Greg Zakowicz 12/6/16 Greg Zakowicz 12/6/16

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.

Greg Zakowicz 11/15/16 Greg Zakowicz 11/15/16

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.

Greg Zakowicz 11/1/16 Greg Zakowicz 11/1/16

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.

Greg Zakowicz 10/10/16 Greg Zakowicz 10/10/16

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:

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.

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.

Greg Zakowicz 9/27/16 Greg Zakowicz 9/27/16

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.

Greg Zakowicz 9/19/16 Greg Zakowicz 9/19/16

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.

Greg Zakowicz 9/1/16 Greg Zakowicz 9/1/16

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.

Greg Zakowicz 8/18/16 Greg Zakowicz 8/18/16

Mobile: It's Not Just for Millennials Anymore

Smartphones are everywhere, and people are becoming increasingly reliant upon them to accomplish everyday tasks: setting their wake-up alarm, listening to the radio, and, of course, shopping. Because of this consumer reliance on these devices, a mobile-first approach is essential for retailers today, from responsive design for emails to mobile-friendly websites (including the checkout process).

However, even with this increase in smartphone usage …

However, even with this increase in smartphone usage, the majority of purchases are still happening on other devices. But why? Is it because technology has not yet caught up with consumer expectations for a purchase experience? Does age still dictate who uses smartphones for purchases? Or is it a combination of these, and then some?

Optimization Obstacle

Data from our recent survey, "How Consumers Across the Globe Use Multiple Devices to Shop and Buy," indicates that even in today’s mobile-first world, there are still inherent obstacles to making a purchase via a smartphone. Let’s think about why this might be the case.

Envision a scenario that challenges virtually every retailer today. You’re commuting on a train. You browse a website on your phone, find a product, cart the item and start to make a purchase, but the checkout process is not fully optimized for your smartphone. So you abandon the cart and finish your order via a friendlier device, such as a laptop. In this scenario, the mobile device was essential, but thanks to the obstacles of the brand’s mobile checkout, the conversion was dependent on another device. This gives would-be purchasers the opportunity to shop elsewhere.

This is exactly why retailers are focusing so heavily on prioritizing the mobile experience. They understand that allowing potential customers to leave their site without making a purchase not only gives them the opportunity to shop elsewhere but also establishes in the consumer’s mind that the brand is not customer-centric.

It's Not Just for Millennials

As you would expect, our research shows that age appears to influence the level of comfort with making purchases on smartphones. Millennials are more likely to view mobile purchasing as the norm, but the behavior isn’t limited to younger generations. The older age groups are also comfortable making mobile purchases via the smartphone, which underlines the necessity to focus on providing a smooth mobile experience.

It’s expected that, over time, mobile purchasing across almost all age groups will increase, and it will likely be a result of two things. First, as smartphone payment technology advances and retailers streamline their purchase process, smartphone conversions will become as easy and as natural as walking into a store and paying for an item.

And as technology further cements itself into every aspect of everyday life, consumers, even in the older age groups, will be less reliant on desktops and laptops to make a purchase.

Until complete adoption, though, here are three ways you can help streamline the mobile purchase process:

Add a message to your welcome series inviting new subscribers to create an online account. This can help make entering payment and shipping information easier during the checkout process, as entering this information on smaller devices is often a major obstacle during a mobile purchase.
Ensure your emails are responsive and your message is clear. Don’t use too much text in your emails. Not only can it be hard to read on mobile phones, but attention spans are short. If you can’t convey your messaging in a matter of seconds (think three or fewer), your contact will likely swipe away from your email.
Focus on the mobile site experience, including the checkout process. Can people easily navigate the site, save items and check out? Look for areas of high friction and improve them.

At the end of the day, the mobile experience matters. Whether mobile is used to start the purchase process or complete one from start to finish, a mobile-first approach is paramount in providing consumers the shopping experience they expect.

Greg Zakowicz 8/1/16 Greg Zakowicz 8/1/16

Handbook to the Holidays: Helping holiday shoppers indulge

Consumers are not only starting their holiday shopping earlier, they are treating themselves to gifts when shopping for family and friends. During the 2015 holiday season, 50% of shoppers bought something for themselves when shopping for others, a seven percentage point increase from 2014, according to Deloitte.

Consumers’ willingness to stuff their own stockings during the holidays means retailers need to be thinking about ways to entice consumers to splurge on them- selves, in addition to developing promotions that appeal to early-bird holiday shoppers.

“The trend of consumers buying for themselves during the holidays has been picking up steam the past several years,” says Greg Zakowicz, marketing automation provider Bronto Software LLC’s senior commerce marketing analyst. “Offering consumers bigger savings on purchases is a great way to encourage them to buy for themselves too.”

Pitching a promotional code for hitting a spending threshold with a single purchase or over several purchases during the holiday season is one way to encourage shoppers to spend on themselves since many consumers will use the code to purchase an item on their wish list.

“Setting a spending bar to earn a coupon not only helps increase average order size, but can keep shoppers coming back during the holidays to earn the incentive,” says Stephanie Hileman, e-commerce digital marketing specialist for athletic apparel and shoe manufacturer Brooks Sports Inc., a Bronto client. “We see throughout the year that customers often struggle with the fear of missing out when it comes to deals so we try to leverage this during the holidays.”

Emailing consumers daily deals is another way to entice holiday shoppers to indulge. To make a daily deal appealing, Hileman recommends segmenting offers among email recipients so that shoppers receive offers tied to their specific interests. “Our loyal customers, for example, are notified about deals and discounts first,” Hileman says. “Consumers like to be treated special and VIP treatment helps us stand out in a crowded marketplace.

Alternatively, promotions can be built around product categories or brands the customer favors.

“A lot of our customers like to shop by outfit, so we might offer a deal that rewards them with a free accessory when they buy an outfit or a discount on pants when they purchase a matching top,” she says.

Offering gift card buyers a second gift card of lesser value for meeting a spending threshold, such as a bonus $50 gift card when purchasing a card of $100 can coax shoppers interested in buying for themselves to convert. In many cases, a shopper will keep the free gift card—and then spend more than the value on it when redeeming it later for herself, Hileman says.

“By adjusting the redemption date on the free gift card to post-holiday, retailers can maintain momentum after the holidays,” she says. “This works well in our industry especially since several people begin to tackle their New Year’s fitness goals in Q1.”

With some consumers starting their holiday shopping weeks in advance of Black Friday, retailers can’t afford to wait until Thanksgiving to start offering holiday deals, Zakowicz says. But retailers must be careful, lest they sacrifice sales they’d otherwise get later in the season by offering their best deals early.

Zakowicz recommends gradually increasing discounts and other incentives as the holiday shopping season progresses to keep shoppers interested.

“Retailers can still offer good value in their early promotions, but the goal is to steadily increase the value offered so their marketing strategy doesn’t peak too soon,” Zakowicz says.

E-retailers should also lay the groundwork to nurture future sales from customers gained during the holidays. Thanking a customer via email for her business and including a coupon for a future purchase, or sending loyal customers sneak previews of future sales can keep shoppers coming back once the holidays are over.

“Retailers that recognize consumers buy for them- selves during the holidays and that holiday shoppers are starting earlier will be more successful in their holiday marketing efforts,” Zakowicz says.

This was originally published on Internet retailer.

Greg Zakowicz 7/21/16 Greg Zakowicz 7/21/16

Why Post-Purchase Email Marketing Is So Important

Imagine walking into a car dealership. You browse the cars on the lot, exchange info with the salesperson and then leave without buying. You then drive down the road to another dealership and repeat the process, but this time, you actually purchase the car on the spot. The next morning you wake up to two emails in your inbox, one from each salesperson. How would you feel if the messages were identical? Would you feel truly valued as a customer? Wouldn’t you prefer to receive something a bit more personalized?

Customers face this scenario on a daily basis. Many retailers don’t craft specific messages specifically for recent purchasers, or they fail to suppress them from receiving promotional messages after a purchase. But this post-purchase period is a time when consumers are likely to be most receptive to your messaging. So why waste this opportunity by sending the same standard messages? Instead, take the time to consider what the customer might want or need after the purchase and craft your messages accordingly.

When commerce marketers hear post-purchase, they immediately think of order and shipping confirmations, and product review messages. While these messages are OK, and in some cases necessary, I am talking about a different way to engage a customer – providing value, offering help, introducing resources, or asking to continue the conversation.

Getting Started

A post-purchase message sent 3-5 days after purchase simply thanking the customer is a great way to start. I’ve found these to be some of the best performing messages from a revenue standpoint. The beauty of the message is its simplicity. It thanks the customer for the recent order and either incentivizes them to make another purchase or provides a customer service oriented call to action (CTA), such as linking to your customer service portal or a resource center.

If the message is incentivized, you can always create a second, non-incentivized version that sends if the contact makes another purchase over the next set number of days. Using this approach keeps the customer from expecting an incentive every time – although some retailers are fine with this approach as long as it drives revenue.

Creating a Series

Subsequent messages can have a variety of themes, but each one should be used to convey some sort of value proposition, such as:

Product care/tips and tricks.
How-to resources.
Customer service info/guarantees.
Product recommendations or cross-selling opportunities.
Social invites or crowdsourcing (Share a photo with us!).
Manage preference request.
Product reviews.
Reorder reminders.
Gift-giving or date reminder requests.
Refer-a-friend invitations.

Social Engagement

While we talk about retailers enhancing the customer experience, it can be difficult to implement in an online world. However, social media is the great equalizer in that respect. It allows retailers to humanize their brands and actually create a dialogue with purchasers. Consider implementing socially-themed messages into your post-purchase messaging, such as:

Crowdsourcing/Share with us (e.g. Selfie submissions).
Social site introduction.
Facebook review requests.
User-generated content (UGC) contests based on products purchased (e.g. Post a photo wearing your new socks with our hashtag for a chance to win!).

Loyalty Programs

If you have a loyalty program, talk about it. Include loyalty points in each of your emails, or use specific messaging to ask people to sign up for the program. If your program is spend-based, consider messaging that introduces these tiers and triggers messages when contacts are close to reaching the next level. You can even include specific product recommendations to encourage the next purchase.

Balance Your Messages

When constructing your post-purchase messaging, be sure to balance promotional content that encourages another purchase with other useful content that offers value to the customer. For instance, product care tips and additional resources benefit the customer, whereas cross-sell and reorder reminder messages benefit you. Remember: If all of your messages ask customers to purchase from you, you’re not really providing that value to the subscriber. But if every message only benefits the consumer, you’re likely leaving money on the table. Aim for a 50/50 or 60/40 consumer-to-company ratio so you both have something to gain in the process.

Complete the Experience

As mentioned earlier, while a customer is receiving this series of messages, it’s best to suppress them from your standard promotional messages. This way, you can control the purchase experience for the customer and ensure they receive messages relevant to them at that time. Since some of your post-purchase messaging will be promotional, you’ll still have opportunities to increase sales. Just keep in mind that if you’ve scheduled a product review message to send 45 days after a purchase, and your post-purchase series ends after 10 days, you don’t necessarily have to prevent the customer from receiving promotional messages after the 10-day mark. Just don’t overwhelm your subscribers. Use your best judgement.

Customer loyalty is no longer assumed, it must be earned. Consumers now view their interaction with a brand as part of an overall experience and expect relevant communications, which is why targeted post-purchase messaging is not only successful in driving revenue, but is an essential component in creating customer loyalty.

This was originally published on Multichannel Merchant.

Greg Zakowicz 7/21/16 Greg Zakowicz 7/21/16

A Guide to Choosing the Best Template for Your Holiday Emails

How do you showcase your best offers? More than any other time of the year, the holiday season involves lots of special offers, discounts, new products, and even new categories. Combine this with increased sending cadence and reduced subscriber attention spans, and you’ve got a prescription for poor-performing emails.

But there is an answer.

But there is an answer. Spend the time now thinking about how your messaging aligns with the layout of your email, and consider which type of layout works best with the message you want to convey. Here are five email layouts and the types of messages that tend to work best with them.

1. Single Hero Image

Probably the most common layout used today is a single-image email focusing on one clear call to action (CTA). This layout is designed to allow a subscriber to digest the message and decide on an action in 3 seconds or less. It may be most effective for:

Black Friday and Cyber Monday – generic email linking to deals on the homepage.
Flash sales – straightforward sale with a limited duration.
Sale expiration – last chance reminder.
Web-based gift guides – introducing gift guides that can be viewed online.

2. Product Boxes as a Secondary CTA

This email, a popular style for Q4, commonly has a hero image followed by product (or category) boxes below the primary content. You can manually create these specific recommendations or generate them using a recommendation engine. The layout allows the reader to not only browse for those people on their gift list but also identify products of interest to themselves. This layout is most commonly used for:

Highlighting gifts under a certain dollar value.
Advertising a stocking stuffer section.
Offering subscriber recommendations.

3. Extended Content Sections

Similar to using product boxes as secondary CTAs, this design allows you to feature image-based secondary and tertiary content in addition to your primary promotion. With these larger sections, you have more space to promote larger areas of themed content (e.g. gift guides, value props), and you can use more visual creativity to grab a subscriber’s attention.

This layout is also more effective on mobile devices, as the sections remain a user-friendly size when scaling. This layout could be used in any capacity where you have more generic secondary content to promote, such as:

Gift guides.
Gift cards.
Extended return policy notices.
Shipping deadline estimates.

4. Product Only

Commonly sent throughout the year as a recommendation or new item email, this style is slowly gaining traction as a go-to during the holiday season. This message is often very basic graphically, with the focus solely on promoting specific products or categories, sometimes even with personal recommendations in the recovery section of the email.

While there may not be a lot of glitz and glamour around this style, it can be quite effective for driving sales, as it allows subscribers to find a specific product they’re looking for. It is used for:

Promoting top gifts for the season.
Offering gifts under a certain amount.
Personalized recommendations.
Top Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals.

5. Extended Scroll

These messages are designed around engaging the subscriber in an extended scroll down the email. Emails like this work well on mobile phones because of a person’s natural tendency to thumb scroll. This layout can be most effective when walking people through something step by step, such as building the perfect holiday outfit, or by creating some sort of email game, such as a “See what’s under the Christmas tree” game. The extended scroll works well for:

Specific product style guides.
Top gifts.
Step-by-step or numerical order guides/recommendations.
Contest/gamification.

So there you have it – five email layouts that can be tuned to add some spice to your email program during the holiday season. When trying to determine which style may be best for you, think through the ultimate goal of the email and ask yourself, “Does the layout accomplish this goal?”

Greg Zakowicz 6/16/16 Greg Zakowicz 6/16/16

How Consumers Across the Globe Shop and Buy Online

Consumer technology is constantly evolving, reshaping the way retailers and consumers interact on a daily basis. These changes force retailers to provide functionality that allows consumers to easily make purchases on their device, or devices, of choice. It’s become critical to understand how devices are used in different ways from one region to another.

Looking at results from a recent Bronto-commissioned survey of adult populations in the UK, US and Australia with access to a laptop, desktop, tablet, smartphone or wearable, the device of choice and shopping patterns change, not surprisingly, based on demographics and locale. So what does this tell us about how retailers need to prepare for shifts in consumer purchasing behavior?

Location, Location, Location

Smartphone adoption, to no one’s surprise, is at 75% or greater in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom, with Australia leading the way at 88% adoption. However, the UK appears to be leading the way in terms of ditching their reliance on desktops and laptops in favor of mobile devices. Desktop ownership is significantly lower than both the US and Australia, and the country has the highest tablet ownership of the three.

Does Buying Behavior Match?

In the US and the UK, 60% of respondents have used multiple devices to complete a purchase, while only 35% of Australians have done so. While this may signify a smoother purchase process regardless of device in Australia, we see a lower overall adoption of purchasing via mobile device in Australia. This leads me to believe that consumers are less comfortable making mobile purchases in AU, while UK and US consumers are still struggling to find a seamless, one-device experience. In those regions, it may be that the purchase process on mobile devices is still not fluid enough for consumers to complete the purchase on their device, causing them to abandon and later complete the purchase on a second device, likely a laptop or desktop.

In the US and AU, desktops and laptops remain the most common devices for purchasing, while in the UK, laptops and smartphones are the most common methods. When looking specifically at mobile devices, smartphone purchasing is fairly even between the US and UK, but tablet purchasing is significantly higher in the UK than in the US or AU.

What’s the DNA of Who’s Buying?

It is not surprising that the younger the demographic, the more comfortable they are shopping via smartphones. Younger consumers in the US appear to be most comfortable making purchases via smartphone, with the UK and AU following respectively. However, the US begins to see the noticeable drop with the 45-54 group (from 58% to 31%), while the AU and UK see the decline with those ages 35-44. While US consumers under the age of 54 are more comfortable using smartphones for purchases, they are still not ready to ditch the more traditional methods.

When it comes to gender differences, we see men owning slightly more devices than women in all three countries. However, when it comes to smartphone purchases, the AU and UK are dead even with 37% of men and women making purchases via smartphones. Surprisingly, we see a significant disparity in the US, with 43% of men making smartphone purchases versus only 35% of women.

Take Two Tablets and Call Me in the Morning

In the UK and AU, the 25-34 year-old demographic leads the way with regards to tablet purchases, while in the US, it’s those 35-44. Overall, this is not entirely a surprise, considering the low desktop ownership in the UK. But it may indicate that, in the UK, tablets have successfully replaced desktops in the home and thus generated a greater share of those purchases.

Final Thoughts

Purchasing with a mobile device is fast becoming the norm, and streamlining the online purchase process will be essential to provide your customers the experience they expect. Here are a few ways to ensure a smoother consumer experience:

Focus on mobile first. Mobile devices are constantly becoming more powerful and are fully embedded into everyday life. Assume this, or another mobile device, will be the primary form of engagement now and in the future. Be sure your emails are mobile-friendly and your website provides a great mobile experience.

Make it easy to purchase. Having a mobile-friendly site does not mean you have optimized your purchase process. You must streamline the checkout process and reduce obstacles to conversion. Consider promoting account creation in your email messaging when acquiring new email subscribers to support a smooth checkout process.

We know that consumers expect a consistent omnichannel experience, but delivering it in a manner your audience expects will be critical in order to maximize revenue and create long-lasting customer loyalty.

This was originally published on Multichannel Merchant.

Greg Zakowicz 6/1/16 Greg Zakowicz 6/1/16

Anniversaries Aren’t Just for Couples: Build Lifetime Value with Automated Offers

Retailers are constantly looking for simple, automated lifecycle messages that not only contribute to their bottom line, but also re-engage subscribers. The usual suspects – birthday and re-engagement messages – are common.

The anniversary message, though, is often underused, especially since the kinds of anniversaries celebrated are as varied as the products and customers you have.

Here are three very simple date-based automated messages that can drive revenue and successfully re-engage your email subscribers.

The anniversary message, though, is often underused, especially since the kinds of anniversaries celebrated are as varied as the products and customers you have.

Here are three very simple date-based automated messages that can drive revenue and successfully re-engage your email subscribers.

Purchase Anniversary

Send a message one year from a customer’s first order date explaining the significance of the anniversary, thanking them, and inviting them to come back and shop (with or without an incentive). These customers remain active email subscribers, so this can also be a great opportunity to ask them to update their preferences with you. After all, a lot can change in one year.

To keep the goodwill going, consider sending this message in subsequent years with increasing benefits as a means of rewarding them for their subscription loyalty.

The email from men’s clothing provider Paul Fredrick specifically highlights the first year anniversary.

Wedding Anniversary

For a more traditional occasion, a wedding anniversary email is a great, yet seldom used, message for many retailers. If your company sells traditional anniversary gifts (e.g. leather, paper), or relationship-related gifts, such as lingerie, gift baskets, flowers or jewelry, you have a perfect opportunity to collect and use this data. If a customer does provide this information, they are showing you they trust your brand. Provide value to them in return.

Of course, don’t wait until the last minute as many of us do in real life. Be sure to send this message before the actual date, so the customer has time to shop, compare items and have the gift delivered. And be sure to tout your value-adds. Do you offer white glove service, gift wrapping or other valet-type upgrades? If so, advertise these as add-ons or include them as part of the incentive in the message.

But this message doesn’t have to be about driving conversions. Send a goodwill anniversary message on the actual day without a call to action to shop. Link directly to your site or to an unrelated social callout, or simply omit any call to action altogether. This day-of message should be about fostering a relationship between your brand and the subscriber.

Sign-Up Anniversary

While these first two are more personal in nature, you may not have the data available to execute them. Don’t worry. You can still send an anniversary message based on the date they joined your email program. Show them how much you appreciate that they are still subscribers.

If the subscriber has made a purchase in the past, take their purchase behavior into consideration when determining the incentive. Based on the number of purchases, lifetime spend or average order value (AOV), you can include an appropriate incentive to reward customer loyalty, attempt to increase their AOV by setting a minimum spend, or drive a first purchase by reinforcing your brand’s value.

One cautionary note: Default to the purchase anniversary message if the sign-up occurred near the purchase date. People are likely to remember their purchase rather than the date they signed up to receive your emails.

There you have it. Three incredibly simple automated messages that can help drive revenue and/or re-engage subscribers with your email program. Have fun, be creative and give your valued email subscribers a nice virtual hug.

This was originally published on Multichannel Merchant

Greg Zakowicz 4/21/16 Greg Zakowicz 4/21/16

The Adventures of a Choose-Your-Own Welcome Series

I remember as a child reading “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, where the story and ending ultimately depended on the choices I made throughout the story. Why not be adventurous and take this same approach with your welcome series? After all, a welcome series is designed to introduce, engage and build consumer confidence with your brand. What better way to do that than by delivering content based on the actions and preferences of your newly acquired customers?

Consider the possibilities for a shoe retailer who could send welcome series messages with a loafer theme to contacts who showed an interest in loafers at a very early stage. Or a clothing company that can send maternity-specific messaging to those who click links for maternity products. The ability to make these messages as relevant as possible ultimately helps set your series up for even greater success.

To execute a “choose your own”-style welcome series, follow these four steps:

Step 1: Collect Subscriber Data

A successful welcome series requires reliable data. Think about how you can optimize your acquisition points to collect more relevant information. There are four primary places where you can collect new subscriber data:

Ask for it During Sign-up : Are you asking for preference data you can segment upon at sign-up? Your subscribers are more likely to provide you with information during those initial interactions when they are most engaged with your brand. If your sign-up process allows, you should attempt to collect gender, category of interest, or any other targeted information that pertains to your products.
Identify the Sign-up Location: Add a hidden field or list assignment based on the page the user is viewing when they choose to sign up. For example, if you’re a shoe retailer, your hidden field value could capture whether the contact used the form from the men’s page or the women’s page. You can take this a step further by having a more detailed field, such as men’s loafer, tennis shoes, etc. Read more on using this tactic here.
Capture Click Activity: The welcome message should be the most-read message in your email program. Use a contact’s click behavior within this message to determine which message they will receive next. Not only are they interested in your products (they just signed up), but their actions immediately tell you what they are focused on. The navigation bar makes the obvious choice here, as these are commonly your overarching links of importance.
Request Additional Preference Data via Dedicated Messaging: A manage preferences message is a common part of a welcome series. If you send it early in the series, you can use the data provided to dictate future messages.

Step 2: Create Your Segments

What information do you need in order to segment your list? Gender, product category, price point, something else, or all of the above? Your criteria for segmentation will be based on how you’ve been collecting your data up to this point, but that doesn’t mean you can’t update your plans and incorporate some of the strategies from step one going forward. For example, if you only collect email addresses at sign-up and have no other means of gathering info, identify contacts who clicked on particular links in the welcome message, and build new segments from there.

Note: Be mindful that a person may enter multiple segments, so creating a priority list will be important for you. For example, if someone clicks on both the women’s and maternity links in your welcome message, you need to determine which of these two segments takes precedence over the other. You may decide maternity has a more immediate need and send the maternity-focused series to this contact.

Step 3: Create a New Stream of Messages

Now that you know what specific audience you want to target, you can begin creating your new welcome series messages. You can customize the imagery, highlight specific value-adds, include secondary CTAs, and even feature specific product recommendations based on the segment. You may also have a better idea of crossover categories that would be most likely to convert. If you’re tight on resources, using product recommendations and related crossover categories within your existing emails may be easier to execute until new messages can be created.

Take this Everlast email, for example. I could easily use the three CTAs in the email to determine what the focus of the subsequent messages should be. I could even combine that with gender to really differentiate product types within the category.

Step 4: Analyze and Adapt

As with other automated messages, never set it and forget it. Be sure to analyze the performance of these messages to determine not only if they convert better in general, but also which segments and which messages in the series convert better. With this information, you can begin to apply a profitable segmentation strategy to your standard promotional messages as well. It could also be the first step in customizing a similar strategy for other series, such as those for post-purchase or lapsed purchase.

There you have it. Have fun experimenting with a more unique subscriber onboarding adventure, while really focusing on your overall segmentation strategy. So how will your story end? To try this strategy, return to Step 1. To try a more basic optimization strategy, click here. The choice is yours.

Greg Zakowicz 3/31/16 Greg Zakowicz 3/31/16

Lapsed-Purchase Email Marketing Examples