“I do all this work and put together all these events and do all these posts and no one walks through my door. I am so mad and sick and tired of this.”

A retailer said this to me the other day…and I know I have said it myself.

If you think the answer to all your problems is that you just need more foot traffic – you are so very sadly mistaken.

If people aren’t walking through your door it is because you aren’t talking TO them. You are talking AT them. You aren’t engaging them in a relationship. Do you know who they are?

Beware if it’s sounding like you’ve heard this before. DO NOT TUNE OUT. It is so easy to go down the path of BAD and LOUD and BORING emails and social media posts…you aren’t getting any responses…and you get mad at your customers.

LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT JANE …she and I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that she lost track of her customer.  About eight years into her women’s clothing business, she moved her location five blocks down the street. She discovered that it was a different customer.  She went from a young-going-out-needed-an-outfit-for-a-date customer to the-mom-with-a-kid-or two-looking-for-something-to-wear-to-the-park-and-only-needing-a-date-outfit-once-a-month customer.  It really threw her off.  She could not find her customer.  It took her like two years to really figure out what her new customer was all about.  She lost so much business because she kept doing events and filling her store with merchandise for the customer from her first store. After much frustration, anger and lost profits, she realized her mistake and turned it all around.

You have to know every detail about your customer. Where they go to eat out? What vacations they like? What magazines do they read? And you better read them too! Where else do they go shopping?  If you sell denim and when they’re not shopping for denim with you, what else do they buy?  Are they really into technology?  Do they go to college?  What kind of a college do they go to?  What kind of activities are they doing on the side?  How many kids do they have?  Where do they live?  You have to know every single detail about your raving fans.

Run the list of your top 100 customers and answer these questions about them. You will learn who they are and what they want. Think about who they are and what their attitudes are. If you say I’m selling gifts for women between the ages of 20 and 45, that is too broad.  Is it the 45yo that thinks she’s 20? Or the 20yo that already has kids…? That is a key point of this discovery process.

You must read their minds. I want you to get in their heads.  I want you to know them inside and out.  And a big key point here is: don’t confuse what you like and what you’re about with what your customer is like.

Create an avatar for them and name them! Go to www.facebook.com/retailmavens and tell me what it is!

All this makes it easier for you to connect and reach them

When you know WHO they are, you know WHERE they are and you know how to connect with them.

And connecting and forming relationships is what created foot traffic.