Another holiday season has come and gone, but that doesn’t mean customer engagement should be gone as well. For retailers, the immediate post-holiday season is filled with merchandise markdowns, returns, and the pulling-back of spending by consumers. This makes post-holiday season the perfect time to continue the momentum into the new year. According to a study completed by BloomReach, 50% of consumers planned to shop for gifts after Christmas and 37% planned to purchase more than a quarter of their gifts after Christmas. This past holiday season, sales were up 4.9 percent — the biggest year-over-year uptick since 2011 — and consumers set new records for the number of dollars spent. People are willing to spend and it’s up to retailers to keep up engagement after the holidays.
Maximize sale messaging. Since markdowns will begin occurring to leftover merchandise, the perfect way to get rid of these leftovers is to promote your awesome new deals on them. People will be shopping post-holiday season for a variety of reasons (i.e. using gift cards, buying themselves items at a discounted price, or buying items on sale for the following year’s holidays). One way to maximize your sale messaging is by using email to target shoppers with top sale items they might be interested in based on their purchase history. You can also utilize social media to create a sale hashtag and invite customers to post photos of their favorite end-of-the-season steals on Instagram or Twitter. You can also create a hashtag for them to use to show off their favorite holiday gift they received during the holiday.
Revive abandoned cart campaigns. Shopping carts a lot of times are wish lists for consumers, especially during the holiday season. More than likely consumers have a few leftover items in their cart for one reason or another. Targeting consumers with something like an email campaign on the items in their “abandoned” cart will remind them of what they did not get the opportunity to buy previously, but may still have an inclination to purchase.
Implement remarketing advertisements. If you are unfamiliar with what remarketing is, it lets you show advertisements to people who have used your mobile app or visited your website. This allows you to reconnect with those who have abandoned their cart and those who have bought from you in the past. Using remarketing advertisements will enable you to reach the right potential customer and keep people engaged. In your remarketing efforts, you can focus the content on a post-holiday sale, a restock or a complimentary item.
Offer a complimentary item. This may be the costliest of engagement tips, but that does not mean you should not consider it since the ROI may be greatest. Offering a complimentary accessory can put you ahead of your competitors because people jump at the opportunity for anything “free”. The item does not have to be costly, but it should be worth the consumer’s consideration. For example, if you sell winter coats in your retail store you might want to consider giving a free winter hat with the purchase of a coat. Or you could offer a complimentary item for those who buy more than $50 of holiday merchandise. To promote the complimentary item, you could use social media, online ads, or email marketing.
Understand what worked and what did not. It is no mystery that some of your marketing efforts will prove to be much more successful than others. Analyze your past year’s efforts and see what had the highest customer engagement. Use this to guide your marketing efforts for the new year to increase your engagement and therefore increase your sales.
Want to know more about how we can help your business flourish in the post-holiday season? Let’s talk.
