3 key strategies to make more sales on your website with personalization strategies

 

Did you know that 72% of consumers find that online gift shopping has made life easier during the holiday season?

As a retailer, you can’t afford to ignore the various ways that eCommerce can boost your online sales.

In particular, personalized marketing technologies allow brands to engage with consumers online and increase conversion rates. Here are three effective strategies to increase your eCommerce conversion rate this holiday season:

 

1. Optimize website user experience with personalization

Shoppers that engage with personalized website content are more likely to convert. Research found that even though visitors who clicked on product recommendations accounted for only 5% of clicks, those clicks represented 30% of Cyber Week revenue.

You can deliver a personalized experience by displaying relevant content based on a customer’s preferences, browsing behaviors, and purchasing history while augmenting the shopping experience with features such as wishlist, past purchases list, and personalized gift guide.

In addition, you should leverage existing customer data to streamline the checkout experience, reduce cart abandonment, and optimize conversion rate. For example, by pre-selecting options based on customers’ past preferences, providing one-click checkout using existing customer data, and pre-filling forms using information from customer profiles.

 

2. Promote personalized offers with Email Marketing

Email marketing is a great way to engage with your email subscribers and customers who are already familiar with your brand and therefore, more likely to make a purchase.

Leverage your customer database and segment your email list to send emails with offers tailored to specific groups based on their past purchases, customer lifecycle stages, or other data such as preferences, interests, geographic location, and demographic data.

You can set up behavior-triggered workflows, which are initiated by how recipients respond to your previous emails. You should also leverage email retargeting — which can help eCommerce websites increase their revenue by as much as 400% — to re-engage visitors who came to your site but didn’t take action.

 

3. Implement an Omnichannel Personalization Strategy

While 86% of consumers would make an in-store purchase, 75% also order gifts online. Instead of engaging with a brand on one specific channel, consumers do so via a variety of touchpoints — whenever and wherever that’s most convenient for them.

Multichannel shoppers tend to spend more per transaction, so it’s important for retailers to be present in multiple customer touchpoints so they can engage with shoppers at the right place and in the right time.

To increase the effectiveness of your omnichannel marketing strategy, use a customer data management tool that collects customer information so you can understand how shoppers engage with your brand. You can then generate insights on how to deliver the most relevant offers through each channel based on customers’ real-time interactions with your business.

 

Implement your eCommerce personalization strategy at scale

Personalization marketing is a proven way to increase eCommerce conversion rates. In order to implement this strategy at scale, you need the ability to fully leverage all customer data so you can deliver the most relevant content and offers.

Our customer data management platform and its syndication layers, which enables real-time acitiviation of content and offers on multiple channels, allow you to effectvely engage your customers by leveraging the power of personalized marketing.

Request a demo today to see how our solution can help you increase eCommerce conversion this holiday season.

Omnichannel Today

Christmas is just around the corner – even if the weather doesn’t quite feel like it. Here are the latest news articles we’ve been reading:

Cyber Monday 2015 Was a Smash Hit. Here’s Why We Need Personalization.

American spent over $3.07 billion on eCommerce purchases this past Cyber Monday, which has gone in the record books as the biggest online shopping day ever. This massive success showcased the growth of eCommerce and particularly the increasing popularity of mobile purchases. But this isn’t the end of the story, and there are a few key trends will highlight the potential of omnichannel marketing personalization to maximize retailers’ marketing dollars through the rest of the holiday season and beyond.

Barnes & Noble has been destroyed by Amazon

Barnes & Noble shares have dropped 20% percent following the bookstore’s reported decline in sales, increase in long-term debts, and sluggish store attendance. Despite finding moderate success on Cyber Monday, their buggy eCommerce site may not be enough to compete with the prices, selection, and comprehensive eCommerce experience offered by Amazon.

How In-Store Experience and Omnichannel Retailing Could Be Key for Bed Bath & Beyond

A retail study reveals that consumers that shop across multiple channels tend to spend far more than average buyers, which means that eCommerce should be a major focus for companies looking to maximize their marketing dollars. An interesting shift noted in the article is the tendency for customers to go to the store to browse, but make purchases online.

10 Disruptive Digital Trends Retailers Need To Know

A new article from the Financial Times discusses how modern shoppers expect brands to develop a relationship with them over social media and other digital platforms. The thought leaders interviewed point to the success of apps like Instagram, Etsy, and Olapic, who offer businesses the ability to showcase their “human side” to potential customers by using memes, shareable posts, and conversation starters to promote fan engagement over social media.

Other stuff we read this week:

Our work with Avocados From Mexico made it into the latest edition of Ad Age.
All Amazon Wants for Christmas is its Own Trucking Fleet.
Marketing on Reddit Is Scary, But These Success Stories Show Big Potential.
Pros and Cons: How Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook and Apple Are Battling for Breaking News
From AI and data science to cryptography: Microsoft researchers offer 16 predictions for ’16

Check back next time for the latest developments in omnichannel! We’ll bring you news, facts, opinions, and infographics that will help you gain a broad perspective of the industry. Drop in, stick around, and subscribe to our newsletter – and who knows? You just might learn something.

 

Luxury Int

High Fashion and Luxury Demand Omnichannel Engagement Solutions

October’s Luxury Interactive conference in New York City came and went with little fanfare in Midtown Manhattan. Overshadowed during the three short days by the much larger Comic-Con across town, Luxury Interactive drew a very particular crowd: retailers needing to differentiate their brand online, and the service providers peddling solutions.

In talking to today’s marketing and ecommerce gurus from the leading fashion brands of the world, it was clear that there are two specific priorities on everyone’s wish list for 2015…

  1. A solution to execute high-touch campaigns in the omnichannel (especially for smaller, more exclusive luxury companies).
  2. A tool to efficiently curate user-generated content so that it can be repurposed as additional art while successfully excluding low quality and/or unfashionable images.

The first problem seemed to be the most pressing, whether it was an agency like Huge Inc., or a large retailer like Saks Fifth Avenue; getting that Saturday champagne and brunch shopping experience to play in the digital world is a constant struggle. Luxury brands differentiate themselves through the projection of quality, whether it is the service level delivered by associates, the décor in the store, or the quality of the actual goods, luxury depends on differentiation for that extra margin. This isn’t easy to do in the digital world.

One great example of someone doing this well is Mitchell’s stores. Mitchell’s spent two years working on its ecommerce experience. Mitchell’s is arguably the single most revered luxury retailer in America. Mitchell’s is known not only for its quality products and high-class clientele, but also for the services provided in its stores. According to a conversation I had with Bob Mitchell, company president and author of “Hug Your Customer”, the company spent two years developing its ecommerce platform because they recognized that the brand needed to survive online, and therefore the customer experience needed to replicate the service level found in stores.

They really did a great job.

For example when I log in:

  • my salesman is featured prominently
  • I have my own dashboard that includes my most recent purchases
  • a list of recommendations (from both my salesman and the computer), and a calendar of events amongst other features show up

Differentiation is the key for maintaining luxury brands online, if you go above and beyond to provide extraordinary service in-store, you must now do even more online to make sure your shopping experience differentiates itself from your down-market competition. For marketers, that means using all the customer data available to personalize and cater to customers.

 

Mitchell's Stores Does Omnichannel Well
Mitchell’s knows their omnichannel customer

 

The agencies that I spoke with tended take the Mitchell’s view of luxury ecommerce, that luxury brands need to invest in a specific customer service experience, like having access to my personal sales associate while I browse the web, rather than repurpose third party technologies popular with mid market ecommerce businesses. The luxury brands themselves were less convinced that such investments are necessary. I think we’ll find that many of these luxury brands invest in small solutions to replicate the high-touch feel and balk on larger investments in a bespoke ecommerce ecosystem.