By Ross Paquette, Maropost
We all know the holidays are one of the most — if not the most — important
times of the year for retailers. You step into any store, and you’ll see
customers busy browsing and buying — and it’s the same story online.
When it comes to holiday shopping, you can’t take customers for granted.
Whether they’ve been with for your brand for years or you’re still trying to
win them over, you need to do a lot more than just have the best sale to stand
out.
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Yes, holiday sales are still important (and customers still expect them),
but they aren’t everything.
More and more, companies compete on experience and it’s changing the way
people buy. And this isn’t just true for first-time buyers. Every time you
interact with customers it’s make or break for your relationship — 25%
of customers even say they’ll leave a brand after just one bad
experience.
So much of what makes a good customer experience comes down to data. It
sounds simple, but the more customers you have, the more places you’re reaching
them, the more data available, the more platforms handling that data — the
harder it gets.
If you really want to know what customers want for the holidays, you
need to know how they’re shopping now — online and offline. But there’s a lot
of data — in a lot of places — that goes into answering that question.
So, how are you supposed to combine all this data on who customers are
and what they’re doing? And how is that data supposed to deliver a winning
holiday experience?
Well, there are a few steps you can take right off the bat:
Who Are Your Customers, Really?
Knowing who customers are online is key to knowing who they are on the
whole. Web tracking lets you see who’s buying what, how long it’s taking them
to buy, and even push them to their next purchase. Yes, web is only one part of
customer experience, but it’s a big one, because of just how detailed the data
is. When you start with web, you can see trends — before they even become
trends — and that’s going to help you improve that overall experience.
Clean Up Your Data’s Act
There’s a lot of customer data out there — too much for your team to
ever go through. If you want to know what your customers want from an experience,
you need to completely change how you handle their data. Using AI to sort
through all that info — and find what really matters (and what doesn’t) — is
your best bet for better experiences. Whether that’s finding what products
they’ll want, or when they like to buy, or when they want to be reached, AI is
a boost for building better experiences for the holidays — and beyond.
Take An Active Role In Automation
A lot of brands have a set strategy for the holidays that they don’t
really change much year to year. Big mistake. Just because you can
re-use a holiday journey doesn’t mean you should. Marketing automation —
despite the name — isn’t a hands-off tool. More than just changing campaigns
based on how they did last year, you also need to make campaigns that change as
your customers go through them. And that means using triggers that can actually
respond to actions — so customers can shape their own experience.
Really knowing your customers — this is how you beat out the competition
over the holidays. When you’re ready with the right data and the right
experiences to use it, your CX won’t just win for the holidays — it’ll win on
the whole.
Ross Andrew Paquette is the founder and
CEO of Maropost, North America’s fastest growing marketing automation
company, as ranked by the Deloitte Technology Fast 500. After founding Maropost
in 2011, Paquette has gone on to double annual growth every year since, turning
a one-man operation into an international business. Acting as the strategic
center of the company, Paquette is responsible for determining both business
and development direction.
