SELECTION MONDAY – Let the “Madness” Begin

By Bryon Morrison, Commissioner of The 2016 NectarOM Road to Omni Channel

Every year March always brings a little “madness” into the office. This year is no exception. Marketers across the nation are setting their brackets, but not necessarily for the “teams” you’d expect. This year at the the NectarOM Headquarters the NectarOM selection committee was hard at work finalizing the 2016 Road to Omni Channel Tournament bracket.

Over the last month, each member of the NectarOM selection committee evaluated a vast amount of data and industry information for each industry category or “conference” during the selection process. A review and discussion of the brands performance based on product sector, fiscal performance, e-commerce endeavors, innovation, and their use of digital – determined selections, seeding, and bracketing.

Selection Methodology
After examining a wide field of competitors the NectarOM selection committee determined the 2016 Road to Omni Channel Tournament bracket would be divided into 4 conferences: Consumer Electronics, Shopper Marketing, Telecom and Department Store Retail.

Qualification and seeding for the tournament was based on the following criteria:

  • Digital and Brick and Mortar Retailer
  • Fortune 500 Company
  • The team communicates with customers in at least three channels
  • They have established domain authority
  • They have been recognized as innovators in other studies
  • They have been recognized in other third party evaluations as leaders in their respective categories

The Teams
After a grueling deliberation the NectarOM selection committee has finalized its brand bracket and is proud to announce the companies included in the 2016 Road to Omni Channel Tournament.

The Road to Omnichannel Brand Bracket

Department Store Conference
Nordstrom
JCPenney

Telecom Conference
AT&T
Verizon

Consumer Electronics Conference
Best Buy
GameStop

Shopper Marketing Conference
PepsiCo
Dr Pepper Snapple Group

Game Scoring
Over the course of the next two weeks these eight institutions will go head-to-head in the hopes of being named The 2016 Road to Omni Channel Champion. To have a better understanding of what these companies are doing in Omni Channel Marketing, each brand will undergo the NectarOM Customer Journey Audit. This audit evaluates eleven communication channels, 6 degrees of personalization, and each brand’s adaptability to customer knowledge. Covering more than 150 review points, this audit provides valuable insight into customer lifecycle, consistency, marketing gaps and opportunities through the view of the consumer and results in a final score illustrating their prowess in Omni Channel Marketing.

Tournament Schedule
The Road to Omni Channel Tournament will start Tuesday, March 15, with a highly anticipated match up of Consumer Package Goods titans, PepsiCo and Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, from the Shopper Marketing conference.

Tune in here for Game One: //nectarom.com/shopper-marketing-conference/

Tell us in the comments below which brand you think has what it takes to win it all.

The NectarOM Road to Omni Channel

By Bryon Morrison, Commissioner of The 2016 NectarOM Road to Omni Channel Tournament  

Every year March introduces a special kind of “madness” for basketball fans, but this year ushers in a new kind of competition for advanced marketers. 2016 is the inaugural year of The NectarOM Road to Omni Channel Tournament where some of America’s most recognized traditional brick and mortar marketers will be competing against each other to show their prowess in Omni Channel Marketing and how they are evolving in a digital world.
This tournament will have many similarities with that other tournament. A wide field of brands from more than 30 industry categories, also known as their “conferences” (i.e., Specialty Retail, Telco, Electronics Retailers, CPG, etc.) will be evaluated. The eight most qualified companies will compete in their respective industry categories, as well as in cross-category match ups. Each team’s professional audit score for how they respond to prospects and customers online, in mobile and in outbound messaging channels will dictate their “score” and ability to move up in the brackets.

The Need For Omnichannel
A company’s ability to serve their customers in all possible channels has become table stakes thanks to “digital brands” like Amazon, Netflix, Apple and Google. Those companies created in the last 15-20 years were built on the assumption that customers and data are of paramount value. They already know they can make a greater business impact by offering a seamless, holistic experience across all channels. Anyone that’s bought something on Amazon will attest to the superior experience associated with their understanding of your needs and preemptively introducing solutions that just seem to fit every situation.
So what about the predecessors to those digital brands – those large companies that are the foundation of American commerce? Those industry icons have spent years investing in brick and mortar locations or spent endless time and resources driving consumers to a physical location. Most of these companies deal with batched data or backward looking analytics for insights so their foundation is infinitely different than their more digital contemporaries. As a result, the pace of change has been much more difficult for them to manage. Case in point, the internet and ecommerce required a game of catch up and before they perfected things their reality shifted again with the introduction of mobile and social.

The New Reality
The evolution of brick and mortar oriented companies is a requirement and they know it. While store sales dominate those of e-commerce that is changing. As an example, ecommerce outpaced physical store sales 5-to-1 last year. In addition, the companies struggling with surrounding a prospect or customer and serving them in their preferred channel are watching $41 billion in sales move to a competitor due to poor customer service. And sales don’t necessarily get them back in the door since 64% of consumers choose their favorite brands based on experience over price.
The future for companies that cannot embrace this change is bleak. Smart companies are committing resources to make their customer experience seamless online and off. Unfortunately, the reality is more companies are talking omnichannel rather than providing it. Digital competitors, unencumbered by expensive physical infrastructures, are prone to rapidly test and execute against omnichannel strategies while traditional marketers often use it as a soundbite for stockholder meetings.

The Competition and the Brackets
The NectarOM Road to Omnichannel Tournament will show which companies are truly investing in and delivering a superior experience across all channels for existing and potential customers. We will see who has put together the best channels (i.e., “players”) and who is achieving a high level of execution in each channel (i.e., “player stats”).
The competitors included in the tournament this year will be introduced on Selection Monday, March 14. To follow the team selection process, the games updates and stats you can…

  • Click here and watch for updates on our blog
  • Follow the tournament on Twitter with #TR2O and #MarchMadness
  • Sign up for email alerts by signing up here

See which brands made the cut:  //nectarom.com/selection-monday-let-madness-begin/ 

Improving Valentine’s Day with Omnichannel Personalization

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Improving Valentine’s Day with Omnichannel Personalization

By Bryon Morrison

Whether you think Valentine’s Day is a trumped up Hallmark Holiday, a childhood memory of tiny cards and chalky confections or a special day to celebrate your soulmate, you have to admit it was a lot easier this year than it used to be. The days leading up to February 14th usually meant a crowd of desperate dudes in a CVS aisle contemplating a battle royale over the last box of chocolates. Sure, love was in the air but, the hassle factor meant your Valentine was probably going to smell the same old roses again.

This time it was actually fun, because of technology – specifically, omnichannel personalization. I know that’s not a popular perspective, because we love to blame tech for the world moving too quickly and making us feel more isolated than ever. It’s also difficult to associate words like omnichannel, hyperpersonalization and big data with the most romantic holiday of the year. Not exactly pillow talk for consumers, but time-constrained romantics like me were happy companies were talking about it.

Making OmniChannel Personalization Work

Behind the scenes, brands were truly saving us by serving up infinite choice, inspiration and convenience. It took on many forms like targeted ads, ideal discount codes, a helpful nudge in an email or a message from that app you forgot you downloaded the year before.

And it wasn’t just the myriad of channels they were using that made things better. It was also the personalized experience. Average marketers tell you what you looked at or bought last time, but this year the good ones were giving out-of-the-box ideas. They helped us avoid the digital equivalent of yesterday’s long lines…the endless online form. We didn’t have to provide our first-born and a blood sample to create a relationship with a brand. They recognized us when we returned and we picked up where we left off. These technologies were the difference between Valentine’s bliss or a night in the dog house.

My Personalized Valentines Experience 

What did all this mean for this hopeless romantic this year? It went something like this…

I finally responded to the Nordstrom email I’d been ignoring for weeks with a subject line I interpreted to say, “You’re not seriously going to push this to the last minute again, are you, moron?!” Their app had a perfect gift idea based on previous purchases I’ve made for my wife so I was literally checked out in a minute or two. I was feeling pretty good about myself.

A week later an app push from Open Table with a suggested reservation at our favorite restaurant took seconds to set up. The restaurant knew me from their loyalty program and reached out via a call to offer sprinkled rose peddles on the table and chilled champagne. Brilliant – I almost felt like I was showing off!

I thought I was done, but that last second banner ad and offer code from Shari’s Berries couldn’t be skipped. Besides, I had to be the only one that got such a sweet offer, right? I went online to pick my specially designed chocolate covered strawberries and before I knew it they slid a dozen roses in the order, too. You know how they got me to do that trite retread of a gift? They reminded me my Wife loves multiple small gifts over one big one and they could send them on consecutive days! I could already hear her telling me I was the greatest Husband in the world as I hit “Complete Purchase.”

By the way, if you’re you saying “hopeless romantic must mean sucker” you may be right, but in less than five minutes of effort I was way ahead of all those other suckers staring at an empty card shelf and sweating profusely.

The impact of personalization didn’t end with shopping or dinner. My house racked up points, too. The “romance setting” for the blinds and lights in the home automation app set the mood along with the personalized Spotify channel in Sonos. Of course, the DVR remembered my preferences so I didn’t even think about the game I was missing (I may be a Romantic, but I have other interests).

Yes, the perfect Valentine’s Day was out there for all of us if we were willing to embrace omnichannel personalization…as well as our valentine’s.
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How Big Data is Changing Valentine’s Day

I get a bit nostalgic around Valentine’s Day. During the era of my childhood years, thirty-some years ago, Valentine’s Days was simple. Classmates exchanged tiny cards and, if you were lucky, the envelope was stuffed with a few heart-shaped, chalky confections. We’d get our fill of chocolate hearts and sugared gummies. On the way home from school, the sidewalks were crowded downtown by the florist and candy shop. Love was in the air. So was the blissful scent of roses and homemade chocolates.

Fast forward thirty years later to the here and now. For a most of us, handwritten cards and waiting in line at the local florist, where the owner knows your name, is a thing of the past. We’re too busy. Rush. Rush. Rush. We’re pressed for time. Yet, February 14th sneaks up on us. It’s around the corner, looming over our heads like a dark cloud. What to do. Where to shop. What to buy. Somewhere amid this mental fiasco, the sentimentality fades. Valentine’s Day. What happened?

Times have changed. Valentine’s Day has blown through the roof. It’s a massive marketing holiday and companies ranging from 1800 Flowers to Doritos have jumped on board. Many of them are also using Omnichannel Personalization and Big Data to improve their results. They’ve fine-tuned the process of segmenting email lists and running targeted ads to personalize how people shop for their Valentine and the overall customer experience. This includes gathering data about relationship status, life changes, identifying the customers’ needs and continuously updating customer profiles in real time.

From a customer’s standpoint, it’s difficult to associate words like Omnichannel, Hyperpersonalization, and Big Data with Valentine’s Day. It’s not exactly something you want to talk about over champagne and chocolate covered strawberries. However, keep in mind, what’s going on behind the scenes, is what gives you an infinite amount of convenient ways to find inspiration, get creative, browse, make purchases, and avoid landing yourself in the proverbial doghouse.

Without those personalized emails giving you the “hint, wink, nudge”, Valentine’s Day can easily spiral into something complicated and messy for the absent minded. Lucky for you, the hand of digital marketing eases its way into your daily routine. Tapping its fingers on your desk. Waving its hand in front of your face. Brushing the crumbs from the front of your suit. “Hello! Valentine’s Day is right around the corner. You need to start thinking about it now!”

There is no doubt; Valentine’s Day is the most romantic holiday of the year. There’s a lot of pressure all the way around. Whether it’s choosing the right gift that’ll make your loved one swoon or deciding where to dine and making reservations on time, the process of planning and shopping is much easier than it was 10 years ago.

Technology gives you an endless stream of choices to ease the pressure and stress. For the clueless romantic, you can easily get lost in the virtual world of gifts. Let’s face it; most of us are beyond wanting chocolates and flowers. We crave out-of-the-box. Something unique with a touch of whimsy. From custom whisky stones or a Big Bang Theory Plush Soft Kitty Bouquet, nothing wins our affections more than something that says, “I know you. I get you.”

However you choose to celebrate Valentine’s Day, the age of all-things-digital and Omnichannel is making it easier all the way around. You can exhale. The doghouse is all but a thing of the past. Planning the perfect evening is no longer tedious or tiresome. You can stroll to the quaint corner Italian Restaurant with ease. Reservations are made. Nestled in your pocket is the box, neatly wrapped with a red bow on top, to surprise your Valentine with. Delivered on time. And later, after a boozy nightcap of sweet merlot, there are apps to enhance the much anticipated evening rendezvous. We’ll leave that for you to explore.

Cyber Monday 2015 Trends: Why We Need Personalization

So the numbers are in, and Cyber Monday was actually America’s biggest online shopping day ever according to Adobe. Shoppers spent $3.07 billion on Monday alone, bringing total eCommerce revenue to $11 billion for Thankgiving Weekend.

Now, here’s the catch: while total spend nationwide increased, the average order size actually decreased from $69 to $67.30. This trend suggests that customers are shopping around and purchasing specific products from various retailers, as opposed to visiting a one-stop destination for all of their gifts. Here are some crucial points where companies should employ personalization to take maximal advantage of their eCommerce sites:

eCommerce features deals 24/7

It’s not about big single sales days anymore.

A telling trend we’ve observed in recent years is the extension of the holiday shopping season, which is no longer constrained to Black Friday/Cyber Monday but basically starts after Halloween and continues until Christmas (and possibly after).

What this means is that the most attractive deals and discounts are prompting customers to buy in smaller orders, but with increasing frequency. Today’s shoppers aren’t shy about buying a gift for dad on Amazon, picking up holiday cards in the store, and then downloading apps to look for deals on clothes that they can check out in person at the mall. Factors like greater smartphone and mobile device usage, an increasingly digital culture, and a lack of patience for the “Black Friday at 5:00 A.M. mosh pit” experience have pushed customers towards embracing the convenience, selection, and value provided by eCommerce.

Mobile as a platform for advertising

This past Thanksgiving week showed us that mobile purchases are increasing in number, but the common pattern observed is that people enjoy browsing for products on mobile (up to 49% of shopping visits occur on from mobile devices) and then make about 75% of their actual purchases from a desktop.

This means that the majority of customers who interact with your brand on mobile devices are probably there just seeking some basic inspiration and information. Since the screen space and attention span of a mobile user is so limited, it’s essential for your brand to maximize its impact on the viewer by showcasing for them the products that they’re most likely to buy.

Of course, mobile shoppers (especially impatient Millennials) will abandon your app or site if it’s too slow or acts buggy, so make sure that your brand’s tech presence is on point. Target’s site, for example, went down several times during Cyber Monday and it’s impossible to say how much potential business they lost for it.

Black Friday/Cyber Monday were huge days for eCommerce, but this isn’t the end of the story. What we’ve learned from this past weekend is that, regardless of how you slice it, eCommerce and the omnichannel shopping experience is becoming the de facto process for the modern holiday season. That means that today’s brands should invest heavily in personalization software to create a shopping experience that’s fast, functional, and provides relevant product offers to their customers. It’s only going to become more important next year and the year after, especially as more and more shoppers become comfortable with eCommerce as a whole.

3 Ways to Evaluate and Engage High-Value Customers

You’ve heard of the Pareto Principle: the rule of thumb that 20% of the work drives 80% of the results. In sales and marketing, we can observe that this principle holds true across all industries, and understand that a huge amount of sales, revenue, and brand interaction can be directly traced back to a few high-value customers, or HVCs.

If you haven’t put much thought into CRM, it’s a good policy to prioritize the creation and retention of HVCs who will give you the most return on your investment. Though the majority of all sales transactions are likely to be one-offs or from occasional buyers, a significant amount of your revenue will be driven by intensely loyal HVCs, who will not only stick by your brand but help promote it. To put it simply: you should keep your HVCs happy because when they buy, they buy big.

What makes a customer high value?

  • HVCs buy for a reason: HVCs look to your products, services, and brand to meet a fundamental need. Whether it’s health, wealth, or status, identifying your business’s raison d’etre will help you serve your best customers more efficiently.
  • They are interested in the next big thing. HVCs will keep checking your website, app, and social media pages for updates and new products. If you make customer loyalty a priority, you can create positive feedback loops that pay off huge in the long run.
  • HVCs are less sensitive to price changes. High-value customers will return to your brand even if they can find similar products for cheaper. It’s not about the cost: it’s about how your business addresses their specific needs in a relevant and personalized way.
  • HVCs will promote your brand. Your most loyal customers will promote your goods and services to friends, colleagues, and even strangers, if they believe in your products and customer service. HVCs bring with them a large social network of potential new clients, so pay it forward!

High-value customers are your business’s Golden Geese: keep them happy, and you’ll set yourself up for huge successes in the long run. And the truth is, doing so is actually pretty simple once you adopt the mindset of putting the customer first and personalizing your services to give each individual the VIP treatment.

3 Ways to Engage High-Value Customers

  1. Reward HVCs for their loyalty. By integrating loyalty data into your delivery providers and personalization tools, you’ll be able to understand when, how and why high-value customers access your site and design useful, personalized touches to interact with them across multiple channels. When done right, loyalty programs remove barriers between your customer and their purchases and streamline their shopping experience. Doing so can empower the customer with  a sense of agency when they realize that their actions have a direct impact on their experiences with you and what services you can offer them.
  2. Pay attention to their recent activity. This information can be used to identify a customer as high value based on metrics such as: frequent site visits, a high clickthrough rate on email and website, and big recent purchases. Someone who can’t get enough of your content will respond well to an increase in messages, especially the triggered marketing that corresponds to important life events or interactions with your brand. When done right, this will prove to customers that you really understand what makes them tick. One appropriate example for a triggered message: if a certain HVC has a record of high overall spend but for the last several months they have not been interacting or buying, you might send them a re-engagement email with a big discount attached.
  3. Evolve with your customers. Changes in customers’ habits which point to increased interest in categories outside of their normal purchase pattern can indicate someone’s shift into becoming a high-value customer. A significant change in what they buy and how much they spend could be a signal that this individual has extended their product trust into brand trust for you, prompting their movement into the HVC bucket.

There are many ways you can use data to help determine who is an HVC by using your personalization tools, and from there it’s a matter of providing your high-value customers with the service and attention that they deserve. In the process, you’ll develop the infrastructure, habits, and mindset that’ll attract and engage new customers at each step of their journey.

Why Email is the Most Underrated Personalization Channel

Over the past decade, faster computers, super-powered phones, and widespread access to high speed internet have made omnichannel access possible in a way that we’ve never seen before in human history. But despite all of the hype we give to emerging mobile and social channels, the humble email is still one of the most effective and reliable channels for marketers to speak with their customers. Here are a few reasons why.

Maximize The Potential of Your Mailing List

Thanks to ad-blocking software, today’s customers might not actually see any ads at all before streaming videos, on social media sites, or just while browsing the Internet. It’s a problem that we marketers struggle with daily throughout the industry.

Right off the bat, email has an advantage over web ads because of it’s still a channel that’s – for the most part – impervious to ad blocking software. Promotions, messages and the like will appear for your customers if they’ve added their info to your mailing list, so make adding to it a priority.

Email also boasts an incredibly high ROI, considering how few resources it takes to deliver. Other channels such as advertising through social media have their own advantages such as virality and views, but when it comes down to it, email has been proven time and time again to drive actual action and sales.

1) Email is your passport to the rest of the Internet.

Email supplanted direct mail by being faster, cheaper to produce, and more accessible on the go. So by that logic, you would think that texts, tweets, Snapchats and Facebook messages should replace email – but it simply hasn’t happened.

The thing about email is that it’s an indispensible “passport” to the Internet. Customers need an email address to pay for things, subscribe to services, and sign up for websites – social media sites still require one, and so do their apps.

Proof that there’s something here? Google recently announced their new Customer Match service, which allows companies to track and understand their customers’ needs through their Gmail and YouTube activity. This in turn will give advertisers the ability to more consistently retarget their buyers and provide more relevant content.

2) Email is about getting information.

Email metrics are more sophisticated than ever, meaning that in addition to being a cost-effective way to market new services and products to your customers, your emails can be a source of valuable information about your brand, market, and channels.

Using an email tracker can give you a huge amount of actionable data. You can learn when customers are more receptive to emails, what kind of marketing they respond to, and which channels (PC, laptop, mobile? Other?) they’re most likely to use to access and interact with your brand.

3) Email is the bridge between channels.

Old-school digital marketers cut their teeth on email by using it as a means of direct advertising.

In the Omnichannel Era, however, it’s equally as important for email to be used to continue the conversation that customers have with your brand on other channels, such as through your app, ecommerce website, or storefront.

For example: if a customer begins a transaction on your eCommerce website but later abandons their cart to run errands, sending them a triggered email could be just the push necessary to finish the sale.

Though the field of digital marketing is more sophisticated than it was ten years ago, the humble email is still a legitimate, high-ROI tool for advertisers looking to connect and interact with their customers. Make no mistake: though new technologies will change the face of branding: traits like creativity, ingenuity, and adaptability that define great marketers will never go out of style.

 

This article originally appeared on Business2Community.

Why Personalized Websites Boast Higher Conversions

As a marketer, you understand that making every web user’s experience personal and relevant will lead to a stronger affiliation with your brand and increase your chances of making a sale. Personalization makes your customer feel like you truly understand them and massively streamlines your web experience by using big data insights to deliver unique buyer experiences in real time. When you eliminate barriers to purchases and delivering a great web experience through personalization, your site will drive higher conversions and revenue.

What’s the difference between a personalized and non-personalized website?

  • In a non-personalized website, the content presented is the same for all incoming visitors. This is alright for an informative website, but when it comes to eCommerce, making a customer enter all of their personal information (perhaps more than once), scan through items and content that they aren’t at all interested in, and making them spend unnecessary time on your site just adds another cumbersome barriers between your prospective buyer and their purchase.
  • A personalized website, on the other hand, features content that changes based on a customer’s individual preferences and habits. As a customer clicks through your optimized, personalized eCommerce website, they will encounter products and offers based on recorded data such as their browsing history, purchases made, website behavior, lifestyle, and so on. Since the products the customer is most likely to be interested in are featured prominently from the beginning, there are fewer barriers between your buyer and their next hot buy.

Given that an incredible 75% of online shopping carts are abandoned before the final checkout, website personalization can seriously benefit your ROI by reducing the barriers between your customer and their purchases. Personalization also has the added benefit of increasing a customer’s affinity towards your brand, encouraging them to return to your page for future purchases.

What tools can you include on a personalized website?

  1. Personalized Greetings – When a customer clicks through, have a personalized greeting such as, “Welcome back, Mrs. Jones.” When you remind the customer that they have an account with you, they automatically associate it with having information like credit card number, shipping address, and so on saved – meaning fewer barriers between your customer and their purchase.
  2. Personalized Profile – This includes the option to view account information, edit and update the customer’s profile, add a profile picture, and may include one-click features – such as shopping carts – that pull in targeted information.
  3. Visible Browsing History – Let’s say Mrs. Teresa Jones was shopping for workout apparel and had viewed a dozen items like running shoes, compression leggings, and a new strap for her yoga mat. Before making a purchase, she was interrupted and had to step away for a few hours. When she returns later that day to pick up where she left off, giving her a visible browsing history to pull in the items she’s previously viewed will eliminate the hassle of finding them all over again.
  4. Personalized Landing Pages – As a customer clicks through their hyper-personalized landing page, it should remind them of the need that drove them to your website in the first place. If Teresa Jones, from our last example, forgot what she was doing before she left to run her errand, the landing page should remind her why she came to your site and help her find her place. Even if it’s days, weeks, or months after she’s originally visited your site, putting your brand in a position to jog your customers’ memory will increase the likelihood of them shopping with you again and again.

If there’s anything you should take away from the article, it’s that website personalization is an incredible tool for increasing conversions on eCommerce sites because it saves the customer time and removes barriers between browsing for an item and finalizing the purchase.

There’s a power behind these personalization tools comes from the fact that they’re very subtle – you’re not in your customers’ faces yelling about how great your brand is, instead, the responsive and efficient design of your site will speak for itself, and remind your customer why they sought you out in the first place.

This article originally appeared in Business2Community on September 23, 2015.

Personalization: Making Customers Feel Like a Diamond in the Rough

Everyone loves feeling special.

This is obvious across almost all aspects of life. In the past few years, we’ve seen this concept strongly resonate with one group of people:

Marketers.

In the past three years, the idea of personalizing shopping experiences – both in stores and online – has taken off. Generalized messages and cold, impersonal marketing are in the past. Personalization is an integral part of CRM.

And for companies in the jewelry industry, personalizing is more important than ever. Because of a shift in purchasing power and increase of technology, today’s jewelry retailers must incorporate personalization into their marketing strategies if they want to make a strong impression on potential buyers. With personalization, jewelers can make their customers feel special – like a diamond in the rough. Without personalization, jewelers run the risk of becoming overshadowed by their tech-savvy, relevant competitors.

Why personalize now?

Most industries have already integrated personalization in their marketing strategies. But now, more than ever, is the best moment for leaders in the jewelry industry to start personalizing if they have not already. There are three key reasons that jewelers should be personalizing their marketing.

  1. Today’s consumers expect marketing personalization. Millennials, the largest purchasing power, require their shopping experiences to have relevant content. According to an article in Entrepreneur, “Millennials want to know a company is paying attention to their specific needs.” The publication also stresses that, when it comes to marketing, “one size does not fit all” – size being a particular product. Companies need to give this powerful consumer group what they want; otherwise, shoppers will take their business elsewhere.
  2. Everyone else is doing it. With nearly every industry catering to a specific customer’s needs, companies lacking the ability to personalize will stand out in the worst way possible. Companies with generalized marketing content do not resonate with consumers the same way that personalized marketing can. Personalization has the ability to speed up the purchasing process by providing relevant content and customer recognition. Think about it – if two jewelers offer similar products in quality and price, a consumer is more likely to purchase through the retailer that provides relevant content via personalization.
  3. Jewelry sales need as much help as they can get, as consumers allocate their expenditures elsewhere. While diamonds and pearls used to be the sole representations of status and wealth, today’s consumers are using other types of products to make a statement. It’s no coincidence that jewelry sales have decreased while technology sales increase (think: smartphones, Apple Watches, et all). Jewelry is traditionally gifted to loved ones; however, today’s consumers now give the latest tech to their loved ones. While personalization may not stop consumers from purchasing products in other industries, it can still seriously improve a jeweler’s ROI. Aberdeen reports that personalized emails improve clickthrough rates by 14% and conversion rates by 10%, and 40% of consumers buy more from retailers that personalize a shopping experience across channels. Implementing personalization cannot prevent customers from buying new technology; however, it can attract more attention to the company and its products.
Personalizing in the Jewelry Industry

There are several ways retailers should implement personalization into their marketing. The following must-have features can make a customer feel like a company genuinely cares about their needs. And, when a customer feels this way, their loyalty to the brand increases.

  • High-end retailer Neiman Marcus offers shoppers a variety of recommended products to browse.
    High-end retailer Neiman Marcus offers shoppers a variety of recommended products to browse.

    Relevant recommendations: One of the easiest ways to woo and win customers is to provide relevant recommendations. Janrain & Harris Interactive found that 74% of online consumers get frustrated when websites offer content that has nothing to do with their interests. In the digital sphere, marketers can use algorithms based off past purchases and clicks to determine what a customer may be interested in. A display of the potential buys can be displayed via email or on a website. When executed correctly, these recommended products show the customer you can cater to their specific tastes.

  • Nordstrom sends shopping cart abandonment emails to redirect traffic back to its site.
    Nordstrom sends shopping cart abandonment emails to redirect traffic back to its site.

    Shopping cart abandonment: With the ability to browse several ecommerce sites at once, it can be easy for customers to get distracted and forget about items in their shopping cart. According to Business Insider, approximately $4 trillion in merchandise will be abandoned in online shopping carts this year. Shopping cart abandonment emails can be the reminder or the final push a consumer needs to make a purchase.

  • Digital salespeople: Jewelry can be a tricky sell over the Internet. Sizing and fit is always a challenge when shopping online, and returns can be a hassle. To avoid losing customers across digital entities, companies can consider employing digital “salespeople” that can answer customer inquiries. These salespeople – or, rather, robots – have systematically generated responses to commonly asked questions from shoppers. Accessibility and transparency is important in any company, and digital platforms are no exception.
  • Seamless omnichannel: Retailers cannot personalize across one channel and completely ignore another. Synching customer profiles across all channels creates an ideal, omnichannel shopping experience. Consistency is integral to creating a convenient shopping experience. For example, if a customer starts shopping online and hopes to continue browsing while on the go via mobile device, a retailer should make this transition as easy as possible. Consider the format of retailer Revolve, which stores and synchronizes a customer’s favorites online and on mobile app.

Intrigued by the powers of personalization? Learn about NectarOM’s omnichannel personalization, or why we call personalization a long term investment.

Overcoming Personalization Challenges in Retail eCommerce

Online shopping is easy and efficient. With the introduction of omnichannel-savvy retailers implementing in-store pickups and fast home delivery, eCommerce is more popular than ever.

We know personalization is effective for every type of business. Customers like goods and services tailored to their wants and needs. We’ve seen some of the world’s strongest marketers reap huge rewards from personalization programs and experts predict that personalization is the key to the future of marketing.

But in terms of online retail, personalization is not always executed as well as it can (or should) be.

The problem

One of the biggest speed bumps in retail shopping online is determining a customer’s perfect size and fit. When shopping at brick-and-mortars, customers can tell whether an item fits by trying it on. However, the inability to physically model the clothing yourself is a huge caveat of online shopping at today’s top retailers.

However, there are a couple different ways that companies are tackling this problem.

Voluntarily sharing personal data

Determining which size fits best is often done by looking at the clothing’s measurements or relying on past purchases from similar retailers. However, both of these options can be problematic.

Let’s be realistic – how many shoppers actually use those measurements to determine which size is their best fit? Oftentimes, this can be too much effort to figure out. This is why most customers simply rely on the size they typically wear.

But while many customers have a standard size, retailers occasionally size differently from one another. Someone who wears a size XS pants at one store may burst out of XS shorts at a different retailer.

A scale that shows whether pieces run small or large can help fix this problem; however, this is not the only solution.

The best way to confront sizing disparity is by implementing a personalized sizing feature into your site. Sites with features like these are often customer favorites. Customers can feel confident with their purchase without worrying about the hassles of returning products. This feature gives customers a sense of security about making orders, which increases individual orders and draws in new customers.

So how does a retailer go about implementing a sizing feature? Consider the work from an expert: Lilly Pulitzer.

Click on the images to enlarge and learn about Lilly’s True to Fit feature.

Lilly Pulitzer helps customers unsure about their particular size by asking for their personal data. This data includes a customer’s height, sizing in other brands, and body shape. Lilly Pulitzer uses this data to evaluate which size is best for the customer. This feature also considers other sizes for the shopper, and explains which parts of a clothing item may fit poorly. Shoppers can save their profile, which comes in handy when checking sizing for other Lilly products.

Virtual fitting rooms

Retailers who more digitally inclined may have the option to utilize a new, exciting service. The UK-based company Fits.me works with retailers to create a virtual fitting room for shoppers. This is similar to Lilly Pulitzer, but much more visual. The feature projects how different clothing items would fit on one’s specific body measurements. After a shopper selects the fit they like best, he or she can proceed to customize the clothing item.

Fits.me is an innovative concept that has yet to make its way into U.S. retail. These virtual fitting rooms are available in Europe, but with the United States’ strong eCommerce market I expect features like Fits.me to come across the pond soon enough.

Need more personalization?

If you love learning about marketing personalization, be sure to read up on increasing loyalty with personalization and how personalization can be used with disconnected customers.