What Comes After the Frenzy?

Sales events are on the rise. The second half of the year sees further Click Frenzy events, Prime Day, Black Friday, Cyber week, Singles Day, as well Christmas and Boxing day sales.

Power Retail’s own Trajectory Report found that sales event spend is on the rise, up 46 percent to $505 between 2019 and 2021.

Prepping sales periods and living through them is one thing, however, I thought it would be sharing insights on how a retailer’s digital and ecommerce teams should be looking to maximise the value of interactions during these periods long term.

While the Iron’s Hot

Your Click Frenzy customers’ engagement with the brand demonstrates their intent, intrigue and affinity. Now is a good time to segment and target these people accordingly.

For customers who have abandoned their cart…

In one recent study, 32 percent of those who were contacted after an abandoned cart made a purchase as a result, a figure which has doubled since 2021. That’s a figure you should never forget. Timing is everything and when the intent is clearly there, the challenge becomes establishing the best way to position your offer to get your customer over the line, and finding the balance between thoughtful and convenient reminder and hounding is essential as this work impacts the long term customer lifetime value of each shopper. But tread the line, as you don’t want to be considered to be hounding them, otherwise you’re impacting your customer lifetime value of that person.

For those people who have already purchased something from you…

The post-purchase window is the most optimal time to use the data available for an informed upsell based on each customer’s needs. Utilising the data you’ve gained, you can provide a deeply personalised and relevant upselling experience. Let’s look at an example from the fashion industry. Based on the industry knowledge your team has, if a customer completed checkout for a linen blouse, and there was a matching pair of linen culottes that many other purchasers of the same top had bought, you might suggest completing the matching set.

For both of these options, best practice is to contact them within a very short window, as the money and desire to spend is already there. I’d recommend the first email should be within two or three days and then follow up at least twice but no more than three times.

For those who haven’t purchased…

Securing the purchase is about nurturing your relationship with the customer to better understand their needs and what they want from you. If they are a person that only buys during sales, consider this next period a chance to demonstrate how your brand aligns with their aspirations.

Advice for Next Time

101

An eye for detail can serve to enhance the overall brand experience and strengthen brand authority. It’s not uncommon for big brands to make very basic errors in grammar and formatting. A lack of attention to detail can harm your brand’s perception. I’ve witnessed marketers send out an email with the subject line ‘words’ and the copy still with the templated Lorem Ipsum writing. These mistakes ultimately undermine the results email assets can produce and diminishes brand authority.

Importance of Integration

Many retailers are going through EOFY sales right now. My advice would be to leverage a highly integrated strategy that spans across paid, social and email campaigns. For example, utilising the email subscriber list for social retargeting through list uploads to the preferred social media channel. Another tip would be to utilise APIs to set email triggers based on online activity. Not only would this allow you to offer a more consistent customer experience, but it ultimately will employ the higher quality data points from the campaign and use them to help generate the most revenue. These assets are powerful drivers of conversion, with confirmation that 42 percent of purchases are made after receiving a marketing email prompt.

Devil is in the Detail

Data is a highly trending and often maligned component. Retailers know they need more of it, but often are unsure what or how to collect customer data so that it can best be reused at a later point for insights and value.

The first step in a data-led strategy is always ensuring that your email campaign is tagged on whatever platform you use (personally I rely on Campaign Monitor benchmarks and statistics to understand how we’re performing against the industry). We need to be looking for buying behaviours, and tagging enables us to view where customers have been clicking. At this point, I’d also recommend that you’re A/B and even C/D testing what format, order, and sizing elements of your email are received by your audience. The value of testing the placement of your content can not be overstated.

Testing

Whatever email behaviours you’ve monitored work best for your product and offering should be used in the lead up to, and for the sale itself. I know from personal experience, I’ve never reached a level where I’m 100 percent satisfied with results as there’s always something to learn and optimise against. One of my favourite things to look at is unique click-through rates as that’s going to tell you what content is performing. Monitoring results and tests provide you with direction going forth, as you gain rich insights into what works best.

The frequency will depend on your product category and sales cycle, but again this is a chance to A/B test what will work best and ultimately deliver better engagement and results for your bottom line.

Preloading your customer journeys using the knowledge gained from your testing in the lead up to a sales event is also key. By understanding the customer’s workflow, you can provide an individualised and relevant experience based on their behaviour. When managed effectively, you will witness the benefit of automated customer journeys, with an increase in sales productivity, reduction in overheads and up to 77 percent increase in conversations.

Deliver Value

No matter what you read or may have read before, content remains king. Your email, social, and paid integrated campaigns represent an opportunity to provide valuable content experiences that resonate with your customers. If they feel that any become a pushy sales channel, you’ll feel the unsubscribes beyond what you’re able to measure.

I’ve always considered the best marketing angle to be one that is designed to help the customer overcome a barrier to purchasing your product. Position your brand in a way that makes your customer feel they’re part of something. And it’s the belonging and stories that you’ll hopefully nail that will keep them coming back.

Mohini Mutya, Senior Email Marketing Manager, Alpha Digital

The e-commerce landscape is changing. With a Power Retail Switched On membership, you get access to current e-commerce revenue and forecasting, traffic levels, average conversion rate, payment preferences and more!