Cooped-up customers say they’re ready to spend, big, online this season. Are you – and everyone on your team – ready to make their brand experience a merry and memorable one?
If you’re looking to your plans and experiences from holidays past, you’re probably not.
I don’t say that only because your sales – and customer call volumes – are very likely to go through the roof this year. Mostly, I say it because customer expectations, needs, and the standards they use for rating your performance have changed. Forever. And that very different shopping dynamic has the power to make or break a brand.
“Businesses that survive the onslaught successfully will be those that make shopping easy and safe, including convenient digital ordering, creative and efficient fulfillment and responsive customer service, according to Rob Garf, VP of industry insights for retail and consumer goods at Salesforce.” That’s how Dom Nicastro, staff reporter for CMSWire, describes the critical importance of getting the 2020 holiday season right. Nicastro has done a very timely deep dive on what the data and the experts are telling us to expect this season. In his recent article, he broke down what he learned into 7 smart tips:
- Throw Out Your Prior Marketing Playbook
- Make Sure You have the Right Measurement Infrastructure
- Allocate Resources To App Store Optimization (ASO)
- Make the UX Perfect
- Deliver the Best of Both Worlds: Strengthen Your BOPIS Strategy
- Integrate Tech and Human Touch for Superior CX
- Make Search Easier
You can read the rationale and some smart how-to’s, below. At Skybridge Americas, we help North America’s most recognized brands deliver stellar CX no matter what the season, by embracing their goals and putting their customers’ needs first. If you would like to know more about how we can help you meet and exceed your customers’ expectations and your key performance goals, please reach out. We would love to talk!
7 Marketing and Customer Experience Tips for a Different Holiday Season
By Dom Nicastro
Are your marketers and customer experience professionals ready for the 2020 holiday season? They ought to be. Salesforce predicts 30% year-over-year growth in overall global digital commerce this holiday season (up from 8% growth in 2019) and 34% growth in the U.S. (up from 12% in 2019). Customers are predicted to spend a record $940 billion globally in digital sales and $221 billion in the U.S., according to Salesforce.
Overall, when factoring all sales, physical and digital, customers will not spend that much more than they did in 2019: $5.1 trillion worldwide and $730 billion in the U.S. This despite the massive digital commerce growth with Amazon Prime Day (Oct. 13-14), Black Friday (Nov. 27) and Cyber Monday (Nov. 30) being the centerpieces of the digital holiday season. Some major businesses are even going with a Black Friday in October.
Businesses that survive the onslaught successfully will be those that make shopping easy and safe, including convenient digital ordering, creative and efficient fulfillment and responsive customer service, according to Rob Garf, VP of industry insights for retail and consumer goods at Salesforce.
Throw Out the Prior Marketing Playbook
So what are the ways marketers and CX professionals can brace for the 2020 holiday season? It’s the first season of digital commerce during a major pandemic, mind you.
“Consumers’ habits, behaviors and preferences have changed since the pandemic, which is why it’s crucial that marketers don’t rely solely on campaigns or tactics that have worked in previous holiday seasons,” said Drew Burns, head of product marketing, for Adobe Target. “Brands must focus on delivering personalized experiences at every customer touch point.”
Some examples that Burns shared include providing accurate recommended content, auto-personalizing the order of the top navigation on app or online and building dynamic countdown clocks alongside the recommendations. While this may be a little more geared toward the B2C marketers, but, nonetheless, it will help you create a unique experience that feels like a virtual sales clerk. “And in our current environment,” Burns added, “optimizing when to show return policies and personalizing safe local pickup via geo-location are a must this holiday season.”
Ensure the Right Measurement Infrastructure
Marketing campaigns are only as good as their data, and having the right data is a make or break for successful Q4 campaigns, according to Mar Brandt, senior vice president and head of sales for North America for AppsFlyer.
According to Brandt, granular measurement is key and should be centered on:
- Multiple events based on your most common pipeline, but not too many. “We’ve found 16 to 20 is the sweet spot,” she said.
- Measuring rich in-app events to understand not only that users made a purchase, but also what they bought, the cost, their customer user ID, etc.
- Having deep linking in place to drive customers directly where they want to go.
Allocate Resources To App Store Optimization (ASO)
Competition this holiday season is expected to be fiercer than ever, especially with Prime Day shifting to October, Brandt said. “As a result, app discovery in the app stores becomes a significant challenge with each keyword generating more results, and users becoming increasingly indifferent to the various apps, installing well-known brands ranked in higher positions,” said Brandt. “Focus on the right keywords and make sure your app store page uses lots of visuals and is optimized to drive installs.”
Incentivize your web consumers to install your mobile app. Data shows that in-app performance is substantially higher than mobile web thanks to a superior native user experience and the ability to use push notifications, according to Brandt. “By incentivizing mobile web users to download your app through your owned media channels — for example by offering a discount on their first in-app purchase — you will be able to build a loyal and satisfied user base.”
Make the UX Perfect
Consumers in 2020 have zero tolerance for apps with a sloppy flow, unintuitive browsing, complicated payment processes, etc. “Make your onboarding seamless and payments as easy as pie,” Brandt said. “Don’t forget deep linking to maintain a friction-free flow from promotion to purchase. Remember that many brick-and-mortar shoppers are going digital for the first time, which means some need more guidance to navigate the mobile app experience.”
Read the entire article here >
-Bobby Matthews
Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing
Skybridge Americas
bmatthews@skybridgeamericas.com
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