Get Customers in Your Local Business with 3 Essential Online Experiences

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In our Breakthrough Series webinar “Bridging the Gap Between Digital & Physical,” we discussed why your local business that serves customers face-to-face needs an even better online-to-in-person strategy to continue to grow.

When small, local businesses effectively use online experiences to connect the digital world to their in-person transactions, profit objectives can be achieved.

But what do those online experiences actually look like, on a functional level?

There are three digital experiences that, when used together, create a powerful connection between your customer’s online interest and your in-person transactions. Check out our webinar or read a summary below to learn the three online experiences every local business needs to increase in-person sales. 

Digital Experience 1: Collect Emails & Subscribers

The first step in creating a digital experience that creates online attention for your business is to take back control of and nurture your subscriber list. Collecting the contact information of potential customers helps your business continually build awareness of your goods and services and capture the interest of prospective buyers.

The easiest way to continually grow your customer list is to take advantage of every social post, ad, customer interaction as an opportunity to collect an email address. During these interactions, email addresses be easily captured by links, QR codes, and landing pages, then added to your mailing list.

Fanbank can automate the email capture experience so you don’t have to set up and maintain the infrastructure needed to keep engaging your customer lists. 

Small business email collection tools from Fanbank

Digital Experience 2: Link customers’ debit or credit cards to your business

In addition to email capture, an even more powerful way to convert customers into in-person shoppers is to use a card linking method.

You’ve likely seen credit card companies that promote offers linked to credit or debit cards or marketing programs from other brands that offer cash-back incentives when customers register their cards online.

Now, this card linking technology is available specifically for local business to build these connections, too. By linking your customers’ credit card information to your business, you can create a direct connection between your customers’ wallets and your business. In fact, in our experience customers who are card-linked to your business are worth 30% more than customers who are not because you’re able to generate so much more value out of that important connection.

Here’s how it works:

  • You promote a special offer to a group of potential customers in your area, online or in-person. 
  • Your customer sees this ad for your business, is taken to a customized online customer experience, and clicks on a link. This takes them to a landing page to redeem the offer. 
  • They then simply enter their credit or debit card into your online registration experience on that page.
  • Later, when the customer makes a purchase at your business in-person, this special offer is automatically recognized when they use that same card. Any benefits, like cashback rewards, points, or an e-gift card are automatically delivered to the customer at the point of purchase. 

The best part about card linking? All transacting, fulfillment, and logistics take place behind the scenes. Your staff doesn’t need to do anything to fulfill the credits back and the customer doesn’t need to do anything beyond registering their card with your business. Moreover, card linking enables small, local businesses to run multiple types of offers to different customers at once for a personalized experience

If you’re using the Fanbank platform already, you can leverage gift with purchase offers that automatically send customers through this card linking experience, helping to build your customer lists and creating a direct link between your customers’ online behavior and your in-person sales. 

How Fanbank helps you link customer credit cards to your point of sale.

Digital Experience 3: Create a Purchase Online Experience

The final digital experience your business should consider is selling your in-person goods and services online. 

Historically, it’s been tough for small, local business owners to set up an online shop. Many businesses, like salons, HVAC specialists, plumbers, and restaurants don’t always easily lend themselves to direct online sales or e-commerce storefronts that seem like they require a lot of upkeep and maintenance to maintain.

The right online purchase platform for local businesses should automate the online sales experience and make it easy for you to turn your physical goods and services into online offers.

Here’s how we do it at Fanbank: A member creates an online package for customers that bundles their products or services with a relevant offer. For example, a local plumbing specialist might promote a “Buy a $50 credit to Joe’s Plumbing and get a $25 Lowe’s e-gift card” offer through social media and to their email subscriber list.

When a customer clicks on the offer online, they can provide their email address and purchase the packaged offer in the same way they would make a standard e-commerce purchase. Fanbank processes the transaction and stores the credit for the customer in their Fanbank account. When the customer comes into your store and makes a purchase at your business, the credit is automatically recognized and receives the credit back to their card. 

The results of using an online selling experience to reach local business customers are three-fold:

  • Your business has made a sale using an appealing brand package.
  • The customer’s email address is added to your subscriber list. 
  • The customer’s card is linked to your business to streamline future purchases.
How Fanbank helps small businesses sell online

Tying all of these options together are links and QR codes that direct customers to interact with your business, simplifying your email sign-ups, card linking experiences, and online commerce experiences. You want to make it as easy as possible for potential customers to go through these digital experiences and reduce any extraneous steps that would prevent them from adding their email to a sign-up list, entering their credit card information, or making an online purchase from your business. 

This simplified infrastructure has been a game-changer for small business owners who don’t have the time to set up and maintain all of the technology needed to create and maintain these kinds of experiences.

When setting up these three digital experiences for your business, all you have to do is make it a habit to include these links in all of your brand communications to start driving more customers through these digital experiences.

As a result, you’ll grow your subscriber list, directly link your customers’ debit and credit cards to your business, and grow your in-person transactions through online experiences.

Additional Resources:

Learn how to automate the digital experience for your customers with Fanbank’s online platform for small business.

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