Marketing Retention Ð - FitForCommerce · Marketing Retention Ð You spend time, money, and resources on attracting and converting shoppers. The next step is to engage and retain

Marketing Retention–

You spend time, money, and resources on attracting and converting shoppers. The next step is to engage and retain those same customers. The most successful customer marketing retention strategies focus on highly-targeted and personalized relationship-building tactics that foster deep loyalty, advocacy, and increased lifetime value.

Marketing Retention | 58 © 2019

BURNING QUESTIONS

• Where/how should I focus my marketing retention efforts?

• Should I invest in a loyalty program?

• What technologies should I invest in to support my efforts?

Maintaining a healthy customer retention rate is all about keeping customers happy. How to improve customer experiences and engagement should always be top of mind when devising the retention marketing strategy. Customer-retention marketing strategies primarily include email campaigns, display retargeting, loyalty programs and communication. The key ingredient for highly successful strategies is personalization. The most successful retention marketing strategies leverage data to identify where the individual shopper is in the customer journey and using those insights to create relevant marketing messages to deliver at key moments and touchpoints where they will matter most.

TOOLS AND TRICKS OF THE TRADE

The marketing technology landscape can be quite overwhelming, with a myriad of solutions and tools available to help support and optimize initiatives and efforts, including email marketing platforms, CRM systems, campaign management tools, data analytics, and personalization engines.

MARKETING ACQUISITION TOOLS

1. Email

2. CRM

3. Loyalty

4. Personalization

DID YOU KNOW?

• It costs at least 6 to 7 times more to acquire a new customer than to retain and old one39

• Repeat customers generate between three and seven times higher revenue per visit than first-time visitors40

OUR TAKE: Retargeting for Retention

Retargeting (covered in the previous chapter) also applies to marketing retention. Marketers leverage

retargeting display ads for visitors or customers that have already been acquired via paid or earned media

to re-engage them and drive return traffic by promoting specific products or product categories.


Email Marketing

With its low barrier to entry with respect to cost and effort and its high return on investment, it is not surprising that email remains the most popular channel for focusing retention efforts. As a retention-marketing tactic, email provides a way to communicate with current customers, build and maintain relationships, and focus on increasing customer lifetime value.

Most email service providers feature user-friendly tools that allow marketers to leverage the system without IT involvement. Integrating the email marketing platform with the digital commerce platform and other technology solutions in the ecosystem that provide insight into inventory, product data, and customer profiles is key to a successful marketing retention strategy. Modern email marketing platforms also leverage machine learning and other techniques to automate personalization and learn about the customer and her brand interactions.

Make it Personal

Personalizing email can be as simple as messaging for customer segments, personalizing subject lines, inserting a personal greeting with a customer’s name, or using simple, automated trigger emails, such as for an abandoned shopping cart, post-purchase review prompts, and timely reorder emails for consumables. On the other end of the spectrum, email personalization can be as sophisticated as fully personalized email campaigns populated with content and products based on individual customer behaviors, targeting based on device preferences, weather and geography, and messaging relevant to cross-channel behavior.

DID YOU KNOW?

Nine in 10 marketers in North America use email

to engage their audience and email marketing

is consistently rated as the marketing tactic

with the highest ROI.41

DID YOU KNOW?

Personalized emails generate up to 6 times

higher revenue than non-personalized emails.42

PERSONALIZED EMAIL MARKETING CONTINUUM

Personalized greetings, subject lines

Triggers based on online actions

Personalized content and offers

Triggers based on omnichannel

actions

Personalized content based on geo, weather,

time of day, etc.

Basic Sophisticated


Triggered Emails

Triggered email strategies are vital ingredients of any good retention strategy. Emails triggered by customer activity on a retailer’s site can be highly productive and profitable. These effective emails can be used to drive traffic back to the site, close a sale, upsell or cross-sell relevant items, etc.

There are many different types of campaigns that utilize data and personalization to drive engagement, loyalty and sales. The goal of these campaigns is to encourage existing customers to come back for more content or information, including:

• Welcome Series – start off the customer relationship with targeted and relevant emails. Go beyond just one email and develop a series of emails.

• Post-purchase series – make the customer feel good about her purchase and encourage customer to review purchase and share product photos.

• Recommendations campaigns – recommend complimentary products to recent purchase.

• Cart abandonment campaigns – remind the customer of cart item, make recommendations for alternative or additional items.

• Browse abandonment campaigns – show customers what they recently browsed, products or categories.

• Anniversary/birthday/milestone campaigns – make customers feel good and offer an incentive to shop.

• Re-activation/win-back campaigns – remind customers of brand and encourage them to come back.

SEEN IN THE FIELD

REI taps into their customers’ love for the

great outdoors with engaging imagery and

relevant content that extends beyond just

the products they sell.


• Lapsed/Never Purchased Series – remind shoppers of previous interests in a product

• Replacement/Replenishment – engage customers with reminders for when it is time to replace or replenish a product (e.g., socks, underwear, t-shirts, etc.)

CRM

CRM, or customer relationship management, is a customer-centric approach to doing business. It is the overall strategy by which retailers collect, record, manage, and apply customer data to engage customers across all channels. CRM strategies are most effective when they are applied and implemented across all functional groups of an organization.

A CRM database houses all relevant customer data and profile information that enables the complete view of all customers and to easily access, analyze, and apply customer data to deliver personalized experiences across all touchpoints. In addition to online marketing, this could include in-store sales associates and customer service as well.

OUR TAKE: Devices matter

When it comes to email marketing, 49 percent of all emails are opened on mobile devices.43 Design with

delivery formats (mobile, desktop, tablet) in mind. Work with your email partner and creative to deliver emails

based on optimized formats. Emails optimized for mobile greatly increase conversion, sales, and ROI.

SEEN IN THE FIELD

Total Wines delivers personalized emails with a gift ($5 off) for customers’ birthdays. Leveraging self-

entered customer birthday data, the retailer is able to build loyalty and let customers know that Total Wine

appreciates their customers.


Leveraging a CRM solution, organizations benefit by being able to get a 360° view of their customers and react accordingly – knowing the customer, engaging with the customer and delivering the expected experience. This includes:

• Cross-device identification

• Anonymous user tracking

• Customer response and behavior tracking

• Customer lifecycle analytics

• Advanced modeling and segmentation

Given the massive amounts of data that the online channel brings, combined with mobile data such as geo-location, the reliance on data to tell marketers what to do is greater than ever, and a solid CRM strategy and solution is necessary.

Loyalty Programs

Loyalty programs reward frequent customers and encourage one-time buyers to return to the website and store. Rewards often include free merchandise based on points, special coupons or discounts and access to products and events. Loyalty programs allow retailers to leverage insights to segment customers based on similar needs to offer more relevant and personalized experiences, resulting in higher conversions and loyalty.

Loyalty programs are a way for organizations to say ‘thank you’ to their customers and show value to them while also giving them an incentive to continue returning and building lifetime value. Loyalty programs are not one-size-fits-all and are not right for all business models. Retailers can leverage a loyalty rewards program to support a differentiated brand engagement and execute through online, mobile and marketing.

There are several types of customer engagements that can be encouraged with a loyalty program:

DID YOU KNOW?

Artificial Intelligence already powers many CRM

functions and is leveraged to improve a myriad

of business functions ranging from email

marketing to forecasting and customer service.

DID YOU KNOW?

Nine in 10 internet users say they would

welcome an individualized experience where

a retailer would automatically suggest, or

even order, products for its loyalty program

members, based on a personal profile.44


• Site Engagement including consumption of content article/guide/video, taking a quiz, responding to surveys

• User Generated Content such as tips and tricks, advice, ratings and reviews

• Open emails and push notifications

• Completion of personal profile

• Posts to Social Media and engagement

• Store events visits

• Purchases

When executed effectively, loyalty programs can be a significant driver of revenue. Studies have shown that customers are even more likely to make frequent purchases if they are close to reaching the threshold for a reward or gain points or discounts for future purchases.

SEEN IN THE FIELD

Sephora offers points for every dollar spent via their Beauty Insider program. There are different tiers of

loyalty where benefits increase when customers reach certain spending thresholds. The first tier requires no

spend, only an email address. The program is very clear and easy to follow and provides many benefits for

loyalty members with offers that are important to them, including a birthday offer, expedited shipping, free

items, and makeovers.

OUR TAKE: Say ‘Thank You’

Following you on social media, participating with UGC content, or referring a friend to sign up for email are all

new ways that customers can engage with your brand. Say ‘thank you’ and reward them for these activities. It

will pay off.


Retailers can also create special programs that focus on rewarding their best customers to foster brand loyalty and boost the customer retention rate. Not always monetary in nature, the rewards can include offers of special discounts, early access to sales, and invitations to exclusive events. The reward program should aim to make a retailer’s best customers feel valued.

Some organizations partner with other companies to provide all- inclusive loyalty program offers. Strategic partnerships for customer loyalty programs can be a very effective way to retain customers, and at the same time, expand reach. These types of programs provide customers with added value that is relevant to them.

Personalization

By tailoring messages or offers to individuals based on their actual behavior, retailers and brands can deliver a customer experience that is well-aligned with the customer’s specific needs and preferences.

We live in an era of instant gratification in which customers are bombarded with messages 24/7. Relevance is of utmost importance in order to resonate with the audience. Personalization will increase engagement and loyalty and help achieve a stronger return on investment of marketing dollars.

Successful marketers make it a priority to gather and use behavioral data to find customer groups and gain insight into their purchase behaviors. Then, they take the time to understand these key customer groups and map the customer journey. By building the customer journey, micro-segments and interaction points will become evident.

OUR TAKE: Omni-proof your loyalty program

Many shoppers engage with brands in multiple ways – online, mobile, and in-store. Make sure that customers

can use the program across all channels.

OUR TAKE: Use your data

Using customer and behavioral data to target customers with the best products and offers will help to

increase their loyalty. Retention strategies, specifically email, involve CRM (customer relationship marketing)

and targeting the best customer at the right time with the best message.

DID YOU KNOW?

71 percent of shoppers are frustrated with the lack

of personalization in their shopping experiences.45


Personalization is best thought about as a two-way street. Customers provide information about their desires, needs, and intentions through purchasing, browsing, and social media. Marketers should respond with relevant and timely messages that are triggered and sent to the individual customer.

In order to scale personalization, data and technology have to be in place. Once personalization is started, there will quickly be a near-infinite number of personalized variations of experiences which can be delivered to the customer. A well-mapped process, combined with artificial intelligence and automation technology, is important for personalization strategies to be successful.

Which Criteria About Their Visitors Do USCompanies Use to Personalize the Experience?% of respondents, March 2019 · Source: eMarketer, April 2019

Campaign Source

Pages/content viewed

Email opens

Products Purchased

0 10 20 30 40 50

49%

35%

34%

33%

Demographics

Email clickthroughs

Clicks

Geolocation

32%

30%

28%

32%

Stage of customer journey

Previous visit(s) behavior

27%

26%

SPOTLIGHT ON DATA

Research consistently proves that personalized, relevant and timely communication leads to deeper customer engagement. Retailers that center their marketing retention strategies around data typically see the highest return on their investments.

In today’s digital world where customers interact and engage with retailers through a number of digital channels, retailers have greater access to valuable customer data.

With the right tools in place, capturing and leveraging data such as demographics, customer journey stages, purchase history, email opens and click-throughs, website behaviors, geolocation etc., marketers can create highly personalized programs and optimize their marketing retention activities across all channels and convert to greater sales.

A centralized and single view of all customer data is critical. Supporting data-driven marketing with more advanced technology such as AI and machine learning can automate otherwise manual tasks, making the process easier and more effective, and freeing up marketing teams to focus on more creative tasks.

THIS REPORT IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY–

OUR MEDIA SPONSOR–

ChannelAdvisor has been on the front lines of e-commerce since 2001, helping retailers and brands connect with customers, optimize operations and grow sales channels. We’ve grown from a small company in a young industry to an industry leader at the forefront of a global revolution — with thousands of clients and billions of dollars in transactional revenue flowing through our platform every year. For more information, visit channeladvisor.com

Adweek is the leading source of news and insight serving the brand marketing ecosystem. First published in 1979, Adweek’s award-winning coverage reaches an engaged audience of more than 6 million professionals across platforms including print, digital, events, podcasts, newsletters, social media and mobile apps. As a touchstone of the advertising and marketing community, Adweek is an unparalleled resource for leaders across multiple industries who rely on its content to help them do their job better.

Adweek is part of the Beringer Capital portfolio that also includes BrandShop, a leading full-service partner that works with major consumer brands to employ digital commerce to increase sales, gain valuable consumer insight and create the type of end-to-end experiences that build loyalty and keep brands ahead of the competition. Learn more at adweek.com and brandshop.com

http://channeladvisor.com

http://www.adweek.com

http://www.brandshop.com

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FitForCommerce is a leading boutique consultancy that helps hundreds of online and multichannel brands and retailers make informed digital, ecommerce and omnichannel retail investment decisions. Leveraging years of experience, state-of-the-art tools, strategic diligence and tactical planning, FitForCommerce helps brands and retailers define strategies for growth, improve the customer experience, plan and hire the right organization, and find "best fit" technology solutions. | www.fitforcommerce.com

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Marketing Retention Ð - FitForCommerce · Marketing Retention Ð You spend time, money, and resources on attracting and converting shoppers. The next step is to engage and retain