Zenreach offers solutions to help save business communities

As you can see in the graph below, projections in June were trending upward; in fact, we would have already reached “normal” traffic patterns by now. On July 1st, traffic across all industries was at 51.9% of normal. By August 1st, 46.5% of normal. And on September 1st, 43.5% of normal. Early September saw a slight upward trend reaching 49%, but has now dropped to 43% as of September 27th.

The flattened curve leads data scientists from Zenreach, the walk-through marketing company, to no longer have any return-to-normal predictions for retail, restaurants and bars. Zenreach was founded in 2012 to help brick-and-mortar businesses bridge the divide between their online and offline marketing efforts.

John Kelly, the CEO of Zenreach talks about the company, "We provide our clients with a software layer that sits on top of an existing guest WiFi network to enable an online experience for consumers and the collection of customer contact information for merchants. We then use this information to help our clients build customer profiles, track subsequent visits, and serve targeted emails and ads to drive customers back into their locations with measurable results."

What is one way to bring in old customers who may have been absent during the pandemic?

"It is clear from the data that a big proportion of the population has concerns about offline shopping during this period. In this environment, it is critical that merchants take safety precautions to alleviate consumer concerns—doing things such as sanitizing areas, maintaining social distancing, implementing mask policies, etc. But simply taking these precautions is not enough—it is imperative that merchants let their consumers know about these actions. Retailers must get the word out to their consumers about their safety precautions and how they are open for business. "

"Furthermore, now more than ever, it is vital that merchants are able to identify and connect with their most valuable consumers. If you have limited capacity in your store, you want to make sure that you bring in your loyal, high-value consumers, and not the low-ticket, one-and-done consumers. Because of our company's ability to determine the most frequent and high-value consumers, we have been instrumental in aiding our merchant clients to bring those consumers back."

What about one suggestion for new customers?

"As counterintuitive as it may seem, now is a great time to boost online advertising for new customers. More people are spending more time online, and ironically, because many advertisers have pared back their online spend, the cost of online inventory is comparatively low."

"This combination of record-high online engagement along with lower internet advertising costs has meant that we have seen some amazing performance numbers. In fact, we have had a few campaigns with click-through rates as high as 2-3%, which is roughly 20-30x higher than pre-COVID averages. While not everyone will be able to see such fantastic performance, we expect to see online advertising continue to perform well through the year."

"I joined Zenreach because I strongly believe in the product our company has built—a product we continue to iterate and improve upon every day—and its tremendous potential to drive sustained in-store traffic and sales growth for our clients. The success of our business and our clients’ businesses are deeply intertwined, and I’m very proud of the results we’ve been able to produce for our clients large and small in my nearly two years as CEO."

Who are Zenreach clients?

"Our clients range in size from single-location mom-and-pop stores to enterprise retail chains. We work with almost 4,000 merchants across a wide spectrum of verticals—restaurants, bars, events spaces, coffee shops, even a few grocery stores. Some examples include Peet's Coffee, Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, Bowlero Lanes, and Brighton Jewelers. No matter how big or small a brick-and-mortar business is, we are able to custom tailor a solution that gets results."

How can we move forward?

"This pandemic has brought about unprecedented challenges to our business community. Many businesses have been forced to close and others forced to take on new challenges that they did not anticipate (e.g., new safety procedures). These changes have brought tremendous stress on business owners and have created new social strains for our society. I hope that all of us can find a way to work together—not against one another—to get through this challenging period."

Please check out Zenreach for their latest information to new solutions.