The Customer Journey Has Changed — Has Your Marketing?

Let’s face it; the traditional linear model of the customer journey is no longer accurate. Today’s consumers shop how they want, where they want, and when they want—all while facing distraction at a moment’s notice. They are choosing how they interact with brands and on which channels they do so. They have all of the power. Who said being a marketer is easy?

Today’s model more closely resembles that of a spiderweb, with its zigs, zags, and non-uniform strands. As chaotic as it may look, everything is connected and working in concert with one another. 

This is the new digital customer journey—unique, non-uniform strands that are all connected to serve a common goal. 

Because of the multitude of siloed channels, the distraction, and increased global competition, marketers need to rethink how multiple channels, like email and SMS, can work in unison with one another to create a relevant experience that meets consumers’ ever-increasing expectations of retailers. 

How The Journey is Moving Beyond Single Channels

According to a report by Omnisend, marketing campaigns utilizing three or more channels have a 287% higher conversion rate than campaigns relying on a single channel. For retailers, ensuring that campaigns have multiple cohesive channels working together can have a significant impact on the bottom line. Multiple channels matter, but how they’re delivered matters more.

While retailers are using multiple channels to communicate with and retarget consumers, many of them are working in silos. For example, an email subscriber may click on an email and then abandon the website. In response, they begin seeing ads on their social media platforms. But if the consumer comes back and makes a purchase, often these retargeting ads follow them around the internet, sometimes for days or weeks, while still receiving generic promotional email messages.  

Consumers increasingly expect communications from brands to be both timely and relevant. The example above is not that. 

Retailers need to understand how consumers naturally interact. Take Gen Z, for instance. These digital natives make up more than a quarter of the US population, and being digital natives means SMS is a natural communication channel. Even so, 83% expect to increase or maintain their email usage over the next several years. Both channels hold importance to them.

Retailers who have adopted SMS as a marketing channel have reported over a 2,700% ROI, and omnichannel campaigns that involve SMS are 47.7% more likely to end in conversion.

It’s time for retailers to break down these silos and make available additional channels for customers to opt into. Adding channels that appeal to their customers is just the first step. Creating relevant messaging is another. 

The Rise of Multi-Channel, Behavior-Based Messaging 

Consider that customer who is on a website and browsing products only to leave without placing an item in the cart. The consumer has shown some level of interest. Recognizing this, a retailer would traditionally continue sending them standard promotional emails and retarget the customer through search and social media. But this experience has challenges. Paid retargeting can be expensive, the strategy is siloed, and standard promotional emails are not always relevant. 

But this relevance matters. The same Omnisend report showed that that segmented campaigns earned 62% higher order rates than non-segmented ones. The reason—segmented messages are more relevant.

This is where automated behavior-based, multi-channel messaging can deliver a more user-friendly experience and guide the customer along their purchase journey. 

Consider the impact of sending abandonment messages via the channel(s) of the customer’s choosing—after all, no one chooses to see ads on their social feeds. Retailers can easily send automated reminder messages (e.g., email, SMS, push) for the products they were viewing via any, or all, channel(s)—and if the consumer completes their order, the other channels recognize and cease their retargeting efforts. 

Automated behavior-based messaging, such as browse abandonment, delivers segmented, relevant, and timely messaging to customers. Consumers recognize the value in them. That’s why it is not uncommon to see retailers drive over 25% of their email revenue on these messages alone.

This is just one example of automated, behavior-based messaging. Others include cart abandonment, welcome series, post- and lapsed-purchase, and re-engagement messages. I expect to see a continued increase in behavior-based automation adoption and the use of data, such as cart total or purchase history, to make these messages even more relevant than they naturally are.

Paving the Way for the Future

Utilizing behavior-based marketing automation to create relevant messaging and delivering it via the channel(s) of the customers’ choosing is going to be essential for catering to the modern-day online customer journey.

Tomorrow’s successful retailers will be those who cohesively incorporate other channels into their traditional siloed pillars of email, paid search, and paid social to create one unified, spiderwebbed e-commerce journey. After all, if you’re trying to catch flies, it’s good to be the spider who makes the web.

3 Easy Yet Effective Ways to Create Transactional Emails

Relevant, personalized and timely transactional emails are virtually impossible to over-hype as they can generate five times more revenue than non-transactional messages. Even though these messages are some of the most highly read emails sent by retailers, because they're so common improving them is often an afterthought. However, their value shouldn't be overlooked, as each additional open holds the potential to increase engagement and generate sales.

What’s a Transactional Email?

When used in e-commerce, transactional emails are automated messages based on some sort of transactional relationship between the consumer and the brand, such as an order or shipping confirmation. Because of the personal nature of the messages, transactional emails always deliver value for recipients. When they demand attention and are engaging, these types of emails often have higher open and clickthrough rates than promotional emails.

By optimizing three key elements of transactional emails, retailers can see greater return on investment and results, such as increased open rates.

CONTINUE READING ON TOTAL RETAIL

47 Ways to Prepare Your Email Marketing and Ecommerce Store For The 2020 Holiday Season

The holiday shopping season is fast approaching there is a lot of uncertainty about what will unfold. Questions surrounding the health of the economy and what a resurgence of COVID-19 might have on the supply chain make planning for this holiday season unique. 

One thing I do expect from this season is for ecommerce to further increase its already-increased share of retail sales. We saw email become a go-to channel for consumers during the COVID pandemic with a nearly 23% lift in conversion rates, and I expect this to carry over into the holidays. If you are an email marketer, here are 47 ways you can prepare your marketing program and ecommerce store for the holiday shopping season.   

General:

1. Start marketing early — e.g., late October
2. Pay attention to the Cyber 10
3. Pay close attention to the feel of the nation (COVID, economy) and adjust your marketing copy accordingly
4. Don’t wait until Black Friday to start marketing—again, start early

Technical Prep:

5. Collect SMS numbers along with email addresses—grow your trusted marketing channels
6. Audit website forms (e.g., sign-up, exit-intent)—how to edit them and who has access to do so
7. Test sign-up forms and ensure they work properly

Email Design:

8. Use emojis in subject lines
9. Use emojis in the preheader text
10. Make your emails mobile-friendly
11. Include a “top gifts” or similar section in your nav bar
12. Create a custom, holiday-themed header
13. Keep the CTA obvious in emails (let people digest the message quickly)
14. Make sale exclusions obvious—avoid misleading people and frustrating them at checkout
15. Acknowledge that self-gifting is real and design your messaging to account for it

Promotional Marketing Messages:

16. Promote value-adds/differentiators in your emails (e.g., extended return policies, always free shipping)
17. Use remails—but not every time (think about when it makes sense)
18. Send multiple emails on peak days (Thanksgiving Day, Back Friday, Cyber Monday)
19. Utilize SMS marketing, both as a stand-alone channel and to complement email
20. Utilize a sense of urgency (subject lines, CTA, copywriting)
21. Use product recommendations in your emails (for self-gifting, of course)

Automated Email Marketing Messages:

22. Adjust workflow timing (are you suppressing new signups from Black Friday emails?)
    Welcome series
    Cart abandonment
    Lapsed-purchaser
    Product review emails
23. Create seasonal automated messages (e.g., holiday-specific welcome series)
24. Optimize your transactional messages for sales (shipping and order confirmation)
25. Adjust abandoned cart timing rules
26. Increase the number of abandoned cart messages
27. Adjust the discounting strategy in your cart abandonment messages (is the discount worse than your holiday everyday promotion?)
28. Use browse/product abandonment messages—please, use them!
29. Integrate SMS messages into your email automation workflows, especially cart abandonment

Paid Search/Social:

30. Monitor your ROAS
31. Retarget email contacts on social and paid search
32. Test different/new social channels and search engines (e.g., Bing, Pinterest, YouTube)
33. Use influencers

Customer Service:

34. Implement live chat on your website
35. Extend your return policies
36. Solidify your BOPIS strategy/expand BOPIS offerings
37. Collect info for gift-reminder messaging

Discounts/Benefits:

38. Test different incentives (% off, & off, tiered discounts, deals of the day, X days of deals, flash sales, free shipping, free express shipping, VIP-only, SMS-only, email-only, for BOPIS-only orders, etc.)
39. Understand that free shipping has increasingly being used as THE incentive as the season winds down. Test it and save yourself some margin.
40. Make a holiday playlist on Spotify (for both your customers and employees)
41. Offer free gift wrapping

Prepare for the Unexpected:

42. Prepare an “oops” email in advance
43. Have backup promotions and coupon codes already created and loaded in your ecomm platform
44. Identify potential shipping challenges and have a contingency plan in place
45. Identify possible supply chain chokepoints and prepare for the “what if”
46. Prepare for a pandemic resurgence — and what that measns for your business

Finally:

47. Have fun and enjoy the season!

If you have any specific questions around the holiday season, please feel free to contact me!

And, of course, some of these tips from 2019 may still be useful, so check out this post, “Top Holiday Email Marketing Planning Resources”

How COVID-19 Has Impacted Email Marketing Performance

We know COVID-19 has impacted all aspects of the retail industry and increased online sales. We saw a 40% year-over-year rise in the number of unique digital shoppers in Q1, and year-over-year unique page views and order count reached 15% and 21% respectively in March before skyrocketing in April to 96% and 88% percent.

As the need for online shopping grew, so too did the number of retailers stepping into email marketing for the first time, while others tried to squeeze even more out of the channel.

But did COVID-19 impact the way consumers respond to email marketing, and what can retailers learn from it?

In a recently released report, How COVID-19 Impacted Email Marketing Performance, Omnisend analyzed the email open, click and conversion rates of over 2.5 billion promotional emails sent from its marketing automation platform from Jan. 1 through April 26 in both 2019 and 2020. The results were quite telling about how consumers shopped during this time and what lessons retailers can learn from the results.

How Consumer Email Behavior Changed During COVID

We learned from the report that COVID did have a significant impact on consumer email behavior and the online purchase experience. Without going into all of the detail, let’s take a quick look at the three email marketing metrics analyzed.

Email open rates: Overall, the report showed the year-over-year lift in open rates for the entire period increased by nearly 14%. But as you can see in the chart, the open rates significantly increased as we moved deeper into the pandemic, and from March 16 to April 26, year-over-year open rates increased by nearly 32%.

Email click rates: Click rates saw the opposite effects of COVID, realizing a decrease of just over 17%. Like with open rates, you can see how click rates suddenly decreased as the pandemic unfolded. In fact, during an 18-day stretch from March 12 to March 29, many days saw a 30% and 40% drop in click rates before ultimately rebounding.

Email conversion rate: Email marketing continued to be a revenue-driver with increased conversion rates during the pandemic. Year-over-year conversion rates increased by 17% and saw a nearly 23% year-over-year lift from March 16 to April 26. Like with open rates, you can see the acceleration as we moved further into the pandemic.

Key Takeaways and Email Marketing Lessons for Retailers

Two things became apparent when looking at the shift in consumer behavior:

• Consumers turned to brand emails. As consumers across the country became increasingly reliant on online shopping, they turned to trusted brand emails for both sales updates and product discovery, increasing open rates.

• Email was an effective communication tool. As consumers shifted from want-based shopping to need-based shopping, they moved on if a retailer email failed to meet their needs, negatively impacting click rates. If the retailer met their needs, consumers clicked and purchased, increasing conversion rates and generating online sales.

Recognizing how consumers interacted with brand emails during this crisis is one thing. Learning from it is another. Retailers should look to this consumer behavior and find ways to improve their marketing program by further differentiating from the competition, better preparing themselves for the next crisis, and recognizing email as a go-to marketing channel for consumers. Here are a few ways to do so:

• Focus on list growth. By utilizing and optimizing tools like a website or exit-intent pop-up form, retailers can increase their audience size and become a trusted brand for consumers.

• Increase your automated messaging capabilities. With email automations set up, retailers can deliver relevant messages to subscribers, making emails even more valuable. Consider how messages such as product and browse abandonment can help remind and convert customers who are shopping for specific products but have not yet pulled the trigger. FOMO became real during the crisis.

• Audit your current automated messages. Ensure your automated messages are not only up to date but note which ones may need to be updated in times of crisis. A lighthearted cart abandonment message might normally be great, but not when a life-altering crisis hits.

• Expand your opt-in channels with SMS. Email is a trusted communication channel, but it has become more crowded since COVID-19 struck. Other forms of trusted brand communication, most notably SMS, are increasingly desired channels by consumers. You can begin capturing mobile numbers on your email sign-up forms and as a stand-alone initiative. Consider sending an email campaign to your subscribers announcing the launch of your program and asking members to sign up.

Retail will likely be changed forever by COVID-19, but it doesn’t mean it can’t make you a better business. Focusing on building a stronger relationship with your customers will help you become a better company today and help offset any future negative impact of the next crisis. At the end of the day, email and SMS are opt-in marketing channels. If you’re a trusted retailer, your messages will be welcomed by your customers.

8 Ways the Retail Landscape May Change After Coronavirus

The world is a different place than it was just a month ago. As companies try to maintain their business and stay afloat, many are wondering about the long-term impact of coronavirus on the retail and ecommerce industry.

Marketers have adjusted their marketing campaigns over the recent weeks, but those will eventually revert back to normal. Retail and e-commerce, on the other hand, may be in for more permanent changes. The aftereffects of coronavirus are sure to be felt long after it’s gone, surely changing how consumers shop, interact and prioritize lifestyle choices.

We’ve all experienced some consumer shifts, but are they a product of the times or will they stick around for the long haul? Here are some ways the dynamics of retail and services may be impacted near term and in the years to come by the coronavirus aftermath.

Consumers Become Hyper-Focused on Shopping Local

There’s been a growing trend to shop local. But millions have been furloughed or unemployed, many from local businesses including retail shops. In many places, keeping dollars in the local community and supporting small businesses post-pandemic will become more important than ever.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see local restaurant days or other small business days pop up across the country. Communities have a way of coming together after catastrophes like New Orleans did after Hurricane Katrina.

Local businesses should invest in growing their online presence an their email and SMS subscriber list for when things return to “normal.”

E-Grocery Delivery Goes for a Ride

Online grocery adoption has been slow in the U.S., but the coronavirus pandemic may turn out to be the catalyst grocers have been seeking.

According to CivicScience, 47% of consumers said they were shopping for online groceries more during the week of March 22, 2020, compared to only 11% just three weeks prior. And a recent Gordon Hasket Research Advisors survey conducted on March 13, 2020 found 41% of those who ordered food online during the previous week were first-time online grocery customers.

Apptopia reported a spike in app downloads for e-grocery services. Walmart’s grocery app downloads increased by 160% and Instacart by 218% compared to the average in February.

For consumers, one challenge with e-grocery is getting used to selecting and ordering a large number of items. Normally, the time to adjust to this process can be too much of a hurdle, but forced quarantines have accelerated that process. The convenience may be too much for some consumers to ignore post coronavirus.

BOPIS and Curbside Pickup Accelerate

Buy-online pick-up in-store (BOPIS) and curbside pickup have become increasingly popular, but similar to e-grocery have seen a sharp increase because of coronavirus.

View fullsize

According to Adobe, BOPIS saw a 62% year-over-year increase from Feb. 24 to March 21, 2020, and according to apptopia, U.S. downloads of Target’s mobile app more than doubled from Feb. 15-March 15, 2020. Arts and crafts retailer Michael’s and fabric retailer Joann are two of many who started offering curbside in response to the call for social distancing. 

As with e-grocery, BOPIS and curbside are all about convenience. For retailers, this comes with both pros and cons. In-store foot traffic drives planned and unplanned purchases and helps them merchandise the square footage they’re already paying for. On the other hand, pickup services drive sales from convenience-minded shoppers and can make store economics look “normal.”

According to Target CEO Brian Cornell, when an online order is fulfilled from the back of a store instead of an FC, about 40% of the cost goes away. And when a customer orders online and uses BOPIS, curbside or Shipt, about 90% of the cost goes away. So, there are some hefty benefits for stores to keep the adoption of these services high.

Even with BOPIS adoption increasing over recent years, the necessity of using it now may cause permanent adoption to spike.

Improving the In-Store Experience

While brick-and-mortar retailers were already investing in ecommerce and reshaping their store economics to become more profitable, massive store closures may force them to rethink their physical assets. Every CEO has to be thinking, “What if this happens again?”

Thus, we may see store footprints shrink further, meaning less staff required to operate them. We may see an increase in offerings like BOPIS and same-day delivery to hedge against a possible future situation.

We may also see more testing of concepts that draw customers into stores, whether it’s experiential elements like VR or designing entirely new concepts. Some are already planning pickup-only locations.

Of course, there may be a boomerang effect where consumers will want to shop stores because they crave the social aspect. But will retailers benefit from this or local shops?

At-Home Fitness Goes Mainstream

The at-home fitness market, from stationary bikes and treadmills to smart fitness mirrors, has been increasing in popularity an self-containment may finally convert skeptics into customers. Just because gyms temporarily close their doors doesn’t mean people want to stop exercising.

With people forced to exercise at home, many may adapt to the flexibility it affords, especially if they recently purchased equipment. While the social aspect is one draw at the local gym, at-home providers like Peloton provide an online community of friends and virtual high-fives.

They also offer instructors to keep you motivated and on-task. Users can partake in live and recorded workouts, including engagement with other users and instructors. Now, with connected bikes, treadmills, and smart workout mirrors there are devices to meet just about everyone’s needs.

An Increase in Popularity of the “Side Hustle”

Like in previous recessions, unemployment is a hard-hitting reality of the pandemic. While jobs were lost in all sectors and levels, uncertainty may cause workers to look for added income and protect against future outbreaks.

We may be at a similar turning point, but unlike in the post-9/11 world with its explosion of entrepreneurship, we’ll more likely see a greater emphasis on gig economy jobs.These service-type businesses may help not only individual workers but also retail businesses expand and thrive in areas like e-grocery.

Subscription Services Get a Lifeline

It seems like everything is subscription-based nowadays. I never thought they were a sustainable business model, but consumer reliance on delivery has substantially increased with coronavirus. This speaks to the heart of product subscription businesses.

One common challenge with this model is the cost of customer acquisition. Now, between consumers seeking out subscription services (reducing acquisition cost) and the convenience factor, this may be a time for these companies to retain customers and remain viable.

The Supply Chain Evolves Yet Again

The retail supply chain, which has already been evolving, is one again under pressure to adapt. As more and more U.S. retailers have outsourced manufacturing overseas, especially to China, they put most or all of their eggs in one basket, and are now paying the consequences. Some have already reallocated sourcing to other countries like Vietnam in the wake of the 2019 trade/tariff wars, but even that is tied up in coronavirus-related issues.

Retailers have to rethink their manufacturing and distribution models and plan for diversification. As a result, some may re-shore a portion of their manufacturing, while others set up multiple facilities in different countries to mitigate any potential future risk.

For consumers, this might mean higher prices. By reducing production at certain facilities, a company’s power to negotiate price may be diminished. Layering on additional costs for shipping from multiple facilities may force retailers to pass on the added costs. It might be tough on consumers but a boon for those in the supply chain business.

Imagining the Post-COVID World is Hard

Will we be in a prolonged recession, or slide right past it to a depression? If the economy recovers quickly, will consumers be more reluctant to spend, especially during the Q4 shopping season? And what f a second wave hits this fall as some predict?

While there are many unknowns, we do know that consumer shopping habits will change, and retailers need to adapt in concert while remaining financially viable. With adversity comes opportunity. For retailers, focusing on customer needs and building loyalty may never be as important as it is right now.

AMA Webinar Recap: COVID-19: What It Means for E-commerce

On April 2, Omnisend hosted its first AMA (ask me anything) session on the topic of ecommerce during the COVID-19 crisis. During the session, we covered questions on a variety of topics, from how to appropriately approach your email and SMS marketing campaigns to ways to properly maneuver customer acquisition via different channels.

I was a part of a four-person expert panel with wide-ranging backgrounds where we answered questions from retailers about doing business during the crisis.

The four-person panel consisted of: 

• Ron Dod, CMO, Visiture

• Paige Harris, Merchant Marketing Manager, Smile.io

• Philippe Roireau, Head of Partnerships, Gorgias

• Greg Zakowicz, Marketing Strategist & Content Team Lead, Omnisend

BACK TO BLOG HOME

Email Marketing During COVID-19: How to Send Emails During a Crisis

Marketing in a crisis, any crisis, is not easy. Marketers need to balance their human side with business needs, and knowing where that line sits is not always clear. But know this — what you do now will determine how your brand is perceived in the future.

This post by Whitney Blankenship explores the right way to approach your customers during a crisis, whether it’s COVID-19, or another future catastrophe, and how you can add value to your customers while trying to maintain your needs as a business.

In this article, she discusses:

• How to adjust your marketing during a crisis

• Ways to adjust your message

• How to still promote without alienating customers

• Considerations to make around pricing

Click here to continue reading on Omnisend

BACK TO BLOG HOME

7 Ways to Use Cause Marketing in Your Email Campaigns

There are an increasing number of retailers who make corporate responsibility and social causes a part of their brand ethos. Some brands, such as TOMS, have even built their business models around them.

This type of cause marketing can translate to sales, with 69% of Gen Z saying they’re more likely to buy from a company that contributes to such causes.

Retailers who use social causes as part of their brand ethos need to find ways to influence purchase decisions by integrating this messaging into their promotional channels, including email marketing.

Here are 7 ways brands can incorporate cause marketing into your email marketing efforts:

Using Cause Marketing in Promotional Email

Banners: Let’s start simple. Include a banner that reinforces your cause in every email sent, either at the top of the message or in the recovery section of the email. Using these banners will help reinforce your brand’s commitment to positive social change with your customers.

Sell by giving: Run campaigns centered on the cause vs. ones focused on selling products. With Boxed Water, for example, the company promotes ways to help plant trees to combat the California wildfires, all while generating social engagement. Notice the subtle preheader text as well as the recovery call to action, both based on shopping. Even with these two promotional elements of the email, the message does not scream “buy now.”

Cause campaigns: Promotional campaigns that tie in the social good of the company can be a great way to drive sales. TOMS’ campaigns often feature limited-edition shoes based on a partnership with Save the Children. While creating campaigns in conjunction with a charity is not a requirement, think of ways you can use specific giving campaigns to generate sales — all while making the purchaser feel good about buying.

While this campaign is from the Christmas season, think of all of the holidays you can use as tentpole giving campaigns. If using national holidays, choose those that best align with your brand, such as Veterans Day, Thanksgiving or Christmas. If your brand centers on other types of causes, use signature designated periods such as Breast Cancer Awareness Month, National Adoption Day or World Autism Awareness Day.

Social update emails: Companies with loyalty programs occasionally send loyalty point update emails, and there’s no reason that brands aligned with social causes shouldn’t do the same. Try showcasing the progress the company has made because of its customers. This cause marketing messaging could include the number of products, items, services provided, resources saved or the amount of money donated because of purchases. These messages also lend themselves to social sharing, so be sure to include a “share now” CTA to extend the reach of your email.

Using Cause Marketing in Automated Lifecycle Emails

Welcome messages: If doing social good is a major component of your brand, don’t hold back in your welcome messages. Create both standalone and secondary content that proudly shares this message with new subscribers and informs them of why they should align with your brand. For new subscribers who may be considering a purchase, this can help also provide a competitive differentiator.

Post purchase: Don’t let this messaging end once the purchase has been made. This is your opportunity to reinforce why the customer should feel good about their purchase and your brand. Include messaging that showcases what their purchase has done for someone less fortunate, and be sure to tie this purchase to social media and make the customer become an advocate for your brand. Try creating a purchase-related hashtag and asking the customer to share their purchase with others.

Cart abandonment: When a customer is close to making a purchase, you want to use every tactic in the book to get them to cross the finish line, like using a sense of urgency, discounts and fear of loss or FOMO. But for socially conscious consumers, this can also be social responsibility. Be sure to include messaging about your social causes in these messages as well, even if it’s in the recovery section of the email.

Where to Begin?

While these are not the only ways to integrate cause marketing into your emails, they do provide good starting points. But when it comes to creating the content to include in the emails themselves, don’t worry. Many times, you won’t have to look much further than your site and social pages. Many brands that commit to social good, such as Bombas, have sections on their site and dedicated social posts providing updates about their contributions. This content can easily be repurposed for use inside of your emails.

Integrating corporate responsibility in email through cause marketing can differentiate your brand, help build an emotional connection with the customer, influence purchase decisions and generate brand advocacy. After all, a brand in some ways becomes a reflection of themselves after a purchase. Allowing people to feel good about their purchase and wanting to share it can create a multichannel ecosystem of brand advocacy.

2019 Email and E-commerce Holiday Season Recap

The 2019 holiday season has concluded, and once again ecommerce experienced record-breaking sales. This online holiday season registered just above $142 billion in online sales, a 13% increase from last year, according to Adobe Analytics.

But what made the 2019 holiday season so successful, and which trends have become the new normal? Let’s explore.

The Subtle Nuances of November

In sports, subtle moves with a major impact are called the “game within the game,” which succinctly describes the continuing evolution of Gray November’s month-long series of discounts.

We started seeing pre-Black Friday deals and other heavy discounts start in late October. But once we entered November, we started seeing this “game within the game” begin to play out.

Black Friday is Now a Week-long Event

The concept of Black Friday week started in 2018 and became an official thing this year. Many retailers started their sales on the previous Sunday, and many others jumped in on Monday.

Beginning that day, more than a quarter of subject lines in my personal retailer tracking inbox had the term “Black Friday.” It’s possible that Black Friday week was a result of the day falling later in the year, but it continues the trend of a growing sales event. Expect this to be the new norm. 

The Cyber Five Expands to the Cyber Ten

The Cyber Five (Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday) now accounts for 20% of the holiday season’s ecommerce revenue. But this period has morphed into the Cyber Ten, thanks in part to Black Friday week.

The ten days from the Sunday before Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday accounted for seven of the top online sales days of the entire season, with six of them hitting $3 billion+ in ecommerce sales and accounting for 27% of the total holiday revenue.

Black Friday, Cyber Monday Remain Tentpoles

Black Friday recorded $7.4 billion in ecommerce sales, falling just short of Cyber Monday 2018’s record-setting $7.9 billion day.

But this year, shoppers propelled Cyber Monday to $9.4 billion in ecommerce sales, meaning both days grew nearly 20% year-over-year. While consumers show a willingness to shop early, they’re also willing to shop often, especially on these tentpole days.

The New Daily Online Sales Benchmark is $2B

Only a couple of years ago, $1 billion in one-day ecommerce sales was the benchmark to hit during the holidays. In 2018, only the period of Dec. 22-25 failed to reach that mark.

But in 2019, only Christmas Eve missed it, with $850 million in ecommerce sales. Two billion dollars is now the new online sales benchmark, with 29 days reaching it, including each day during the Cyber Ten.

Mobile Revenue Grows, Smartphones Gain Share

Mobile continued its march toward the dominant shopping method in the 2019 holiday season. However, tablet’s share of mobile was replaced by smartphones.

• In 2019, purchases on smartphones accounted for nearly 35% of revenue, according to Adobe, while tablets accounted for 5%

• In 2018 season, smartphones made up 31% of revenue, and tablets 9%

We saw this same shifting pattern for mobile devices in web traffic:

• In 2019, smartphones accounted for 58% of retail web traffic, while tablets hit 5%

• This was up from 51% in 2018, when tablets made up 8% of the traffic

I have repeatedly said if you’re not mobile optimized, you’re not optimized – and we’re clearly at the point now where smartphone optimization is table stakes. 

Consumers Continue to Value Email

Email marketing continued to drive ecommerce sales, accounting for 17% of online revenue this year, nearly half of which (49%) came from smartphones. To put this in context, social media drove less than 2% of sales. You can see why email marketing is a powerful promotional tactic.

Email volume continues to increase year over year, confirming that Gray November is alive and well. This season, average daily sends began to increase the last week of October and continued through November. Overall, there were 10% more emails sent in November than in October.

Emails sent from the Bronto Marketing Platform supports the notion that Black Friday week is a promotional event. In November, there were 54% more emails sent during Black Friday week than in the previous weeks. This represents a significant increase in sends during the week of Black Friday compared to previous years.

Of course, discounting in email remained the top tactic. Eighty-four percent of consumers said they’re more likely to open emails with discounts, and 58% felt that relevant email offers had a higher likelihood of purchasing.

2019 Holiday Season Takeaways and How to Use Them

Analyzing the 2019 holiday season does no good unless you implement the lessons learned to further your marketing program. From the takeaways above, here are opportunities for some marketing reflection and optimization throughout 2020:

$2B is the New Daily Ecommerce Sales Benchmark

Question: How do you plan to attract new customers and increase AOV to take advantage of this increase in consumer spending?

Email Marketing Needs to be a Major Program Component

Question: What specifically can you do to improve your email program throughout the year?

The Cyber Ten replaced the Cyber Five

Question: Do you have enough value-adds and promotional strategies to take full advantage of this extended sales period?

Smartphones Took Over Web Traffic, Getting There for Online Sales

Question: Are your website, emails, popup forms and paid search strategies optimized for mobile users?

Now is the time to dive deep into the types of offers customers responded to, the types and timing of automated email messages (i.e., abandoned cart, post-purchase, etc.), subject line tactics, paid search strategies, and the traffic sources and devices.

These tactics will allow you to test hypotheses and roadmap improvements to your overall marketing programs, giving you an early start on next year’s planning while driving increased sales year-round.

Dreams That Last

Look at this picture. What do you see?

It was 1997 in Atlanta. I was 19. I had recently moved there, with my questionable hairstyle and 42” JNCO jeans (although I still spike my hair), when a couple of my friends came to visit. We did what tourists do: went to Stone Mountain, the Conyers Monastery, Centennial Olympic Park, Underground Atlanta, the Westin rooftop restaurant, CNN, Coke’s HQ, etc.

This day was a bit gloomy. It was cool and overcast and featured on-and-off misting. It didn’t matter, our plans stayed the same. We ventured down to Centennial Olympic Park and Underground Atlanta where we joked around like 19-year-olds do and posed for funny photos to document the trip.

But back then, photos were a bit different — they came with a cost. We took ours with disposable cameras. There were no smartphones, no Instagram, and no selfies. After all, without Instagram, there was no use for them. Back then you had to be thoughtful about pushing that “take photo” button. One after another, we posed, turned the wheel until we heard the camera click, and pushed that precious take photo button.

As we made our way through Centennial Park and Underground Atlanta we had one last stop planned. It was to King Plaza, the gravesite of MLK Jr.

We made the quick drive from downtown to the site, parked, and began to walk around. It was eerily deserted, with the lone exception of one security officer casually patrolling the grounds. We walked around processing what we were seeing. It became real that this young man was killed advocating for something that seems so inherently basic: Equality. Justice. Freedom.

But during that time, he was judged, labeled, and, dare I say, feared for going against the status quo, for questioning what is deemed “right.” He was labeled by some, or many, a troublemaker. A radical. A villain.

He fought for something all people should have. And he paid the ultimate price because of it.

We took out our cameras, but something stopped us — our earlier inability to save pictures for the next stop. There were no photos left in the cameras. This was going to have to be one of those moments we simply experienced (something more people nowadays should do). But then it all changed.

We were no longer alone.

A lone figure appeared and slowly made her way toward us. As she approached we gave each other one of those quick hello nods and welcoming smirks — you know the kind. We continued to look around for a few moments and then I noticed something. She was holding a camera of her own.

I walked over and introduced myself. I explained our camera situation and made her a proposition: If she would take a photo of us and send me a copy, I would mail her the money for developing her film (yep, we used to have to PAY to get our photos, even if your thumb covered up the shot).

She gladly accepted. Was it sincere, or did she just not want to be rude to an odd request? I didn’t know.

As she snapped a photo of our group, I asked if I could take a photo with her. I can still remember her face. She smiled and said that she’d love to — proudly posing with me and my friend Kevin.

We continued talking for a few moments. She told me she lived in Baltimore but was considering relocating to Atlanta. She traveled from Baltimore via bus and was heading back home the following day. Before we parted ways, I provided this stranger with my home address. We chatted for a brief moment and went our separate ways.

One month later …

I received an envelope in the mail. The Baltimore return address was unfamiliar to me. I had mostly forgotten about the pictures. After all, even though the task was small, it was a lot to ask a stranger to do. Inside the envelope were four copies of each photo (one for each of us) along with a handwritten note.

I had saved that note for many years, but between repeated moving and organizing it had gone missing. The note was heartfelt. In essence, it remarked how grateful she was to have met us on that overcast day in Atlanta. How, at the grave of the man who advocated for basic human rights and race equality, race did not matter between two strangers. How one stranger asked for some form of help (as trivial as it might have been), and another gladly provided that help. How, on some tiny scale, he did not die in vain.

I responded with a note of my own (along with more than enough to cover the photo developing). I echoed the same sentiments to her. That no matter what you see on the news, most people do care and share the same belief in equality.

As I post this on MLK Jr. Day, I reflect on days like these that truly matter, yet seem insignificant at the time. I hope this woman from Baltimore/Atlanta remembers this day as fondly as I do.

So now, when you look at this photo, what do you see?

To me, the photo is more than a photo. It’s a story. A feeling. A moment of peace. A small representation of all that is good in the world. While there is a lot of progress that needs to be made, this moment of unconditional acceptance and kindness is what MLK Jr. worked so hard and gave his life for.

2019 Holiday Season Takeaways and Ecommerce Marketing Action Items

The 2019 holiday season has concluded, and once again ecommerce experienced record-breaking sales. This online holiday season registered just above $142 billion in online sales, a 13% increase from last year, according to Adobe Analytics.

But what made the 2019 holiday season so successful, and which trends have become the new normal? Let’s explore.

The Subtle Nuances of November

In sports, subtle moves with a major impact are called the “game within the game,” which succinctly describes the continuing evolution of Gray November’s monthlong series of discounts.

We started seeing pre-Black Friday deals and other heavy discounts start in late October. But once we entered November, we started seeing this “game within the game” begin to play out.

Black Friday is Now a Week-long Event

The concept of Black Friday week started in 2018 and became an official thing this year. Many retailers started their sales on the previous Sunday, and many others jumped in on Monday.

Beginning that day, more than a quarter of subject lines in my personal retailer tracking inbox had the term “Black Friday.” It’s possible that Black Friday week was a result of the day falling later in the year, but it continues the trend of a growing sales event. Expect this to be the new norm. 

The Cyber Five Expands to the Cyber Ten

The Cyber Five (Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday) now accounts for 20% of the holiday season’s ecommerce revenue. But this period has morphed into the Cyber Ten, thanks in part to Black Friday week.

The ten days from the Sunday before Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday accounted for seven of the top online sales days of the entire season, with six of them hitting $3 billion+ in ecommerce sales and accounting for 27% of the total holiday revenue.

Black Friday, Cyber Monday Remain Tentpoles

Black Friday recorded $7.4 billion in ecommerce sales, falling just short of Cyber Monday 2018’s record-setting $7.9 billion day.

But this year, shoppers propelled Cyber Monday to $9.4 billion in ecommerce sales, meaning both days grew nearly 20% year-over-year. While consumers show a willingness to shop early, they’re also willing to shop often, especially on these tentpole days.

The New Daily Online Sales Benchmark is $2B

Only a couple of years ago, $1 billion in one-day ecommerce sales was the benchmark to hit during the holidays. In 2018, only the period of Dec. 22-25 failed to reach that mark.

But in 2019, only Christmas Eve missed it, with $850 million in ecommerce sales. Two billion dollars is now the new online sales benchmark, with 29 days reaching it, including each day during the Cyber Ten.

Mobile Revenue Grows, Smartphones Gain Share

Mobile continued its march toward the dominant shopping method in the 2019 holiday season. However, tablet’s share of mobile was replaced by smartphones.

• In 2019, purchases on smartphones accounted for nearly 35% of revenue, according to Adobe, while tablets accounted for 5%

• In 2018 season, smartphones made up 31% of revenue, and tablets 9%

We saw this same shifting pattern for mobile devices in web traffic:

• In 2019, smartphones accounted for 58% of retail web traffic, while tablets hit 5%

• This was up from 51% in 2018, when tablets made up 8% of the traffic

I have repeatedly said if you’re not mobile optimized, you’re not optimized – and we’re clearly at the point now where smartphone optimization is table stakes. 

Consumers Continue to Value Email

Email marketing continued to drive ecommerce sales, accounting for 17% of online revenue this year, nearly half of which (49%) came from smartphones. To put this in context, social media drove less than 2% of sales. You can see why email marketing is a powerful promotional tactic.

Email volume continues to increase year over year, confirming that Gray November is alive and well. This season, average daily sends began to increase the last week of October and continued through November. Overall, there were 10% more emails sent in November than in October.

Emails sent from the Bronto Marketing Platform supports the notion that Black Friday week is a promotional event. In November, there were 54% more emails sent during Black Friday week than in the previous weeks. This represents a significant increase in sends during the week of Black Friday compared to previous years.

Of course, discounting in email remained the top tactic. Eighty-four percent of consumers said they’re more likely to open emails with discounts, and 58% felt that relevant email offers had a higher likelihood of purchasing.

2019 Holiday Season Takeaways and How to Use Them

Analyzing the 2019 holiday season does no good unless you implement the lessons learned to further your marketing program. From the takeaways above, here are opportunities for some marketing reflection and optimization throughout 2020:

$2B is the New Daily Ecommerce Sales Benchmark

Question: How do you plan to attract new customers and increase AOV to take advantage of this increase in consumer spending?

Email Marketing Needs to be a Major Program Component

Question: What specifically can you do to improve your email program throughout the year?

The Cyber Ten replaced the Cyber Five

Question: Do you have enough value-adds and promotional strategies to take full advantage of this extended sales period?

Smartphones Took Over Web Traffic, Getting There for Online Sales

Question: Are your website, emails, popup forms and paid search strategies optimized for mobile users?

Now is the time to dive deep into the types of offers customers responded to, the types and timing of automated email messages (i.e., abandoned cart, post-purchase, etc.), subject line tactics, paid search strategies, and the traffic sources and devices.

These tactics will allow you to test hypotheses and roadmap improvements to your overall marketing programs, giving you an early start on next year’s planning while driving increased sales year-round.