When new products arrive in store, it’s always an exciting time. It’s your first real interaction with the product, giving you the opportunity to finally feel the fabric and materials it’s made from, inspect for quality, and share important product knowledge with your staff before it’s time to market and sell it.

It’s a great idea to maintain that excitement, and extend it to your customers by creatively marketing your new products to them as quick as possible. Instead of simply placing your new product out on the sales floor, and list them online, build anticipation when new products arrive.

By keeping your customers updated at every step of the process, you help your customers feel more in tune with your brand, get them excited for new opportunities to try your latest items and be the first to find out about what’s happening with your brand.

Here are 10 ways you can market your products as soon as they arrive in store:

1. Use loyalty programs to attract local customers to come in store

Getting customers to shop with you in your store is a lot easier when they’re already within the vicinity of your store. Fortunately, with the latest innovation in retail technology, you can now use third party apps to know if potential customers are in the area, and send them targeted promotions to encourage them to stop by to shop.

Targeted marketing app, Collect integrates into eCommerce platforms and allows you to create customer segments so you can send offers to specific customers.  Customers can save the offer to their Apple Wallet which means that it when they walk pass the store, it will notify them to redeem the offer.

That means if one of your regular customers is walking by on a rainy day, you can target them with a unique deal on umbrellas to encourage them to visit, and leave happy, with the perfect product and a sweet discount.

2. Create a buzz on Instagram

As I have mentioned in previous posts, Instagram is an integral part of establishing your brand presence online. Instagram posts serve well to portray the aspirational lifestyle of your customers, allow you to connect with them on a highly engaging platform, and educate your followers about your brand and products through inspirational images.

Many brands are using Instagram to send a flood of traffic to their websites to promote new products in store and online.

Mansur Gavriel is a leader in using Instagram as a platform to lead to quick sell-outs of their new products. When they launched their line of designer bags, they completely sold out of their full inventory within days. They continued to do this again and again, using Instagram as their main driver of traffic to create a buzz around these exclusive bags.

Mansur Gavriel carefully calculated launch dates for the release of their bags, using their website as a “coming soon” page until they had enough product in stock. And sometimes they saw their bags sell out within 24 hours.

While leading up to the launch of their new collections, they stayed consistent with their audience, posting carefully curated images that displayed their new products and aligned with their target audience’s aspirational lifestyle.

To help you increase your sales on Instagram, you can use tools like Spreesy, which allows you to create shoppable posts within the native platform. All you need to do is post an image of your new product on Instagram using Spreesy, and your customers can choose to purchase the product by leaving their email in the comments. This then automatically sends the customer an email with a secure link to purchase the product.

3. Use Facebook for more exposure

A growing number of retailers are selling their products using Facebook.  Facebook is making it easier for brands to sell on their platform by targeting a specific segment of people who are interested in a distinct type of product or service.

Facebook’s latest tool that they have launched for businesses is Facebook Canvas ads. Canvas ads allow businesses to create an immersive story and experience to showcase products.

Canadian brand, Kit and Ace were able to use Facebook Canvas ads to see over 500 offline conversions from their ad that ran for only a month in December 2015, as well as a bounce rate lower than 5%.

The reason why Facebook is so powerful is because you can create a tracking pixel that you embed on your website and then you can retarget the potential customer on Facebook. Once you gather more and more data around the visitors who are coming to your website, you can create ‘lookalike’ audience to expand your reach to new potential shoppers who have similar interests as your current customer base.

The next step is to get even more personal with your audience, so why not try experimenting with Facebook Live.

Facebook Live allows you to stream exciting moments in your business which allows your Facebook fans to connect closely with you as a business owner, and your brand.

Subscription service brand, Birchbox, is using Facebook Live to truly help customers learn about their products, how to use them and keep customers updated on new arrivals.

Former Director of Social Marketing and Content Strategy, Rachel Jo Silver is quoted as saying “Facebook Live allows us to do things like answer questions about the products you got in your box or talk to you, and ultimately bring you along further.” While she understands the importance of getting the perfect customer into the sales funnel, that’s not quite enough any more and curating content and answering customer questions through live video is the perfect way to move customers through the sales funnel.

You can start using Facebook Live in your own business to:

• Show customers footage of what is happening in store or even in the warehouse.
• Share a personal story with your customers – We suggest directly facing the camera. This helps with engagement.
• Build excitement over new items arriving in store and being unboxed
• Holding a Q&A session to help customers understand your products and ask questions

If you’re struggling to personally connect with your target audience or maybe you don’t have a fan base yet, there is endless power in using Facebook Groups.

Facebook Groups can be an excellent source of generating new clients for your business, and learning new things about your target audience.

Right now on Facebook there are hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of groups tailored to specific niches and interests of people all over the world.  There are Facebook Groups for dog lovers, women interested in fashion, groups for people who use certain software, and really any specific niche you are looking for – you just have to search!

Take some time to brainstorm on what sort of group your ideal client would be in. If you can find relevant groups where your potential customers would hang out, take the opportunity to join these groups and engage with the people in them. This is a great place to share promotions and blog posts on new arrivals in store.  But, before you do that, we always recommend adding value to the group. There is nothing worse that having people who only self promote. Add value by asking questions in the group, answering questions, providing references and tips relevant information.

You can then start to gather more information about your target audience by setting up polls to gather people’s feedback on what kind of products they like, ask their biggest pain points, and where else they hang out online. Asking questions like this can serve as amazing knowledge to understand your customer better and increase your business acumen.

4. Write a blog post

If you run an online business, you know that content is key. Every time you launch a new product in store, you should aim to create a well-worded blog post to celebrate the latest products or collection and to inform your customers about the features.

While creating blog content, ensure you are communicating the features, attributes, and benefits of the product to help your customers see how they could use it in their own lives, and entice them to make a purchase.

Use your blog post as an opportunity to also increase your ranking in Google by implementing proper SEO strategies, using beautifully optimized images, and linking through to other posts and pages within your site that are relevant to the product – this may be other related products on your site.

5. Use the power of viral videos to expand your reach

YouTube can help you gain a huge advantage, build brand awareness and showcase your products and services using the power of video. There are an unlimited variety of types of videos you can use, but some of the most popular are:

• How-to videos
• Unboxing videos
• Emotional connection videos

How-To videos on YouTube are a great way to create an example of your product solving a customer your customers may be facing. If you sell beauty products, you may want to create a channel of makeup tutorials. If you sell fashion, a video on “How To Choose A Holiday Outfit” will serve you well.

You can create your own YouTube channel of your favorite how-to tips, or enlist in the help of influencers on YouTube, like Urban Outfitters has done in this example with YouTuber, LaMadelynn.

Unboxing videos are all the rage. The Wall Street Journal reports that in 2014 YouTube searched for “unboxing” were upwards of 20 million views. YouTube bloggers are garnering millions of views simply by opening up boxes and recording it as it happens.

Share your excitement of receiving a new product in store by creating unboxing videos of your new products when they arrive. This can help you share the experience of opening up a new exciting product with your customers, and also increase awareness.

If you don’t have time to create your own unboxing videos, you can try what Walmart has done by creating a YouTube playlist of unboxing videos, aimed at mothers.

Finally, aim to use video as a tool to connect with your customers on a personal level, and share that you are aligned with them in their daily challenges using emotion. Brands like Reformation, have used videos like their “Don’t Call Me Cute” campaign, created to appeal to their petite market and help a specific subset of customers better align to their brand because of a common goal. Although not specifically talking about their products, these videos help generate a buzz for the brand, and encapsulate the mission and values of the company.

Dove, the skincare brand, has released a series of videos that have gone viral. In turn it has helped them grow their brand awareness and generate feel-good sensations around their brand. In one of their videos that have been viewed over 11 million times, they share the issues surrounding girls feeling comfortable with wearing their hair curly, and the steps they are taking to change it.

Look at your current products and think about ways that you can solve a problem that your customers face, and use video to share the story of how you aim to achieve it.

At Pixc, we have started using video to provide you with quick tips about eCommerce and product photography.

6. Send a sample to an influencer to create user-generated content

Influencer marketing is a growing trend for eCommerce business. A recent review of Silk Almond Milk Influencer marketing program showed that influencer marketing was 11 times more effective than traditional banner ads. Working with Instagrammers and bloggers helps create unique ways to showcase new products, and curate great examples of merchandise being used in real life situations.  

Wherever budgets allow, aim to get some of your favorite new pieces to a social media influencer in exchange for a share or promotion on social media.

For customers, the power of seeing somebody who they admire on Instagram wearing after an article of clothing or using a certain brand is powerful. In a recent collaboration, fashion brand Madewell were able to reach one million new customers through just five well known influencers. Your target audience is more likely to buy a product if they see someone they admire using it. This is the same phenomenon that causes women to go out of their way to get the Kate Middleton haircut, or for sneaker lovers to wake up at 5am, to wait in line for a pair of Jordans. People want to replicate the purchasing decisions of those they look up to.

By collaborating with influencers, you give them the creativity and freedom to style and photograph your new products in a completely unique way. If negotiated correctly, you can use this user generated content on your website, social media and product pages.

7. Post on Pinterest to significantly grow your traffic and reach

The demographic of people who use Pinterest are ideal for you as an eCommerce business. People who use Pinterest tend to spend money on retail purchases more often than any other social media platform. According to Shopify, “the average order coming from Pinterest is $80, higher than any other site including Google, Amazon and Facebook, which has an average of $40”. Because of this, Pinterest is a social media platform that you do not want to be missing out on.

There are a few key things you can do to ensure you get the most return on investment from Pinterest:

• Ensure that you have created a business account on Pinterest
• Turn the Rich Pins and Buyable Pins functionality on for products on your website
• Create graphics using a tool like Canva that are on brand, and drive traffic to your blog posts
• Join group boards, where you can share your content to thousands of people who are interested in the types of products you sell. A great place to find group boards is pingroupie.com

Read how to use Pinterest for business if you need more detail.

9.  Send an e-mail newsletter to your customers

Numerous studies have proven that for every dollar that you spend on email marketing, you stand to make a $38 return on your investment.

Sending out an email newsletter as soon as you receive new products in store allows you to generate excitement and makes sure that your brand and product stays top of mind.

Remember, emails can be a two-way street. Invite your customers to comment and provide feedback, as this can be a great way to find out what products customers want, helping you make more informed buying decisions from your suppliers. I personally love plain text email as if they were receiving the email from a friend.

If you are stuck for ideas, you can take a look at these four eCommerce email marketing tips that I previously put together.

10. Call your top customers

If you’ve been running a popular brick and mortar store for a while, you will by now have a loyal base of customers who continue to shop with you again and again. It’s always a great idea to build a strong relationship with these customers, as they’ve proven that they love you, your brand, and the products you sell. Your most loyal and top 10% of customers will end up spending three times more money than the other 90% of customers who shop in your store. So it’s important to give that amazing VIP treatment, and an exclusive experience which will allow them to realize that they are appreciated for being a loyal customer. I suggest picking up the phone and giving them a call to personally let them know about what has just arrived. If this is something that will truly change their life, or make it easier, they will be thankful to be the first to know about it. Keep files on your top customers to document the types of products they love and to give them a more personalized experience.

If you think there is something that I have missed or would like to know more specific details on any of these ten ways to market your new products, please do leave a comment.