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Building Blocks: 2021 Holiday Season Learnings

by DataDigital MarketingDirect MailMarketing StrategyMarketing Trends

As marketers, we understand that the landscape is changing daily. From branding to promotions, best practices are constantly evolving. In the last few months, we have posted about the all-important holiday season in terms of planning for it and selling successfully. With the holiday season underway, we wanted to provide a roadmap for the last few weeks of the year – to ensure you close it out successfully.

(1) Attempt to Clear Any Excess Inventory to Protect Margin

  • – It is important to remember that the work is not over once the holiday season is here. In fact, it is a critical time to ensure you end the year in a profitable way.
  • – Analyze what is left in stock, and what you can promote right now (or in early 2022). Build a post-holiday marketing calendar and campaign to stimulate sales.
  • – Use your hard-won list growth from the holiday season and continue the conversation with customers. Tip: ignite a sense of urgency!
  • – Use both personalized marketing and bulk tactics.
    • – Examples include an exciting subject line that is transparent or show products that are on sale in emails. Better yet? Personalize emails with previously viewed items that are now on sale or abandoned cart positioning.

(2) Reflect & Learn to Stimulate Growth in 2022

  • – Dedicate time to learn and document your wins / losses while they are fresh in your mind.
  • – Reference your calendar with campaign reporting. Observe traffic, measure results and identify selling trends. Record your marketing successes; use them for future planning.
  • – Assess your inventory and determine:
    • – Were your best sellers those that you expected them to be?
    • – Were different items more popular?
    • – Were there more items that needed to be discounted than you thought?
  • – Use tools like customer surveys to help with marketing decisions for next year.

As you can tell, our themes are absorption, education, and growth. We believe that evolution is the key to success – especially in this ever-changing retail landscape. Most importantly, this evolution will trigger success. We hope you are having a successful holiday season and look forward to even more prosperity in 2022!

Information sourced from Mailchimp eCommerce Masterclass Series. 

Consumer Behavior Unknown

How Post-Pandemic Consumer Behavior Is Impacting Companies’ Success

by Digital MarketingMarketing StrategyMarketing Trends

I vividly remember someone saying to me, “I really do not think anyone is going to work out in a gym ever again.” Two weeks ago, Peloton’s stock plunged more than 35% in a day and last week, it fell another 11% likely because of the decrease a few days earlier (source: The Motley Fool). In contrast, Equinox’s stock increased last week (source: Market Watch). At-home fitness soared during the pandemic, but people are reverting to gym workouts.

While we all understand that consumer behavior has been changing rapidly – mainly due to the pandemic the last 2 years – the bottom line is that many of the behaviors that did transform are seemingly changing back to what they were pre-pandemic. While some brands may have benefitted from the pandemic, others are now experiencing the success they once did. As they say, “old habits die hard.”

Travel

As the U.S. recently eased international travel restrictions, airline stocks soared. CNN Business reported, “US airline shares take flight.” Moreover, the JETS ETF (holdings include Delta and American airlines) climbed 11% this month. Virgin Atlantic reported that flights were 98% full. In fact, by July 2021, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics reported that domestic air travel was back to pre-COVID levels. New trends arose such as U.S. travelers booking outdoor activities, visiting rural destinations, and reserving private vacation rentals (source: NPR). We will see if some of these pandemic-related trends are here to stay!

Meal Delivery

While grocery stores and big box retailers are still experiencing the effects of the supply chain, meal delivery services such as Door Dash, Grub Hub, Postmates, Uber Eats, and meal prep services are up. In fact, sales for meal delivery services grew 17% YOY (source: Bloomberg Second Measure). With consumers traveling more and working in different locations (gasp…at the office?!), it is expected that meal delivery services will continue to experience an uptick due to people being “on the go.”

Video Conferencing Tools

Beginning in July, daily average users for Zoom were down by about a third from the year prior, to 44.3M from 49.3M. Since then, Zoom app downloads also decreased (source: Barrons). During this time, 74% of businesses reported that they were bringing employees back to the office (source: Inc). While the power of video conferencing has been incredible (and useful!), it cannot replace in-person meetings and get togethers entirely. More than 8 in 10 executives prefer in-person meetings, specifically sharing that they create the right environment for timely decisions, difficult discussions, and stimulate more strategic thinking. In fact, research shows that face-to-face meetings are 34x more effective than email conversations – and 35% of the discrepancy in a team’s performance directly correlates to the number of times that the individuals spoke in-person (source: Washington Post). 

Apparel & Accessories

The pandemic created an athleisure boom. While the business casual and athleisure segments were climbing in popularity pre-pandemic, it is obvious that the pandemic created an acceleration. In 2020, the athleisure market yielded about $105B in sales (source: CNBC). Post-pandemic, we are seeing marketing efforts tailored to comfortable workwear and items that can transition from working remotely to the office, and back. Transitional items such as stretchy work pants and unique sneakers are more popular than ever. For example, Athleta now has a “Travel and Commute” section while J.Crew’s new holiday section features cashmere and velvet sets to dress up or down, and Bonobos includes “E-Waist Pants and Joggers” on their website. Brands continue to tailor not only their products but marketing efforts towards new consumer behaviors. 

As Bob Dylan and The Band sang: “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” Not only do we understand the marketplace, but we know your customers. From shopper marketing, data & analytics, creative services, to direct mail and insert media, we have the expertise to tailor your marketing strategy to these changing times. 

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Best Practices for Creating SEO-Friendly FAQ Pages

by Digital MarketingMarketing StrategySearch

SEO-friendly content has always been important, but with today’s increased online competition, it is essential. As digital marketers, our goal is to provide and design web content that attracts search engine traffic to ultimately grow brand success. But, can certain content be difficult to make SEO-friendly? Are the best practices different depending on the type of webpage?

Coincidentally, the goal of an FAQ page is the same as the meaning of SEO: offer the best answers to the questions your audience is asking. Not only can FAQ pages help with user experience, but they have the power to optimize your SEO strategy.

Best Practices for Creating SEO-Friendly FAQ Pages

Compile The Most Common Questions From Your Users

While you may be tempted to answer questions that you think your customers will ask – or plant questions to help sales efforts – we recommend that the questions are instead based on data. Tap into internal team members, conduct audience research, use chat logs and site searches, and determine industry-wide trends and issues using online forums.

Provide Comprehensive Answers

Answer the questions in a complete and concise manner. These answers should be consistent with your brand message. Ensure each answer is accessible and easy to read. Beware of repetition and complexity, which will not only negatively impact SEO but hurt your customer experience as well.

Your FAQ Pages Should Be Formatted for an Optimal User Experience

Rather than trying to keep your FAQs on one page, it actually helps SEO to create multiple pages because you can target specific terms for each topic or category. In addition to helping your own SEO efforts, your customer will not need to scroll endlessly trying to find an answer to their specific question.

Don’t Forget About Pages’ Title Tags and Meta Descriptions

With multiple FAQ pages, you can more easily feature and customize topically relevant keywords into the title tag and meta descriptions.

Implement FAQ Schema

FAQ Schema is a unique markup that you can add to your page’s code to enhance the Google search result listings. Google reads this markup and generates a richer snippet, earning you a greater presence in the SERPs.

Good FAQ pages are great for SEO…but bad are really terrible. Let’s work together to create the best possible site experience for your customers beginning with your FAQ page. Reach out to begin optimizing for SEO today! We offer complimentary SEO audits and can help steer you and your website through the SEO landscape.

Sources include Seer Interactive and Search Engine Journal.

The,Young,Woman,Looking,Recipe,In,A,Tablet,Computer,In

Building Blocks for Creating Authentic Customer Relationships Through Branding & Content

by Digital MarketingMarketing StrategyMarketing TrendsNews

As marketers, we all have our “secret sauce.” In terms of building authentic customer relationships, we’re inviting you to “taste test” ours! Brand, content and storytelling are the ingredients in our recipe.

Measure & Mix:

1 Great Brand

  • An important element of branding is about building a positive reputation.
  • The best brands find balance between their own character and customer needs.
    • – Make sure to get ahead of these needs – appeal to the ‘needs’ they don’t even know they have.
    • – You may do this with tools like surveys. Using surveys, you can discover details that customers may not be articulating through shopping behavior, but you may infer based on responses.
  • Emphasize empathy and determine how it can play a bigger role in your customer journey.

Stir In:

1 Perception Identity

1 Price

  • Understand brand archetypes: these will help define a brand’s role in the marketplace and in the lives of customers by creating a human connection.
    • – Archetypes are directional and not prescriptive.
    • – Finding the right archetype can develop a role in the marketplace as well as customers’ lives.
  • Create a consistent and compelling brand identity, so you can always tap back into this as you develop consistent communication.
  • If your brand identity is meaningful enough, then brand evolution may occur as well.

For added flavor, here are some suggested enhancements for brand identity:

  • Authenticity
  • Differentiation
  • Consistency
  • Presence
  • Relevance
  • Understanding
  • Price
    • – How you price your products is key to bringing your brand to life. It determines your reputation within the marketplace and customer perception

Bake:

4 Organizational Content Framework

1 Hero

1 Hub

1 Help

1 Heart

  • Combine large and small moments to help convert prospects or increase engagement with existing customers.
    • – Hero content: Huge moments like big campaigns, pop-up events which are usually larger investments 1-2x per year.
    • – Hub content: High impact, medium moments that demonstrate industry expertise, increase prospect engagement and drive conversion, such as videos, white papers, and new product launches.
    • – Help content: Always-on, small-scale content designed to solve customers’ job to be done. Content such as social posts, customer service interactions, help communications (explainers, demos, etc.), SEO strategy and retargeting, team culture, customer and community stories, and surprise moments increases brand affinity, drives conversion, and improve retention. Typically, brands spend a lot of time and effort in this area.
    • – Heart content: Medium moments balanced with Hub content. These are highly impactful and designed to demonstrate empathy and increase retention with existing customers. Examples include small-scale, intimate events as well as social media events. Overall, brands are solely trying to enhance customer relationships in these moments.
  • By understanding your content ecosystem, a brand will strengthen its customer journey.

Serve valuable content to facilitate stronger customer connections & enjoy heightened marketing success!

Information sourced from Mailchimp eCommerce Masterclass Series. 

Photo,Of,Light,Bulbs,With,Shining,Fibres,In,Shape,Of

Building Blocks for a Marketable & Profitable Holiday Promotional Strategy

by Digital MarketingMarketing StrategyMarketing TrendsNews

The power of promotion is real – especially during the holidays. Usually once October begins, the promotions hit. This year, it feels like they started in September!  Not only do promotions aid in differentiating your brand from competitors, but consumers rely (and look forward) to the upcoming promotional season. Most importantly, promotions are extremely impactful for closing the year strongly in terms of revenue.  

With the help of Mailchimp, here are some building blocks for building a marketable and profitable holiday promotional strategy.

  • (1) Lay the foundation. Establish your everyday product prices within a sensible margin target. Understand your pre-product shipping costs and their impact on your profitability.

Tip: Pay close attention to inventory throughout the year – especially leading up to the holidays. Encourage increases in Average Order Value (AOV) and Units Per Transaction (UPT) early on.

  • (2) Offer a variety of promotions. Before offering a promotion to your customers, you want to ensure that you understand your shipping costs (as mentioned above). Overall, any promotion should start with healthy, everyday pricing. Here are couple of ideas: coupon codes for existing customers or new prospects, free shipping, dollar-off and percent-off discounts, “buy more, save more” options, and limited time offers.

Tip: 79% of customers are more likely to buy online if they are offered free shipping (source: (Walker Sands, The Future of Retail 2018).

  • (3) Don’t forget about marketing your promotions. If you market your promotions in advance of the holiday season, they will likely drive even more revenue. There are many effective ways to market your promotions to drive revenue before the holiday rush, such as pop-up forms to build your captive audience and email segmentation (i.e., communications to existing customers with early access to your offers). Try not to neglect organic and paid social. Tactics like increasing the frequency of your organic posts and executing in-market and look-a-like audience targeting will impact your sales.

Tip: Email is still considered to be one of the most profitable channels in terms of ROI. If you are worried about open rates due to the iOS 15 update, check out our response to this news. There are many other reliable metrics that will measure your success.

For as many “do’s,” there are as many “don’t’s.” While promotions can drive success towards the end of the calendar year, they should be maintained. Make sure that you do not “set it and forget it.” Promotions are meant to get people to spend more money or help you win new customers. Therefore, we recommend monitoring the length of your promos, be mindful of timing, and most importantly, evaluate the performance of your promos in real time.

Information sourced from Mailchimp eCommerce Masterclass Series.  

 

Hand,Putting,Wooden,Cube,Block,Which,Print,Screen,Increasing,Graph

Building Blocks for Increasing Online Holiday Sales

by Digital MarketingMarketing StrategyMarketing TrendsNews

Last week, we reported on tips for preparing your digital marketing efforts for the holiday season. This week, we promised a follow-up on selling.

Now that you have prepared your campaigns, it is almost time to sell your merchandise. Here are some tips to amplify your revenue based on successful sales: 

  • (1) Build Your List(s) With Promo Codes

Every brand marketer’s goal is to capture a consumer’s email address because it facilitates a 1:1 connection and is a cost-effective (it’s free!) way to communicate with them. Here are some ideas to help capture even more email addresses with your marketing campaigns:

  • – Sign-up forms from platforms like Mailchimp.
  • – Promo codes to incentivize customers to offer up their email addresses.
  • (2) Increase Site Traffic & Conversion By Creating a Sense of Urgency

We all know that being familiar with your customers is key. It ensures marketers are getting the right messages to the most relevant customers. Moreover, if the messaging is effective, interactions with merchandise increase. Here is how you can enhance these interactions:

  • – Use time sensitive countdowns to build urgency, i.e. “Only 12 hours remaining!”
  • – Send abandoned cart emails with low inventory notifications (try to be honest about this!).
  • – Utilize on-site inventory flags, i.e. “Only a few left!”
  • – Promote shipping cut-offs to create urgency for the holidays. Not only will merchandise have a better chance of arriving on time, but this will help your products get off the shelves sooner.
  • (3) Continue the Conversation & Further Grow Conversion

Continued engagement is all-important. Once you have captured a consumer’s email address and they have browsed your site and/or purchased, stay in touch! Here are couple ways you can do this:

  • – As noted above, send abandoned cart emails, but make them feel personal. 
  • – Did you know that you can drive 34x more orders by sending personal emails vs. bulk emails? (source: Mailchimp)
  • – Enlist the help of retargeting ads.
  • – Ensure you are not marketing sold out items.

While selling for the holiday season technically begins Thanksgiving weekend, it feels like it has already started. By the time December hits, there is so much to be learned not only for the next holiday season, but for Q1 2022. In December, we’ll be back with tips and tricks for learning from selling season.

Information sourced from Mailchimp eCommerce Masterclass Series.  

 

Hands,Holding,Plastic,Credit,Card,And,Using,Laptop.,Online,Shopping

Building Blocks for Planning a Successful Holiday Season

by Digital MarketingMarketing StrategyMarketing TrendsNews

Retail Dive recently reported that November and December drove 30% more revenue for online retailers than non-holiday. This year, we are expecting an even higher jump online due to intense digital adoption. For these reasons, marketers everywhere are laser focused on the holiday season (especially digital) due to macro factors at play such as high demand coupled with global supply chain setbacks.

As marketers, we’re currently in ‘planning’ mode. Here are some tips to prepare your marketing efforts for this holiday season: 

  • (1) Maximize Average Order Value (AOV)

Encourage customers to purchase more than they originally planned by:

  • – Reminding them of free shipping / offering a threshold for free shipping; an effective way to get an additional $5-10 to AOV.
  • – Share personalized recommendations based on what is in their cart or what they browsed.
  • – Merchandise add-ons.
  • – Utilize pop-ups to enhance the check-out journey.
  • – Create and market gift bundles.
  • (2) Lean Into Unique Promotional Messaging
  • As online shopping continues to soar in popularity, competition will be higher than ever. Ensure that your offers are obvious not only in your marketing, but in your site experience as well. Entice customers with promotions such as:
  • – A value proposition: Do you value sustainability? Are your products ethically produced? Do you have socially responsible partnerships? Can you encourage shopping locally or small business Saturday? Customers are seeking reasons to purchase from your brand.
  • – One-click gifting: Offer filters in your navigation, demonstrate savings with a countdown, feature an easy check out experience.
  • – Point to time-saving extras such as gift-wrapping, quick delivery, BOPIS, and more.
  • (3) Get Ahead of the Rush with Site Traffic

It feels like holiday shopping has already started. Get ahead of the competition we discussed earlier and market right now – before the official start of the holiday season (Thanksgiving weekend) – using some of these tactics:

  • – Determine why customers would want to shop early; offer limited-edition collections, partnerships, limited stock messaging, brand / founder favorites, shipping incentives – anything that gives a sense of “must-have” or “buy early.”
  • – Highlight must-have items in channels that promote authenticity or feel personal such as influencer or email marketing.
  • – Use promotional emails for sales, but we recommend using sparingly.
  • (4) Build a Marketing Calendar to Facilitate Engagement

It is important to understand what you’re marketing and why. While this may seem like an internal exercise, it is reportedly one of the most impactful planning tips. A calendar will help reduce message fatigue, grow sales, enhance product variety, and strengthen customer experience. Here is what you can do:

  • – Analyze inventory to determine the largest and smallest buys.
  • – Identify products you’d like to market.
  • – Map out communications daily.
  • – Ensure there is enough product variety and that your marketing tactics mirror your merchandising efforts.
  • (5) Add a Site Merchandising Plan to Boost CTR

This will create a streamlined path to conversion. Your merchandising strategy should mirror your marketing strategy.

  • – For example, your home page should match your email marketing, which should then match your social strategy as well as the product itself. Consistency is key!

Stay tuned for next week’s post on ‘selling’ mode (hint: it’s November & December!). We will share tips for increasing sales and how to handle the end of Q4 in terms of sales strategy.

Sources include Retail Dive and Mailchimp’s eCommerce Masterclass Series.  

Close-up,Male,Hands,Using,Smartphone,On,City,Searching,Or,Social

What You Need to Know About Apple’s iOS 15 Updates & Its Potential Effect on Your Email Marketing Efforts

by Digital MarketingDirect MailMarketing StrategyMarketing TrendsNews

Data privacy continues to be top-of-mind for marketers especially for some of the largest – and arguably most influential – players in the digital space. Recently, Apple announced its iOS 15 software update that will significantly impact marketers. More specifically, it will influence how we measure email success.

Be In the Know

With the iOS 15 update, it is likely that email open rates will be inflated. The level of inflation will be determined by number of Apple Mail users in a company’s email file or customer-base. In 2020, about 50% of emails opened were from Apple products using the Mail feature.  

What to Expect

  • Open rates will be inflated.
    • With iOS 15, Apple Mail automatically downloads images. This then triggers the tracking pixels embedded to send an “opened” response back to the ESP server.
    • Even if a user does not open an email, this new feature will trigger an “opened” response the moment that images are downloaded.
  • Date and time could be inaccurate.
    • With Apple Mail, the “opened” signal is sent the moment the images are downloaded. Therefore, marketers will have no way of knowing that when the images are downloaded, the prospect or customer was viewing the email.
  • Triggers or workflows based on an “opened email” will be disrupted.
    • It is common practice for marketers to resend campaigns to consumers who did not open the email the first time a campaign is launched. With iOS 15, marketers will not know who specifically opened the email and therefore, would risk resending the email to the wrong individuals.
  • Location-based email targeting relying on IP address will no longer be reliable.
    • This new feature masks Apple users’ IP addresses, so their online activity and location will not automatically link.
    • The functionality of the “countdown” clock widget may be impacted, but we do not know for certain yet.

What This Means For You

We understand that this update is creating new hurdles for marketers. We are with you! However, it is important to look at the bright side:

  • This update will not impact all email subscribers. Right now, Google, Outlook and other email users make up more than 60% of the global share and they have not announced any updates.
  • Clicks and click-through-rates (CTR) will not be affected by this update, which are often even more accurate metrics to determine engagement.
  • This is a time to get creative. We can tie site traffic to an email campaign, enlist the help of clickmaps, and analyze unsubscribe rates.
  • A/B testing is still an option! Taking subject line testing as an example, marketers will still be able to determine an outlier even though open rates will be inflated. As a secondary option, clicks can also determine this winner. If a Call-to-action (CTA) is featured, marketers can measure success through conversion data or site activity.

As marketers, we understand not only the importance of data & analytics, but why keeping data privacy at the forefront of your omnichannel strategy is necessary. In fact, a couple of months ago, we published articles encouraging your proactivity regarding data privacy and how to be data compliant in 2021. However, no one can prepare for the updates that the industry’s largest players have made, and will continue to make. We can only accept these challenges, and design new systems and processes in accordance with them. We are steadfast in bringing you the most innovative and cutting-edge solutions, and we will continue to do so, even with the iOS 15 update in place. 

Sources include Lift Engine, Hubspot, Apple, and AdWeek.

The Truth About Your Campaign Metrics: Facebook Announces that Apple Data Is Skewing Conversions

by Direct MailMarketing StrategyMarketing TrendsNewsUSPS

As digital adoption continues to soar post-pandemic, it is evident just how interconnected we really are. This week, Facebook began to quantify the negative aspects of this interconnectivity.

On Wednesday, September 22nd, Facebook announced that it underreported ad performance due to Apple’s iPhone privacy update for its iOS operating system. Specifically, Facebook estimated that it is currently underreporting web conversions on Apple’s iOS by approximately 15% and that this could affect advertisers of various sizes in many ways.

Why This Happened

Recently, Apple made a pivotal update for its users; now iPhone and iPad users will need to opt in to being tracked when they launch an app for the first time. It is now evident how much this new parameter affected advertisers’ campaigns.

What This Means For You

Facebook Vice President of Product Marketing shared in a blog post: “We believe that real world conversions, like sales and app installs, are higher than what is being reported for many advertisers.” Therefore, the results that you are seeing are likely lower than how your campaign is actually performing. 

How We Can Help

Partnership is at our core. We understand that this is not an ideal situation, but because of our strong industry ties and media relationships, we will get through this together. In fact, our digital and data & analytics teams are already working on solutions and adjustments considering this news, which includes:

  1. Working with our Facebook reps to further understand the percentage of users/conversions being impacted across each of our individual clients, and then building models that factor in the potential data loss
  2. Leveraging our clients’ website analytics tools (Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, etc.) to measure key engagement and conversion data points to supplement data coming directly from Facebook.
  3. Researching additional technology solutions to layer on top of Facebook and website analytics platforms to help fill any gaps in the data (however, we are in the early days of these new data privacy issues, and this is more of a longer-term play).

As marketers, we always aim to keep our tech stack fresh, current, and innovative. We are looking forward to solving the challenge Facebook and Apple have presented to us. We are especially looking forward to delivering to you the positive results we know your campaign is driving towards. Stay tuned!

Sources include CNBC, Facebook, and AdAge.

Woman,Shopping,For,Christmas,Online

The Ultimate Lesson: How Back-to-School Can Prepare Marketers for Holiday 2021

by with No Comment Marketing StrategyMarketing TrendsNews

As the global supply chain continues to struggle to keep up with consumers’ needs, the Back-to-School (BTS) market is the latest segment to be negatively impacted. With many children back to learning in-person this fall, the feared shortages for supplies unfortunately have become a reality.

 

Results showed that about 50% of consumers spent less on BTS shopping last year (source: Times Record News). While we are still waiting on this year’s results, given increasing demand for the continued shortage of BTS essentials, the numbers likely will be similar if not lower.

 

Observing the challenges that BTS shoppers have faced, there is much to be learned for the upcoming holiday season. With the recent chip shortage, not only is the BTS market suffering, but so are huge industries like automobiles. This will undoubtedly affect the types of products and offerings available for the holiday season. Video games, cell phones, cars, and home appliances all use chips. We need to be prepared for the most desired products to be more difficult to purchase.

What BTS Can Teach Marketers for Holiday 2021

Launch Your Holiday Marketing Campaigns Earlier

Tailor your marketing strategy to the 2021 calendar. This year, Thanksgiving is earlier and holiday shopping will begin sooner. We predict the buying cycle will therefore change. There will be five weeks of shopping leading up to Christmas. Consumers will be shopping earlier and longer further adding to the disruption in traditional holiday shopping habits.

 

No matter who you are targeting this year, timing is everything. We recommend keeping timing—when you want your customers viewing your products and services—at the forefront. All touchpoints will be affected, and even more reason to keep your marketing strategy fresh.  

 

Continue to Bet on eCommerce & Test New Channels

Retail eCommerce sales are projected to make up almost 19% of total holiday retail sales this year (source: eMarketer). Due to the pandemic, we saw more of an online push last year than ever before, which continued to propel marketers’ digital spend forward. This year, retailers are again putting emphasis on eCommerce, and we are expecting a similarly early start to the holiday season, especially due to rumors that Amazon will promote a second Prime day this fall. Additionally, offering earlier holiday sales would ideally help avoid fulfillment issues later in the season.

 

With increased digital adoption and more time spent online, there has never been a better time to explore other digital avenues such as Connected TV (CTV) and Digital Audio. Check out our most recent post on “Why CTV Right Now?” to learn more about this channel.   

 

Understand that Location Matters: The “Shop Local” Trend Endures.

In January, we shared retail predictions for 2021 with many of them ringing true. Specifically, “Shop Local” prevails, and will be especially important to keep in mind. With consumers’ potentially negative BTS experiences tied with last year’s holiday shopping, many will shop locally to avoid dealing with inventory issues, shipping delays or added fees.

 

Focusing on your targeted acquisition strategy as well as paid search (hint: check out geo targeting capabilities) is especially relevant this year.  

 

Increased Foot Traffic Is a Possibility.

With a pandemic that’s lasted for 1.5+ years, consumers understand what it means to shop in-store. They are now familiar with BOPIS and physically shopping in PPE. Due to the current state of the supply chain, it is possible that traffic in traditional stores may increase slightly this holiday because of consumers’ BTS shopping experiences and anticipation regarding inventory issues and shipping delays.

 

We recommend accounting for this pickup in your CRM systems, holiday promotions and marketing communications. 

 

Rely on Customer Loyalty…Keep Your Bottom-of-Funnel Customers & Prospects Close.

Being familiar with your brand, having experience with your customer service team, knowing the quality of your products and services…are all increasingly important factors. As more consumers experience delays with BTS products and gear up for holiday, they will rely on the brands they know and love. Additionally, they will likely present a higher AOV than top-of-funnel or newer customers because they trust your brand, regardless of supply chain issues or warnings about shipping delays.

 

Not sure who your target customers and prospects are or how to identify them? Uncover powerful insights with data & analytical tools like forecasting, attribution, database management, and digital operations. 

 

Overall, experts say that some of the shortages and frustrations surrounding BTS materials and equipment could have been solved by shopping earlier. In fact, they warn “start shopping online now” (source: News10). That said, the pointed execution of your marketing campaigns featuring strategy and revenue generation are our goal. Taking into account the many macro challenges this year presents, we look forwarding to ‘acing’ this test together!

Sources: Times Record News, eMarketer, ©2021 Insider Intelligence Inc., Ask Wonder, Tech Walla