Every Saturday my local high street is buzzing. Couples walk hand in hand surveying the antique shops. Parents herd children through crowds towards the tea shop, where ice cream waits (or bacon sandwiches in winter).
Sure, we have empty storefronts like the rest of the country, and a unit that’s been vacant since I moved here 9 years ago (and houses 65% of the town’s pigeon population). But the street is full of interesting, independent shops to wander through. You can find the perfect book – with expert advice – at the independent book shop. The boutiques will distil your style into a dress that feels like it was made for you. And you can put your feet up after a busy morning in the organic cafe while munching on the most glorious cakes you’ve ever seen.
My point? Well, aside from the fact that I love where I live, it seems to me that there are lessons that online businesses can learn from my local high street. Want to find out how to tap into the magic of the local butcher? Read on!
Shop local!
Where do you get your lightbulbs?
We all want to or feel we should shop local these days. We’re nudged by “Small Business Saturday” campaigns, and that enduring Pinterest quote about a real person doing a happy dance every time we buy a coaster. And we’ve all seen enough news reports about Amazon being the root of all evil.
But human beings are essentially lazy. I don’t mean that in a judgemental way. We naturally tend toward conserving resources. So we, you know, survive as a species.
So, in a world where we can speak out loud (Hi Alexa!) and manifest toilet rolls at our door, why do we so often make the effort to jump in the car with our reusable shopping bag, and pound the pavement for our potatoes?
The pull of the personal
There are 4 reasons why we make the effort to shop in our local stores:
We want to connect
To be human is to want to reach out (yes, even if you’re an introvert you need to use your rusty voice every once in a while!). And in a society where we are working alone a lot of the time, heading into a shop to have a conversation gives us the buzz we need. Talking to another human being about our day, or the lamb chops on the counter even gives us an oxytocin boost.
We want to know we matter
Not only do we seek out connection, but we want to know that we are making a difference. That someone is happy to see us, and that our purchases are having an impact on an individual. It’s the happy dance thing – we could buy our cat food from Amazon, but knowing the pet shop owner is expecting us every other Tuesday helps us see the dent we’re making on the world.
We want to “do the right thing”
Guilt is a massive motivator in every sphere of human existence. And while we don’t want to weigh people down with negative feelings, a little bit of it gives us a push to adapt our behaviour. We know we should be giving up Facebook, we know we shouldn’t be having that 4th doughnut, we know we should be grabbing our grapefruits from the farmer’s market instead of Tesco. (We don’t always do it, but the urge to do the right thing makes it more likely!)
We’re nosy!
Those elderly ladies in front of you in the queue at the Post Office, chatting about their day and asking the cashier all sorts of questions about their shift patterns, hair colour, where they got their nails done. They’re the epitome of this point.
But we all have that tendency. We like to know what’s going on in people’s lives. And we like to be able to sit down at the dinner table at the end of the day and say “You’ll never guess where the barista is going on holiday!”
Gossip is a currency, and stepping into a shop, seeing the same person each week, and finding out more about their life, means we end up pretty rich.
In summary – People buy people!
Which is great if you do have a brick and mortar storefront on a well-trodden high street. But there’s no way an online business can tap into that – is there?
What about online businesses?
These days, online businesses don’t necessarily mean big faceless, race-to-the-bottom corporations. They can mean the num struggling to fit in packaging parcels in her spare room after the bedtime story.
They can mean the family-run sustainable cosmetic business with a local ethos supporting a charity abroad.
They can mean you, sitting at your laptop designing people’s websites or running invaluable online coaching programmes.
It’s perfectly possible for you to tap into the whole “shop local” vibe. It just takes working a little differently. And being a bit more intentional about how you communicate.
3 ways you can get the mom and pop feel online
- Tell a story: You are your business’s secret weapon! Your personality, your values, your funny stories, these are the things that will make a connection. And make people spend money with you, rather than someone else. Use your about page and your product descriptions (or service pages) to add personality to your website – sprinkle the whole thing with a little bit (or a lot) of you!
- Be a person: You are human, not a faceless corporation with drones delivering dinner plates. Let people see you. Let them imagine you doing a happy dance (or, you know, knock yourself out and actually do one!). Use your social media accounts to tap into the “do the right thing” urge and show them they’re buying from an actual person. Even if you are behind a screen. You can find some tips to help you from Hootsuite.
- Build a relationship: Building authentic relationships with your customers is your number 1 tool for encouraging long term loyalty and sales. It helps you discover what they want, what they value, and it helps you speak to them in a way they’ll connect with. Use your email list! Get your personality – the funny stories you’d share with them if you met in real life – directly into their inbox. And do it regularly, so they expect to see you there, and smile as if bumping into an old friend.
Make the connection
I’m going to say it again – People buy people. And you can be a person just as easily behind a screen as you can on a high street. With these 3 tools, you can build relationships that rival a local community. And those relationships are key to how you keep people coming back.
My LED framework helps you do this by tapping into what your audience really cares about, and engaging with them.
So, let’s talk about how you can be less faceless Amazon, and more friendly artisan.