The highest-performing brick-and-mortar marketing strategies today are built on math, data, and owned customer relationships—not guesswork.

This guide explains:

• What brick-and-mortar marketing really means in 2025
• Why list marketing consistently outperforms ads for local businesses
• The real conversion data behind email and SMS marketing
• Why giveaways create higher-quality local audiences than discounts
• How relevance beats reach every time
• How the CliquePrize® mobile app helps turn foot traffic into a compounding asset

What Is Brick-and-Mortar Marketing?

Brick-and-mortar marketing refers to any strategy designed to drive customers into a physical location and encourage repeat visits. Unlike e-commerce marketing, success is not measured in clicks or impressions—it’s measured in walk-ins, redemptions, and return frequency.

Effective brick-and-mortar marketing includes:

• Local promotions and incentives
• In-store events and experiences
• Giveaways, contests, and sweepstakes
• Email and SMS list marketing
• Loyalty and relationship marketing
• Location-based targeting and proximity offers

The most important distinction:
Brick-and-mortar marketing is about owned reach, not rented reach.

Why Brick-and-Mortar Marketing Fails for Most Small Businesses

Many local businesses rely on:

• Paid ads with declining performance
• Word of mouth that can’t be scaled
• Social media engagement with no follow-up
• Discounts that erode margins

The result is short-term traffic spikes with no compounding effect.

What’s missing is a system that:

1. Drives a physical visit
2. Captures permission to re-contact
3. Enables repeat visits without paying again

That system is list marketing.

Brick-and-Mortar Marketing Is a Math Problem

At its core, brick-and-mortar growth follows a simple equation:

Relevant Audience × Conversion Rate × Frequency = Revenue

Most businesses obsess over the first variable—audience size.
But conversion rate and frequency matter far more for local businesses.

A smaller, more relevant local list:

• Converts at higher rates
• Costs less to reach
• Can be contacted repeatedly
• Produces predictable foot traffic

This is why email and SMS marketing consistently outperform paid advertising for brick-and-mortar businesses.

The Data: Why List Marketing Works

Email Marketing Performance (Local Businesses)

According to the Data & Marketing Association (DMA):

• Email marketing delivers an average ROI of $36 for every $1 spent
• Permission-based email lists significantly outperform purchased or cold lists

Industry benchmarks show:

• Open rates: 25–45% for local businesses with opt-in lists
• Click-through rates: 2–5%
• In-store conversion from email clicks: 5–15%

That means a list of just 1,000 local subscribers can reliably generate:

• 250–450 opens
• 20–50 clicks
• 1–7 in-store visits per campaign

And unlike ads, that reach is reusable.

SMS Marketing Performance (The Local Power Channel)

SMS is one of the most effective brick-and-mortar marketing tools ever measured.

Industry data consistently shows:

• Open rates: 90–98%
• Read time: Under 3 minutes
• Click-through rates: 8–20%
• Action/conversion rates: 20–30%+ for time-sensitive local offers

Why SMS works for brick-and-mortar:

• Phones are always nearby
• Messages feel personal
• Locations are close
• Offers can be redeemed immediately

A 500-person local SMS list can outperform a $1,000 ad campaign—because every message reaches a real, nearby person who opted in.

Omnichannel List Marketing Multiplies Results

Businesses that combine email and SMS outperform single-channel campaigns.

According to omnichannel marketing studies:

• Customers engaged across multiple channels spend more
• Response rates increase significantly when SMS reinforces email
• Conversion windows shorten when urgency is added

Email builds familiarity and trust.
SMS drives action.

Together, they create a repeatable foot-traffic engine.

Why Local Relevance Beats Reach

Brick-and-mortar businesses do not need massive audiences.
They need dense relevance.

Compare:

Paid Ads

• Broad targeting
• Declining click-through rates
• Rising costs
• No owned relationship

Local List Marketing

• 100% local relevance
• Known interest or intent
• Owned contact data
• Repeatable reach

The most relevant message to the most relevant person always wins.

This is why list marketing consistently outperforms ads for:

• Bridal Shops
• Gyms and fitness studios (Yoga, Kickboxing & Pilates)
• Med spas & Skincare clinics
• HVAC
• Real Estate Open Houses
• Restaurants
• Kennels
• Music, Dance, Karate & Swim Schools

Why Giveaways Build Better Lists Than Discounts

Discounts attract bargain hunters.
Giveaways attract interest and intent.

Psychologically, giveaways:

• Create excitement instead of price erosion
• Feel optional, not transactional
• Encourage participation
• Build positive brand association

When a Contestant (your targeted Prospect) enters a giveaway, they:

• Voluntarily opt in
• Express interest in the business
• Provide contact information
• Accept future communication

That opt-in matters.

CliquePrize® giveaways are structured to:

• Verify Contestants are local
• Prevent non-relevant entries
• Capture first-party email and SMS data
• Tie prize redemption to physical visits

This produces a high-quality local marketing list, not just traffic.

Brick-and-Mortar Giveaways as a Foot-Traffic System

Effective giveaways do more than collect leads—they create physical outcomes.

With location-verified promotions:

1. New Customers discover your small business
2. They enter a giveaway
3. Winners redeem prizes in-store
4. All entrants join the database
5. Future campaigns go to known locals

This turns one promotion into many future promotions.

CliquePrize® was built specifically around this model, allowing brick-and-mortar small businesses to:

• Run giveaways, video contests, events, raffles, text to instant win promotions and surveys (i.e. quizzes, polls & questionnaires)
• Build compliant, local databases
• Re-engage customers without ads
• Measure participation tied to real locations

Relationship Marketing: The Hidden Advantage of Lists

Brick-and-mortar success is not built on one visit.

List marketing enables:

• Event announcements
• New product launches
• Seasonal promotions
• Flash offers
• Loyalty rewards

Instead of hoping customers remember you, you remind them—ethically and with permission.

Over time, this increases:

• Visit frequency
• Average order value
• Customer lifetime value (LTV)

Why Brick-and-Mortar Marketing Is Shifting Away from Ads

Paid advertising is increasingly:

• Competitive
• Expensive
• Algorithm-dependent
• Temporary

List marketing is:

• Owned
• Predictable
• Cost-efficient
• Compounding

Every new subscriber reduces future acquisition costs.

This is why the most sophisticated Sponsors (aka brick-and-mortar small business owners) now treat:

• Giveaways as list builders and entry points
• Email and SMS as profit channels

The Core Truth: Brick-and-Mortar Marketing Is About Math

Small businesses don’t lose because their branding is bad.
They lose because:

• Their reach is unfocused
• Their follow-up is inconsistent
• Their marketing resets every month

List marketing fixes this mathematically.

Smaller list × higher conversion × repeat contact beats massive reach × low intent × one-time exposure

Final Takeaway: The Most Relevant Reach Wins

Brick-and-mortar marketing in 2025 is not about being everywhere.
It’s about being local, remembered, and revisited.

The businesses that win:

• Build owned local lists
• Use giveaways to capture intent
• Leverage email and SMS to drive repeat visits
• Focus on relevance, not scale

That’s why list-first brick-and-mortar marketing outperforms ad-first strategies—and why the CliquePrize® mobile app exists specifically to help physical brick & mortar small businesses turn foot traffic into a long-term growth asset.

Take the first step today—start with just $29 and try CliquePrize® for your next promotion.

🚀 Ready to take your marketing to the next level? Download the CliquePrize® app and create a FREE Sponsor Account today!

CliquePrize®*** is the iPhone Giveaways mobile app that helps Small Businesses grow by reaching, nurturing and converting local, high value prospects. If you have any questions or feedback, please let us know!***