Why fast fashion retailers should slow down and emphasize trust

Consumers are on the move, and their expectations are higher than ever, thanks to supply chain innovations pioneered by fashion industry front-runners. Speedy product development and great logistics management have helped brands like Zara and Uniqlo expand their presence and popularity in North America, bringing new benefits to consumers and new challenges to retailers.

Today’s consumers expect far more speed and accuracy from the brands that market to them. The challenge: How do fast fashion retailers balance speed with consumer preferences and incorporate both into their digital marketing strategy?

It’s About Balance

There’s no denying that speed is an important part of the equation. Expectations are on the rise, and consumers want the latest fashion trends yesterday. But when it comes to your digital marketing strategy, it’s relevance – not simply speed – that will win over shoppers.

For example, it’s always a good idea to recommend a new product that you know will get customers excited. But don’t promote or recommend a product that is at dangerously low stock levels. You don’t want to get a customer excited about buying that cool new jacket, only for that jacket to no longer be available come checkout time. It leaves a bad impression and can cause irreparable damage to your reputation with your customers.

The above is a prime example of retailers needing to balance their desire to make speedy recommendations for new products with their ability to deliver the goods.

Build Trust With Relevant Recommendations

Consumer trust is a crucial component for any retailer, but it’s doubly important in the fast fashion industry. How does your brand build trust with consumers? One way is to provide relevant product recommendations.

And it’s not hard to see why this is key for retailers.

If I purchase items from your online store and you continue to provide me with recommendations that are tailored to my needs, three things are likely to happen. I’m going to appreciate getting personalized recommendations based on what I like. I’m going to start trusting your recommendations and enjoy opening the emails you send me. And I’m going to be more likely to purchase from you.

Dive Into Your Data

Great, you may say, but how do you actually put that into action, and which customer data points do you need to evaluate to ensure your recommendations are relevant?

The most obvious data point to monitor is customer purchase activity. If a customer is purchasing sandals, T-shirts, and swim trunks, chances are they’re not interested in a down jacket.

Likewise, if you have a male customer who, as I do, exclusively shops for men’s products, the likelihood of them being interested in women’s products is slim. If you continue to send product recommendations designed for women, that customer’s trust in your recommendations will erode quickly.

Email activity is another source of indicative data. If a customer is opening their emails but not following through to your site, then perhaps there is some disconnect with your content or messaging for that customer. Perhaps your lack of compelling imagery, mobile rendering, or aesthetic design of the email is the problem.

Pick Up the Pace

Speed isn’t the most important factor when it comes to delivering a positive consumer experience, but make no mistake: speed is an important factor.

Purchase activity gives you a sense of the importance of speed to a shopper. To find out how much your customers value speed and to meet their expectations accordingly, try to answer these questions:

• Has your customer paid for expedited shipping in the past, or do they always choose standard delivery?

• Have they responded to upgraded shipping promotions? Try testing different speed thresholds to see where the breaking point is. Consider offering promotions at intervals of 7 days, 5 days, 3 days, or 2 days, and monitor the results.

Race to the Front

The fast fashion industry operates at breakneck speeds, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be left in the dust if you sacrifice a bit of speed to ensure the experience is personalized and optimized. Consumers are flocking to the fast fashion industry in droves, but they still expect a positive, relevant shopping experience. Delivering new, unique, and exciting products isn’t enough – and it isn’t anything if those products are mistargeted.

Take the time to emphasize and establish trust with consumers and build that relationship by continuing to deliver relevant recommendations to each customer. After all, if you don’t do it, someone else will.

This was originally published on Internet Retailer.

Why Mobile Payments Are Killing the Checkout Form

A colleague recently told me over lunch how much he loves pizza apps. “They’re just so easy.” When I asked him what was so easy, he said that while picking from the menu is part of the ease, the bigger part has to do with paying. It’s one touch.

Now, before you run out and hire a team to create an app for your brand, let’s think about how to make paying easier – whether someone visits your website from a desktop or wants to take advantage of email offers directly from their mobile device.

We talk a lot about omnichannel and the customer experience – making sure the cart is available, regardless of device, and providing a seamless shopping experience. But simply making shopping easy is just step one. Making it easier to pay is the key to conversion.

Mobile Shopping Is Here to Stay

According to eMarketer, 58% of mobile sales came from smartphones in 2016, and that number is expected to grow. Overall, mobile made up 29% of all ecommerce sales. But by 2021, it’s predicted that mobile will make up more than half of all ecommerce sales.

Retailers need to consider what this means for their sales. When consumers are looking to purchase on their devices, they expect a frictionless experience. And what provides more friction than being asked to enter an endless stream of billing and shipping details, often moving manually from box to box, all while on a small mobile screen?

Another colleague tells me she frequently abandons items at checkout when trying to buy on her mobile device. “Those forms are better than a strict budget for keeping my spending in check.’’ She recently recounted how she suffered through one form on a national retailer’s site solely because her too-busy-to-shop teenage daughter actually liked one of the dresses she had selected, and she couldn’t bear to abandon the shopping trip after thumbing through 120 sleeveless mini-dresses. She completed her purchase out of necessity, not convenience. If she could have found that baby blue skater dress on Amazon, she might have been tempted to bail altogether.

If your competitor offers a frictionless purchase experience and you do not, you may not only lose a sale now, but customers may remember this and bypass you altogether the next time they shop.

Security Plays a Key Role In Mobile Payment Behavior

The counter-argument is that most retailers allow users to save their credit card information on their site to make future checkouts easier. However, online security issues have minimized the usage of this tool. In fact, due to hacking concerns, 33% of consumers never save their credit card information, and 30% only use trusted payment methods, such as PayPal.

The result? More and more consumers are storing their payment information in their phones. There are one million Apple Pay accounts being activated weekly worldwide. As consumers continue to adopt mobile payments on their primary connected device, creating an easy way to allow consumers to check out will be an essential requirement in the very near future.

An intriguing facet to mobile payments is that Amazon’s U.S. patent for one-click payment technology expires this year, leaving the door open for other retailers to implement their own one-click solutions without licensing the technology from Amazon. Google is reportedly working on a one-click payment system that integrates with the Chrome browser.

This integration with Chrome goes beyond just mobile, and that itself is telling of the power that mobile payment options hold. The purchase process between an app, a laptop, and a mobile version of a site is almost always different from one another, but the goal is symmetry. As mobile purchasing becomes the standard, non-mobile devices will be forced to match that experience. Storing payment info in Chrome will allow users to easily check out regardless of the device they are on. Creating a symmetrical experience not only allows for a quicker checkout (which should decrease abandonment), but also improves the customer’s overall experience with your brand.

The time is right for retailers to provide a more simplified, convenient checkout experience. Don’t think of it as simply a way to optimize for mobile. It’s not. Mobile is the norm. Think of it in terms of giving your customers what they want. Long checkout forms on mobile devices are a thing of the past. Don’t believe it? Ask 100 people if they’d rather fill out a long form on their phone or make their next mobile purchase with the simple touch of a thumb.

This was originally published on Multichannel Merchant.

Stop Slashing Prices, Start Connecting With Your Customers

The retail sector is going through drastic changes. Established names like The Limited are closing or filing for bankruptcy. Amazon and Walmart squeeze everyone’s margins. Special discount shopping days like Black Friday have morphed into Gray November, a month-long deep discounting period. As brands fight to keep up with competitor discounts, profits and customer loyalty are harder to earn.

It is unrealistic for retailers to continue to increasingly discount and remain viable. After all, if a retailer offers 50% off, they’ll need double the sales to reach the same margins. And, oftentimes, the unit sales immediately after the promotion ends suffer as a result. But with global competition increasing, what are retailers to do? Keep up with the Joneses and hope to remain viable, or take a risk and go against the grain to try to increase profits? While some retailers need to rely on discounting, I’d argue that most don’t.

I recently spoke with a fashion retailer who recognized the endless discount cycle dilemma. They had been stuck in this discounting rut, but did not want to be known as a discount brand. They prided themselves on making quality products at a reasonable price, and this constant discounting was bad for their brand and devalued their product. This past holiday season, they made a straightforward business decision: No guts, no glory. At their busiest time of the year, they chose not to discount.

Hello Guts, Meet Glory

While their competitors were running 30%, 40% and even 50% off specials during the busiest shopping period of the year, this retailer resisted the urge. As the season played out, they saw a 10% growth in total revenue until the last week of December (more on that below). On top of the 10% growth, their margins were protected. They generated 30% to 40% greater profits for those units sold.

This retailer also runs an annual day-after-Christmas and clearance sale. This year was no exception. But how would the previous non-discounting impact this sale? As it turns out, one side effect of the non-discounting strategy was that it created and satisfied the demand for a discount. This year’s clearance sale set records in volume of units sold, selling 10 times more year over year. It satisfied the demand of those looking for a deal while not taking away from their traditional after-Christmas strategy.

Having this conversation can be scary. Before you pull the ditch-the-discounts ripcord, first look at ways to strengthen your current brand positioning.

Focus on Your Brand

What does the brand stand for? How consumers perceive your brand can ultimately determine whether they will purchase from you without a discount, much less become a loyal customer. Consider brands that have a cause, like TOMS Shoes. Consumers connect with their cause and, because of that, they are generally willing to spend more on a product.

Does your brand focus on quality, value, customer service, personalized services, etc.? Do you have social causes? Do you convey this within your messaging on your website, email, and social profiles? If you remove or lessen discounts, consider whether you offer customers enough value-adds to purchase from you and not a competitor.

Planning for The Long Haul

Since you will no longer be relying on sending a generic 30% off promotion to drive sales, your general batch and blast email strategy will likely need to become a little more refined. You’ll need to maintain a more relevant customer experience. Focus on segmenting where you can. Include intuitive product recommendations inside your emails and on your website. Analyze your lifecycle messaging and determine how you can redesign them to provide the most value to the end user. Engage, I mean really engage, with your audience on social media. Ask questions, proactively comment, and deploy user-generated content to make the site and email experience better.

Evaluate Your Automated Marketing Strategy

When making the decision to pull back on promotions, the next step is to evaluate this strategy with your automated messages. If you have discounts in your welcome, post-purchase, shopping cart, or other automated message series, determine whether you want to maintain this strategy. In some cases, you may, as these messages are triggered from user actions. Since these messages are sent to single contacts, you may decide it is worth “rewarding” subscribers for engaging.

The Aftermath

Just because you no longer set the expectations of continuous discounting doesn’t mean you have to end discounting altogether. Occasional sales may ultimately carry more weight with consumers as they know deals are few and far between with your brand. This will also appeal to those consumers who specifically look for deals.

By avoiding blanket price discounts, you can experiment in configuring promotions. Consider free or expedited shipping promotions, for instance. These carry weight with consumers while protecting margins. Retailers can run promotions on grouped items instead of single SKUs, therefore increasing average order value while still protecting margins.

There is no one strategy for fighting back against deep discounting. Retailers will need to determine how far they are willing to commit to the strategy, and to what extent their customers are willing to tolerate the pullback. While the retailer I mentioned earlier plans on enhancing their overall strategy by refining their segmentation and timing of messages, I did ask him if there was anything he would do over again based on his experience. His answer, “Not really.” That answer is quite telling. Whether the success of this strategy is sustainable, only time will tell. But right now, this retailer is enjoying the glory.

This was originally published on Multichannel Merchant.

Why an Email Unsubscribe Can Be a Good Thing

It’s a fact. Someone will unsubscribe every time you send a batch promotional email. And while we all hate to see our subscribers go, wouldn’t you be open to a higher unsubscribe rate if it meant increasing your revenue? How you view your unsubscribes not only affects your email strategy and its revenue potential but also influences improvements you should make to your automated messages and your yearly list growth goals. Let’s discuss.

People unsubscribe for a variety of reasons. The most common include receiving too many emails and irrelevant content. Often, the “too many” threshold is actually determined by the proportion of irrelevant content, such as those situations when the content is meaningless to the reader or fails to change from one message to the next. I know of retailers who send every day, or even multiple times daily, whose unsubscribe rate is no different than the retailer sending only a few times each week. While there may be an opportunity to drive additional revenue by increasing sends, we need to recognize the full impact of those sends on a subscriber database.

At what point do the inevitable unsubscribes begin to hurt your bottom line? Determining the cost of the unsubscribe is an important step to answering that question. Knowing the cost can help you optimize your sending strategy throughout the year, particularly when planning for periods of increased sending, such as the holiday season.

What Do Unsubscribes Cost?

First, look at your weekly and monthly unsubscribes and their order history. How many unsubscribes were non-buyers, one-time buyers, or frequent buyers? How much revenue did they account for? This is your potential lost revenue on a per email basis. Now that you have this number, determine how much revenue an average email generates. These totals will give you some basic data to figure out how much unsubscribes are really worth.

In the example below, the number of unsubscribes over a one-week period (assuming four sends) was 300, and they accounted for $10,400 in past revenue.

How to calculate the cost of an email marketing unsubscribe

However, we know only 100 of the 300 contacts accounted for that revenue. Using these figures, on a per-send basis, we can assume a loss of $2,600 in past revenue from unsubscribes. However, if each email sent generates an average of $15,000 in revenue, we are left with an overall net gain of $12,400 per email. So, increasing sends from four to five days per week should net roughly an extra $645,000 in yearly email revenue while resulting in an increased loss of 3,900 contacts (75 per week for 52 weeks) in unsubscribes.

In this scenario, the extra revenue driven for every unsubscribed contact was $165. That’s a nice figure, especially considering 2,600 of the 3,900 unsubscribes come from non-buyers.

Are Your Non-Buyer Opt-Outs Worth It?

You can take this one step further and analyze the length of subscription among your non-buyer unsubscribes. How many have been a part of your email program for less than 30 days, between 1-3 months, and so on? Are the non-buyer unsubscribes recently acquired prospects you have lost, or have they simply been dead weight on your email list all along? Now, look at your purchasers. How long has it been since their last purchase?

How Do Email Unsubscribes Affect List Growth?

If we know 300 contacts per week are unsubscribing (4 emails at 75 unsubscribes each), and we add one extra email each week, we assume we will lose 375 per week. Over one year, we will expect to lose 19,500 contacts due to unsubscribing. In order to maintain a positive subscriber churn, this should be the minimum goal for yearly subscriber acquisition. I say minimum because you will naturally see members of your list unsubscribe from other emails you send, such as automated messages.

Having a concrete acquisition goal is imperative for maintaining the health of your email program. If you’re not focused on the acquisition, you should be. Explore all areas for potential sign-ups, especially in the wake of Google’s recent pop-up changes.

What Can Opt-Outs and Converters Tell You About Automated Messaging?

Looking at the order history of your unsubscribes may also indicate engagement opportunities to address. For example, if most unsubscribes are one-time purchasers, you may need to strengthen your post-purchase program for first-time buyers or do a better job meeting overall customer expectations with orders. If the opt-outs are from recently acquired non-buyers, it may be a sign you need to strengthen your onboarding process to help drive conversions or more closely analyze your acquisition method.

Do the same with converters. Look at the makeup of purchasers on a per email basis. Did the conversions come from non-buyers making their first purchase, one-time buyers buying for a second time or three-plus repeat purchasers? Remember, each of your email converters should now funnel into a post-purchase campaign, which should either convert them once more or strengthen your brand loyalty prospects.

Gaining these insights will help you know when to strengthen areas of your post-purchase program specifically dedicated to first-time and returning buyers.

Final Considerations

Honestly, I never worried about unsubscribes. Frankly, if a contact opts out, they have made the decision to stop interacting with you via email well before pushing that button. If it wasn’t this email, it would have been the next one. Do your best to encourage subscribers to want to stay, but focus more on delivering quality to those who still open your messages. Here are some strategies and resources to guide you along this journey:

• Focus on lifecycle messaging. Build a customer-centric post-purchase program that reinforces brand value and helps create loyalty, and create a relevant onboarding welcome series for newly acquired contacts.

• Send relevant emails, especially to previous buyers. Segment where you can, and consider tactics like inserting product recommendations into your emails. Customized product recommendations can even make batch-and-blast messaging more relevant.

• Focus on subscriber acquisition. If you are not creating a positive churn in subscribers, you need to get serious about list growth.

• Consider offering pause or mute options to curb unsubscribes and give your contacts a temporary break from your emails.

• Don’t let the communication end. Optimize your opt-out confirmation page to include invitations to connect in other ways, such as social media.

Start worrying less about unsubscribes, and begin paying closer attention to what those unsubscribes can teach you about how to strengthen your email program and drive more revenue.

Crafting A More Robust Cart Recovery Strategy

Common industry statistics indicate that more than 70% of all online shopping carts are abandoned. Yet retailers generally treat all shoppers who abandon carts the same, regardless of what items they were shopping for. While this one-size-fits-all approach may work for many, it doesn’t work for everyone. The reasons for abandoning a cart tend to vary based on cart total, and the needs of the shopper also tend to change as the cost increases. So, using a blanket approach for cart recovery emails is likely costing retailers valuable sales.

Here’s an example: I was recently in the market for a dishwasher and began by shopping online. I browsed via laptop and smartphone, read reviews, carted (and abandoned) products, and viewed products in stores. In the midst of my journey, I started receiving abandoned cart emails. What stood out to me is that they were not at all helpful. As close as I was to making a purchase, none of these messages helped convince me to do so. They failed.

Failure to Launch

These messages failed because they did not consider the buyer’s motivation and obstacles to conversion. Someone shopping for a $30 item likely has different needs and hesitations than someone considering a $700 item. Higher priced items typically generate more comparison shopping and a longer buying cycle, and they might need services attached to their purchase, such as delivery, installation and haul-away. For consumers that have filled a cart with items that equal a high-dollar figure, there often comes the natural hesitation of, “Do I really need all of this?”

Knowing Your Buyer

Consider these two cart recovery emails. They were sent from the same retailer, but the price points of the abandoned products are vastly different.

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The abandoned products should have determined not only the main messaging but also the recommendations inside the emails. The free shipping callout in the example with the $30 EarPods works well, as my cart total is less than the required threshold. However, the recommended products feature items that cost hundreds to thousands of dollars. These recommendations simply don’t make sense.

In the dishwasher example, however, the prominently displayed free shipping callout is not appropriate for this message. And while the recommendations are more in line with what I am actually shopping for, they don’t help convert me on the dishwasher purchase.

And in both cases, the main messaging tells me they can help, but they fail to mention exactly how. What’s my next step?

This is just one retailer of many whose messaging strategy could use refining. Had any of these companies considered the product I was shopping for or my cart total, they may have directly addressed the obstacles that caused me to abandon my purchase in the first place. In the case of the Earpods, give me some logical product recommendations to bump me over the free shipping threshold. With the dishwasher, include information about how their staff could help me decide on the perfect model, or give me more information on their haul-away and installation services. Without meaningful supporting content, the brand turned these highly relevant messages into something that was mostly useless.

Optimizing Your Cart Recovery Strategy

Abandoned cart messaging should be used to remove conversion obstacles and encourage the customer to purchase. By factoring in details such as cart total, carted items, and their categories and/or the number of items in the cart, you can begin to customize messaging that better targets the individual shopper. Your messaging can reinforce appropriate value-adds, such as free shipping or links to resources, that can be used to determine how many messages should be sent, the timing of those message,s and if or when an incentive should be included.

Retailers today should be focused on providing the right kind of messaging based on the kinds of products left in the cart. For smaller items, the options are simpler – recommendations to help reach a free shipping threshold or maybe even a discount. For larger, non-impulse purchases, focus on information that encourages shoppers to choose your store over the competitors. By overcoming obstacles and encouraging purchases at this final stage of the online checkout process, you can take the most effective approach to recovering those abandoned carts and converting the shoppers behind them.

This was originally published on Multichannel Merchant.

Customers Are King: Are You Giving Them the Royal Treatment?

As memories of the holiday season fade, the focus has now shifted to improving sales in the year ahead. But as competition expands globally and consumer expectations become even more demanding, this can be a daunting task.

Today’s consumers expect more from retailers: relevance, ease of purchase, mobile-friendly engagement, convenient shipping and return policies, availability, engagement, and overall value, just to name a few. While this may seem overwhelming, it’s likely you already provide some of these features and services. Now take that next step and truly make 2017 the year of the consumer.

Audit Your Engagement Tactics

The first step in this plan is to analyze your marketing programs and find the gaps in your consumer touchpoints. Do you use social platforms, and if so, which ones? From an email perspective, how many messages do you send each week? Do you have lifecycle messaging, and if so, which messages are you sending? Which ones are missing? When was the last time you bought from your own brand? Go ahead and do it! Make a purchase and analyze every stage from the eye of the consumer, from transactional messages to packaging. Do you offer an experience that helps create loyalty? Identifying potential weak points in your customer journey can help you begin to fill your immediate needs.

Size Up Your Competition

Now that you have reviewed your own customer touchpoints, how do they compare to your competitors? What value do you provide that they don’t? How do your shipping and return policies differ, and are you communicating these differences to consumers? What marketing automation does your competition have in place? It’s easy to find out.

Sign up for their email programs, and wait for the messages to roll into your inbox. Take a look at their welcome series and their cart and browse recovery messaging. Reply to an email and ask a product-specific question to see what the response time is like.

How else do they communicate from a customer service perspective? Do they offer live chat, 24-7 phone support, or active social channels? Don’t forget to make a purchase and evaluate their customer experience. Do they have an automated post-purchase series? How does it compare to yours?

Adapt Your Lifecycle Messaging

Lifecycle messages are a great part of a customer-focused marketing plan, but as consumer behavior changes, your strategy behind those messages should shift accordingly. For example, does your welcome series speak to all newly acquired contacts with generic content or target them differently? Does your email content relate to what they were viewing when they signed up or what they clicked on in your welcome email?

If not, give such messages a try. Does your cart recovery strategy take into account the differences in your shoppers? For example, the abandoners carting $700 worth of products are much different than those abandoning $30 worth of products. Do you tailor your messages for each audience? Examine all of your automated messages to determine if your strategy needs to change at all.

Optimize Your Promotional Messaging

Now that you’ve identified your gaps and assessed your lifecycle messages, focus on improving your promotional emails. How can you make them more relevant, especially if you are sending batch-and-blast messaging? Including product recommendations, purchase data, or social media content can make these common messages more engaging for the subscriber and more effective for your brand.

Take Advantage of Social Media

Creating an online connection between brand and consumer has always been a challenge for retailers, but social media has significantly bridged that gap. What social platforms do you use? Are they the channels your customers use? Do you monitor your accounts and respond to inquiries? Do you proactively engage with users? Consumers are interacting with social platforms much more frequently than they do with your website and emails. Use them to your advantage and actively engage with your audience.

Implement a Browse Behavior Strategy

While I addressed automated email marketing, the process of capturing and using browse behavior is a strategy that deserves a little more focus. Much like cart recovery, these messages are naturally relevant to the recipient as they target subscribers with emails based on what they were browsing. But as they haven’t yet carted a specific product, you have more room to be creative with your messaging and cross-promote related items. After all, you know they are shopping, but you may not know for which specific product they are shopping for. If they are not yet part of your arsenal, you should strongly consider introducing them.

What’s It All For?

By offering an endless stream of discounts to attract customers, retailers have backed themselves into a corner. While this has implications all year round, this approach has dramatically reshaped the holiday shopping season by turning one-time stand-alone days, such as Black Friday, into a Gray November.

The offers never stop, and therefore, they no longer stand out. By taking the time to evaluate and optimize your strategy to focus on the customer, you’re giving them what they want, while attracting new customers and strengthening customer loyalty in the process. Having a dedicated focus on consumers allows you to test adjustments to your discounting strategy and attempt to retake your margins.

One retailer I recently spoke with took this approach and did not discount at all this past December. Not only did they see an increase in sales, they significantly increased profits. According to the retailer, it was a “gamble worth testing” that ultimately allowed them to take greater control of their own revenue destiny.

Consumers expect more. The ways they engage are evolving, and the competition is heating up. Being customer-centric is no longer a nice to have – it is essential. Dedicate time and effort to providing your customers with the best experience possible, and make 2017 the year of the consumer.

This article was originally published on www.bronto.com

How Retailers Are Redefining the Shopping Experience

I recently found myself popping in and out of stores in the SoHo section of New York City, and one thing stood out to me – the in-store experience left a lot to be desired. Too many times, I walked into a store only to be greeted with a very passive “Hello,” at which point the store associates turned back to whatever they were doing before. To maximize space, stocked items were often jammed together from floor to ceiling, making me feel like I was in some claustrophobic cave of color palettes. The experience wasn’t enjoyable; in fact, it felt more like an exercise in futility.

Years ago, shoppers might have expected a grumpy sales associate and a cluttered sales floor. But as ecommerce and technology have evolved, the consumer has come to expect convenience, both online and in-store. We are increasingly less tolerant of experiences like the one I had in SoHo.

Technology has changed the face of retail. It has affected how consumers shop and interact with brands. Yet, even though ecommerce is growing, a TimeTrade survey revealed that 85% of U.S. consumers say they still prefer to buy from physical stores even if the same products are available online.

In an age where retailers can easily compete with other brands from every corner of the world, customer experience is more important than ever. Technology helped create this expectation for convenience, but it has also provided a means to deliver it. And forward-thinking retailers are really using it to their advantage.

Brick-and-Mortar

According to BloomReach, 88% of shoppers will use a smartphone to assist them when they shop in a physical store. The first instinct for many retailers is to remove the technology for fear of losing sales to competitors. But smartphone-browsing shoppers will spend 20% more than those not browsing online, according to InMoment. So instead of fretting about what customers are doing on their smartphones, give them something positive to do that enhances the shopping experience.

For example, Rebecca Minkoff’s New York location has smart dressing rooms that allow shoppers to interact with a display screen. They can customize their experience by viewing other sizes or colors of available products, adjusting the lighting, requesting assistance, and even saving the session information to their personal profile, which they can conveniently store on their smartphone. In this example, the associate is not driving the interaction but rather ensuring the shopper’s requests are met.

Lowes Home Improvement launched the HaloRoom Experience in some of its US stores, where customers can use a mixed reality environment to plan their kitchen remodel, select cabinetry, hardware, countertops, and appliances, and view what it will all look like in the end. This technology can eliminate some of the uncertainty many shoppers face when planning their new dream kitchen and help overcome obstacles to purchasing such a high-ticket project.

These are only two examples of how retailers are redefining the shopping experience. Retailers such as Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale’s, Ralph Lauren, Kate Spade and Topshop are also offering, or at least testing, in-store technology.

But we’ve only scratched the surface of how in-store technology will revolutionize the in-store experience. As this technology develops and becomes easier to implement and maintain, it will become more commonplace, and retailers who hold back now will be playing catch-up for a long time to come.

Online Shopping Experience

Enhancing the in-person experience is one thing. Enhancing the online experience is another, especially given that users are ultimately in control and can leave or get distracted at a moment’s notice. While online shopping is as convenient for consumers as a few clicks on a smartphone, it has caused headaches for retailers, from increased global competition to processing returns. According to Shotfarm, 42% of customers returned something they bought online. These returns are costing retailers millions each year and can present logistical inventory and accounting nightmares.

But online shopping lends itself to uncertainty in knowing if an article of clothing will fit just right, or a piece of furniture will look good in the living room, which is precisely why consumers expect hassle-free returns. Retailers must look for ways to redefine the online shopping experience to reduce return costs and also provide customers with an experience that encourages customer loyalty.

Some retailers have begun experimenting with a variety of technologies to provide an easier and more reliable online shopping experience.

FitAnalytics provides a size recommendation engine that uses only a few pieces of information to recommend the perfect size for clothing. It also lets shoppers know how many people eventually returned the product in that size due to improper fit. This reassurance, much like a collection of customer reviews, can help offset any hesitation the buyer may feel when deciding which size to order.

Fashion Metric also offers a virtual sizer, both online and in-store via an app. Online, it allows users to input a few basic measurements, such as waist size for men, and delivers custom suit sizing in just moments. This eliminates the need for tape measures or for customers to keep up with fairly uncommon measurements, like chest size. I own suits but haven’t the slightest idea of my chest size. The entire process took me less than one minute to complete. For a complete suit, that’s pretty remarkable.

Zugara offers a technology that allows a user to virtually try on clothes using their webcam. Customers can select a garment and resize, reposition or change the color of the item they’re “wearing,” giving them a much better idea of how it will look on them.

One complication with these technologies is the disparity of the experience across devices. The shopping experience on a desktop or laptop easily accommodates these webcam features, but those may not be accessible on a smartphone or tablet. While shopping on mobile, from browsing to checkout, has become relatively easy, improving the experience to allow for such technology seems a bit far off yet.

The Good News and The Bad News

At the end of the day, ease of use will be the critical factor in determining whether users will accept or reject shopping technology. If it is easy to use and provides real value to the customer, they will flock to it. If it’s cumbersome or doesn’t significantly improve the shopping experience, they will quickly move on.

The good and bad news is the same, and that is we have only just begun with this retail technology arms race. Personally, I look forward to one day walking into a store and having everything I know about shopping completely turned upside down.

This was originally published on Multichannel Merchant.

The Next Generation of Batch-and-Blast Email Marketing

Miami-dwelling Joe likes the colorful Bermuda shorts and green boat shoes he found on your website. But when he gets the email promotion featuring the black winter jacket? Not so much.

Today’s consumers expect relevant communication from retailers, and in this example, Joe’s expectations were not met. It’s also the kind of example that’s been used to knock batch-and-blast emails as an ineffective strategy. But what if you could still batch-and-blast – and personalize?

With segmentation tools, recommendation engines, and easy-to-use lifecycle messaging automation, you can actually make batch-and-blast emails relevant to the individual consumer. Let’s explore how you can use these tools to revive your batch-and-blast messaging.

Segmentation Tools

Tools for segmentation are now built into most marketing automation platforms and make audience segmentation easier than ever. They also put the data, such as web browsing, email, and purchase activity, along with information provided by the consumer, in the hands of the actual marketer, not the IT department. This immediate access to data can be used to seriously enhance the overall user experience in a variety of ways. For instance, location data can be used to insert local store information into emails or target customers in the area when a new store is opening.

Product Recommendations

Once you’ve gathered segmentation data, you can use it to determine which products to display to the individual user. Using product recommendations based on subscriber data as secondary content in batch-and-blast emails increases the relevance of your message, and it can all be done without developing multiple variations of the message. You can use them to recommend similar products, upsell products, suggest accessories, or increase average order value, among other things.

Lifecycle Messages

Lifecycle messaging automation is an extremely effective strategy for retailers and can be a great way to augment batch-and-blast messages. Lifecycle messages, such as a welcome series, post-purchase series, and shopping cart abandonment, are high-revenue drivers, and retailers now have the ability to automate these messages with ease. They’re already very relevant to your audience, but you can enhance the experience for your customers even further with meaningful product recommendations.

Since crafting unique versions of day-to-day emails is no longer required, consider spending that saved time on creating more specific messaging for these series based on other factors, such as the source of acquisition or the category of products purchased. For instance, a post-purchase series for my new television should be different than the one for my new headphones. Combining this unique messaging with recommendations can be a significant win-win.

Having these tools readily available gives you the ability to take a one-size-fits-all email message and make it increasingly relevant. Since that winter jacket email to Joe now also highlights the latest tropical warm-weather items he’s sure to love, he doesn’t have to worry about being left out in the cold by an irrelevant email.

Batch and blast isn’t dead. It’s just growing up.

This was originally published on Multichannel Merchant.

A Gray November Recap From My Inbox’s Point of View

With consumers shopping earlier, thanks to heavier discounting, earlier promotions, and a trend toward buying for themselves, Black Friday and Cyber Monday no longer kick off holiday shopping. They’re merely a part of it. Instead, we’re now seeing the rise of Gray November, a month-long start to the holiday shopping season. According to Adobe Digital Insights, over $1 billion in online revenue was generated on 27 of the first 28 days in November, for a grand total of $39.97 billion. And of those sales, 18% can be attributed to email.

As a subscriber to hundreds of email programs, I decided to look at my own inbox for indications that the Gray November trend is continuing. Here are some of my key findings.

Discounting

In an attempt to attract customers earlier in the season, retailers have begun offering discounts continuously throughout the year, with deeper discounts around the holidays. Consumers have come to expect these early discounts, and retailers have delivered.

Did the trend continue this year? From what I saw, the answer is yes.

In looking through my inbox for incentives advertised in the subject line*, discounts as high as 50% were among the top three incentives offered every single week since mid-October. Nearly two weeks prior to Black Friday, 50% became the most advertised discount. In fact, from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, the 50% discount was the most touted, with a minor exception on November 26, when it came in just 0.4% behind a free shipping offer.*

Please note: Subject lines may have contained multiple discounts, such as 20% and free shipping. This email was counted for both.

Cyber Weekend Send Volume

If companies are looking to gain customers earlier in the season, we assume they‘ll send more emails earlier. How did the rest of Gray November compare to the always busy Thanksgiving weekend?

The three highest send days in my inbox were, in order: Cyber Monday, Black Friday and Thanksgiving Day.

Even with a month-long shopping period, this should come as no surprise. These signature days are still synonymous with holiday shopping and continued to be the most popular sending days for retailers during Gray November. Black Friday sends were 39.4% greater than Thanksgiving Day, and Cyber Monday was 12.6% higher than Black Friday. Bronto Software also reported an 11.4% lift in emails sent on Cyber Monday compared to Black Friday.

Cyber Week Sends

In looking at sends to my personal email, they began to dramatically increase during the week of November 14, and this increase only continued during the week of Thanksgiving. When I compare daily sends that week with the average number of sends for the same weekday during the three weeks prior, I saw these jumps in sending activity.

Subject Lines

I always enjoy seeing what subject line strategies marketers go with during the harried Cyber Weekend. Here are a few things I noticed from this year’s holiday email flurry:

• Thanksgiving Day: “Black Friday” was used in 34% of subject lines, compared to only 20% for “Thanksgiving.”

• Black Friday: The term “Black Friday” was used in 50% of emails sent.

• November 26: “Black Friday” was used in 26% of emails, and 10% referred to the sale being “extended.”

• November 27: “Cyber Monday” was used in 21.8% of subject lines, and “Black Friday” was still being used for 14.4%.

• Cyber Monday: The term “Cyber Monday” was used in 46% of emails, which was slightly less than the 50% of Black Friday mentions that day.

• November 23-28: Only 12 emails (of thousands) used my first name in the subject line.

The New Norm

Gray November continues to gain ground, as consumers are expecting and finding discounts earlier in the season. If retailers were late to adapt to this shift in consumer shopping behavior this year, they won’t likely do so next year. Gray November is the new norm.

3 Ways to Cultivate Post-Holiday Customer Loyalty

How do retailers turn seasonal gift buyers into year-round customers? The fact is, it’s a struggle. Some customers may not want to hear from you for another 365 days, while others may need more personalized suggestions before they’ll make another purchase. Either way, at the very least, you want them to come back next year. But too often, retailers don’t devise a plan and simply lump these customers back into the regular stream of batch-and-blast messaging.

True story. My colleague used to buy a gift basket every year from the same company. She came to rely on their perfectly timed email with details of the previous year’s purchase and the option to reorder. It was so simple that she never bothered to shop around for a better deal. But last year, she didn’t receive that email. Instead, the company blasted her inbox with generic promotional emails. Figuring one of the promotions would help her get to the price point she’d enjoyed in the past, she started shopping. But she soon gave up. The promotions were all designed to promote a higher spend, so she ended up buying her gift basket from a competitor.

Instead of using the same old batch-and-blast strategy and expecting different results, you should be looking at every possible angle to exploit gift-giving opportunities well beyond the holiday season. Setting up a gift reminder email program is one of these opportunities. While common among online floral companies, it’s surprisingly underutilized by other retailers. Let’s change that.

Setting up such a service doesn’t have to be major undertaking. It’s actually quite easy to collect the necessary data and integrate it into your automated email process. Here are a few ways to begin turning those seasonal gifters into year-long buyers with a basic gift reminder program.

Optimize Your Forms

No need to start from scratch. Try tweaking your existing managed preference form. Update it to include fields such as occasion date, first name of possible recipient, relationship (e.g. child, parent) and occasion.

You can always create a new form and embed it on your purchase confirmation page. Just be sure to use warm, friendly language and let people know why you’re asking for this information. Those who find value in your products as gifts will typically see the value of your reminder service.

Optimize Your Transactional Messages

Take the time to incorporate promotional material into your order and shipping confirmations. Beyond the immediate upsell, create a section that calls attention to your gift reminder service. Not only are these messages opened at a high rate, but they are also sent to non-subscribers. This could double as a great way to grow your subscriber base.

Create Dedicated Messaging

Advertise your gift reminder service through stand-alone messaging. From an automated standpoint, include these messages in your engagement series, such as your post-purchase and welcome series. For a new subscriber, this is a value-add your site offers that your competitor might not. For those who just purchased, it might plant the seed that they should keep you top of mind the next time they’re looking for a gift. In addition to these automated messages, consider sending these messages to your entire audience once or twice a year.

No matter how you collect this important data, it will allow you to better target your messages and include product recommendations that cater to the specific recipient or the event. A subscriber searching for an upcoming anniversary gift will most certainly want to consider a different assortment of products than the parent shopping for a five-year-old’s birthday. Just imagine the personalization possibilities. Talk about relevant messaging!

A great user experience requires relevant content. A gift reminder service provides this relevance and helps build a connection between the consumer and the brand. Collecting more specific details from your customer creates so many opportunities to sell to these gift-buyers throughout the year, promote your brand as a go-to gift destination, and provide an overall better user experience.

This was originally published on Multichannel Merchant.

How to Give Your Lifecycle Messages a Holiday Refresh

With the holiday season comes a natural increase in the number of lifecycle messages sent. Think about it. More site visitors lead to more email sign-ups, which trigger more welcome series sends. An increase in shoppers means an increase in browse and cart recovery messaging and post-purchase emails for those holiday buyers. And all of these messages affect the overall user experience.

Have you reviewed your lifecycle messaging lately? What's the current experience like for your customers? It’s important to analyze it, particularly during the time of year when consumers will likely be browsing and buying more.

Here are three lifecycle series that are often significantly affected by the holidays and some suggestions for adjusting them for the busy shopping season.

1. Welcome Series

Consider shortening the time between messages. During this time of year, consumers have so much information readily available to them, and they tend to make purchase decisions quicker. Combine this with a natural increase in promotional send cadence, and you may want to shift your messages from every three days to every one or two.

Include a top gifts section or stand-alone message. Why not speak to what many customers, especially new subscribers, may be looking for during the holidays? Rather than showing generic content, provide some simple gifting recommendations by category or price point.

Shift your sign-up incentive. Instead of offering a blanket 10% discount for signing up (especially if this pales in comparison to your standard holiday discount), be creative and offer a better deal to customers. With the rise in self-gifting, consider a tiered discount that rewards the subscriber with a larger discount the more they spend. This allows them to purchase for themselves as well as others. You might also consider offering a free gift or gift card with purchase.

To be more daring, you could eliminate the series altogether, after the initial welcome, of course. This is not a tactic I would personally consider, as building brand value is especially important nowadays. However, this might be something to think about during the final push when you want to be sure your new subscribers receive the last round of great deals before the end of the season.

2. Cart Recovery

Think about timing. At this time of year, consumers may be making purchases quicker than usual. Look at the current gap between messages, and see if an adjustment makes sense. Moving your third message from four days to three may be just enough to recapture some lingering shoppers.

Consider testing promotions. Since we know consumers are buying for themselves as much as others, incorporate a tiered discount or free gift into the cart recovery message in an attempt to increase the purchase amount. You can even test discounting across several messages in the series, with an increase in the offer as you go. This allows the consumer to receive an incentive earlier, but still leaves you some room to offer your traditional discount.

Add more messages. That’s right! You're not limited to just three messages. Add a fourth or even fifth message to your series. Combining this with the other strategies above can give you even more options. Then you can shorten your window between messages, while still using your larger discount later in the series. You can also use a variation of discounts as you go to determine which one your audience responds to best.

3. Post-Purchase

As more people qualify to receive the post-purchase series, consider customizing it to speak to the seasonal purchaser.

Reconsider product review emails. These could be a waste at this time of year. It will likely vary based on the products you sell, but if people are buying for a gift, asking them to review the product is quite irrelevant. Consider sending these messages to those who purchase in November but suppressing those who purchase in December.

Highlight your extended return policy. If you offer one, share this everywhere you can. It’s not only a great value-add that can help drive the sale, but it’s also an excellent relationship-building tool once you complete the sale. Just think of the great impression you could leave with buyers from such a customer-centric policy.

Promote your gift reminder service. Don’t have one? Create one! One of the major challenges for retailers is getting seasonal shoppers to return. A gift reminder service can allow you to communicate with subscribers throughout the year, and it also puts your brand in consideration as a gift-searching destination.

Create a unique series for first-time buyers. This focused series can call out the fact that you do make a great gifting destination while focusing on your value-adds and recommending ways they can get the most from their purchase (e.g. resource centers, return policies). How you engage with the customer at this point may make all the difference between having a one-time purchaser or a loyal shopper.

Keeping the customer experience in mind during this time of year is critical. Review your lifecycle messages, and look for ways to make the user experience even better.

Hopefully, your adjusted strategy will not only help you increase sales around the holidays but all year round as well.

Is Google Trying to Kill the Mobile Popup?

As you may have heard by now, come January 2017, Google’s search rankings will begin penalizing mobile websites that have pop-ups and interstitials. The reason?  Google says it is focused on providing users with a smooth mobile experience and allowing them to access the information they are looking for without interruption. The search provider believes that even if “optimized” for mobile devices, these features contribute to a poorer experience because of the devices’ smaller size.

Here are a few examples from a recent Google post of interstitials that will be penalized:

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These examples include some common tools for email subscription used by many online retailers.

Not all interstitials will be treated equal, however. Google will not penalize mobile sites that use them for legal obligations, login dialogs, or banners that use a “reasonable amount” of space and are easily dismissible as seen below. It should be noted that the sizing specs for “reasonable” have not yet been specified.

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Will It Really Matter?

So how much will this actually affect retailers? We don’t know yet. It’s only one of hundreds of criteria that determine Google’s ranking. In their blog post, Google states that “a page may still rank highly if it has great, relevant content.” Relevance seems to be the key word here. For larger retailers, such as WalMart, any negative impact may be minimal for them.

Smaller online retailers, who consistently rank lower and rely more heavily on ads to drive traffic, may feel the negative effect of keeping their pop-up is worth it. Growing their email list allows them to continually market their products to potential customers, and this may be their highest priority. Retailers will need to determine which side of the coin they fall on and whether the potential benefits outweigh the risks.

Are There Workarounds?

In looking at the allowable interstitial that uses a “reasonable amount of screen space,” there may be an opportunity to embed or link a subscription form into that appropriately-sized interstitial. It may be only a matter of time before maximizing that area will become the next targeting strategy.

Going “Old School”

This change does reinforce the importance for retailers to once again focus on the “old school” best practices for email collection. Strategies often abandoned in favor of a pop-up or lightbox, such as a prominent sign-up that lives above the fold on almost all pages of the site will be critical for maximizing sign-ups for mobile users.

Pop-ups and interstitials will still be allowed on the desktop version without penalty, which is good news for retailers looking to grow their subscriber file while still using these methods. But if you didn’t think providing customers with a smooth, mobile-first experience was absolutely critical before, it certainly is now. If you would like to see how mobile-friendly your website currently is, Google has a quick and easy tool for that.

While there’s still plenty of time to prepare prior to January, I wouldn’t wait. The conversation about email acquisition and other interstitial strategies should take place now so any changes can be implemented well in advance.

This was originally published on Multichannel Merchant.

Put Your Transactional Messages to Work

Order, shipping, and other transactional messages are an essential part of any successful ecommerce program, but we often overlook them as opportunities to generate more revenue. These messages produce high open rates and are sent to all contacts, not just email subscribers. What better place to cross-promote and attract attention to more of what you have to offer. Let’s explore how to make the most of these messages:

Placement of Promotional Content

There are two primary places to feature promotional content in a transactional message: the right rail and below the transactional content. I prefer the right rail, as it keeps promotional content above the fold and naturally draws your attention.

Types of Promotional Content

What should you promote in these sections? Well, it depends on a lot of factors, such as price point and the products you sell. Do you sell items that require accompanying items that are often forgotten about, such as batteries? For example, if you sell cameras, consider memory cards, stands, selfie sticks, or battery backups. If you sell clothing, consider purses, jewelry, shoes, or an accompanying top or bottom. If you don’t have the ability to easily recommend specific products, consider advertising higher-level categories in this space.

You can make these recommendations as specific as possible with the help of a recommendation engine or simply feature static products or categories. Does your brand offer great gift merchandise? Tout a gift-giving section or link to a gift reminder form where customers can enter special dates to receive automated reminders.

Also, consider introducing sister brands if that applies to your business. This is a great way to introduce your customers to other sites they may not be aware of. You might also offer a discount here, but be careful. The last thing you want to do is offer 20% off of a purchase to a customer who just bought from you a minute ago. Instead, consider incentives such as free shipping with no minimum purchase or a discount on a specific category of items. In lieu of a discount, you could also display sale or clearance products or other sections to encourage a second purchase.

Another Avenue for List Growth

Don’t discount the potential list growth possibilities associated with an optimized transactional message. Use the promotional space to host a call-out to sign up for emails. The best part of this strategy: You can track the sign-up source and deliver a well-timed post-purchase series to these contacts instead of a traditional welcome series. Let’s look at a few examples. These two brands take a different approach, but they both do it well. BuyCostumes uses the right rail to promote their email sign-up and sister brands, as well as a discount, completing the trifecta!

Williams-Sonoma positions its promotional content below the transactional information but includes both product cross-sells and an email sign-up section. Notice the space dedicated to the email sign-up. They actively tell people what’s in it for them for subscribing.

Compliance is Key

Always be mindful of CAN-SPAM compliance when crafting and optimizing these messages. Remember: Transactional content must be the primary focus of the email, superseding your promotional content. It’s best to stick to the 80/20 rule, where 80% of the message is transactional content and 20% is promotional. As utilitarian as they are, transactional messages can help you drive revenue, grow your email database, and cross-promote your brands. I’ve worked with clients who generate as much as 10-20% of their yearly email revenue from order and shipping confirmation messages. That’s quite a substantial amount of revenue to just leave on the table.

Gray November Is Almost Here. Are You Ready?

Over the past 4+ years of advising retailers on how to drive more revenue from email programs, I began noticing a general shift Q4 promotional strategy. It started earlier each year and featured more aggressive discounts. This shift forced other retailers who fight for the same customers to keep up with the Joneses and offer their own discounts earlier in the season.

One week at a time, year after year, this transformation turned planning for Black Friday and Cyber Monday into a Gray November – a month-long extension of the traditional holiday shopping season.

But are the number of earlier discounts actually increasing, or was I just imagining things? Well, it appears early discounting is happening. The National Retail Federation (NRF) reported the number of retailers who included promotions leading up to Thanksgiving week increased each week in November in 2015 when compared to 2014. They also report the discount percentage offered by retailers raised only slightly from the first three weeks of November heading into Thanksgiving week. This hints at deeper discounts being offered earlier in November, leaving little room to further increase them come Cyber Weekend. The month has become one big deep discounting period. Move over Black Friday, Gray November has arrived.

Changing Times

So how did this metamorphosis happen? Ironically, it started when retailers began giving consumers what they want. According to the NRF, 40% of shoppers say they start buying gifts before Halloween. In an attempt to snag these earlier sales, retailers targeted consumers with deeper offers. And it worked! However, in addition to these earlier purchases, retailers also wanted to capture additional purchases from these customers later in the holiday season. Because of this, they continued to offer deep discounts throughout the entire holiday period. The result? Retailers have they trained their customers to wait for deep discounts and convinced themselves they need to discount more heavily to capture the purchase. When competitors match this strategy in an attempt to keep up, it creates an endless cycle.

While retailers must be thinking about how to break this cycle, they shouldn’t panic just yet. Even with this extended discount period, Cyber weekend continues to be strong in sales. According to comScore, Cyber Monday 2015 marked the largest online spending day in history. So the good news is that Black Friday and Cyber Monday are not dead. They just no longer signal the start of the holiday shopping season.

Instead, I’d argue that the emergence of Gray November is a warning shot to retailers that they need to invest heavily in building customer engagement and focusing on value rather than price. It’s the only way to successfully retain customers without having to rely on an endless discount cycle.

Be Prepared

So how can you begin driving home these value-adds to your consumers? First, analyze your strengths and what differentiates you from the competition. What do you offer that they don’t? Brand this value-add messaging wherever you can, including your emails, especially a new subscriber welcome series.

Next, focus your social media strategy on actually engaging your followers. I mean, really engage them. Ask questions, respond to comments and start conversations by commenting on others’ posts. Social media is not just another platform to speak at someone, it is a platform to be social with someone. It’s the ultimate online tool to bring a personal touch to your brand.

Establishing a connection and providing a better user experience will go a long way in driving sales, not only at holiday time, but all year round. So go ahead and get started. After all, whether you like it or not, Gray November will be here before you know it. Your customers are more than ready. Are you?

This was originally published on Multichannel Merchant.

5 Ways to Prepare for the Holiday Season

You’ve likely got a list of to-dos longer than a kid’s wish list for Santa. And with the hustle of the season, it’s easy for some tasks to fall by the wayside, which could result in a poor customer experience or first impression, lost sales, or even an under-performing holiday season.  Don’t let this happen to you. Here are five essential tasks that should be on every commerce marketer’s holiday preparation list.

#1: Audit Your Forms

During the holidays, you’re likely to get a lot of new visitors, so be sure that the forms that help turn these visitors into subscribers are ready to go. And once they subscribe, they need to be able to access the manage preference form, especially if your welcome series directs them there.

A couple of questions for your team:

• Where do the forms live?

• Who can edit them?

• How does a customer reach them?

• Are they optimized for mobile?

• Are subscribers being assigned to the correct lists?

• Are the forms generally working as intended?

I recommend documenting each form and sharing with your team. If something breaks during the height of the holiday season, you must be able to fix it as quickly as possible without having to ask a lot of questions. This documentation will also allow you to easily add more forms over time without confusing how that form may affect other processes already in place.

#2:  Evaluate Your Content

At this time of year, consumers will be inundated with emails, so be sure your current email content is optimized for the busy season. Some items to review include:

• Scanability: Can people quickly digest the email and find the call to action (CTA)?

• Responsive Design: Are your emails mobile-friendly? If not, make them so!

• Send From Name Consistency: Is your company’s brand uniformly expressed across all messages (triggered and scheduled)?

• Preheader Text: Are you using it effectively and supporting the subject line (not repeating it)?

• Calls to Action: For emails that features several pieces of content, are the CTAs easily identifiable?

• Social CTAs: How prominent are they, and do they detract from the conversion CTAs? Are you clear about what you’re asking customers to do?

While these suggestions also apply to transactional messages, consider a few other things as well. For instance, are you using the promotional space wisely too, for instance, suggest stocking stuffers or other seasonal items? And don’t forget to highlight extended return policies and other holiday specific value-adds.

#3: Analyze Last Year’s Plan

Hopefully, you’ve already looked at last year’s plan. If you haven’t, here are some items to pay special attention to:

• Your High Priority Campaigns: Why were they must-haves? Did these campaigns perform as expected? If they didn’t, can you tell why?

• The Poor Performing Campaigns: Why did some campaigns fail? Was it due to timing of the send, or has that particular promo jumped the shark (or reindeer in this case) with your audience? Should you repeat it this year with a new spin?

• The Sending Cadence: Did you send more emails than anticipated? If so, why? Was it because a campaign was not delivering expected results and you needed additional sends to make up for it? Did you notice your competitors sending much more than you expected, causing you to match them for fear of losing out on revenue? How were unsubscribe rates with the increase in sends? What type of emails were added (i.e. types of discounts/free gifts, length of promo)?

#4: Plan for All Scenarios

Stuff happens. The Internet says so, so it must be true! In your planning, especially after looking at the items above, you should be prepared for all “oh no” scenarios. Get ready with:

• Back-up promotions: Remember last year when your plan went off the rails thanks to an underperforming campaign? Be prepared! Create extra promotions with different offers (tiered discount, dollar vs. percentage, free shipping) or additional free gifts to include. A great place to start is with your key campaigns for this season. Prepare the content in advance, build the email and have it ready to deploy at a moment’s notice.

• Don’t forget: Set your promo codes up in advance as well! If you never need them, great. But it will be one less step to perform if you’re in reactionary mode.

• An answer to your “Oops” moment: Anticipate that Steve Urkel moment. Create “oops” messages covering the most common issues well in advance. You can even leave an editable space that allows you to either provide more clarity or customize a promo code. Some of the most common reasons for sending an oops email? A non-functioning promo code, a website that’s slow or completely down, promotion of the wrong incentive, and broken links.

But be sure the error warrants sending a message. If there’s a typo in the subject line, you probably don’t need to address it. If the subject line advertises a 50% off sale when it should have been $50 off, you’ll probably want to do something about it.

#5: Evaluate Your Season

Yes, you read this right! Once the season is complete, you should immediately evaluate the season. You can analyze better when the work is fresh in your mind. Nine months from now, you may not remember that the reason a key campaign underperformed was because of an error or a send time glitch. It also protects you if a key team member involved with the planning leaves during the year. Analyzing the season immediately gives you the best view of the current season and the information you need to accurately determine must-haves for next year. When planning time rolls around, compare these seasonal results with trends you have seen develop over the past year and determine whether a pivot needs to be made.

Final Thoughts

While this is not an all-inclusive list for holiday planning, it should at least get you thinking. By executing these ideas, you’ll be better prepared to deliver a smooth customer experience, react at a moment’s notice, and plan for the following year. If nothing else, knowing you’re prepared may help you sleep better at night, like a warm glass of milk. Just be sure it’s not the “big guy’s” milk.

This was originally published on Multichannel Merchant.