It appears that 2024 is flying by and retailers are already looking for strategies on how to maximize customer engagement and revenue for Q4. But with each year comes a larger demand for increased profits, and even louder ideas on how to achieve such a thing.
Amidst vague cries of ‘SEO makes the dream work,’ and ‘short attention spans, shorter buying window,’ it can be easy for retailers to feel stuck on how to truly take their online shopping service to the next level. When in doubt, though, it’s important to go back to the drawing board and consider the objectives they set at the beginning of the year, before looking at the current market.
To help situate revenue objectives within the current market, here are some telling e-commerce stats that can help retailers develop the right strategies to meet customers where they need:
What this means for retailers is that online opportunities will continue to grow if they are able to innovate the way they do business in 2024. Consumers are constantly connected via their mobile devices and that results in constant readiness to purchase on-the-go. The rise of social-media based vendors such as Tik Tok Shop and Instagram Shop have accelerated the ease with which consumers hop, while also providing marketers with the challenge of short-from ad content.
So, instead of trying to court new buyers with old best practices, retailers need to evolve their purchase process in ways that make products accessible, selection plentiful, and the buyer experience engaging, quick, and to-the-point. This can be QUITE the daunting task. To help retailers achieve it, we’ve identified EIGHT innovative strategies that will assist in bridging the gap between consumer interests and retail offerings.
Whether you partner with a larger vendor like Visa Checkout or PayPal, having a one click checkout and easy-to-navigate login process lowers the barrier to purchase completion. Newer apps like Shopify are being used on a lot of vendor sites that allow the consumer to build a profile with payment and shipping information that they can apply to any website that has the app ad-on. While you may have heard this strategy before, it’s imperative to embrace its new and improved iterations before it becomes the standard This will create ample opportunity for your brand to generate new buyers who value the mobile experience and convert them into repeat purchasers and brand advocates.
Having flexible checkout options are just as important as easy ones. Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) programs and multi-step payment apps such as Klarna, help to provide consumers with alternative ways to make purchases, and improve the overall accessibility of online retail services. The 2023 holiday season saw a 14% increase in BNPL spend, with $16.6 billion spent total. Allowing customers the option of paying later, or paying in installments with apps like Klarna, incentivizes consumers to make the purchase with alleviated financial stress.
As the internet becomes increasingly saturated with content, developing an elevated SEO strategy is essential to staying above the noise. One way to do that is by keyword research and implementation. Knowing the most popular keywords related to your industry or product and incorporating them in item titles and descriptions will help your website gain search visibility. Publishing supplemental content such as blogs, shopping guides, and tutorials can also help increase the number of keywords on your site and establish credibility among consumers.
Incorporating social media marketing into your business will help draw traffic to your website and increase search visibility. Platforms like Instagram and Tik Tok are known to be sources of major success for many businesses, particularly those who sell their products directly through those apps. Social media algorithms can reach consumers who would not otherwise be informed of your business and direct them to your website. Producing creative, festive short-form video content for these platforms and ensuring your accounts are up to date with website information can be a critical tool in driving sales for Q4.
Collaborating with other companies through guest blogs, interviews, and partnerships can produce high quality backlinks that boost your SEO rankings and bolster your credibility. Doing so not only heightens your profile and exposes a new consumer base to your products, but also increases keyword usage and other links to your site.
Although SEO is hardly new to many in the industry, the number of strategies to improve search visibility grows with each passing year. Staying on top of the newest SEO strategies will help you beat the curve and bring customers to your doorstep much faster.
Best customers typically generate a significant portion of a brand’s revenue without making up a significant portion of its database. According to the Pareto Principle, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. In business, this concept sounds like this: “80% of your sales come from 20% of your customers,” hence the effort for brands to identify their ‘best customers’, cater to their needs, and maximize revenue opportunities. This ‘rule’ varies significantly across brands and industries so the ‘best customers’ can make up as little as 3% of your total database or as much as a quarter. Marketers need to utilize the data they collect and create unique communication streams based on their own definition of ‘best.’
To start, retailers can perform an in-depth analysis of their ‘best customer’ segment and use data enhancement to learn additional information they do not know today: things like demographic attributes, life stages, attitudes, location, presence of children, and more. Those insights can be used to identify a number of different audience segments and create ‘best customer’ profiles that inform product development and communication strategy.
Identifying your best customer can prove essential to achieving your business objectives. For example, if you find out that 25% of your brand’s annual revenue comes from 5% of your audience and this 5% is made up mostly of males living on the West Coast who are interested in sports, you can create communications appealing to their lifestyle and incentives that speak directly to it.
To take it a step further, once you have identified the attributes of your ‘best customers’, you can enhance your data and build look-alike models to attract new consumers who fit the mold. This will enable you to reduce attrition by targeting the audience segments most likely to purchase certain product categories. In addition, it will help you develop the right communications to generate new subscribers and convert them early on.
The writing is on the wall – customers no longer want to wait multiple days (or weeks) to get what they’ve purchased. From Amazon Prime’s one day shipping to same day shipping offered by some big box stores, this expectation for speedy delivery is changing the game. It also means that shoppers often wait until the last minute to purchase gifts for special occasions (holidays, birthdays, etc.).
While guaranteeing timely delivery can be a costly investment from a supply chain perspective, the flexibility this practice grants to consumers could be rewarded with instant growth in conversion rates.
In addition, there are a few tactics retailers can use to offset the internal costs of expedited delivery:
If retailers can alleviate the anxiety associated with long shipping times and help save procrastinators from missing a big holiday, they will effectively increase short-term conversions and reduce long-term attrition.
If you’re not already offering free returns, you should be. To further avoid indecision about hitting the “PURCHASE” button, provide customers with the option to visit a nearby store location and give the product a ‘test drive.’ The car industry has been doing this for decades, so retailers should take this tried-and-true tactic to their online sales strategy.
The biggest deterrent for prospective online buyers is not knowing whether a product is right for them. Marketers can substantially reduce their customers’ cognitive dissonance by providing the full in-store experience to their customers, even if they’ve purchased online. Having the option to pick up their orders from a physical location is a great way to do just that. This is also an effective online sales strategy that can help instill confidence in a customer’s purchase and guarantee a hassle-free experience if they need to return it.
While SMS has been around for some time, it has often been underutilized when it comes to retailers’ marketing strategy. Yet, with customer communication preferences shifting to text messaging, it’s become a necessity for major retailers to incorporate SMS in their cross-channel strategy. Instead of launching an SMS program that replicates your current email or social media campaigns, think about the way SMS can enhance your customers’ experience. Some of the most effective changes you can make to your current program include:
The brevity of SMS is well-suited to the fast-paced nature of consumer interest and activity and remains an easier way to reach customers directly. When integrated with other marketing channels, it helps seal the deal of customer engagement by establishing a more personal connection with the consumer.
The phrase “artificial intelligence” is possibly one of the buzziest terms in the industry at the moment. Online retailers who have incorporated AI into the shopping experience saw a 14.2% growth rate in 2023 – about 7.3% higher than shops that did not use AI. Yet, amidst the flurry of AI talk it can be hard to figure out how to optimize AI and personalization in a way that works for you. While its capabilities continue to expand exponentially, here are a few ways AI can augment online shopping for consumers:
While these strategies address front-facing AI tools to enhance the customer experience, there is still a plethora of AI tools that can aid backend organization as well. Predictive analytics for stock and inventory, customer feedback, and product reviews are just a few ways retailers can tap into the wonderland of AI capabilities to keep consumers coming back for more.
No online shopping service is complete without a post-purchase engagement plan to ensure that your customers leave feeling well looked after and wanting more. There are a number of ways to continue engagement with the customer, whether through email, website, or social media, but here are a just a few ways to continue communication with consumers after they’ve purchased:
According to studies, 67% or more retail purchases are often made by loyal customers as opposed to new customers. The key to securing loyalty in the consumer base is by rolling out a post-purchase engagement strategy that compels customers to return with their pockets heavy and their hearts even fuller.
The development of digital marketing and AI capabilities has given marketers a plethora of opportunities to increase their market share. At the same time, it has weeded out brands that fall too far behind customers’ needs and expectations. In order to avoid becoming the next big retailer that failed to innovate and sunk into obscurity, marketers must stay informed of new technologies and adopt the right ones early. If today, retailers are not implementing any of the strategies outlined above, it’s time to act! Want to get started? Contact us.
Punnya is the Summer 2024 Public Relations and Media Intern at Data Axle. Originally from Boston, Punnya is pursuing a double major in Communications and Psychology at Boston College. As a storyteller, she is excited to use her writing skills to uncover the newest trends in data and adtech. In her free time, Punnya can be found reading the latest epic fantasy novel or getting her nose on new fragrances at the nearest perfume shop.