It’s no secret that the retail and hospitality sectors are in for a challenging year. The EY Future Consumer Index (November 2022) found that:

• 62% of consumers don’t expect the economy to recover within the next 12 months
• 58% expect their living costs to increase over the next six months

So let’s tackle this head-on, rather than letting it become the elephant in the room. We talked to Victoria University Economics Lecturer Nathaniel Robson about economic trends, and where retail and hospitality merchants can focus their energy in order to keep business pumping. 

We also want to take a look at how this might affect your marketing plan, and give you tips and resources you can use to inform your campaigns in coming months.

💡 Marketing to your most loyal customers, innovating with your products, and building your brand could be your most important investments in 2023.

What's Happening For Hospitality & Retail Businesses in 2023:

• • • Pressure to offer more competitive wages will continue
    • Demand from lower-income consumers will drop 
    • Prices will increase to pass on some costs to consumers
    • Customer loyalty and a strong brand will pay off
    • Innovative, flexible brands may see the most success
      
      

1. Pressure to offer more competitive wages will continue

Pressure on wages is driven by two main factors: a tight labor market and higher inflation expectations.

“Because the skills of the primary workforce in hospitality and retail are highly transferable, businesses in those sectors will be competing with a range of alternative potential employers,” says Robson.

“​​At the same time, higher costs of the materials used in hospitality and retail service provision will squeeze profit margins.”

Both of these factors will make it harder for hospitality and retail businesses to find and retain staff.

2. Demand from lower-income consumers will drop

Consumers are seeing cost-of-living going up. But this doesn’t affect everyone in the same way.

Robson explains that lower-income households will be hit the worst by inflation. Basic costs of living (rent, groceries, power, internet, etc) will use up an increasing portion of their weekly income unless minimum wages and benefits increase proportionately.

Brands that serve higher-income households (boutique hotels, for example) might not see a significant decline in business. However, many retail and hospitality businesses serve customers in a younger, lower-income market. These customers will start looking for cheaper alternatives (looking to retail giants for cost-effective, mass-produced products).

3. Prices will increase to pass on some costs to consumers

Inflation expectations are also driving up costs of ingredients and materials, meaning tighter profit margins and pressure to pass on extra costs to consumers (i.e. to increase prices).

Robson notes that this also presents an opportunity to innovate with your product line and attract higher-income, generally older, consumers.

“New products may attract a new market of early-30s customers as the early 20s market has drifted away due to living cost rises pushing them towards more mass-produced and cheaper alternatives.”

4. Customer loyalty and a strong brand will pay off

Businesses that have invested in customer loyalty initiatives and brand experiences over the pandemic may be rewarded. Through the pandemic, consumers’ purchasing habits changed, with loyalty decreasing as people worked and shopped from home.

Browsing stores and shopping on a lunch break in town was no longer a convenient option, and consumers opted to compare prices online and have goods delivered to their front door. 

Brands that focused on customer loyalty and established a unique market position over this time will see these efforts pay off as consumer wallets tighten.

"The opportunity ... can be met by striving for a unique market position – having a strong brand and established customer loyalty."

Nathaniel Robson, Economics Lecturer

How a make-up retailer grew a loyal database & doubled sales with Marsello

For years, Scotty’s Makeup & Beauty customers had been asking about discounts for students or industry professionals. “With the Scotty’s Rewards Program, we now have a solution that suits a lot of our customers,” says Hollie, Sales Manager. “The fact that we can run the program both online and in-store is great for building our customer database and turning one-time customers into repeat customers.”

With the loyalty program, Scotty’s Makeup & Beauty has seen expansion beyond the industry it initially sought to serve. Now, they’re building a whole new audience of customers who come to them with all their dress-up and costume needs. Since unlocking these audiences with Marsello, they've seen EOFY sales double.

5. Innovative, flexible brands may see the most success

“Trying to hibernate until the crisis is over is not a safe strategy; it may actually involve less risk to try something bold.”

— Nathaniel Robson, Economics Lecturer

Learning from past recessions and economic downturns, a pattern emerges. Those brands and businesses that take a proactive approach to innovation can emerge stronger and more successful than before. We see this across every sector—just look at brands like Lego, Netflix, and Walmart, which all grew during the 2008 recession because of new products and investments.

Yes, there may be upfront costs, Robson says, but “there is some potential long-term benefit to come from the associated innovation.”

What does all this mean for your 2023 marketing plan?

When budgets are tight, it’s more important than ever to stick close to your strategy. That doesn’t mean stop innovating and go back to 1950s marketing tactics — quite the opposite.

What it does mean is being focused, considered, and clever about the way you reach your target audience, the key message, and the call to action. Planning your marketing campaigns shouldn’t be rocket science. If you stick to what’s important, it can be both simple and effective.

To keep your campaigns focused, try our 5-Minute Campaign Plan activity. In this template, you’ll strip everything down to the strategic essentials, and you can flesh out the details later.

Let’s run through an example, with all of the above in mind.

Question 1. What is the key insight?

Any good campaign strategy starts with the “why”. We find that business owners have marketing ideas in spades (which is great!), but this is the time to turn on the filter. Which ideas have a sound reason for action? What is the driving insight that makes this specific idea a good one? 

Example: Consumers are tightening their budgets as inflationary pressures hit. 

Question 2. What campaign idea works best with your insight?

Test your idea(s) against your “why”. Be ruthless. You might have an idea to design and launch a new luxury product, but realize that if you’re being honest with yourself, it doesn’t align with the insight at all.

Example: A loyalty campaign, like a double points week, that drives repeat orders.

Question 3. Who will be your campaign audience?

Now you have your “why” and “what”, it’s time to figure out the “who”. Think about who the insight impacts, and what they have in common.

Example: For your double points campaign, you might have a couple of audiences. First, you’ve got customers who are already in your loyalty program. They are aware of your brand, and actively engage with you. Second, you’ve got customers in your who aren’t in your loyalty program (and who may or may not be in your database).

Question 4: How will you reach your audience with your campaign?

Sketch out a rough plan of channels and activities. Think about where your campaign audiences are, and how you can engage with them.

Example:

• Loyalty members – SMS, email

• Non-members in database – SMS, email (use double points as an incentive to purchase & join the program)

• Other shoppers – Ask to join in-store and include in welcome pop-up online (use double points as an incentive to join the program)

• Social followers – Instagram, TikTok ads & posts

Read next: 4 Simple Marketing Automations For Easy Revenue Wins [With Examples]

Manage your 2023 marketing campaigns with Marsello

The most hyped sales day of the year is just around the corner. But not everyone embraces Black Friday.

While Black Friday undeniably works well for some retailers, others partake because they feel they have to. In these cases, they risk cutting into margins, alienating loyal customers or diluting brand equity.

Since 2011, retail brand Patagonia has been subverting traditional Black Friday messaging. Now many others are following suit, symptomatic of a major shift in consumer culture. Retailers the world over are finding new ways to break consumerist cycles: promoting recycled materials, fair trade and the repair and re-use of old goods.

Quick Links:

• • • 3 reasons retailers are opting out of Black Friday this year
    • Take a position on Black Friday
    • Position 1: Avoid It
    • Position 2: Subvert It
    • Position 3: Lean Into It
    • How To Use Sales Season To Acquire Lifelong Customers
    • Marsello: All your BFCM marketing in one place
      
      

3 Reasons Retailers Are Opting Out Of Black Friday This Year

1. They can’t compete with big-box retail brands

Retail giants have the purchasing power to bulk buy loss-leaders and attract Black Friday shoppers by the masses. Smaller retail brands don’t have the deep pockets to compete, so many find that running Black Friday sales just cuts into margins.

2. Their audience is made up of conscious consumers

The kinds of people who shop at smaller retailers are both more loyal and more conscious consumers than those that flock to the likes of Amazon. They’re more suspicious of broad-stroke sales and promotions such as Black Friday, and could be turned off or confused by hyperconsumerist marketing.

3. Their brand values simply aren’t aligned

Running Black Friday sales just feel antithetical to their brand. Brands with strong social or environmental purpose and values don’t feel comfortable participating in a sales day that promotes unnecessary consumption and waste.

We’ve worked with an increasingly large number of brands who don’t want to participate in Black Friday. But you can take an anti-Black Friday position, or subvert the normal marketing messages, and still leverage the hype. 

Our advice? Use that position to your advantage. Take the hype of Black Friday, participate in trending conversations, and build your brand and marketing strategy around it.

Take a position on Black Friday

You know your customer best. So take the time to think about what approach works best. By choosing the position that’s right for your brand, you’ll engage your customer base and build brand equity. 

Remember: Whichever position you take, you can leverage the hype around the sales season. Even if you’re taking an avoidant or subversive position, you can leverage Black Friday keywords and trending social hashtags to get your message out to a wider audience.

1. Avoid it: If your target market is predominantly comprised of conscious consumers, are traditional Black Friday campaigns the right fit? Some brands opt out of Black Friday altogether. Some businesses even close their stores, asking their customers to just go outside and enjoy the day rather than spending their time chasing the sales.
2. Subvert it: Do Black Friday, but with a self-aware twist. Or leverage the hype around Black Friday to promote your purpose—for example, brands running Blue Friday campaigns to raise money for ocean clean up projects.
3. Lean into it: If Black Friday works for you, then that’s okay too. You can still go all in for Black Friday, and use creative, unique campaigns to stand out from all the noise.

Once you’re steadfast in your position, be consistent. Otherwise, the campaign will feel inauthentic and confused. Craft all your hooks around your core campaign message. You can use these across your social posts, email subject lines and ads.

Position 1: Avoid It

Last year, the British Independent Retailers Association (BIRA) reported the highest number of smaller brands boycotting Black Friday they’d ever seen—a whopping 85%. This shows a growing movement against the likes of Amazon, who dominate the market and can offer huge discounts, bundles, deals and free shipping.

Here are some ways you can express your anti-Black Friday position:

• Encourage your customers to reduce waste and think about what they really need on Black Friday. 
• Volunteer time or money to plant trees, or donate to offset some of the carbon emissions generated by Black Friday consumption.
• You can even close your stores, like sustainable underwear brand Pantee.

True to their vision and values, Ecolateral never runs Black Friday sales or events promoting hyperconsumerism.

"We're about helping people to make genuine and sustainable changes in their life for the benefit of the planet. And if we're true to our vision, people respect that."

— Jamie Stott, Ecolateral

Source: Ecolateral Instagram

Position 2: Subvert It

Patagonia’s “Don’t buy this jacket” campaign famously subverted traditional sales messaging around Black Friday.

The conscious retailer is known for its clever use of marketing around sales season to boost its brand profile, PR and social media engagement. In 2016, they used Black Friday promotions to raise money for charities with environmental purpose.

If your audience doesn’t resonate with hyper-consumerism, taking a subversive position can be an extremely clever approach.

You might not see the same revenue success as those leaning into Black Friday, but the objective (the bet) is to build brand awareness and customer loyalty that will last longer than one day in the retail calendar.

Source: Patagonia

Here are some ways you can subvert traditional Black Friday messaging:

• Use Black Friday to promote upcycling, repairing and reusing. Patagonia has an online store, Worn Wear, dedicated to resales of pre-loved clothing. Hoopla Kids does the same.
• Take part in Blue Friday, an initiative pioneered by a group of small businesses as an alternative to Black Friday. All participating businesses pledge to donate a percentage of sales from Blue Friday to support ocean conservation projects.
• Donate a percentage of sales made over Black Friday weekend to a good cause. Out of the Box Gifts donated 10% of all their 2021 Black Friday sales to a local food bank.

“It’s time for us as a company to address the issue of consumerism and do it head on. The most challenging, and important, element of [Worn Wear] is this: to lighten our environmental footprint, everyone needs to consume less. Businesses need to make fewer things but of higher quality. Customers need to think twice before they buy.”
—Patagonia

Position 3: Lean Into It

If you are leaning into Black Friday this year, here are some marketing tips to help you hit your revenue targets.

Tip #1. At peak sales season, the normal marketing guidelines don’t apply.

Don’t send emails on the weekend? Don’t schedule social posts after 8pm? Don’t send more than 3 emails for week? Forget it.

Consumers are receiving more emails, SMS messages and targeted ads than ever around this time. Don’t be afraid to dial up the frequency of your marketing messages. Be prepared to get some unsubscribes, but the resulting sales will more than outweigh that.

Tip #2. Get personal with segmentation.

This tactic has helped our retailers get more Black Friday sales, and higher average order value. 

Slice up your database by type of products purchased. For example, if you’re a technology retailer, you could create segments for “Photographers”—people who most frequently buy photography equipment.

Send targeted Black Friday or Cyber Monday campaign emails and SMS messages to those segments, adding only products from their preferred category. Of course, you can add a “See All Deals” call-to-action below your product blocks to pull in more general interest to the broader sale categories.

For higher impact, start strong with a personalized subject line:

“Alice, get 60% off everything photography! 🤑📸”

Tip #3. Black Friday is about more than just revenue targets.

Did you know sales season is bigger than just hitting holiday revenue targets???

Collect customer details over these heavy traffic periods to build your list of re-marketable customers.

According to the Pareto principle, around 80% of a business’s profits come from just 20% of its customers. That means regular customers, who buy from you again and again, are worth A LOT to your business.

It’s more expensive to acquire new customers to retain them, so make the most of your campaign spend and continue selling to Black Friday participants long after November has been and gone.

How To Use Sales Season To Acquire Lifelong Customers

In the current economic climate, consumers are much more price-sensitive, so they’re more willing to switch brands on a whim. That’s especially true around peak sales season. Any new customers you’ve acquired over the holiday season have more than likely found you through a sale or promotion.

So how do you keep new customers in your orbit year-round?? With a value-packed and engaging loyalty program they won’t want to leave!

After the holiday rush, run double points days, VIP sales, personalized deals and creative in-store shopping experiences. Regularly deliver value to your loyal customers with birthday gifts, loyalty rewards and freebies—they’ll love you for it.

As a consumer, what are your favorite loyalty programs you’re part of? There are always a few standouts you can learn from!

Read next: Top 8 Marketing Hacks For Black Friday/Cyber Monday Campaigns

Marsello: All your marketing, in one place. Schedule social posts Send email and SMS campaigns to customers Create set-and-forget marketing automations Track the direct impact of all your marketing on revenue Build a customer database

The opportunity for sales through TikTok is colossal. 67% of TikTok users say they feel an impulse to shop while scrolling through their feed. 20.6% of consumers who have bought products through social media say they frequently purchase on TikTok.

In addition, TikTokers use the platform as a search engine; TikTok crawls comments, tags, and captions for keywords to provide highly relevant search results.

This illustrates a rapidly growing preference for organic, user-generated content over keyword-stuffed blog posts in traditional search engine results.

As Black Friday approaches, users jump on the app to find deals and see what their favorite TikTokers are buying. It’s no wonder TikTok is the place every retailer wants to be this Black Friday…

Quick Links:

• • • Why User-Generated Content Works Best
    • Top 5 TikTok Trends To Use This Black Friday
    • Dos and Don’ts for Black Friday TikTok success
    • Marsello: All your BCFM marketing in one place
      
      

Why User-Generated Content Works Best

TikTok is all about authenticity.

TikTokers are more discerning than any other social media user. They’re social natives, raised by influencer culture and reality TV, so they know when someone’s there to sell them something.

On the other end of the authenticity spectrum… you’ve got traditional, big-box, branded Black Friday campaigns.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t harness the power and influence of the For You page to stand out from the crowd this sale season.

The key? User-generated content, or UGC.  That’s right, you want to make content that looks like it was made by one of your customers, NOT by your marketing team.

Let’s dive in!

Top 5 TikTok Trends To Use This Black Friday

These are not new or fleeting trends. (Nope, we’re not going to make you edit corn into your next collection promo video).

TikTok moves fast, so trying to plan out content ahead of time can be a headache. You don’t want to awkwardly miss the beat on a trend, it’ll be very obvious. For quick, hot-and-fast trends, you want to jump on them right away.

Once you’ve spent a bit of time on the platform, you will get a pretty clear idea about what kinds of trends will last a few days or weeks, and what will stand the test of time. 

If you aren’t super au fait with TikTok just yet, never fear. We have put together some tried-and-tested successful formulae that we see working over and over again. With these trends, it’s all about creating a hook that entices the user and gets them to stop scrolling.

1. Black Friday Hauls

Create a video of someone shopping online or in your physical stores, then cut to them showing all their new products. Walk the viewer through the discounts, bundles, and deals.

Example of a Black Friday haul:

Some hashtags to add: 

#blackfridaydeals #blackfriday #haul #christmashaul #shoppinghaul

2. Deals You Need To Know About

Create a video showcasing your brand’s deals. To level up the authenticity, promote some complementary deals from brands you collaborate with too. It’s all about community!

Example of a deal finder:

Some hashtags to add: 

#cybermonday2022 #blackfriday2022 #blackfridaydeals #christmasgiftideas #giftguide2022

3. Unboxing Experiences

These work particularly well if they’re ‘oddly satisfying’ or ASMR inspired. You can add a mention that the product was on sale on a Black Friday deal.

Example of an unboxing:

Some hashtags to add: 

 #unboxing #blackfriday #ASMR (if applicable)

4. Get Ready With Me (GRWM)

Make this trend Black Friday relevant with a “GRWM: Black Friday edition” showcasing all your Black Friday deals. Mix and match with non-sale items, or do a full ‘on sale’ promotion. This works for clothes, make-up, beauty, accessories… get creative!

Example of a GRWM:

Some hashtags to add:

#outfit #winter (or any applicable season) #grwm

5. Come shopping with me

If you have a bricks and mortar store, bring the viewer "shopping" with you. Take a timelapse of walking into your store from the street, looking around, then slow down to pick up products and deals. Show the viewer you’re adding it to your basket, all while showcasing your in-store experience candidly.

Example of a shop with me:

Some hashtags to add:

#comeshopwithme #mallshopping #shoppingaddict

Dos and Don’ts for Black Friday TikTok success

Don’t brand your videos.

Use TikTok’s native fonts, instead of your own branded fonts. This will give your content a much more organic feel, and won’t stick out as “marketing” content on TikTok’s For You page.

TikTok’s native fonts include Proxima Nova Semi Bold, Kaufmann Bold Script and Georgia Bold. You can mix and match fonts and styles.

Do make sure your videos are well lit.

Good lighting is essential for creating high-quality content. Every successful TikToker has this down. If you can, film in good natural light (but not direct sunlight). Golden hour (when the sun is setting) will give your content a warm, radiant glow.

As a second-best alternative, invest in quality artificial lighting, such as a ring light. 

Do get creative with transitions.

If you’re feeling confident, try some creative transitions between shots. TikTokers are known for using manual camera tricks to enhance the overall feel of their videos.

Do get familiar with editing apps.

If you’re creating content in advance, TikTok’s native editor is not ideal. Use an editing tool like CapCut to get a cleaner final result. You can download it for your phone, tablet or desktop.

Don’t try and tell your whole brand story.

While it can be tempting to start talking about how great all your products are and listing all the benefits, stick to the short, hook-based formats above.

Don’t use muffled audio.

If you’re doing voice-over style videos, it’s important to get crisp, clear sound. Invest in a small microphone you can clip to your clothing, like a lapel mic, that plugs into your recording device (i.e., your phone). These are affordable and easy to find online. 

Most TikTokers find it’s simple and effective to record straight into Voice Memos or similar. Your phone’s inbuilt voice recording app serves the purpose just fine.

Don’t spend thousands on equipment.

I can’t iterate this enough. Even the best quality user-generated content doesn’t need anything more than good lighting, good audio, your smartphone (as long as it has a decent camera), and a tripod.

Do have fun with it!

Express your personality, and have fun—otherwise, it will become just another marketing chore, and that won’t produce good content. Making TikToks is a creative process, so enjoy it!

Read next: Social media planning for BFCM - 7 Best Practices to Implement

Marsello: All your Black Friday marketing, in one place. Send email and SMS campaigns to customers Create set-and-forget marketing automations Schedule social posts Track the direct impact of your marketing on revenue Build a customer database

Top marketing statistics for retail and hospitality businesses 👇

We've compiled this handy reference list of retail and hospitality marketing statistics. This list will be updated on a regular basis.

Quick Links:

• • • Sales and shopping habits
    • Social media statistics
    • Loyalty statistics
    • Segmentation statistics
    • SMS marketing statistics
    • Marketing automation statistics
    • Customer experience statistics
    • Referral and word-of-mouth statistics
    • Marsello: All your marketing in one place

Sales & shopping habits

Here are some of the top trends and insights into consumer behavior in 2022.

• The average shopping cart abandonment rate is 69.23% (Baymard Institute, 2022).
  
  
• In an analysis of over 60 million consumer purchases, Marsello found that 25% of all orders come from the top 2% of customers (Marsello, forthcoming).
  
  
• According to research by BIA/Kelsey and Manta, regular customers spend 67% more per order than one-off or infrequent customers (BIA/Kelsey & Manta)

Social media statistics

• Customers report spending 20%–40% more money on brands that have interacted with them on social media (OptinMonster, 2022).
  
  
• Industry data shows that 55% of social media users ages 18 to 24 have purchased something through a social channel (Influencer Marketing Hub, 2022).
  
  
• There were 4.26 billion active social media users across the globe in 2021. This is forecast to increase to 5.85 billion by 2027 (Statista, 2022).
  
  
• 77% of Millennials report making a purchase either online or in-store after seeing a product on Facebook (OptinMonster, 2022).

Loyalty statistics

Loyalty marketing is a marketing strategy that retailers of all sizes use to increase the lifetime value of their customers through incentivizing and rewarding repeat purchasing.

Watch: Loyalty Marketing Masterclass

• According to Marketing Metrics (2011), the probability of selling to an existing customer is up to 14 times higher than the probability of selling to a new customer.
  
  
• When your customers feel rewarded for their purchases, they can spend more, more frequently, and even purchase products at a slightly higher price than they might be at a competitor (KPMG, 2019).
  
  
• 60% of consumers will buy from a store with slightly higher prices if they will earn a loyalty program reward (KPMG, 2017).
  
  
• More than 65% of customers admitted making special trip to redeem a free gift from a loyalty program (KPMG, 2017).
  
  
• 75% of consumers would give “rave reviews” to a loyalty program they’re involved in (KPMG, 2017).
  
  
• Existing customers are 50% more likely to try new products and spend 31% more, on average, compared to new customers (Crazyegg/Neil Patel, 2018).
  
  
• Retailers can also send more frequent messages to those who are loyal brand followers (although you’ll see your best engagement if you don’t send more than five emails per week) (GetResponse, 2021).
  
  
• According to the 2018 Bond Brand Loyalty Report:

• 77% of consumers say they are likely to stay with a brand that has a loyalty program.
• 70% of consumers are more likely to recommend a brand with a good loyalty program.
• 63% of consumers say they're prepared to modify their spending habits in order to maximize the benefits of a loyalty program.

Segmentation statistics

Customer segmentation is the process of dividing customers into groups, allowing retailers to do more targeted and effective marketing. Segmentation is an antidote to low database engagement and declining email open rates. 

• 78% of marketers reported segmentation as their most effective email marketing strategy (Hubspot, 2022).
  
  
• In retail, automated emails see a 326.1% higher click rate than manually-sent emails, indicating 4x higher engagement and purchase intent (Epsilon, 2019).
  
  

SMS marketing statistics

When used in the right context, SMS remains one of the most powerful marketing tactics on the block.

• 75% of consumers want to receive text messages with special offers (Adestra via Dexatel, 2017)
  
  
• 90% of SMS messages opened within three minutes of being received (Tatango, 2020)
  
  

Pro-tip: Get even more personalized and use merge tags in your SMS campaigns—include loyalty points balance, first name and more.

Marketing automation statistics

With marketing automation, you can reach the right customers, with the right message at the right time.

• Automated emails, triggered by a customer action, get 8 times more opens than manual, bulk emails (Experian)
  
  

Read more: 4 simple marketing automations for easy revenue wins 

Customer experience statistics

Send exclusive Black Friday deals and offers to your existing customers. Rubber Monkey sent customers an extra $10 voucher to use over and above their Black Friday purchases.

• Bad customer service can cause 4 out of 5 consumers to switch brands (Qualtrics & ServiceNow, 2021).
  
  

Referral & word-of-mouth statistics

Referral programs reward existing customers for introducing friends, family or colleagues to your brand. They work by offering incentives such as points, discounts, or other rewards in return.

• People are as much as 4x more likely to buy when referred by a friend.
  
  

Read more: Ways to provide incentives for customer referrals

Does your engagement convert? Learn how to find out 👇

Social media engagement is a great metric for measuring the buzz around your brand. The average Instagram engagement rate across all businesses is around 1-2% per post (depending on where you look).

So, if you’ve got 5,000 followers, the average business could expect around 50-100 likes on any given post. Video content generally sees a much higher engagement rate—that same business could be seeing around 300 likes on a video post. Carousels also receive higher engagement, as Instagram’s algorithm will show the same post more than once to the same follower.

But engagement is not revenue, and it doesn’t necessarily even convert to revenue in the long run. If your posts don’t drive action, generate exclusivity, or create urgency, your audience may engage with you without ever making a purchase.

So your next question should be: how do I turn engagement into dollars and cents?

Quick Links:

• • • How do I turn engagement into revenue?
    • Use Product Tagging to drive social sales
    • Create a custom link in bio landing page
    • Plan campaigns and posts ahead of time
    • How do I know what posts generate sales?
    • Get a social media analytics tool to track sales
    • Include discount codes in social posts
    • Use UTMs to track links back to your online store
    • Final words
    • Marsello: All your social media marketing in one place
      
      
      

How do I turn engagement into revenue?

When I talk to merchants, there's one thing I hear a lot: "My posts get lots of comments, good reach, and heaps of likes, but I just don't know if I'm seeing sales from them." It's a common concern—you're putting all this time and effort into creating content, but it's really hard to make that content sell.

Here are three strategies you can use to take that engagement and convert followers into paying customers.

1. Use Product Tagging to drive social sales

To convert followers into customers, you want to take away every possible barrier to purchase. Don’t make your followers Google your website, then manually type a product into the search bar. Every time there’s an extra step, a percentage of followers will drop off the buying journey.

Product Tagging is perfect for this. It doesn’t have to be on a “product launch” type post either, you can tag products on lifestyle imagery, competition posts, and more. You can even use “product” stickers to tag products in your Instagram stories too.

Take advantage of every opportunity to tag a product.

2. Create a custom link in bio landing page

When you only get one link, make it count. Drive followers to your store with a branded link and customizable landing page for Instagram and TikTok.

Having a centralized landing page means you can drive all your traffic to one page with multiple products, promotions and calls-to-action. There are lots of tools out there, from free, basic products to tools with advanced features and customization. The most sophisticated tools have the ability for merchants to add forms, buttons, media and more to a fully branded page.

3. Plan campaigns and posts ahead of time

Sometimes, even the best post with the most amazing offer and relevant call-to-action just won’t work. 

Imagine this. You’re a retailer selling mountain bikes. You’ve also got a workshop and you sell replacement parts and accessories. It’s the middle of winter and things are quiet, but you know come spring all your customers will be wanting to replace their knackered bearings to hit the trails as soon as possible.

You make a post offering half price bearings in-store hoping to see some service bookings off the back of it (thinking that you’ll be able to upsell when people are in the right frame of mind). But you don’t see any uptake so you assume you were wrong, and that the idea was a flop.

Here’s how you could do it differently:

You want to target existing customers, but also other riders in your local community. You know the large portion of your social followers are local mountain bike riders. So plan and schedule a series of posts each with different creative, and do a candid video post on your stories too. 

You could build the hype by sending out an email or two as well to your local database. 

Create a discount code people need to use in-store so you can track the impact of the campaign (I’ll get to that shortly). It might even make sense to send an SMS out as well, driving people to one of your social media posts for more info.

All this planning can be on the back of an envelope:

• Insight: There’s always a spring rush for parts and servicing because people leave it til the last minute, and the workshop is really busy
• Objective: Sell bearings, drive foot traffic, and get people thinking about booking in a service early
• Offer: 50% off all bearings (put a time limit on this for urgency-for example, “This month only”)
• Target audience: Customers and other local riders
• Channels: Social media, email and SMS
• Success measure(s): In-store bearing sales, foot traffic increase, service bookings

Once you’ve got your basic campaign plan, spend a couple of hours getting everything set up.

• Create a discount code and/or UTM to track bookings from your campaign.

• Use a social media scheduling tool to schedule campaign posts over your campaign time period.

• Schedule an email blast to customers, and maybe a reminder email or two.

• Schedule an SMS to reach people directly to their mobile (around 98% of SMS messages are opened, so it’s a great channel for a short, snappy and time-sensitive campaign).

Taking a step back to plan means you can get your channels working together to increase the impact of your social media posts, and drive more sales.

How do I know what posts generate sales?

To understand how your engagement converts, you need a way to track sales that come from your social posts. This can be a bit tricky, so I've pulled together a handy list of ways to measure your results.

Get a social media analytics tool to track sales

The easiest and most effective way to track sales made from organic social media is to use analytics software that connects your POS, eCommerce, and social media data (you can do this all in Marsello).

This doesn’t just track when someone clicks on a tagged product, it also tracks if someone likes, comments on or shares a post with a product tagged in it, and buys it later. This is called organic social media sales tracking.

Using a tool like this, you can see:

• What posts have generated the most revenue
• Which creative type (images, videos, etc) leads to more sales
• How many orders you get from social media over a certain period of time
• Which social media platform works best for your business
• What percentage of revenue comes from organic social media

By tracking sales and revenue, and seeing what kinds of social posts and which channels work best, you can improve the performance of your accounts over time.

Include discount codes in social posts

Discount codes are one of the simplest ways to see where traffic and sales are coming from. These have become popular for tracking sales from organic social media posts and campaigns, as merchants struggled to see the impact of their efforts in Facebook, Instagram, TikTok etc.

Simply create a unique discount or offer code for each channel, and you’ll be able to track how many sales you generated from those posts.

Use UTMs to track links back to your online store

What is a UTM? UTMs (Urchin Tracking Modules) are short bits of code you can use to track how effective a campaign is. UTMs can track up to five parameters (aspects): campaign, source, medium, content and term.

That might sound complex, but UTMs are actually incredibly easy to use. And unless you’re drilling into deep testing and measuring, you really only the first three parameters.

The easiest way to show you how to build a UTM is by using an example.

Say we are running a campaign that goes to http://marsello.com. We are using Facebook ads, and the campaign is to get sign ups for our social media scheduler.

Let’s put that in simple terms:

Campaign: Social Media
Source: Facebook
Medium: Paid Ads

When you build your link, make sure you don’t use spaces. Instead, replace your space with a dash symbol (-). Aside from that, use only plain text for labeling (avoid hashtags, ampersands, percentage symbols or anything else that could break the link).

Campaign: Social-Media-Sign-Ups
Source: Facebook
Medium: Paid-Ads

Now, we want to add these to the link in UTM format.

1. First, add a question mark (?). This indicates that the body of the link is complete, and Google Analytics, or your tracking tool, should read the following part as tracking information.
2. Add “utm_campaign=” then your campaign name.
3. Add an ampersand symbol (&). This tells your tracking tool that your campaign name is complete.
4. Add “utm_source=” then your source. 
5. Add another ampersand symbol (&).
6. Finally, add “utm_medium=” then your medium. 

It’s that easy! Here’s how ours would look:

http://marsello.com?utm_campaign=Social-Media-Sign-Ups&utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Paid-Ads 

For each different source or medium you want to differentiate, change the UTM parameters. For example, you might differentiate visitors coming from a Facebook source by medium. You could state “utm_medium=organic-post” or “utm_medium=story-video” to separate traffic coming from different parts of the platform.

The more specific you go, the more you know what particular channel, content and post type works best. But it’s always good to have broader parameters too, for example, you will still want to be able to compare all Facebook traffic from all Instagram traffic.

Final words

If you're putting a lot of resource into social media, but aren't sure if all the likes and comments are actually growing your business, you're not alone.

Start making your social media work harder by taking away barriers to purchase (product tagging, using a link in bio, etc) and track the results directly using UTMs, promo codes and sales tracking.

It's also important to have a clear plan, while leaving some wiggle room in your calendar for jumping on trends as they come up.

Looking for an all-in-one social planning, scheduling and sales tracking tool? Marsello provides you with tools to easily create, schedule and publish social media content.

BFCM marketing hacks big-box retailers don’t want you to know 👇

Black Friday is creeping up fast. But while we’re still a decent way out, here are 8 of the best marketing tips you should be considering in your campaign planning.

These strategies are used by some of the world’s biggest and most successful retailers; however, they’re all actually incredibly simple. Some of these tactics can even wait until the last minute (if you’re “deadline driven” like I am!) and they’ll still be high impact.

Quick Links:

• • • Run pre-Black Friday sales
    • Segment your database for personalized deals
    • Add urgency with a countdown timer
    • Leverage the 98% deliverability of SMS
    • Send product recommendations and a discount code
    • Run VIP offers to your existing customers
    • Set up automated Abandoned Cart reminders
    • Last, but not least: build your customer database!
    • Marsello: All your BCFM marketing in one place
      
      
      

Run pre-Black Friday sales

Black Friday is BIG. It has global awareness, with merchants participating in countries in and outside of Canada and the US (even those that don’t recognize Thanksgiving). Needless to say, it’s on everyone’s minds for months in the lead up.

So—why not run sales before the actual day? Savvy retailers are using this strategy to capitalize on the hype without shouting in the crowd at peak time.

For example, Rubber Monkey, a technology retailer, runs a VIP Black Friday “Countdown Campaign” with several pre-Black Friday sales ahead of the big date.

Rubber Monkey’s lead-up campaign emails included dates for not one, not two but THREE separate Black Friday sale dates.

Alternatively, in lieu of running a multi-stage sale, simply send Black Friday / Cyber Monday previews. Tease your database, give them a sneak peek of what’s around the corner, and build hype.

You can also include a Google Calendar or Outlook Calendar invite, so your subscribers have your sale top of mind and receive automated reminders directly from their calendar app.

Segment your database for personalized deals

A blast to all customers is not always an effective marketing strategy. Instead, segment your database by type of products purchased. For example, if you’re a technology retailer, you could create segments for “Photographers”—people who most frequently buy photography equipment.

Send targeted Black Friday or Cyber Monday campaign emails and SMS messages to those segments, adding only products from their preferred category. Of course, you can add a “See All Deals” call-to-action below your product blocks to pull in more general interest to the broader sale categories.

For higher impact, start strong with a personalized subject line:
“Alice, get 60% off everything photography! 🤑📸”

I love how this Cyber Monday email jumps straight into product collections from the category I’m most interested in: photography.

Add urgency with a countdown timer

Ah, the old FOMO trick. Let your subscribers know when your sales start, so they don’t miss a deal. Using a dynamic, live countdown timer in your emails will capture visual interest, and drive urgent action.

Drag-and-drop the countdown timer into your campaigns with Marsello’s email builder. You can customize your timer to match your brand and campaign specs. I also love how this email uses a ‘Wishlist’ call-to-action—getting subscribers engaged with the sale in advance.

Leverage the 98% deliverability of SMS

Did you know…

• 75% of consumers want to receive text messages with special offers
• 90% of SMS messages opened within three minutes of being received

Scott Home Delivery uses SMS for their Black Friday campaigns, with incredible results. Some of their campaigns see up to a 26% click rate—much higher than the average email click rate (around 3%).

When used in the right context, SMS remains one of the most powerful marketing tactics on the block. The key? It’s really not rocket science: it all comes down to following the tried-and-true recipe for success:

• There’s one clear offer (50% off)
• Urgency (Only a few days left!)
• A CTA and link to drive conversions
• And there are instructions for how to opt out (a necessary inclusion)

Pro-tip: Get even more personalized and use merge tags in your SMS campaigns—include loyalty points balance, first name and more.

Send product recommendations with a discount code

You don’t have to discount specific products, but you could offer a discount code. That way, you can send an email with product recommendations to your customer database, and offer a discount code so they can go and spend it on the products you know they’ll love. 

Marsello’s product recommendation algorithm uses the same model as Amazon. We use customer purchase data to determine which products they’re most likely to be interested in buying next.

You can drag-and-drop this pre-built block into any of your Black Friday campaign emails. Beyond that, we recommend using this feature in all kinds of email campaigns!

Here, we show how you can drop the block into an automated Happy Birthday email using Marsello’s super easy email campaign builder.

Run VIP offers to your existing customers

Send exclusive Black Friday deals and offers to your existing customers. Rubber Monkey sent customers an extra $10 voucher to use over and above their Black Friday purchases.

Rubber Monkey’s additional VIP Black Friday offer to their email subscribers.

Set up automated Abandoned Cart reminders

Don’t let those Black Friday deals sit idly in customer carts. Use marketing automation to set up automatic abandoned cart reminders. Use triggers to set up a delay—around one hour is usually about right for a one-day sale, but you can test what works best with your customer database.

Take a look at Ozzie Collectables’ Abandoned Cart campaign, for example. This series of three emails has an overall conversion rate of 28%. In fact, automated email flows alone are generating 38% of their total revenue.

Marsello has a collection of pre-built email templates you can add to your Abandoned Cart flows. You can even tweak your flows in the days around Black Friday / Cyber Monday to include more relevant, urgent messages.

Last but not least, build your customer database!

Think bigger than Black Friday. Collect customer details over these heavy traffic periods to build your list of re-marketable customers.

According to the Pareto principle, around 80% of a business’s profits come from just 20% of its customers. That means regular customers, who buy from you again and again, are worth A LOT to your business. And they’re cheaper to market to as well.

The other 80% of your customers only make up the remaining 20% of your profits. These customers include your one-time shoppers, infrequent visitors, and any other more casual consumers.

It’s more expensive to acquire new customers to retain them, so make the most of your campaign spend and continue selling to Black Friday participants long after November has been and gone.

Read next: Social media planning for BFCM - 7 Best Practices to Implement

We talked to Marsello CEO Brent Spicer about the state of the global economy, and how a market slowdown presents opportunities for independent businesses.

Merchants, particularly small business owners, want to know: what will a recession mean for my business?

There’s no doubt about it—the economy is very volatile at the moment. We’re feeling the effects of this through high inflation.

The rise has been in large part driven by pent-up consumer demand after the pandemic and supply chain issues caused by China’s lockdowns and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“These events have caused global inflation rates to spike,” Marsello CEO Brent Spicer explains. “Central banks worldwide have a singular objective at the moment: to control and limit inflation. This reduces market liquidity. As interest rates rise, the cost of borrowing goes up. Before, capital was effectively free. Now, it is very expensive.”

Spicer believes the global economy will continue to slow, but the question is—how much and for how long?

This slowdown is only just starting to cut through to the general economy and consumers. As we are all aware, this will have a big impact on consumer spending and, in turn, retail and hospitality businesses.

Adding to this, low unemployment is making it really difficult for these businesses to attract staff. “We’re seeing signs of this already,” says Spicer. “Hospitality businesses and retailers offering well above minimum wage, but still struggling to get job applicants. The problem we’re seeing is not the pay, it’s a labor shortage.”

All this means small businesses are in for some challenging times.

Quick Links:

• • • How can my business thrive through a recession?
    • Future-proofing with technology
    • Doubling down on smart marketing
    • Investing in customer relationships
    • Key takeaways
      
      
      

How can my business thrive through a recession?

Put simply, brick-and-mortar businesses have been through a lot in the past few years. Lockdowns and staff illness have forced shop closures and put pressure on margins.

To make it through, businesses had to adapt, pivot, and try new sales and marketing tactics—fast.

We saw so many different innovative approaches come out of the pandemic. 

Hospitality businesses took the opportunity to expand to e-commerce, subscriptions, and home deliveries. Retailers pivoted to create new products (such as masks!), run virtual product demos, and set up processes for contactless pick-up and delivery. Others focused on buckling down and building their brand’s community, looking ahead at the long-term game.

We’ve learned a few things from past recessions too. We know for certain that there will be business who come through stronger than ever. 

So what will it be that sets them apart from the rest? How will they not just survive, but thrive?

1. Future-proof with technology

Independent retailers and hospitality businesses taking advantage of technology will be the ones who thrive.

Back in 2008, the Global Financial Crisis accelerated the growth of e-commerce. As e-commerce platforms became more accessible, smaller businesses were able to leverage online ordering—rather than needing huge budgets to build custom websites.

E-commerce gave consumers a way to find better deals further from home, and have them delivered within a few days. So it was the perfect storm for e-commerce, and those consumer habits just took off.

“The Global Financial Crisis hugely impacted the mindset of consumers,” says Spicer.
“Consumers were extremely price-sensitive, substituting premium goods for cheaper-name brands. Luxury goods were out of the question for the average household. Shoppers wanted value, and they started shifting online to find the best prices available.”

From the GFC, a whole new breed of small business was born: small business that was tech-forward, even tech-led. This quickly became the norm—Shopify (e-commerce), Lightspeed Retail (point-of-sale), and Xero (accounting software) were among some of the tech companies that helped these businesses thrive. 

And those who saw the opportunity in software for small business and leaped on it were in a better position to recover and grow as consumer confidence improved.

Looking ahead, we predict a massive opportunity for businesses to lean on AI and algorithmic learning. For example, ​​algorithimically-determined product recommendations make up around 35% of Amazon’s total revenue.

Even the simplest AI tactics can be very effective at generating revenue. In Marsello, we have a template product recommendation block merchants can drop into email campaigns and automations. If you’re paying to send emails, text messages or ads, you want to be delivering the most targeted, personalized content to make every dollar count.

We’re also seeing massive opportunities for businesses to get a full overview of their data. That means streamlined, consolidated tech stacks, that house data in one, central place. This reduces the risk of creating “data silos”. A data silo is created every time you introduce a new tool that takes time and resource to export data and re-upload it somewhere else. For example, if you have to manually export your sales data and upload it to your email.

2. Double down on smart marketing

Most companies cut costs during a recession and marketing is usually the first chop. But now is not the time to ditch the marketing efforts.

According to Harvard Business Review, businesses who spent more on marketing actually did better through the GFC. 

It makes sense—if you can maintain your marketing budget (or even increase it) while others are cutting back, your comparative marketing impact will increase by default.

However, your marketing does need to get smarter.

There’s a term that merchants, entrepreneurs, and business owners need to get familiar with: capital efficiency. That is, any activity you’re putting dollars into needs to generate a return on investment. 

Measuring your activity is extremely important—it will help you reallocate budget to get the best results from your dollar. If you can’t measure the direct impact of marketing on sales, you risk cutting marketing spend on channels or tactics that are actually delivering return.

The problem is that revenue generated from marketing is notoriously difficult to track and measure. Merchants often have to rely on vanity metrics to prove their marketing works—metrics like the number of Instagram followers, email open rates, or Facebook engagement. 

Smart marketing, on the other hand, is directly attributable to sales. It means your marketing tools and sales platforms (point-of-sale and e-commerce) are all sharing data with one another.

It also means collecting details from every person who makes a purchase, so those sales and marketing data points can be connected to a customer profile. At every opportunity, you should be adding customers to your database.

“This was proven to be particularly important through COVID. Our top-performing retailers through the height of the pandemic were those that had the biggest databases that they could re-market to, especially when stores were closed consumers could only buy online,” says Spicer.

3. Build relationships with your customers

Independent businesses who prioritize customer relationships will fare better through a recession, and will see much faster recovery down the line.

Brands competing on price to survive a recession will lock themselves into a dangerous loop. 

First, they’ll struggle with tight margins as they cut prices to be competitive with retail giants. Second, they will attract customers who make purchasing decisions solely on low prices—these customers will not be interested in building a loyal, long-lasting relationship with them. This will make post-downturn recovery hard too (price-sensitive consumers are fickle and will happily shop elsewhere, rather than sticking around to help small businesses grow).

“Businesses who are able to maintain and nurture their customer relationships through a recession generally have less debt going into the downturn,” explains Spicer. “Merchants who are highly indebted will be hit too hard with interest rates and will have to make concessions in customer experience—simply because they need to cut costs.”

But those merchants who can strike a balance between strategic investment and servicing their debt will see faster recovery as the economic conditions settle.

Here are a few ways you can invest in your customer relationships:

• Keep your focus on knowing exactly who your customers are, why they chose your brand. Asking for feedback is a really important part of this. Feedback gives you insight into your overall customer sentiment, and shows you how that’s tracking over time.
• Be true to your business’s core values and mission—conscious consumers will stretch budgets for a greater cause if they can afford it, even if times are tough.
• Reward customers who keep coming back. Did you know that around 80% of a business’s revenue comes from the top 20% of their customers? All the more reason to start a loyalty program, leverage the value of your existing database, and offer incentives for repeat purchasing. 
• Engage your customers and wider community on social media. Keep activity consistent by posting regularly, running polls or competitions, and sharing more candid video content on TikTok or Instagram stories.

Key takeaways:

• Invest in technology to future-proof your business. Find ways to streamline, personalize and automate marketing with technology. For example, consolidate all your marketing tools, or leverage technology such as AI for advanced product recommendations.
• Double down on smart marketing. Make sure you can track and report on sales generated by every marketing activity as much as you can. This will help you work out where you can cut costs. If you don’t have visibility on results, you might be cutting a key lead generator that could cost you in sales down the line.
• Keep your focus customer-centric. Don’t lose sight of what’s most important—building a database of loyal customers who come back again and again. Action points might include: implementing a loyalty program to reward your top customers, asking for feedback after a purchase, and leveraging social media to engage with your community.                                                                                                        

SMS might feel like a throwback, but savvy business owners are still using this direct, punchy channel to drive revenue.

There are an overwhelming number of marketing and advertising channels these days. You’d be forgiven for thinking you have to invest in every latest and greatest platform or social media app to reach your audience.

Email, SMS, Display Ads. Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest. Each one of these has taken the advertising world by storm at some point. 

Of course, as business owners and marketers, we need to keep our finger on the pulse. But we also need to step back and think—Who is our customer? What is the purpose of this campaign? What channel is the most effective and appropriate way to deliver this message?

Let’s explore examples of when SMS might be the most effective channel for your campaign. Together, we’ll look at how businesses across different industries can see success from SMS (including several examples of real merchant campaigns) and round off with some inspiration and ideas for SMS campaigns.

Quick Links:

• • • 2 things you must understand before you send an SMS campaign
    • The best examples of SMS campaigns we've seen
    • Is SMS right for my business or industry?
    • Some SMS campaign ideas to get you started
    • Marsello: Give your SMS campaigns new life
      
      
      

“I've got to look twice and go—Is this actually real?”

– Daniel Pantaleo, Pinjarra Bakery

No, this is not a line from a 2am infomercial.

This is a real quote from a real Marsello merchant who couldn’t believe the results he saw when he sent an SMS campaign.

There’s a common misconception out there about SMS—that it’s a spammy, outdated marketing channel. However, SMS is often misunderstood.

2 things you must understand before you try SMS

• It works best if the offer is time-sensitive, so if your campaign doesn’t drive urgent action you won’t see as much impact.
• It has a high delivery rate (98%) but that doesn’t mean people who open it will engage. Your message must be enticing, concise, and clear.

Think about the SMS messages you get that are helpful, and those that aren’t. It’s highly likely that the most helpful ones are transactional - an update on a parcel delivery, for example.

The least helpful SMS messages are probably generic promos - a hairdresser you went to once, over two years ago, who keeps blasting you with offers that aren’t relevant to you.

The trick is to make your offer as personalized and urgent as possible, so much so that it’s as helpful and welcome as a transactional SMS. Maybe even more so.

The best SMS campaigns we’ve seen yet

Hospitality: Pinjarra Bakery

Every week, Pinjarra Bakery invent a wacky meat pie flavor. They’ve been doing this for years. But one day one of the owners, Daniel, decided to try this offer out with an SMS campaign.

Simple right? 

50.1% of those SMS messages sent converted to a sale. That’s HUGE.

Here’s why it worked:

• It’s urgent. 
• It was sent just before lunchtime.
• It was sent to regulars (those most likely to be closest to one of their stores).
• It includes the merchant name (too often, SMS campaigns leave this key element out!)

SMS was the perfect tactic for this campaign. The time was right, the audience was right, the offer was right.

We were on a call with Daniel, and he told us he just couldn’t believe it. The revenue Pinjarra got from an SMS that took a few minutes to write and send was astonishing.

Daniel could define the perfect audience using Marsello’s custom segmentation. He used the built-in SMS wizard to make sure the SMS met best practice. Then he was easily able to test and measure the direct impact of his first SMS campaigns on revenue.

He saw it worked. Now, SMS is becoming an integral part of their marketing strategy.

Like many merchants, Daniel is keen to keep his business up to speed with marketing tactics and technology.

Retail: Scott Home Delivery

Scott Home Delivery uses SMS for time-sensitive campaigns, with incredible results. Some of their campaigns see up to a 26% click rate — much higher than the average email click rate (around 3%).

The two campaigns above are amongst the top performers; however, Scott Home Delivery regularly uses SMS for exclusive offers and limited-time-only campaigns. In fact, SMS makes up more than 40% of all revenue generated from their Marsello marketing campaigns. 

Both of these campaigns follow a tried and true formula:

• The sender’s brand name is stated upfront for immediate recognition
• There’s one clear offer
• One call-to-action
• Urgency
• A link to drive conversions
• And there are instructions for how to opt out (a necessary inclusion)

Using this recipe, Scott Home Delivery has found that SMS is an even more powerful marketing tool than email.

Is SMS right for my business or industry?

Hospitality

The benefits of SMS are abundant in hospitality. SMS is well-suited to last-minute discounts and exclusive or limited-time offers—all great tactics for restaurants, cafes, and bars. Location segmentation can provide relevant offers to the right audience, and scheduled sends can ensure the messages are delivered at the right time.

Retail 

SMS is widely used in transactional retail communications. Delivery updates and other important transactional messages are a common use of this direct channel, as emails can get lost to spam filters. However, there are also wider marketing use cases for SMS in retail. One example is using SMS as part of a loyalty or customer marketing strategy: using the channel to provide VIP offers, exclusive discounts, loyalty points updates, and more.

Grocery

SMS works well as a direct channel for transactional communications such as delivery updates. But, like retail, grocery stores can also use SMS as a broader loyalty and customer marketing channel. Small-to-medium grocery stores can use SMS to enhance their loyalty programs and provide a rich, personalized customer experience.

Healthcare & Pharmacy

SMS has a high deliverability rate (98%), and most messages are read within minutes. This makes SMS the perfect tool for important transactional messages such as script updates and appointment reminders.

Some SMS campaign ideas to get you started

1. Send a Personalized ‘Welcome’ Message

When customers sign up to your marketing list or loyalty program, welcome them and thank them for joining. You can even send a discount code or freebie for signing up—see how Taco Medic do this with huge success.

2. Send Time-Sensitive Abandoned Cart Reminders

We know that the best SMS campaigns have a clear call-to-action, and are time-sensitive. Ozzie Collectibles uses automation to remind shoppers about their abandoned cart, but adds in a follow-up email that their cart will only be saved for a limited time. This adds urgency and increases conversions.

3. Deliver VIP Offers

Use SMS to promote exclusive offers to your loyalty customers, or other customer segments. This could include exclusive access to new product releases, invitations to closed events, discounts to mark special occasions, or any other time-sensitive offers.

4. Run Customer Feedback Campaigns

Every once in a while, send an SMS with a short poll or survey (as best practice, offer an incentive for a higher response rate and more engaged, thoughtful responses). Customer feedback is highly valuable—you can get a temperature check on your customer base, and catch negative feedback before it turns into a negative review. You can also gain more insights, such as consumer preferences or market trends.

Give your SMS campaigns new life with Marsello

“Marketing automation” is a buzzword at the moment—but we’ve actually been automating productive processes since the 1940s, or even earlier. 

The term “automation” was coined by D S Harder, an engineering manager working at Ford Motor Company in 1946. For a long time, automation was limited to physical processes in manufacturing, but automation later entered the digital sphere with the rise of computers.

Automating human skills, labor, and even intelligence has revolutionized the way we work. On the flip side, it’s also been positioned as a threat to jobs. However, this fear is as old as automation itself—the reality is that it has augmented productivity, vastly increased our knowledge of what’s possible, and only increased demand for human labor.

In this article, we’ve compiled a list of four marketing automations you can set-and-forget to generate a stream of consistent, predictable revenue.

These automations work across a mix of online and in-store, and can be tailored to your industry and business goals.

“[Automation is] really great because it kind of just churns in the background. Once you set it up correctly, it just goes and it looks after itself.”
– Daniel Pantaleo, Pinjarra Bakery

Quick Links:

• • • Welcome new customers
    • Bring back lost customers
    • Abandoned cart reminders
    • Birthday rewards
    • How to drive repeat purchases and revenue with marketing automation
    • Make marketing automation easier with Marsello
      
      

1. Welcome new customers

If you sign up customers to your marketing list or loyalty program, give them immediate value with a thank you gift. This will make a great first impression, introduce them to your brand, and encourage them to keep coming back for more with product recommendations and exclusive offers.

Example: Federation

Federation’s ‘Welcome’ campaign saw a 19% conversion rate in just over 5 months. Almost 50% of the total revenue generated by their automated campaigns is directly attributable to their welcome automation.

1. Shoppers create a customer account with Federation +
2. They immediately receive a welcome email offering them 10% off their next purchase.
   
   

Example: Taco Medic

Taco Medic has nailed their welcome email, and the results speak for themselves. This email is by far their most profitable automation.

How it works:

1. A customer signs up for their Mates (loyalty) program. They can sign up at POS, or by scanning a QR code in-store and filling in their details—it’s a simple, frictionless action.
2. The sign-up triggers an automated email offering them a free taco, and giving them more incentives to refer a friend.
   
   

Further reading: Delight customers with WhatsApp automations

2. Bring back lost customers

If you collect customer purchase details, you get visibility over when they haven’t been back in a while. This allows you to trigger an automation to win them back. Motivate repeat purchases with a ‘win back’ campaign that offers discounts that are too good to ignore.

Example: Pinjarra Bakery

Pinjarra Bakery’s most successful automation by far is their ‘win-back lapsed customer’ flow.

How it works:

1. Pinjarra Bakery uses Marsello to note when any customer who is part of their loyalty program and who hasn’t visited in 3 months.
2. Those customers are automatically sent an email with a $10 voucher to incentivize them to come back.

“That automation itself has almost generated close to $100,000 in extra revenue for us. So I don’t mind giving a $10 voucher away if that’s going to be the result.”
– Daniel Pantaleo, Pinjarra Bakery

3. Abandoned cart notifications

Send a friendly reminder to customers if they abandon their cart. This acts as a friendly reminder for your customers to come back to your store and complete their purchases. 

Pro tip: If a customer doesn’t convert from one email, consider adding another email with a discount or free shipping to further incentivize the purchase.

Example: Brandini Toffee

Since Brandini Toffee first created automated campaigns, they have seen as much as a 583% increase in attributable sales. Their most successful automation is their ‘Abandoned cart’ flow—it makes up 95% of the total orders generated by automated campaigns.

How it works:

1. Shoppers add items to their cart on their e-commerce store, but don’t follow through to purchase.
2. An automated email triggers with a friendly reminder and a few extra product recommendations.
   
   

Example: Ozzie Collectables

The team at Ozzie Collectables are wizards at automation—and certainly know how to keep customers coming back. In fact, automated email flows alone are generating 38% of their total revenue.

Ozzie Collectables’ most successful automation is their Abandoned Cart campaign, which is made up of three emails reminding customers about the products in their shopping cart. This series has an overall conversion rate of 28%.

How it works:

1. Shoppers add items to their cart on their e-commerce store, but don’t follow through to purchase.
2. One hour after the cart is abandoned, a reminder email is triggered (this first email has the highest conversion rate in the series).
3. Later, two more emails are delivered to drive further sales with urgency (“We can’t hold them much longer!”).
   
   

4. Automated birthday offers

Birthday automations are some of the most successful campaigns we see at Marsello. It works best when you have an understanding of your average order value, so you can offer the most attractive incentive possible while still making a decent profit.

Example: Our Bralette Club

Our Bralette Club integrate customer birthday offers into their loyalty program. This is a great way to surprise and delight your customers—and might even earn them an automatic freebie or discount!

Using strategies like this one, Our Bralette Club loyalty members have earned 433K points so far, and in 2020, OBC saw an impressive reward redemption rate of 71%.

How it works:

1. On the customer’s birthday, a trigger adds 100 points to their loyalty account.
2. An email is fired to notify them of their updated points balance. Then customers can use their points to claim rewards.
   
   

For hospitality businesses:

The economics of birthday offers work out particularly well for hospitality businesses. If you send an automated email with a $25 birthday voucher, your average meal value is $25 and your average drink order is $10, that’s a $10 total sale.

However, people never dine alone—and if it’s for their birthday, they may even make an event of it. If customers will bring 3 other patrons, say, your total sale jumps to $140.

How to drive repeat purchases and increase revenue with marketing automation

Perhaps you’re new to automation, or maybe you’re here looking for inspiration to bolster your automation efforts. Setting up an automation is easy (provided you’re using an integrated tech stack and the right marketing tools), but setting up one that works really well can be a bit more difficult. It requires careful planning, purposeful testing, and result tracking.

Here are a few tips:

• Make sure you can segment your audiences so that triggers fire accurately. Personalized communication is really effective, but on the flip side, if it goes to the wrong person, this can create a negative experience for the recipient.
• If your automations have low engagement and conversion rates, run an audit of the content you’re sending. That includes subject lines, template design, and body copy. If you can, get a second opinion from an expert third party.
• Don’t get hung up on benchmarks that you find online. Rather than looking for industry averages, measure each campaign against your own average. Test and measure different aspects of your automations in your upcoming campaigns — for example, try a different time delay, try shorter subject lines, etc. All going well, you’ll see improvement month-on-month until you have fully optimized your automation!

Marsello: Automations made even easier.

With Marsello, you can set up effective automations in no time at all. Get started with our library of proven automations, or get really targeted and set up your won custom triggers and flows. Better still, Marsello integrates seamlessly with your POS and e-commerce tools, so all your customer details, sales data, and marketing sit tidily in one central location.

Using our tools, you can…

• Segment audiences using our pre-built groups, or generate lists with custom criteria
• Easily build attractive and purposeful email templates and campaigns with a simple drag-and-drop builder
• Choose from a range of proven email and SMS automations in our Automations Library, or build your own custom sequences
• Report on the success of your automations and see their direct impact on revenue

When it comes to converting customers into regulars, hospitality businesses have their own unique challenges. In Marsello’s latest release, 4 new features make it easier for merchants to build customer relationships.

Do you know who your regulars are? More importantly, can you contact them?

Sure, you probably have a good idea of who comes through your doors the most. Most businesses have built rapport with locals who come in daily, weekly, or monthly.

But ideally, you know how to engage with them and when. Rather than having a reactive relationship, you want to keep regulars in your orbit - incentivize them to increase their order size, reward them for referring friends, and more.

Myth: It’s not worth the effort of getting customers to sign up to your marketing lists.
Reality: Every customer you add to your database is a customer you can re-engage with through personalized marketing. If you’re not signing up customers, you are missing out on valuable data and insights you could use to inform your marketing activities.

Quick Links:

• • • Why hospitality businesses should collect customer details
    • 4 features that help hospitality businesses to build customer relationships
    • See how these features work [video]
    • Want to try these features? How to get started
      
      

Here’s why hospitality businesses should collect customer details.

By collecting your customers’ details, you can maximize your marketing efforts. You will be able to gather data on repeat business, the value of each customer, groups of customers who spend the most, and which campaigns are the most profitable. 

Here are just some of the ways you can use customer data to increase revenue:

1. Segmentation

By using Marsello’s default segments, or creating your own custom segments, you can send targeted, personalized marketing messages to the right customers. Reward your top customers with special gifts, or send incentives to those who haven’t been back in a while. Whatever the message, send it to people who are the most likely to engage.

2. Automation

When your customers are automatically being segmented into groups, you can start sending timely automated emails or SMS messages. For example, instead of manually sending incentives to your ‘at risk’ customers, have a flow set up that does this in the background, whenever a customer matches certain criteria.

3. Testing & Measuring

Test what campaigns work best. Do double points days bring in the most revenue? Which segments respond best to these campaigns? Having access to customer purchase data is invaluable for understanding what marketing actually works, and what doesn’t.

As you can see, customer data is exceedingly powerful - having these insights could even turn your current marketing strategy on its head.

However, when you’ve got a queue of hungry customers waiting for their Monday coffee & scone fix, you and your staff want to make point-of-sale as efficient as possible. Asking customers to create an account can feel like the absolute last priority.

But let’s make one thing clear - collecting details does not have to be a painful experience!

4 new features that make it so much easier for hospitality businesses to build customer relationships.

SMS registration at point-of-sale

In a nutshell: This is very simple. You only need to collect two things at POS: name and mobile number. Once these basic details are collected, a customer profile will be created.

From this point on, sales made by this customer will all be attributed to a single customer profile in Marsello, provided they reference their mobile number upon their next purchase.

This allows you to track how much a customer spends each time, what their average purchase is in $, and how regularly they visit (or buy online, if you have an eCommerce store too).

Complete customer account (via SMS automation)

In a nutshell: Automatically trigger an SMS to send to customers after point-of-sale so they can fill out additional details while they wait for their order.

Once the POS transaction is complete, your customer will receive an SMS to prompt them to finish creating their account on the new in-store customer portal. 

This saves you time at POS, and gives customers something to do while they dine-in or wait for their takeaway order. They won’t need to feel like they’re holding up the line, and can relax while they complete their account and explore your loyalty and rewards program.

Registration QR codes

In a nutshell: Customers can scan a QR code in-store or on print media. This will direct them to take an action (for example, sign-up to marketing, create a loyalty profile, or redeem an offer).

Since QR code scanning technology was integrated into smartphone cameras in 2017, adoption rates picked up massively. The pandemic has only further solidified their role in our lives - now they are familiar, easy for users, and take seconds to create.

Now, you can generate QR codes right from within your Marsello account, and add tracking details including site tracking and custom tags.

Then, download and import your code into Canva (or your preferred design tool) to add your own branding or design. Alternatively, add your codes to your print media - menus, coasters, magazine ads, or window signs.

By adding site tracking, your customer will be added to that site’s POS straight away. With custom tags, you can get even more granular - for example, you can track where in the venue the QR code was scanned, what event the customer was at, or even which specific poster design people scanned more frequently.

In-store customer portal

In a nutshell: The customer portal is a central place where customers can view their loyalty profile, points balance, available loyalty rewards & email discounts. It also holds their membership card, which they can use to identify themselves faster on their next order.

New customers will access this via the SMS registration automation post-POS purchase or when scanning the registration QR code (as above). Initially, it will display a welcome screen where they can sign-up for their account using their Google or Facebook account. This will capture the customer's name and email address, and when they create an account it will opt-in the customer to email & SMS marketing.

Once they’ve signed up, customers will be able to save the portal to their mobile home screen, so they can easily check their points balance and available rewards or discounts. 

The portal also contains a membership card with a QR code. If you have a 2D barcode scanner, you’ll be able to scan customer cards at POS to quickly identify them and attribute the sale to their profile.

Watch the demo video

Want to try these features out?

For now, these features are available to…

• Any Marsello hospitality merchant, upon request 
• Lightspeed Restaurant (O-Series) merchants (learn more about Lightspeed Marketing & Loyalty here)

Soon, we’ll be making these more widely available to other merchants as well - so keep an eye out!

Loyalty and customer marketing now work seamlessly within Lightspeed Restaurant POS, so merchants have all their sales and marketing in one place.

What does it feel like to be a loyal customer?

We are business owners, venue managers, marketers - sure. But we’re also consumers ourselves. We know what it feels like to be loyal to a brand. When you boil it down, we like to feel favored. We like to have a buddy who’ll slide us a free beer at the bar, or a friend to keep those shoes on hold for us a liiiitttle bit longer than protocol would usually permit.

We like to feel like someone has bent the rules, just a little bit, just for us.

At its essence, this is what a loyalty program delivers. Although rather than being a quick favor under the table, it’s a calculated & measured marketing tactic - implemented to increase ROI, not hinder it.

Our regular customers are our friends, and the VIP deals we give them incentivize their repeat business - so they come back to us, not to a merchant down the road. The more valuable the customer, the more points they earn, and the better or more frequent the deals.

Quick Links:

• • • Are loyalty programs worth it for hospitality businesses?
    • How do I know a loyalty program will work for my hospitality business?
    • Loyalty is just one part of your broader marketing strategy
    • Close the loop with Lightspeed Loyalty, powered by Marsello.
      
      

Are loyalty programs worth it for hospitality businesses?

Like any industry, the hospitality sector has nuances and unique needs that business owners must consider before committing to a loyalty program service or app.

Hospitality staff will know the pain of waiting for a customer to sign up to their database while other hungry and un-caffeinated customers are waiting impatiently in line. In many cases, the effort just won’t feel worthwhile.

Loyalty software built for hospitality will be designed with these pain points in mind - for example, you’ll be able to have a QR code at the counter to allow customers to scan a code and enter their details within seconds. Moreover, your software will let you know the value of each and every person who signs up - making it easy to show staff why it’s important for customers to join your database.

There’s also a suitability test: ‘what kind of loyalty program is best for my business?’

For a cafe with no online store, a simple coffee card might be more effective and easy to manage than loyalty program software. However, for a multi-site cafe that also sells beans, filter apparatus, and branded coffee mugs from an online store, that loyalty software starts to make much more sense. Taking a step further, a large global chain might even invest in a custom loyalty program app - an expensive option generally not worthwhile for SMEs.

How do I know a loyalty program will work for my hospitality business?

Before you commit to a loyalty program, you probably want to know:

• Can I be sure it will work?
• How will I know when it’s working?
• How do I measure the success of a loyalty program?

One of the biggest challenges for business owners and marketers is calculating the ROI of marketing efforts. If you’ve ever used Google Analytics or other tools to try to attribute revenue to campaigns, you’ll know how frustrating it can be to pinpoint what’s actually bringing in revenue. While a digital ad might be easy to track, anything more nebulous, like “brand equity” or “customer loyalty”, is much more difficult.

So, how can you know your loyalty program is delivering a return on your investment? That is, how can you know when your customers are spending more because of your loyalty program?

For this, you need closed-loop attribution. Closed-loop attribution means that you ‘close the loop’ between marketing and sales - everything is tracked and measured centrally through seamlessly integrated sales and marketing tech.

In a closed-loop system, your customer takes center stage. Rather than piecemeal data spread across different systems and spreadsheets, every activity is tracked and recorded to a neatly organized customer profile. (For you, that means less clutter, less admin, and no more importing and exporting of customer lists.)

Loyalty is just one part of your broader marketing strategy

When you operate a loyalty program within a closed-loop system, you get total visibility over what specific combinations of loyalty tactics and marketing campaigns work best and who your most valuable customers are. That is, you get a broader understanding of how your loyalty program operates in conjunction with the rest of your marketing efforts.

If this is sounding a bit technical, here’s the crux of it:

Every SMS message delivered, email opened, discount code redeemed, purchase made… it’s all there. This is extremely powerful. Using this data, you can segment your customers into groups such as most valuable, most likely to convert from an email, top brand ambassadors… and so much more. 

Using these segments, you can deliver targeted, personalized and highly effective marketing campaigns that drive repeat sales and increase revenue.

We don’t want to make false promises but we will say this: customer loyalty is a tried and tested marketing tactic. If your business is the right fit, it will work.

Close the loop with Lightspeed Marketing & Loyalty, powered by Marsello.

You talked, we listened. We heard that you needed a faster, simpler way to sign customers up at POS. Now, staff members can simply capture the customers’ mobile number, and they'll receive an SMS to complete their account - reducing time at POS and keeping this as quick as possible. Alternatively, you can display a QR code to help customers sign up themselves from the venue or an event. Customers can also save their points card to their phone, making it easier for them to scan upon each visit.

We also heard that merchants are tired of having so many different platforms to manage - often requiring regular manual imports and exports of customer lists. So in our latest release, Lightspeed Restaurant merchants can now close the loop between sales and marketing. Lightspeed Marketing & Loyalty, powered by Marsello, is designed to help hospitality merchants increase revenue through repeat business and customer loyalty.

What this means? Lightspeed Restaurant (O-Series) merchants can now use one single platform for all of their POS data, email & SMS campaigns, marketing automations, Facebook ad tracking (using Facebook sync), loyalty program activities, Google Review management and more. 

In one single place, merchants will have access to customer data from end-to-end. From a customer’s first coffee to their repeat business and ongoing referrals. Merchants can easily see the return on all their marketing efforts, check their average customer lifetime value, and so, so much more. 

Now that’s closing the loop. 

Watch the Loyalty Marketing Masterclass

In this Cin7 Masterclass, Marsello CRO Rory Moss dives into the how-to of successful loyalty marketing.

Quick Links:

• • • What is customer loyalty?
    • Why deploy a loyalty or rewards program?
    • Why focus on repeat customers?
    • Checklist: How to develop a successful loyalty program
    • How to measure the success of your loyalty program
    • Segment and delight customers with RFM analysis
    • Success Story: Merrell NZ
    • Key takeaways

What is customer loyalty?

Are you part of a loyalty program? Your answer is probably “yes”. But does it make you more loyal to that brand? According to CRO Rory Moss, it actually doesn’t.

Customer loyalty is all about customer relationships with your business. The positive interactions you have with customers every day and the relationships those interactions build create measurable value that you can continue to grow.

And customer loyalty is not necessarily transactional; it’s about the experience your customer has when they walk into your store, shop online, read an email, or have any other interaction with your brand.

For a loyalty program to work...

• • • Your product/offering must be consistent.

    • Your product/offering must be valuable.

You don’t need a loyalty program to differentiate and compete.

You do need a deeper understanding of your customer base and a reason for your customers to keep coming back.

Why deploy a loyalty or rewards program?

There are lots of ways to give customers a good experience and keep them coming back - loyalty marketing is just one. Before you make the call, make sure a loyalty program is right for you and your business objectives.

So, why would you choose to deploy a loyalty program?

• • • Gain a deeper understanding of your customer base to augment your marketing mix. The data you collect will empower your marketing team to deliver more personalized, targeted customer experiences.
    • Mitigate price perception and influence perceived value. Smaller brands can’t compete with more prominent enterprise brands on price alone. Loyalty programs are one way to attract customers from your larger competitors.
    • Formation of customer ‘clubs’ which reflect your brand values. Your loyalty program is an extension of your brand. You can tailor your rewards to your customer and personalize automations to augment your brand experience.
    • Steal market share from existing programs. For example, fuel retailers use loyalty marketing to attract customers from competitors. Fuel retailers don’t make their money on fuel, but they do make money on people walking in and buying products in-store.
    • Enhance the customer experience with personalization. Birthday messages, post-purchase automations, data-driven product recommendations, merge tags within campaigns – adding personalization to your marketing will improve your customer’s experience with your brand and help you build long-lasting relationships.
    • Surprise and ‘delight’ with personalized moments. Keep your rewards program up-to-date. Don’t do one big launch then set and forget it – plan campaigns, add new rewards or run competitions. Give your customers new things to engage with (see more ideas in the checklist below).

Ultimately, data is all about retention. But smaller retailers can’t shell out for expensive coalitions or big agency-led research projects. Loyalty programs make it much cheaper and easier to get that data yourself.

Why focus on repeat customers?

Did you know 61% of retailers cite customer retention as their biggest obstacle, and a 5% increase in customer loyalty can increase the average profit per customer by 25% – 100%? (Source: Invespcro.com)

Developing customer loyalty is critical to long-term customer retention and loyalty programs can be a great marketing tool to really strengthen those feelings of brand loyalty.

Checklist: How to develop a successful loyalty program

So what questions do you need to be asking and what steps do you need to take to help you develop a loyalty program that your customers love and that sees long-term success?

Ask: do I need a loyalty program?

• Analyze your NPS or CSAT scoring. Are customers satisfied with your offering? 
• Would deploying a rewards program diminish your brand or enhance the experience and value proposition? 
• Understand your customer’s needs, their values and ask them about their rewards preferences. 

Any brand can deploy a rewards system, but it needs to complement your offering to be successful. Make sure you know your problem and make sure loyalty marketing is the right solution. Sometimes, it might be a marketing problem; other times it could be a problem with product-market fit. Deploying loyalty marketing is not always the right solution.

Study your competitors

Look towards your competition, and distinguish whether loyalty tactics would steal market share – a common tactic in Fuel Retail. 

If all of your top competitors have implemented loyalty programs, this could be a good indication that they believe loyalty marketing will increase their market share. Of course, that does not necessarily mean it’s right for your brand! 

Alternatively, if you can’t see any of your competitors doing it, maybe there’s a reason why. Again, this is not conclusive evidence – your brand could be ahead of the curve, which could be a very rewarding opportunity to increase your market share.

Do your loyalty platform research

Custom-built loyalty marketing tech can be costly. While some brands have implemented custom-built programs really well (for example, Mecca’s Beauty Loop), we recommend choosing a platform that integrates with both your POS and eCommerce platforms and enables easy set-up straight off the bat.

Ensure your chosen platform works across your tech stack and don’t invest in programs that don’t scale with your customer database growth. Make sure you provide an omnichannel experience – customers expect to redeem online.

Set up a pilot store

Before any go-live, ensure you’ve set up a single site to test and measure your loyalty program success. Are customers responding to your program and the points values you’ve set?

Keep it simple

Too many earn rules result in a term called ‘loyalty confusion’, where your customers don’t understand what they get in return.

Look at your data and adjust your program accordingly

Once you’re transacting and issuing points, measure sign-up rates and ‘point breakage’ (the % of points earned and spent) monthly. Your point breakage rate will tell you pretty quickly whether or not the rewards program is working.

If your customers aren’t spending their points, they’re not engaging in your program. Customer engagement is essential if you want to build long-term customer relationships that result in growth.

Start small and introduce new campaigns quarterly

Keep your program fresh by introducing new rewards, double points days, or VIP tiers. You want to ensure your marketing team has a constant stream of new things to shout about!

How to measure the success of your loyalty program

•  
  • • Customer Feedback
      Are your customers engaging with your loyalty program?
    • Point Breakage
      Are customers spending their points? Track your Point Breakage rate monthly.
    • Loyalty program Return on Investment (ROI)
      Cost of the loyalty program vs. increased revenue since implementation.
    • Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
      How much, on average, your customers are worth to your business throughout their relationship with your store.
    • Repurchase Rate
      The % of your customers who complete more than one purchase.
    • Average Purchase Frequency
      The average rate at which customers shop with your store.
   
•  

Segment and delight customers with RFM analysis

Smart retailers use RFM analysis: Recency, Frequency, and Monetary value.

Segment your customers into different buckets – a new customer has very different needs from a regular or loyal customer. Treat each customer’s needs differently, rather than applying a standard experience in one broad stroke. Incentivize each segment to come back and reward those who do.

These days, people expect this kind of brand experience.

Success Story: Merrell NZ 

When COVID hit, Merrell NZ knew they needed to grow their eCommerce presence and encourage customer engagement. To do this, they began testing automated campaigns, one-off emails, and a detailed loyalty program that was designed to attract their in-store customers to shop online.

By ensuring their marketing changes were recognizable, appealing, and informed from customer data, they were able to grow their customer loyalty program and VIP memberships, improve conversion rates, and increase repeat purchase rates. So far, they’ve seen an ROI of 969x – for every $1 they’ve spent on their marketing initiatives, they’ve earned $969 back.

“[…] the Merrell Rewards program means a lot to us – it gives us the opportunity to link customers from our retail and web stores, work around customer retention and automate email marketing flows in a really clever way.” - Merrell NZ

Key takeaways

• • • Deploying a loyalty program won’t lead to loyal customers, but it will help you develop loyalty program tactics.
    • Loyalty programs mitigate price perception.
    • Use personalization and automation to delight customers.
    • Be consistent across your sales channels and marketing.
    • Prioritize memorable customer experiences.
    • Start small and build on your program.