective channel for increasing awareness. Instead, consider expanding your ecommerce content marketing strategy with intentional social media campaigns and user-generated content (UGC).
Over 70% of Americans use social media, making it a must-have in your furniture store marketing plan. Potential customers are most likely on at least one platform, so your social media plan should include campaigns on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, or other platforms.
Given the evolving landscape of social media and the increasing desire for less intrusive advertising, furniture retailers should also explore various strategies to deliver genuine messages without feeling like traditional advertisements.
For example, while influencer marketing remains effective in furniture marketing, collaborations can further increase social media engagement and conversion rates. Influencers might be involved in the co-creation of content, making your furniture ads feel more like authentic recommendations rather than straightforward promotions. In fact, nearly 50% of Gen Z shoppers discovered new products or brands through influencer endorsements in 2023, and one-third of them made a purchase.
Social media can not only be leveraged as a tool for brand awareness, but also as a driver of furniture sales.
With 95% of consumers reading online reviews before buying a product, harnessing user-generated content (UGC) on your website remains highly valuable for both improved conversion rates and organic search rankings.
In addition, sharing reviews on social platforms has the potential to further boost your furniture sales. For instance, product posts and ads accompanied by reviews experience conversion rates that are 40x higher on Facebook.
To maximize the impact, you’ll need an ecommerce platform that integrates with review providers like PowerReviews. Then encourage your customers to share online reviews on your website, social media, and Google.
In the consideration stage, shoppers are honing in on how a specific product could meet their needs. This is where your website comes in.
Your website is one of the most valuable marketing tools to help visitors in the consideration stage move further through the shopping journey. In 2024, your marketing plan should include omnichannel initiatives, such as a web experience that includes localization technology, the ability to align online and in-store promotions, and AI.
As shoppers navigate your site looking for the perfect product, your website needs to be optimized to help them find results that match their style and fit the vision they have for their home. Advanced search and sort tools enable searchandising, an effective way to use, categorize, and display valuable product information for your shoppers.
Bonus: Pair powerful search tools with machine learning product recommendations to help your shoppers find the perfect item they didn’t know they needed.
The best marketing strategies for furniture businesses leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning. AI is not just a useful tool; in the past year, nearly 70% of shoppers received support from a chatbot, while 64% of businesses recognize that chatbots give them more ways to personalize the customer experience.
Bonus: AI isn’t just for chatbots. Over 70% of the top-performing omnichannel retailers acknowledge that AI-enabled analytics will reshape how they forecast customer demand and create merchandise plans over the next three years.
In 2024, the most successful furniture retailers are those that deliver what customers want, when they want it, and from their preferred location.
Leveraging geolocation, these retailers identify each shopper's location, enabling the delivery of localized content, such as information about their nearest store, dynamic landing pages, product recommendations, and more. These tools ensure that your shoppers have a unified experience as they move back and forth between in-person and online shopping.
Bonus: Use geolocation to focus on local search engine optimization and increase search rankings.
Digital marketing for furniture businesses isn’t just about making a sale; it also needs to drive loyalty.
As part of your sales process, you should be gathering email addresses from your customers when they are in your stores, by subscribing to communications from you, and when making a purchase. These individuals who are willingly opting in become valuable contacts.
Email marketing shouldn’t just be about a single sale; instead, it provides an avenue to build a relationship with your customers. As the volume of marketing emails in consumers’ inboxes surges annually, furniture retailers face the challenge of staying top-of-mind for consumers.
Historically, many furniture retailers have focused on conveying what they want to share with their audience. For example, leveraging email marketing to communicate changes in inventory, clearance sales, or liquidation events may be essential for the retailer, but might not be the primary focus of the customer.
Email marketing allows you to deepen the relationship and solidify this commitment by delivering targeted and relevant content. Heading into 2024, furniture retailers should instead prioritize customer-centric strategies that revolve around meeting and surpassing customer expectations.
To drive loyalty, leverage email marketing to:
Sales is the name of the game, and an ecommerce platform designed for big ticket purchases that also drives traffic to your brick and mortar stores will get you to your goal much faster with the ability to use furniture marketing strategies that matter in 2024.
Are you ready to shift your strategy? Check out Furniture Ecommerce: A Digital Marketer’s Guide to learn how you can start with the firm foundation of a furniture-focused ecommerce platform built with a suite of native marketing tools.