For almost 75% of UK retailers, the Christmas period accounts for over 20% of annual sales. That’s why it’s so important to get marketing strategy right during the festive season.
Personalised marketing is a proven strategy that can help you drive customers into brick-and-mortar stores. And, while retailers are becoming increasingly aware of this technique, just 10% intend to focus on personalised marketing in the coming year – meaning you can still steal a march on the competition.
In this piece, we explore some of the personalised marketing techniques you can use to gain maximum returns over the Christmas period.
How to personalise your Christmas marketing
Targeting customers with personalised marketing techniques at Christmas has been made easier by advanced location analytics technology that aggregates customer and store data to provide a greater level of insight.
These are some of the options you can choose the personalise your approach to marketing:
Adapt services
Use last years’ sales data to rank the stores that tend to perform best over Christmas, and the products/services that are most in demand.
Think about staying open later during the festive rush to make it easier for customers to visit these stores and update your Google info and website with the new timings. Also, make sure you get enough products in the right locations to meet this increased demand.
Track how efficient each of your localised marketing campaigns have been at driving footfall. Wrap up any that are proving inefficient and transfer the resources to stores where performance is stronger to optimise your approach.
Make shopping easier
Helping customers avoid the Christmas rush is a major selling point. 82% of shoppers consult their smartphone about a purchase they’re set to make in store, so this is a good place to start.
51% of customers are more likely to purchase an item in-store if they receive a relevant offer on their mobile. Categorise the customer type to define what products they might want to purchase, then set up zones in which a targeted marketing message will be sent out directly.
For example, The Container Store’s ‘GoShop’ programme enables customers to order items online for collection in-store. When the person’s device enters the store’s geofence, staff bring the purchased items out to their car.
Target late shoppers
Almost one-third of customers leave all their Christmas shopping until the week before Christmas.
Use your business data to find out whether your loyal customers have visited any of your stores in recent months. If they haven’t, try targeting them with special offers on seasonal products in their local store. Become the convenient answer to the inevitable last-minute panic.
The Christmas period is likely to be among the most lucrative times in your commercial calendar. Make sure you have the resources and strategy in place to take advantage of Christmas consumer trends.
Find out how Periscope® can give you the level of location and customer insight you need to create personalised marketing resources that can help increase footfall this Christmas.