Lidl shows the way in many other ways than “Just Price”

The Retail Gazette reported yesterday that “Just a third of online retailers are seeing a direct business result or spike in customer engagement from using social media channels in their marketing strategy. Although the evidence remains patchy and finite, a recent survey by ChannelAdvisor suggests that social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest are either under used or are not delivering effective results for retailers”

Alongside this survey Lidl has just entered the record books as the food retailer with the lidl facebookbiggest European Facebook Community with 10 million Facebook fans now “Socially devoted” to Lidl.

All this has been achieved since social media activities were rolled out in 2011 in seven pilot countries: UK, Spain, Ireland, Holland, Croatia, Romania and Finland. Now in 2014 Lidl has 26 Facebook pages in Europe. Lidl has succeed creating and using dialogue and not only advertising campaigns. This strong engagement with customers/users has led to the Facebook followers having had their say on which Lidl products should go on a special offer in the stores.

This is all good for Lidl but what ‘is in it for me’ as a small exporter and brand owner, you might think…

  • Work with your sales channels to pilot new countries and markets – share all the new knowledge and align your product/services to your customers, the pilot countries and markets. Do not be afraid of different languages – easy to translate on-line
  • Tailor your sales propositions to your customers’ own “fans”
  • Pro-actively use the free product/service information and feedback you can openly follow on your customers’ social media sites – Offer to help your customers to address and follow up, where needed help your customers to improve the situation. – Use Google Alert for your monitoring to save time on your searches
  • There are massive opportunities for being half a step ahead of your customers for new product development/improvements  and spotting trends to further strengthen your business relationships across all borders

Hard but extremely rewarding work awaits you – Have Fun and enjoy…

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