How to keep the conversation going after #BlackFriday2021
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Black Week may be almost over but that doesn't mean the conversation with your customers has to stop. In fact, by using Black Friday and Cyber Monday as a springboard for the holiday season, if you have the right strategy in place, you can ensure customers return even after their holiday purchases.
In some locations, shoppers are still nervous about braving in store crowds and with the shift in buyer preferences to be more online, this can be a huge opportunity for eCommerce. Learning how to harness the mobile holiday shopping frenzy, taking advantage of an online strategy, and having a strong online presence are all vital for keeping the momentum going!
Keep reading to discover how you can start delivering more meaningful and positive conversations to your customers that can help grow your bottom line beyond the Black Friday craze.
Harness the power of conversational messaging
Mobile communication is key for retailers, particularly services associated with customer engagement. According to SaleCycle.com mobile traffic accounted for 70% of all online sales on Black Friday in 2020 which totaled $9 Billion. At LINK, we see conversational messaging at the center of mobile communication strategies, effectively turning a one-way transactional message into a two-way interaction.
Conversational messaging is about helping, engaging, and providing a positive customer journey across all communications channels. A starting point for retail companies wanting to create better conversations is to look at how they are interacting with customers on each channel. Fostering an omnichannel communications strategy that enables the right conversation to happen on the right channel and at the right time will provide more meaningful touch points for your customers.
Personalize the customer experience
When it comes to conversational messaging, giving your customers a feeling of familiarity is key to repeating business. Personalization is table stakes when it comes to what customers are used to: their name in an email, mentions of their preferences, and comms via their preferred channel. This makes customers feel valued and heard, which are core tenants of conversational messaging.
It’s now up to eCommerce brands to take personalized experiences to the next level. When using mobile, this can happen in a few different ways:
Live chat quick
This allows consumers to feel valued as a person as opposed to a number, overcoming objections in the process. Most importantly for e-commerce sites, 79% of businesses said that implementing ‘Live chat’ system resulted in increased customer loyalty, sales, and revenue.
Give a customer a great buying experience the first time around with no hoops to jump through or endless pages to scroll and they are likely to come back for more.
Make it quick
A sure-fire way to lose a sale is to make the purchasing process too lengthy. When e-commerce sites are slow to load or respond, customers invariably bounce elsewhere. Ensure a speedy transaction and follow-up process to handle all aspects of customer support, messaging, purchasing, and more. This serves as a reminder to individual consumers that you value their time spent shopping on your site.
Re-engage customers with useful content
Re-engaging customers with content that is likely to be relevant to them will keep them engaged between Black Friday and Cyber Monday throughout the holiday season.
Make it omnichannel
Most customers use more than one channel, albeit for different purposes or depending on their internet connection. By drilling down into how each channel can serve your customers best, you can send automated updates via SMS while employing chatbots to respond on WhatsApp Business. Or employ Voice when offering extra reassurance and increasing quality experience. This, in a nutshell, is omnichannel messaging: being available on the channels your customers use in their daily lives, with the flexibility to keep the conversation connected between each channel swap. And it is essential to growing business via mobile.
Here’s a breakdown of some of the primary channels used by most brands to keep conversations flowing:
SMS
RCS (Rich Communication Services)
Rich Messaging
Voice
WhatsApp for Business
Viber
Follow up with push notifications
More than any other time of the year push notifications are reciprocated and opened around Black Friday. Consumers are excited to know more about online sales. This is a terrific opportunity for retailers to analyze data to see what items most in demand on Black Friday were and which were not. They can then modify sales and promotions accordingly during the following seasonal retail peaks.
Tracing sales back to their sources helps target mobile messaging data campaigns through Cyber Monday and Christmas. Customers that buy once are 32% likely to return and those that buy twice have a 54% likely return rate. You can incentivize repeat purchases with discounts and coupons, delivered via push notifications.
LINK: Keeping you ahead of the competition
The holiday season lasts well until January so keep sales and marketing campaigns going throughout December when data shows shoppers are still buying. Reinvest some of your Black Friday profits into promotions to wring out the most profit from the buying season.
With multiple channels to cater to your customers, and a host of dedicated features such as LINK Messaging Gateway, LINK Conversations, LINK Mobile Invoice and the LINK Insight Dashboard, LINK Mobility will help you to maximize profits and retain customers into the new year.
LINK’s offerings focus on delivering messages across channels so that when your customer switches between them, you can keep the conversation alive and offer excellent customer service. Get in touch with our team today to learn more about LINK’s offerings!