It is nearly the ‘most wonderful time of the year’ again… especially if you work in retail! Brick and mortar stores and e-commerce sites alike will get plenty of traffic during the biggest buying period of the year. On every retailers Christmas list is sales, an increase in sales and not just sales, but profits too… This is an obvious ‘wish list’ item, but have you thought about what else your company would want or would be beneficial moving forward?

The following 3 ‘wish list’ items will definitely have a positive impact on your bottom line in 2019 and should be on your 2018 Christmas wish list:

  1. Growing your CRM database during the Christmas period:

This one is crucial! Before Christmas trading begins, your company should encourage as many potential customers to give their email addresses to build your database. This can be done via competitions, viral mailers, free gifts etc.

A great way to build your list is through data rental campaigns, where you rent a permission based database to target your exact audience.

Once you have the email address, you can start nurturing the relationship and warm them up before the Christmas trade begins.

Building and growing your database should always be top of mind and a KPI for any business, but if you haven’t done it yet. October and November are great months to kick it off and increase your database dramatically. In fact, start doing it early in October as you want to promote Black Friday and Cyber Monday at the end of November and email marketing is a great way of targeting these individuals.

The more individuals you have that opted in to receive information from your company, the better the chances of them buying again in the near future via email / sms promotions sent to them. Think about it? You’ve probably bought a plane ticket / holiday / clothes etc. due to an email you received…

Email marketing is still one of the key revenue drivers.

 

  1. Profiled / segmented data:

Step 1 on your wish list is to have a big CRM database. Step 2 is to ensure your data is profiled and segmented. The more you know about your target audience, the better equipped you are to send them marketing material that would be relevant to them. Every consumer will be motivated by different content, price points, products and offers. If you know what their interests are and you can target via their behaviour, purchase history, demographics etc. you will ‘speak’ to them directly. You should be targeting your different segments accordingly.

Having a profiled CRM database is not just beneficial during the Christmas buying period, but throughout the year. E.g. sending an automated birthday card to a customer on your database on their birthday is a great idea to increase brand loyalty and cement the relationship. Something so simple can literally be the difference why they buy from you and not your competitor!

Behind every email address is a person with buying power… treat their email address well and with respect!

 

  1. Customer satisfaction

You should never ignore the importance of customer satisfaction; actually, it can be reflected in your revenue… that is how important it is!

It is crucial to track this and ensure your team has a top to bottom understanding of your company’s goals, objectives and expectations. During the busy time of the Christmas season your staff might not be as focused on customer experiences, but remind them that a loyal customer can turn into a brand ambassador for life. If they don’t care about the customer’s experience, the customer will probably not care about your service / product or company in future and worse than this, they might tell others about it!

Often the only difference between you and your competitors are the level of service and customer satisfaction. Prior to the Christmas season, ensure that all the staff, top to bottom understand the goals, objectives and service levels expected of them during the busy season.

Remember – we live in a world of social media, where every person has a voice. They can either use this to promote your company or to generate bad publicity… make sure you know how to keep them satisfied.

The holiday season is literally around the corner and even though you are dreaming about a great Christmas shopping period and increasing your profits from last year, stop and think about the above. A bigger CRM database will allow you to speak to more customers. A profiled and segmented database will allow you to offer them exactly what they said they are interested in; you ‘speak’ to their exact needs. Great customer service will lead to satisfaction, positive word of mouth marketing and brand loyalty. All of this will not only impact your bottom line for the holiday season, but also for 2019!

Start dreaming, but start acting to ensure your dreams do come true this Christmas season…

 

 

References:

https://www.pure360.com/the-retailers-guide-to-planning-christmas-2017-part-two/

5 Reasons Why Customer Satisfaction Is Important

https://www.snewsnet.com/news/holiday-planning-for-q4-ecommerce-campaigns