You will hardly find anyone who doesn’t like Ice-cream. In 2019, Americans spent more than $6 billion on ice creams, and that number continues to grow, making it an all-time favorite icy desert. Due to this excessive demand, ice cream parlor owners have witnessed high market competition.
There is no question about the popularity of gelato, but it doesn’t mean you can sell it without marketing efforts. You are missing out on a good chunk of potential sales and customers by ignoring marketing needs for your business. To boost your ice cream parlor sales, you must include marketing strategies in your business plan.
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How to Increase Sales for Your Ice Cream Shop?
There is a chance that you may not be the only ice cream parlor in your area, which means the competition will be tough. You have to take every possible measure to promote your ice cream parlor. Following marketing strategies will help you to get more customers
● Build a Brand Website
Your aim should be to make your ice cream parlor a reputable brand. A website is one of the basic steps to building a brand and creating awareness. It plays a crucial role in making or improving the credibility of businesses.
For businesses like ice cream parlors where competition is high, a website can help in making your brand stand out from the competition. A website makes a strong online presence for your business and opens new marketing mediums like SEO and paid advertisement.
You can design your website to look just like the interior of your shop and even use the same colors. Moreover, it allows you to add anything you want (menus, updates, events, etc.) Customers can get an overview of your brand when they visit your website.
● Use Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO or search engine optimization is a crucial marketing strategy and has become an integral part of business plans. SEO is the process of ranking websites higher in search engine page results (SERPs) by using specific tactics and strategies.
You can outrun your competitors with SEO practices on your website. It will bring organic and quality traffic to your ice cream parlor website, meaning the organic traffic is people searching for ice creams or ice cream parlors.
In SEO marketing, we use the most commonly used search terms as keywords to attract possible customers. For example, people search for “ice cream parlors with music” we can use this term in our SEO strategy and get potential customers. Moreover, SEO has an effective ROI with higher revenue and minimum investment.
● Paid Advertisement (PPC)
Paid advertisement is also known as PPC or Pay-Per-Click advertising. It is a marketing strategy that brings traffic to your website by using paid ads to rank higher in Google SERPs. In paid advertising, we bid on keywords rather than depending on organic traffic.
It has the potential to bring a significant amount of traffic to your website. According to research, the 1st result in Google gets a 31.7% of all clicks.
You can choose keywords like “your location + Ice Cream Parlor” and then bid on it. Whenever a person searches the term, your website will show on top of the search results.
The advantage of using PPC is that it is customer centric and conducts precise audience targeting. Unlike SEO which takes some time to rank your website, paid advertisement ranks your website quickly and allows you to measure your traffic and ROI for better results.
● Social Media Marketing (SMM)
Social media marketing is the hidden treasure of revenue of sales for businesses. Collectively, social media platforms carry millions of people who can be your potential customers. The first thing people do is check the social page of a brand or business for reviews and credibility. It would be best if you created attractive social media graphics to attract customers to stay ahead of your competition.
Your ice cream parlor can massively benefit from social media marketing. The ideal way is to create attractive posts and videos with online video creator tools to save time. It is not only a cost-effective but an efficient method to build brand loyalty with customers.
Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Tik Tok host different types of audiences, making SMM an ideal strategy to target multiple audiences simultaneously. Social media platforms have intelligent paid advertising features; Facebook and Instagram ads can precisely target the audience and desired demographics to bring more customers.
● Use Local SEO
Local SEO is a type of SEO that allows businesses to rank their website on top in Google SERPs for a particular location. Businesses like ice cream parlors need customers to visit their stores for sales; local SEO is the perfect marketing tool for such businesses.
Regular SEO is also beneficial, but local SEO takes a more precise approach to target your audience. For example, your ice cream parlor is located in “New York,” and you want its residents to know about your ice cream business. When anyone searches “Ice cream parlor” in New York, your business will show them on top with the location.
It massively improves your conversion rates and ROI while bringing many customers, even when competing with other ice cream parlors in your area.
● Offer Discounts and Deals
Offering discounts and deals are a traditional yet effective marketing strategy. This particular marketing strategy can work with any of the above tactics. You can create social media posts about the offering discounts and deals or display them on your website.
Your ice cream parlor can make huge sales if you offer special discounts on holidays, events, and special days. Promote these deals on your digital platforms with paid and non-paid advertisements.
Conclusion
We are sure that the love of ice cream will not go anywhere and will be in demand as long as humanity exists.
There are plenty of opportunities for ice cream parlors to corner the market. You only need the right marketing tactics to take advantage of people’s love for ice cream and sell more.
Moreover, online tools like PosterMyWall make marketing and promotion easy for business owners. Don’t forget to check them out.