19 first steps for offline store online

Checklist of what needs to be done immediately after opening a store in the real world for its full-fledged “habitation” in the network. Just a reminder that I dug in internal documents. Perhaps this thing will be useful to someone. And, perhaps, someone will remember a couple more points.

Inside - the checklist itself and examples from our practice.

1. Website with phone and detailed map . At some point, if you have a real store, you will definitely be searched on the net - and it’s better if you find your site, and with the details described, select the point. It is important to describe it quite clearly (in the form of 2-3 photos), but at the same time it is not very detailed. 5 pictures on 10 meters is a bust that will give the impression that you are far away.
')
Our first store, unlike almost all subsequent ones, was located in a place that was far enough away from the metro, so we very keenly felt the need for such pieces. A number of other stores, for example, on Taganskaya, are very loved by motorists, so we always write with words how to get there by car, and if there is convenient non-obvious parking nearby, we describe it.

2. Explicit contact. The site must be a contact mail in case someone wants to contact you at night, for example. Many tritely forget to specify the full list of contacts or firmly nykayut it. Clients are not ready to play difficult quests with you.

We have on all projects - phones twice on each page + call order form and instant messengers.

3. Registration in card services. First of all, it is Yandex-Maps and Google-maps. Yandex Directory is associated with the "Yellow Pages", which also does not hurt. If there is a possibility, it is better to start not at the moment of actual opening of the point, but earlier, when it is already clear that it will be in this place.

Our store in the subway building on Kurskaya hit the base in two weeks.

4. VK: group and wall newspaper. You need to create a Vkontakte group with a link to the site and a brief description of the dobiralova. If suddenly your store sells a rare product in the region, then the group should not be devoted to itself, but to the product. For example, in regions where we are the first store of board games, the group is called not “Mosigra”, but “Board games in N-sk”. The general principle is that you yourself are not interesting to anyone. Interesting phenomena and social trends.

Social networks are now displayed in the delivery of Yandex by additional links, so do not forget to link to your pages from the main one.

5. Hi FB! Get a Facebook page: Many large companies with American management now see the FB page as a business card site. Plus, you will cover those who do not have Vkontakte. Similarly, you can walk through other networks, but, as a rule, it will not make much sense.

In our case, the FB page appeared when we began to communicate with large network companies that have head offices in Europe.

6. Start Twittering. As practice shows, this is insanely good feedback (if something goes wrong, they will write you right away), and a collection of reviews, and just tracking trends. Twitter is also an insurance in case the site falls: for example, it helped us out very well after the lightning to the Amazon data center, where we were located.

Bad tweets are sending news headlines there. Good is a constant dialogue with customers. Bad practice is mass folloving. Good - followers of those who communicate with you.

In Orenburg, we are now trying to draw a hashtag on the fences and see how it will increase traffic.

Twitter gives us a cool feedback: for example, when the head of the Chelyabinsk branch went to Moscow, one of the vendors relaxed. Tweet - and he flies on the cap straight from the capital.

7. Go to the city site. Be sure to advertise on regional resources: in the regions, as a rule, there is a large urban website or forum where everyone hangs out. In large cities, an analogue can be a system of digests of events such as The Village or Lookatme. You can talk about new products, but it should be done very tasty.

We tried to take money for such materials in large cities. In small ones, where the opening of the first store of board games is an event, the topics in the forums were held with a bang.

8. Altergeo and 4SQ geo-networks. Altergeo has a wider coverage in Russia and makes registration faster, 4sq has growth potential and a slightly more active audience in terms of feedback. A topic with geo-networks will not give you many clients, but even one order per month will pay for half an hour of work.

I see about Chekin per day in Moscow.

9. Interesting sites. Find sites on your topic and news aggregators. Send out something like a press release about a store with an interesting story about it. Someone will peel money from you, someone will rejoice and make interesting material. The main thing is not to write the official.

On the one attempt, we approached Komsomolskaya Pravda like this.

10. Blog or community in LiveJournal. First, we must lead. Secondly, from there you can try to enter the thematic communities (most importantly - carefully, without spam). Really interesting posts will be reposted by top bloggers in the region. Do not forget that the blog of a living person is at times more interesting than the company's blog. At the same stage it is useful to use a personal Google+ account for similar purposes. At the same time - very carefully go through the forums of your topics and related topics in the city.

The best message is a detailed story about how to use your product (training, not advertising). Useful tips and life hacking always rule.

11. Catalogs. It is necessary to find thematic directories and sites, run through them (without fanaticism). The result is small, but there will be a small SEO bonus.

We have less than 0.02% visits from directories.

12. Purposefully invite people to good events. If you are planning something interesting - invite bloggers to see and touch, give them some kind of bonus. The main thing that it was not a stupid bribery: not a ride. The bottom line: you do something cool, they tell and criticize.

For example, you can invite people to events, give a new product a look, arrange joint tests and so on. We had an interesting topic with crash tests of new helicopter models.

13. Watch yourself and competitors . Set up Google alerts and Yandex-based keyword search subscriptions with your main products and the name of the store or brand. React to each occurrence with valuable (really valuable) advice or simply positive feedback.

14. Video. Make a video for Youtube: search by video (the first tape in which often hits the general search page with text) should also lead to you.

We have it spontaneously: unfortunately, in Russia it is incredibly difficult to make something good about board games. Almost without exception, the videos I saw "do not cling."

15. Wiki. Write about yourself and your product in Wikipedia. Again, without fanaticism. The best link from Wiki is, for example, to detailed instructions, an official supplier in the Russian Federation or a detailed analytical article.

Here is an example about the game Beehive, which we localized. She hit the wiki portal nastol as an exemplary material.

16. Shops in social networks. If you increase your presence in social networks, try to open online stores right there in the applications. Now large players are doing it, but, in principle, the costs with more or less direct hands are not very large. There are ECWID platform solutions for building a store on anything that many "wrap" in applications. I met free offers for catalogs of up to 100 products, that is, of the costs - in fact, only your day of work.

Stay on trading platforms like Avito and Hammer (you need to receive a letter in the mail to authorize the store, it's free, but for a long time).

17. YML file for Yandex.Market. Even if you don’t get up in the Market itself (and this is important for the context, but this is a separate topic), almost any of your partners can take this file. YML will work as a kind of "commodity API" store, which is very, very convenient.

18. We buy together? Post to collective purchasing sites and relevant forums / communities. This is when a lot of people agree among themselves about the wholesale purchase. The beauty is that they teach each other how best to buy. So a flash mob will come to you.

19. Something magical that you want to talk about in your diaries and statuses.
For example, it may be something interesting outside the usual, "quiet" action (which you want to tell because of its obscurity and interestingness), social action (about which activists just talk like that) and so on. Here is an example of such an action, which is still in effect. Easter eggs can also be made: for example, some of the traffic from the Lepremes was looking for “ 35cm ” at our request, and we went along.

And, yes - is there something I forgot? If there is, please share in the comments.