How to Market with a POS System: 4 Simple Strategies

Most business owners don’t quite understand just how much a great POS system can change their business for the better. Not only can it be more efficient at running transactions, organizing inventory, and providing business insight, but your point of sale can also help with your store’s marketing efforts.

But how can you leverage your POS for marketing? There are several easy steps that all business owners should be taking to make the most of this opportunity. This blog will cover these so you can start planning to implement these strategies in your own business.

What Is POS Marketing?

POS marketing is the process of leveraging your point of sale to market your business to your existing customers. There are several ways of doing so, including using POS data from your customer history, analyzing sales history, implementing POS loyalty programs, and using the point of sale hardware to display products and deals.

Point of sale marketing helps businesses get the most value out of their existing customers with higher ticket prices and better customer retention. It also inspires customers to tell their friends and family about your products, getting new shoppers through your doors.

POS Marketing Strategy #1: Use Your POS Hardware

A modern desktop POS terminal has two screens – a cashier screen and a customer-facing display. Such a checkout configuration has even become a requirement for some locations, enabling the customer to see an itemized list of their order along with any taxes or fees.

Regardless of whether or not a customer-facing screen is something that’s required at your business, it’s still a nice feature to give your shoppers. Transactions are more transparent for your shoppers, thereby facilitating a smoother and faster checkout experience.

But a customer-facing screen is also important for marketing purposes. It provides valuable real estate for merchants to advertise to their shoppers during the final stage of their store experience. Retailers can highlight in-store deals, promote impulse items or last-minute purchases, or even partner with other businesses to advertise neighboring or tangential businesses.

POS Marketing Strategy #2: Customer Loyalty Systems

Some cloud-based POS systems come with simple loyalty programs that are great for smaller retail stores. These are typically point-based systems and allow you to enter basic customer information to track purchase history and reward frequent shopping.

For larger operations, many point of sale solutions integrate with more robust loyalty software. Such loyalty integrations provide merchants with powerful tools for building out a more nuanced loyalty program. These might include subscriptions, referral rewards, eCommerce/brink-and-mortar loyalty connections, time-based discounts, memberships, and native app development.

While the first option will typically suffice for a small cafe, liquor store, or smoke shop, the latter is likely to be a better solution for multi-location retailers. KORONA POS integrates with bLoyal for merchants requiring a powerful loyalty solution.

POS Marketing Strategy #3: Marketing Software Integration

In addition to loyalty programs, retailers should also think about marketing software that can be integrated into their POS system. As opposed to the broader goals and approach of loyalty programs, these integrations usually focus on a specific area of marketing.

Email and SMS Marketing

One of the most commonly integrated marketing tools for retailers is email and SMS marketing. These allow shoppers to enter their email and/or phone number during the checkout process (both in-person and online) in order to receive updates, offers, and promotions. Springbig and MailChimp are two of the most popular email and SMS marketing tools among retailers.

Delivery Apps

Delivery apps are another important marketing integration for many retailers. Uber Eats, DoorDash, and GrubHub are becoming more and more popular among consumers, so retailers must respond accordingly. In addition to restaurants, this is especially true for retail merchants such as coffee shops, liquor stores, and convenience stores.

Location-Based Marketing

Finally, paid ad integrations are another powerful POS marketing tool. Software such as mapAds and NearSt help businesses expand their presence across location-based searches. These solutions integrate with the inventory in your point of sale database to automatically display your products when a user makes a query for specific products near them.

POS Marketing Strategy #4: eCommerce Selling

With each passing year, it’s becoming increasingly important for retail businesses to start/expand online selling. Though it’s now a more competitive landscape, it’s also easier than ever to get a webshop up and running – simple eCommerce builders take most of the technical know-how out of the equation so just about anyone can get started.

Look for POS systems with simple integrations to digital selling. For instance, online-only merchants with a large inventory might want to look into Shopify for its powerful features and website builder or hire a digital marketing agency for a custom approach. Brick-and-mortar merchants with an online presence can look for POS systems with integrations to WooCommerce, Magento, and other simpler eCommerce solutions.

KORONA POS comes with a WooCommerce plugin that is easy to use and works with CMS Max for retailers who want a custom website created. Click below to learn more!