As shoppers receive credit card bills for their holiday spending, January is traditionally a slow month across all retail sectors. It’s a great opportunity for business owners to evaluate processes to determine what’s working and what needs to be done differently to grow revenue and maximize success. In other words, to make some new year’s resolutions for your business. Did you know that every year, nearly 60% of adults worldwide make new year’s resolutions but, typically, less than 10% of those resolutions actually create lasting change? To increase your odds of success, you’ll have to consider not only what you want to accomplish, but also how you’ll get it done. For most companies, that means leveraging data to create a customer experience that is as highly personalized as possible.
Here are some suggestions from the Shoptelligence team to help you define and strategize around your business’s 2023 resolutions.
Convert Your Data into Insight that Drives Revenue
Resolve to gather more customer data than ever before in 2023, then use it to seamlessly create a personalized shopping experience across channels. Expected by today’s consumers and provided by the most successful retailers, personalization is the process of tailoring the retail experience to the consumer, reflecting the shopper’s preferences, tastes, and styles in online and in-person interactions. Personalization leads to profit. Personalization works:
- 49% of consumers say they will likely become repeat buyers after a personalized shopping experience with a retail brand.
- 38% of consumers say they will shop with a brand they’ve had a good experience with again, even if there are cheaper or more convenient options.
- 62% of shoppers say a brand will lose their loyalty if they deliver an unpersonalized experience. Failing to deliver a personalized experience puts your business at risk.
- 40% of businesses investing in personalization find that getting the data necessary to reach their goals is a challenge. Experts agree that privacy is a top concern for shoppers. Data collection must happen invisibly and the resulting personalization only works if it’s accomplished so discreetly that it is welcomed by the visitor, rather than rejected as an intrusion.
Retailers who deliver the best, most individually curated experiences across channels see increases in conversions, per-ticket figures, average order size, and repeat business figures online and in-store. Investigate tools that can help you, then commit resources to implement change.
Maximize the Value of Your Website
Resolve to make your website your most valued team member in 2023. Years ago, it was appropriate to think of your website and your brick-and-mortar store as separate and distinct, each serving a different set of consumers, but those days are gone. It’s time to reframe your thinking. Are you familiar with the concept of omnichannel marketing? Marketing industry leader HubSpot defines it as, “a lead nurturing and user engagement approach in which a company gives access to their products, offers, and support services to customers or prospects on all channels, platforms, and devices.” In other words, a consumer’s path to purchase might involve many stops and your website is just one of them. Make every visit a memorable one by providing shoppers with a thrilling, personalized experience they will want to repeat. Shoppers expect to see new products often, so update your content often.
Here’s one more bit of data you need to maximize your website’s impact on your bottom line: half of all of today’s online shopping takes place on a mobile device. Not only that, but mobile shopping figures are growing every year. While you’re evaluating your website’s effectiveness, be sure to devote some time to assessing the quality of the mobile experience you’re offering and considering improvements as needed.
Send Emails That Will Get Read
Resolve to boost your email open rates this year. A recent Mailchimp survey reported that email open rates across industries hover just over 20%. Some other studies put the figure even lower. You’ve got to use all the tools at your disposal to try to get existing and potential customers to open your emails. Begin by cleaning up and segmenting your lists, then leverage your collected data to create and send content that you are confident will engage recipients. Use their names. Craft personalized subject lines. Send updates on items you already know match their tastes, style preferences, and budgets. If this sounds like more than you can manage, seek out cutting edge software that can support your efforts.
Up Your Social Media Game
Resolve to make this the year that you make a splash on social media. Give your marketing department some new direction. Using one social media channel to show pictures of your inventory is a start, but it’s not enough. Investigate newer sites that might be more popular with your clientele than the tried and true one you’ve been using for years. How about Pinterest or TikTok? Launched in 2010, Pinterest has over 400 million users. 77% of weekly Pinners have discovered a new brand on the site and 89% of them report having been moved toward purchase by what they’ve seen. Take advantage of an opportunity to build rapport with your customer base by publicly praising a long-standing associate. Improve the quality of the photos that are being posted. Use effective hashtags to improve searchability. Assign someone to stay on top of online reviews. Negative reviews alienate potential customers and hurt businesses. Ask your representative to respond, rather than react. Always offer to continue the conversation and resolve the issue offline.
Support Your Associates
Resolve to support your sales associates in 2023. For decades, friendly, informed sales associates have been the backbone of the retail industry. As more and more business shifts to e-commerce, those sales associates, who have traditionally been paid commission only on the sales they close, are understandably feeling threatened. Consider implementing a system that builds the bridge between e-commerce an in-store shopping, tracks, and records every touchpoint in your omnichannel environment, and rewards associates for sales in which they are a significant contributor, even if that sale closes online after the store visit is over.
Adding Shoptelligence’s proven platform to your existing toolkit can help you increase online engagement, conversion rates, AOV, CLV, and more. Let’s talk about how you can achieve your goals this year. Schedule a product tour today.
