- Hi, I'm Emily Collins.
I'm a principal analyst on the B2C marketing team
here at Forrester.
And happy holidays!
The holiday season is upon us.
And if you're a retailer,
chances are you already have had your decorations up
for a couple of weeks now.
And your holiday campaigns are locked and loaded
and ready to go.
Which is good, because when it comes to
thinking about how you can impact the relationships
that you have with your loyal customers this holiday season,
the last thing they need from you is another offer.
So as part of this installment of
the 2019 holiday retail blog series,
I'm going to share three things that you can do
over the coming weeks
that are not just sending another offer to your customers.
So the first thing is to remind your customers,
and your best customers, of the things that you're doing
to make their shopping experience easier.
The holiday is an exciting time,
but it's also a stressful time.
They are trying to figure out what are the best gifts
that they can give to the people that they love.
Sometimes to the people that they only like.
And so, think about sharing with them
the services that you offer around gift wrap
or buy online, pick up in store.
Most of the growth, or 40% of the growth
of the retail sales this season
will be coming from in-store purchases.
So don't just think about sending out emails,
but connecting it to that in-store experience
as they're shopping to make it as easy
and enjoyable as possible.
The second thing that you can do
instead of sending another offer,
is to make a plan for all of the new loyalty program members
you might be getting.
So as consumers start to think about how they can optimize
their shopping and purchases this holiday season,
you might see an uptick in the number of new members
who are enrolling in your program.
So, what's your on-boarding plan?
This is a really busy time of year.
Brands are shouting at everyone as loud as they can,
trying to get attention.
So maybe in a couple of weeks after the busy-ness dies down,
think about sending out a welcome series
to welcome these new members to the program,
remind them or give them some information
about the value they might get from the program,
as well as using it as an opportunity
to learn more about what their interests are
and what their preferences are.
And the third thing that you can do this holiday season
is to revisit your personalization approach.
When you think about the ecosystem,
consumers are being bombarded with messages
from all kinds of brands looking for their attention.
So rather than thinking about
how you can shout louder than everyone else,
revisit how you might be personalizing
the experiences and interactions you have with them.
And there are three things that I like to remind people of
when they're thinking about their personalization efforts.
The first is to drive relevance.
So, making sure that the content that you're sending
is relevant to the customer in that moment,
and is useful to them.
Not just trying to shill a new product or service.
The second piece is creating that emotional resonance.
So emotion is a big part of customer's loyalty to brands,
and a big part of their decision making process.
So how can you make them feel positive emotions
in the communications that you're sending?
Really showcasing that empathy and authenticity
of the relationship.
And the third thing is to show restraint.
So sometimes the best communication
is no communication at all.
Really making sure that you're respecting
and knowing those customer preferences,
and realizing that next best experiences
are not always the next best offer.
Well, thank you very much for tuning in.
Good luck with all of your holiday execution.
And if you have any questions, feel free to reach out
and schedule an inquiry.
I'd be happy to talk about how you can improve
your customer loyalty efforts.