The electronic marketers had a lot of reasons to be thankful for this year.
According to Adobe Digital Insights statistics, digital transactions on Cyber Monday grew 16.8% from one year to the next, making it the biggest day ever. online shopping from the history of the United States. (Mobile phone sales reached a record high of $ 2 billion on Cyber Monday.) Black Friday online sales also increased 17% over last year.
These are hard-won gains for retail marketers, who are browsing an increasing number of ad formats and investments in digital media in order to acquire and retain customers. According to a Magna study, 2016 was the year when digital ad spend eventually outpaced sales of TV commercials in the United States.
But while vacation time may seem like a frenzy of spending for marketers, we will not have to wait for the hangover after the holidays: this slowdown in demand in January pushed up sales. ]
Would not it be great to be able to derive more value from every dollar of vacation marketing, long after the holidays are over? The secret, according to retail experts, is to maximize the long-term value of customers acquired during the vacation period. Here are three lessons from industry leaders on how to do just that:
1. PLAN: Sort the vacation friends of those who have potential all year
Why it matters:
After spending so much on customer acquisition, it may be tempting to invest more in the culture of all customer relationships after the holidays. However, for many brands, it is wiser to invest strategically in customers who have the potential to become buyers throughout the year, waiting for the garlands to be sold again. next year for holiday friends.
The logic? Focusing on customers who have potential throughout the year can maximize the return on investment when budgets are tight. And even in a low-cost direct channel like email, too much soliciting customers off-season vacations – when they are not interested – can have a negative impact on deliverability or cause them to unsubscribe, thus preventing it from really counting .
Why it is difficult:
With the acquisition of so many new customers, it can be difficult to identify which customers actually have the potential to engage all year round.
How to do it:
A predictive analytics platform can take advantage of machine learning to identify hidden relationships in customer data, highlighting the likelihood that different individual customers will engage in the future. But even teams without this type of software can make incursions.
Just divide customers acquired from previous holiday seasons into segments – those that have continued to repeat at other times of the year, and those who have participated only in the past. at the holidays – and compare the attributes.
A retailer, for example, found that vacation buyers with year – round potential tended to come from different acquisition channels and to buy different categories of buyers only to celebrations. This kind of ideas can help in the early identification of fishermen at the end of the year for investments after the holidays.
2. STRATEGY: Identifying Common Journeys After Vacation
Why it matters:
Determining which customers focus on growing for a post-holiday relationship is just the first step. Understanding how to communicate with different customers is critical to driving critical, customer-centric metrics such as the anticipated redelivery rate.
For example, say that a customer comes to buy a promotional sports bag during the holidays. How should the retailer introduce her to her biggest brand story and highlight other products that she might find relevant – for example, sportswear?
Why it is difficult:
Establishing custom relationships with customers requires data to be centralized in own customer profiles. And you have to sift through a lot of data to look for trends around common post-purchase trips
How to do it:
Again, a predictive analytics platform can be useful for distilling vast amounts of data into concrete perspectives on common customer paths. For those who do not have access to such technology, historical analysis can begin to provide visibility. Focus on the most important longitudinal models in three key areas of customer experience: produced channel and promotion .
For example, what do customers who buy stocky jewelry tend to buy during the rest of the year? Do clients who engage first through the affiliate channel during the holidays tend to prefer to engage via e-mail or via the app? And what is the promotional behavior of customers who have come on vacation for the first time?
3. EXECUTE: Testing and Optimizing High Impact Canals
Why it matters:
Now that the marketing team knows which clients to focus on and how to communicate with different customers, it's time to implement the post-holiday culture plan. But the moment is hard.
The influx of traffic and demand over the holidays usually leaves a trail of marketing rubbish (like abandoned cart emails and retargeting ads) until January. In the middle of this wasteland, being able to connect with customers in the channels that pierce the noise is crucial for culture after the holidays
Why it is difficult:
It can be difficult for marketing teams to operationalize a multichannel culture strategy; it requires coordination (and ideally, incrementality testing via controlled experiments) across multiple channels.
How to do it:
A customer data platform can facilitate experimental design, segment distribution to different marketing tools, and automated campaign measurement. Test in the channels that make sense for your business.
A source of inspiration: Direct mail has long been a mainstay of CRM, but for the first time, the boom of programmatic direct mail makes it possible to deploy perfectly synchronized aftermarket triggers.
Similarly, the convergence between ad tech and CRM has opened up new opportunities for retailers: Facebook Custom Audiences, Google Customer Match and the display without retargeting via CRM integration providers like LiveRamp.
In the end, identifying pockets of clients to invest, mapping personalized customer journeys, and delivering relevant experiences on the right channels can help maximize the effectiveness of holiday marketing investments in the new year.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. The authors of the staff are listed here.
About the author
Jordan Elkind leads the Custora Product Team, an advanced customer analytics platform for e-commerce retailers. Prior to joining Custora, he earned an MBA from Wharton and worked in marketing analysis at Citi Cards.