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7 Best Loyalty Apps for Shopify [2023]

Choosing the best loyalty program app for your Shopify store isn't easy. In this blog, we review the 7 Best Loyalty Apps for Shopify, and how they can...

Max Crosse

Content Strategy Manager

Customer retention isn’t easy. Between your eCommerce and physical stores, social media, and various other touchpoints, customers can slip through the cracks.

Shopify’s loyalty program apps make it easy to engage your customers with personalized rewards and incentives and ensure they stick around for the long term. But with so many loyalty apps to choose from, how do you know which one is right for your business?

In this article, we’ll review the 7 Best Loyalty Apps for Shopify and how they can increase customer retention and boost sales for your store.

 


 

What are the best loyalty apps for Shopify in 2023?

marsello-loyalty-marketing-tools

1. Marsello [Top pick ✨]


Marsello helps you drive sales and reward regulars with a loyalty and referral program that works in-store and online. With Marsello, you can customize the appearance of your program to match the look and feel of your brand. It’s easy to set up rewards, discounts, points, VIP tiers, and more to gamify your customers’ shopping experience and encourage them to spend more.

Marsello’s key point of difference is the ability to run your loyalty program seamlessly across your Shopify eCommerce and POS channels. This simplifies customer loyalty management and allows for a more seamless customer loyalty experience.

Marsello’s loyalty tools also connect with its all-in-one marketing automation tools, helping you run more effective campaigns, from email to SMS, reviews, and more.

 

Here are some popular ways to use Marsello:

    • Customize and launch a loyalty program that works in-store and online
    • Reward customers with personalized rewards, points, VIP tiers, and more
    • Sync sales from eCommerce and POS and link them to unique customer profiles
    • Use your customer insights to run smarter, personalized marketing campaigns
    • Manage all of your marketing from one app, email, SMS, automations, and more

 

Pricing

Marsello offers a 14-day free trial. Paid plans start from $100 USD/month, and are based on your customer database size and the number of eCommerce and POS sites connected.

 

What merchants think about Marsello

Merchants enjoy using Marsello for its user-friendly interface and powerful loyalty features. Marsello merchants have seen a boost in sales through its loyalty and rewards program, email, and SMS marketing features. Marsello’s marketing automation tools and cost-effectiveness are also highlighted, along with its responsive customer service team.

Install on Shopify

Recommended Loyalty App for Shopify
Marsello helps you launch a world-class loyalty program that engages your customers and drives sales, no matter how they shop. Create rewards, points, VIP tiers, and more with ease.

Start Free Trial

 

2. Smile.io

smile-loyalty-tools

Smile.io offers easy-to-use loyalty and rewards tools to help you engage your shoppers, and turn first-time customers into forever customers. Over 125 million shoppers earn points through Smile. 

With Smile, you can create your own loyalty and rewards program that increases sales and repeat purchases, saves on acquisition costs, and boosts brand loyalty. The best part is that creating a loyalty program with Smile only takes a few minutes—with no coding required.

Smile offers simple management of your customers and loyalty data, and if you need help, you’re supported 24/7 by a team of loyalty experts to answer your questions.

 

Here are some popular ways to use Smile:

    • Customize your loyalty widget and rewards launcher to match your brand aesthetic
    • Encourage repeat sales by allowing customers to earn points and rewards
    • Connect Smile with your email, review, and customer service apps
    • Nudge customers to continue shopping by reminding them of their points and rewards

 

Pricing

Smile is free to install. Their free plan allows up to 200 monthly orders and gives you access to all the basic loyalty features, including a points and referrals program, basic brand customization, default reward emails, and an analytics overview.

 

What merchants think about Smile.io

Shopify store owners appreciate this app for its easy setup and seamless integration with Shopify. Smile is praised for its loyalty points system, customizable rewards options, and VIP program features. Smile’s free plan is a good entry point for new businesses looking to increase customer loyalty. The free version is robust and easy to use.

 

3. LoyaltyLion

loyaltylion-loyalty-program

LoyaltyLion helps Shopify brands boost retention and increase customer engagement with a loyalty program that goes beyond points and rewards.

The popular loyalty app helps you incentivize brand engagement and motivate repeat purchases by offering loyalty points and rewards to customers who engage with your business.

 

Here are some popular ways to use LoyaltyLion:

    • Reward positive onsite behavior with customizable points and gifts
    • Increase brand advocacy by rewarding customer referrals
    • Deliver points and rewards through email and on-store notifications
    • Tailor how your loyalty program appears on your Shopify eCommerce site
    • Integrate with email providers, subscription partners, reward platforms, and more

 

Pricing

LoyaltyLion offers a free plan that gives you access to basic loyalty features, unlimited members, and up to 800 monthly orders. Paid plans start from $156 USD/month.

 

What merchants think about LoyaltyLion

Merchants highly recommend LoyaltyLion due to its seamless integration, customizable features, and user-friendly interface. LoyaltyLion is praised for its exceptional customer service, and merchants appreciate the app’s detailed analytics, and easy migration from other loyalty apps.

 

4. Joy: Loyalty & Rewards Program

joy-loyalty-program

Joy is a user-friendly loyalty solution designed to keep your customers around with advanced loyalty programs and rewards features. It’s designed to help Shopify stores effectively convert their shoppers into loyal customers with the help of rewarding points.

The app has a variety of features that allow store owners to manage the earning and spending of loyalty points flexibly. All of Joy’s loyalty features come in a user-friendly and no-code-required platform that’s supported by 24/7 customer support.

 

Here are some popular ways to use Joy:

    • Reward customers for signing up, placing orders, leaving reviews, and more
    • Manage your customer tiers, points, and missions with export and import data
    • Run campaigns with built-in email notifications and automations
    • Leverage your store’s point-of-sale data to run more effective loyalty campaigns
    • Engage your customers without slowing down your shop’s loading speeds

 

Pricing

Joy offers a free plan, limited to 250 orders per month. You can enable points-earning options for customers who sign up and place an order. Paid plans start from $29 USD/month.

 

What merchants think about Joy

Merchants love Joy for its diverse loyalty features such as rewards programs and referral options, and low impact on your shop’s loading speeds. The customer service team is highly praised, and merchants find the pricing reasonable and appreciate its integration with POS. The tool is regarded as a valuable tool for growing a store’s database and social following.

 

5. Yotpo: Loyalty & Rewards

yotpo-loyalty-dashboard

Yotpo’s eCommerce retention marketing platform helps Shopify brands drive repeat sales with connected solutions for loyalty, email, SMS, reviews, and more. With Yotpo, you can build a customizable, retention-driving loyalty program that offers more than just rewards.

Yotpo’s agile loyalty tools empower store owners to launch a loyalty program quickly and iterate endlessly — with no developer work required. The platform’s out-of-the-box campaigns help you drive repeat sales from the get-go.

 

Here are some popular ways to use Yotpo:

    • Customize, launch, and manage your loyalty program with no coding required
    • Monitor your loyalty and referral program data, from ROI to customer LTV, and more
    • Increase repeat sales and customer engagement with diverse rewards and tiers
    • Create a seamless marketing experience by integrating Yotpo’s marketing products

 

Pricing

Yotpo is free to install, with a free plan available to stores with fewer than 100 monthly orders. Paid plans start from $199 USD/month and provide your customers with more ways to earn.

 

What merchants think about Yotpo

Yotpo is highly recommended for its seamless Shopify integration. The platform helps users effortlessly boost business with features like email reminders for points-earning, and reward redemption options. The customer service, especially the live chat is appreciated, and the app’s customization capabilities are also appreciated.

 

6. Stamped Loyalty & Referrals

stamped-loyalty-program-and-referrals

Stamped Loyalty helps Shopify brands maximize customer loyalty with a customized loyalty program, VIP tiers, and referrals. The platform works as a stand-alone product, but can also be integrated with Stamped’s integration reviews and ratings product to create a full suite of customer tools.

Stamped helps brands deliver immediate value to their customers through a personalized loyalty experience. Their platform helps you increase average order value and maximize customer lifetime value through AI-powered points and rewards, VIP tiers, and referral solutions.

 

Here are some popular ways to use Stamped:

    • Drive engagement with points-based campaigns that motivate customers to shop
    • Reward and incentivize customers to share your brand with their friends
    • Deliver a fully customized on-brand loyalty program and experience
    • Create exciting VIP tiers and perks to recognize your best customers

 

Stamped Pricing

Stamped offers a free plan. Paid plans start from $59 USD/month, however, by signing up for Stamped’s 12-month plan, you can save 17% off your subscription costs.

 

What merchants think about Stamped

Merchants love using Stamped for its intuitive loyalty integration with Shopify, along with its advanced customization features and helpful customer support team. Despite some instances where glitches and shortages in real-time assistance occur, the overall sentiment remains positive, with Shopify store owners taking pleasure in migrating from other app alternatives.

 

7. Rise.ai

rise-gift-card-app

Rise is the go-to gift cards and store credits app for Shopify stores. The app is designed to manage all your brand’s re-engagement activity, from gift cards to referrals, rewards, and refund management.

Rise helps you establish an intuitive rewards program with flexible, automated store credit flows that strengthen your customer relationships and increase customer lifetime value.

Rise’s customer service team is excellent and has proven to go above and beyond to help customers get the most out of their products and deliver success.

 

Here are some popular ways to use Rise.ai

    • Trigger and create store credit rewards based on customer activity
    • Issue gift card refunds and offer store credit for returns
    • Launch a loyalty program that encourages store credit accumulation
    • Remind customers of their gift cards with scheduling and sending options

 

Pricing

Rise’s starter plan starts from $19.99 USD/month and gives you access to essential store credit and gift card features, limited to 100 monthly store orders.

 

What merchants think about Rise.ai

Merchants appreciate the app for its gift cards, rewards programs, and store credit issuance. The app has high customizability and works seamlessly with Shopify and Klaviyo, helping you run more effective campaigns. The app has been instrumental for many Shopify stores wanting to increase sales and attraction, with its gift card scheduling and automation tools being a stand-out feature.

 


 

So, which loyalty app should I install?

Shopify’s loyalty apps make it easy for store owners to engage customers and drive long-term brand loyalty.

The best loyalty programs are ones that make customers feel seen and valued, regardless of how they shop. In this context, Marsello’s seamless integration with Shopify eCommerce and POS allows store owners to nurture customers and manage loyalty and order data across multiple channels.

By centralizing your in-store and online customer data, you can get a complete view of your customers, helping you optimize your loyalty program and run more targeted and timely campaigns that drive sales for your Shopify store.

Recommended Loyalty App for Shopify

Marsello helps you launch a world-class loyalty program that engages your customers and drives sales, no matter how they shop. Create rewards, points, VIP tiers, and more with ease.

Start Free Trial

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    5 Tips for Tracking Social Media Sales

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    In this post, we’ll shed light on the key steps and best practices you must take to effectively track and measure sales you’ve generated via social media.

    Fact: social media is a major part of the lives of today’s consumers. No matter what type of business you run or who your target market is, chances are you have customers using various social apps and platforms.

    Social networks are so embedded in our daily lives that people are increasingly using apps like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok to discover — and ultimately purchase — products. This is particularly true among younger consumers. Industry data shows that 55% of social media users ages 18 to 24 have purchased something through a social channel. 

    Social media is clearly a solid vehicle for sales, and if you’re active on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook, then you’re likely attracting customers and sales through these channels.

    The question is, how many of your sales are actually coming from social media?

    If you find yourself shrugging your shoulders to that question, keep reading. In this post, we’ll shed light on the key steps and best practices you must take to effectively track and measure sales you’ve generated via social media

    By the end of this post, you’ll have a better understanding of the different ways to track sales on social, and you’ll walk away with tips and tools to do it right. 

    Let’s dive in.

     


     


    Quick Links:



     


    Why should you implement sales tracking on social media?


    As the saying goes, you can’t improve what you don’t measure. Actively implementing sales tracking on social media enables you to improve in the following ways.

    You can allocate resources more effectively


    Running social media accounts can take a significant amount of resources. Even if you aren’t actively spending money on ads, you and your team likely devote quite a bit of time and energy planning your posts, creating content, and publishing said content on social platforms. 

    Tracking your sales enables you to hone in on activities that are driving a positive ROI, so you can focus on doing more of what works. 

    That way, you can ensure you’re spending more time (and money) on sales-generating activities.

    It helps you refine your strategy


    In addition to enabling you budget resources more effectively, tracking your sales on social media helps improve your overall marketing strategy. 

    Let’s say you post a mix of Reels, Stories, and static photos on Instagram and notice that certain types of posts are better than others at generating sales. You can use that insight to create more content that resonates with your audience. 

    Measuring your social media sales can also tell you which channels are effective at generating revenue. If you find that you’re getting better results on Instagram versus TikTok, for example, then you can start prioritizing Instagram in your sales campaigns.

    You’ll grow your social media presence


    All of the above benefits lead to a stronger social media presence overall. When you’re able to focus your efforts on the platforms and tactics that matter, you’ll naturally connect better with your audience and gain more fans and followers.

     

    5 tips for tracking sales on social media


    Now that we’ve covered the why behind social media sales tracking, let’s look at how you can go about it. Here are a handful of tips to ensure your sales tracking efforts are successful.

    1. Start with a plan


    It can be tempting to just start posting straight away and seeing if any sales come through, but a haphazard approach to social media tracking could lead to missed opportunities, inaccurate data, and wasted time. 

    If you want to get the most out of your efforts, you need to lay the groundwork and plan accordingly. 

    Here are some of the details you need to iron out before launching your social media campaigns. 

    Time period. Map out the dates and times you’ll be running your campaign. This will make it easier to attribute sales that come through via social media. 

    Products and assets involved in the sale. What items will you be promoting? Do you have photos and videos of those products? Make sure you have the necessary assets ready beforehand so you can launch you campaign without a hitch. 

    Type of activities. Identify the specific activities or campaigns you’ll be running. Will you be working with influencers? Are you running an exclusive sale? Is it a “new arrival” type of campaign? The right method for tracking your sales will depend on the type of initiative that you’re running. 

    Social networks involved. Get clear on the social network (or networks) that you’ll be using. If you’re leveraging multiple platforms, you’ll need to tailor your efforts accordingly. 

    Resources spent. It also helps to track the time and money you’ve spent on your campaigns. Doing so will enable you to measure your social media ROI and determine whether or not the campaign is worth the effort and resources spent.

    All your marketing, in one place.
    Manage all your marketing campaigns in Marsello. Drive repeat sales with loyalty, send email & SMS campaigns, schedule social posts, set up automations, and more. Then track the impact of your marketing on sales.

    Start free trial

     

    2.Track social media sales using a special promo code


    A good way to measure social media sales is to use a dedicated promo code. This tactic is best used when you’re running a sale or partnering with an influencer to promote your products. 

    To implement this tactic, come up with a promo code that’s unique to a particular campaign or influencer and make sure the code isn’t used on other channels. These codes should be fairly easy to generate and track if you have the right ecommerce platform or marketing solution. 

    Once you launch your campaign, start looking out for transactions that contain the promo codes you created and use that data to track your sales. 

    We can see this in action in Lakanto Monkfruit Sweetener, a company that makes sugar-free sweets. Lakanto teams up with influencers like Nicole Cogan (@nobread on Instagram) to promote its products. 

    To attribute sales generated through this partnership, a specific promo code (i.e., “NOBREAD”) is used, and Nicole’s followers will get a discount when they enter the code at checkout. Meanwhile, Lakanto can track sales that resulted from the campaign by taking note of how many people entered the promo code on its website.

    no bread instagram post


    Promo codes are simple and easy to use (both for customers and the merchant). Just bear in mind that these codes also have some shortcomings. 

    For starters, promo codes may not always paint an accurate picture of sales. 

    If someone sees your product on social media but doesn’t use the code at checkout, then your system won’t be able to properly attribute that transaction. 

    In addition, if one of your brand partners decides to share their promo code outside of social media (e.g., their blog or during an in-person interaction) then this may distort the data around social media attribution. 

    Also, you can only use promo codes as a tracking tool if you’re running a sales or promotion. Customers typically expect discounts when entering a code at checkout, so if you aren’t running a sale, then you can’t really use promo codes as a tracking tool.

    💡 Pro-tip: Add promo codes to your social media posts in Marsello as one way to track sales and measure the dollar impact of your posts.

     

    3.Use special links and UTMs


    If you’re using Google Analytics to measure your web traffic, then UTMs (Urchin Traffic Monitor) can help you see which sources or campaigns are driving traffic to your site. 

    UTMs make use of parameters like website source, medium, and campaign to pinpoint where your visitors are coming from. These UTMs come in the form of special tracking codes that you attach at the end of a URL.

    They look something like this:

    https://www.example.com?utm_source=social-media&utm_medium=instagram&utm_campaign=holiday-products

    In the example above, the source of traffic is social media, the medium is Instagram, and the campaign is holiday products. 

    When you log into Google Analytics, you’ll be able to drill down on how many visitors are attributed to these parameters. 

    You can generate a UTM by heading to Google’s Campaign URL Builder. Just fill out the required fields and the tool will generate the link for you. You can then use that special URL in your corresponding campaigns and then start tracking.

     

    utms for sales tracking in social media


    If you aren’t using Google Analytics, you can opt for personalized social links instead. 

    Marsello enables you to create a custom “link in bio” page that you can include in your social media profiles. You can then track the number of people who clicked on the link to determine how many followers visited your site.

    link in bio marsello

    Links and UTMs allow you to measure page visits without the use of a promo code, so they can be helpful tracking tools when you’re not running a promotion. 

    However, one limitation of UTMs and links is they only track page visits, not sales or conversions. They can tell you how many people landed on a page and where they came from, but they won’t show you how many users completed a purchase — unless you’re using a tool like Marsello to track the entire buying journey.

     

    4. Ask your customers


    You can glean social media sales intel simply by asking your customers. At the checkout page, add a form field asking shoppers where they heard about you, and then have them select from a range of options. 

    From there, tally up the number of people who selected social media (or a specific social network — i.e., Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, etc.) and use that information to track your sales.

    This tactic is easy to implement, but it also has some downsides. For one thing, having an extra form field on the checkout page adds friction to the buying experience and may turn off some customers. 

    Additionally, some shoppers may opt to skip the question, so won’t be able to capture all the data you need.

    All your marketing, in one place.
    Manage all your marketing campaigns in Marsello. Drive repeat sales with loyalty, send email & SMS campaigns, schedule social posts, set up automations, and more. Then track the impact of your marketing on sales.

    Start free trial

     

    5. Use sales tracking tools


    While you can certainly track sales manually — i.e., by counting promo codes or tallying survey results by hand — these processes are cumbersome and can lead to human error and inaccurate data. 

    You’re far better off measuring social media sales with tools that can automate the process. Marsello, for example, streamlines social media sales tracking by connecting your POS and ecommerce sales data with your social media accounts. 

    From there, Marsello attributes a percentage of your revenue to a social media post containing a tagged product, UTM, or promo code.

    sales tracking marsello

    Here’s how it works:

    • Connect your social media accounts to your POS or ecommerce platform.
    • Create posts across Instagram, Facebook and TikTok then tag your products.
    • Use Marsello track and measure sales for a given time period.

     

    💡 Pro-tip: Measure revenue, orders, and average spend in Marsello to give you a clear picture of what social activities are actually contributing to your bottom line. This, in turn, helps you make smarter decisions that lead to more sales, profit, and followers.

     

    Bringing it all together


    You and your team likely spend a great deal of time and energy on social media, so you must ensure your efforts are put to good use. The best way to do that is to actively track your social media sales, so you can refine your efforts accordingly. 

    Need help doing just that? Marsello Social provides you with tools to easily publish social media content and track sales.

     

                

    Marsello: All your marketing, in one place.

    • Send email and SMS campaigns to customers
    • Create set-and-forget marketing automations
    • Schedule social posts 
    • Track the impact of your marketing on revenue
    • Build a customer database

    Start free trial

                                                                                                                                     

    Social Media Planning for BFCM: 7 Best Practices to Implement

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    We’ve put together a list of the top social media planning practices your brand should follow to attract and retain customers in the 2022 holiday season.

    Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) weekend is coming up fast (just where did 2022 go?) It’s high time for brands to begin planning for this massive, revenue-generating shopping event.

    179.8 million unique shoppers shopped in-store and online during the BFCM holiday weekend in 2021, despite the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

    With 2022 seeing record rates of inflation and more cautious consumer spending, brands will need to pull out all the stops to wow customers this holiday season.

    Although still associated with shoppers streaming into store locations, BFCM weekend is becoming increasingly digital and mobile-first. According to Nosto, mobile outperformed desktop at 69% versus 31% when it came to product discovery and browsing, where social media emerges as a key channel. In fact, 54% of Gen Z shoppers and 58% of Millennials say that social platforms are better than online search for finding products and brands.

    In sum, a robust social media strategy is now essential for a profitable BFCM weekend.

    We’ve put together a list of the top social media planning practices your brand should follow to attract and retain customers this holiday season — and how Marsello’s brand-new social media toolkit can help.

     


     


    Quick Links:



     


    1. Use data to inform your BFCM initiatives and planning


    Not sure where to begin with your social media planning? A good place to start is to look into what strategies worked for your brand last year — and what didn’t. 

    Social media metrics such as engagement, impressions, click-through rate, website traffic, and conversion rate will help you to gauge the performance of previous initiatives and where you can build on this success. Likewise, learning from past mistakes, such as posting at the wrong time of day for your audience, is one of the best ways to set yourself up for a profitable BFCM period.

    social-launch-email-campaign-marsell-app-functionality-screenshotsArtboard 2 copy 2

    Using Marsello, look back on what kinds of posts generated the most sales over past campaigns.

    In addition to using your own data, don’t ignore the power of industry trends. Knowing what’s hot with social media users is a great way to stay innovative and serve up the content consumers want to see. 

    For example, short-form video is gaining traction across all social platforms in 2022, with 26% of social media marketers investing more in short-form video than any other content format. If your target customer belongs to the Gen Z demographic, this should definitely be in your BFCM toolkit.

     

    2. Iron out the BFCM promotions you’ll be running


    Running seasonal promotions is an essential part of BFCM, and your followers will expect you offer some compelling deals and discounts throughout the weekend. To maximize engagement with your social content, make sure you’ve planned out all the core details of your promotions, such as:

    The type of content. Are you using a single image, carousel, or video to publicize your promotion?

    The type of promotion. The size of the discount/offer, what products are included/excluded, etc.

    Length/timing of the promotion. How long the promotion is valid and whether you might extend it to increase conversions

    However, be careful not to make your social media feeds too promotion-heavy. Constantly pushing discounts over BFCM weekend can become boring and repetitive for your followers. Consider mixing up your feed with other types of content and putting aside some time to plan out your content streams. This includes promotional offers, gift inspo, and user-generated content.

    examples of holiday instagram posts

    Starbucks is a great example of a brand that posts a careful mix of content during and in the lead-up to BFCM. In addition to posting about their seasonal drinks range and limited-edition holiday cup promotions, its social media feeds also include user-generated content and question prompts designed to encourage engagement.

     

    All your Black Friday marketing. In one place.
    Add Marsello to your store now, and kickstart your Black Friday Cyber Monday campaigns with email campaigns, SMS, automations and more. Track the impact of all your marketing on sales, and measure your return on investment.

    Start free trial



    3. Create compelling images


    Consumers’ newsfeeds and inboxes are being inundated by promotions and discounts during BFCM weekend, trying to persuade them to drop everything and shop right now. But don’t join the race to the bottom by choosing the steepest discount possible; focus on creating eye-catching visuals that entice consumers to stop scrolling and check out your offer.

    To tap into those short attention spans, your images need to have a “wow factor” that’s pleasing to look at and primes people to explore what you have to offer.

    anthropologie example of a beautiful holiday post

    Known for its stunning social media feeds, Anthropologie does a great job at putting its followers in the mindset of holiday shopping ahead of BFCM. This fun visual swipe post allows Anthropologie fans to “turn on” the Christmas lights at one of their flagship stores — a clear sign of more holiday-themed content to come.

    💡 Pro-tip: You can crop and edit images right inside Marsello to create compelling, attractive content for your social media campaigns.

     

    4. Use a calendar to track and schedule your BFCM content


    It can be tempting to post all your social media content on the fly. But while there’s room for spontaneity in your content (for example, jumping on a trend while it’s still viral) you don’t want to leave your BFCM content to chance. 

    Peak season is a busy time for brands, and it’s time-consuming and stressful to plan and post content as you go. More importantly, a scattergun approach also runs the risk of missing key promotional opportunities during Thanksgiving weekend.

    Using a calendar tool is a great way to maintain control over your BCFM social media planning. Marsello allows you to add individual social posts to your calendar and add relevant information such as launch dates, copy, or associated promotions, ensuring that your team always knows what’s in the pipeline.

    marsello-social-launch-tiles-3

     

    5. Keep your marketing collateral organized


    BFCM is one of the biggest revenue-producing periods of the year for retailers, so your business is likely to be using more social media collateral in the form of graphics, videos, and product photography during this period to increase engagement. 

    With so much revenue on the line, it’s vital to make sure your marketing team has a system to store and organize these assets. After all, nobody wants to lose a vital photo or video right before posting!

    social-launch-email-campaign-marsell-app-functionality-screenshotsArtboard 2 copy 3-1

    The Marsello media library is an excellent way to keep all of your BFCM collateral in one place where it’s easily accessible to your team. The media library connects seamlessly with all major storage systems, including Google Drive and Dropbox, so you can retrieve your assets as you need them for emails, social media, and other campaigns being run by Marsello.

    All your Black Friday marketing. In one place.
    Add Marsello to your store now, and kickstart your Black Friday Cyber Monday campaigns with email campaigns, SMS, automations and more. Track the impact of all your marketing on sales, and measure your return on investment.

    Start free trial

     

    6. Keep your BFCM initiatives consistent across all platforms


    If you’re planning on running a big promotion (or several) over BFCM weekend, it makes little sense to only publicize your offer on a single platform. To drive as much traffic as possible to your website and storefronts, all of your marketing channels — including social media, email, and even your store signage — need to be working together in harmony. 

    It’s easy to say that the more channels you use, the stronger your promotional strategy will be. But it’s not quite that simple; more channels also means more time spent making sure that your messaging stays consistent. 

    Here is a great example from Sephora, which successfully reinforced last year’s Cyber Monday sale across email and social media by using the same graphic and messaging:

    sephora cyber monday sale post

    sephora cyber monday sale campaign

    Marsello’s campaign calendar makes it easy to achieve coordinated campaigns like Sephora’s. Social media, SMS, and email can be planned within a single dashboard to streamline your social planning and ensure consistency across channels.

    7. Optimize your BFCM social media accounts for sales by leveraging built-in social selling features


    Social media is no longer simply a marketing channel designed to direct shoppers to where the action takes place. Thanks to the birth of social commerce, many platforms now boast a range of tools that enable users to purchase products directly within the app.

    Social commerce has a range of benefits for both shoppers and brands during BFCM. If prospective customers see a great holiday gift option, they’re going to want to move fast. By shopping directly within an app, consumers only have to tap the product tag to be taken directly to the product page and checkout. Redirecting shoppers to your ecommerce website, where they’ll need to find the product themselves and place it in their cart, takes extra time and effort and may result in them abandoning the purchase.

    In addition to speeding up the checkout process, social selling makes your product catalog easy and seamless to navigate. For example, Walmart has created a range of collections in its Instagram store to address different shopper needs:.

    walmart instagram store collections

    Collections have a ton of applications for BFCM weekend. Consider catalogs such as “‘Top holiday picks for under $30”’ or “‘red-hot Black Friday deals” to optimize your sales strategy and drive consumers toward high-value merchandise.

    💡 Pro-tip: Tag products and collections in your social posts in Marsello to see potential generated sales.

     

    Final words


    Black Friday and Cyber Monday are among one the most important holiday shopping weekends on the calendar, and brands need to begin their social media planning early to maximize the promotional opportunities available. By following the social media planning tips above and utilizing Marsello’s social media tools, you’ll be well-placed to make your BFCM 2022 the best yet.

     

        

    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 all your marketing on revenue
    • Build a customer database

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    How to Request and Manage Google Reviews From Customers In-store and Online

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    Requesting and responding to Google Business Reviews can feel like a big task. Learn how to manage reviews and target the right customers for valuable...

    There’s a popular saying that you’re only as good as your last performance, and this is certainly true for retail establishments.

    Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers have become more discerning about what businesses they support. With more information at their fingertips than ever before, shoppers spend more time researching different options.

    Google Reviews have become a crucial tool for businesses to manage their reputations online. This blog will explore how businesses can manage Google Reviews and increase discovery opportunities in the search results – and how Marsello can help!


     

    Quick Links:

      •  
      •  

     

     

    What are Google Reviews?

     

    Google Reviews is a functionality embedded within Google Maps and Google My Business where consumers can publicly post reviews for establishments they’ve visited.

    The purpose of Google Reviews is two-fold. They assist businesses with building a positive reputation amongst consumers while also helping individuals find suitable establishments in their local area. More than half of shoppers say they’ve used Google to discover new businesses.

     

    Why do Google Reviews matter?

    Infographic showing that 84% of customers put as much trust in reviews as they do recommendations from close contacts
    Here are some reasons you should consider leveling up your Google Reviews initiatives.

    Improving your local search ranking

    Google Reviews play a critical role in determining your business’s local search ranking. Local SEO helps Google match a person’s search with relevant nearby businesses (e.g., “Italian restaurants in New York City”). Ensuring a healthy supply of positive reviews increases the odds of your business coming up high in the search results.


    Consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations

    Research shows that 84% of consumers trust reviews as much as recommendations from family or friends – this tells us that customers really do consider social proof in their purchasing decisions.


    Giving customers the opportunity to provide feedback

    Customers want to feel that their experiences matter. Giving them the opportunity to share what they love about your business on a public forum shows that you genuinely care and want to receive feedback – even if it isn’t always positive.

     

    How can retailers collect Google reviews?


    Are businesses allowed to ask customers for Google Reviews?

    Yes, though there are some ground rules.

    Google doesn’t allow businesses to pay customers for leaving reviews or “review gate” by discouraging customers from leaving negative reviews. Furthermore, you cannot use reviews left on Google for marketing purposes on other platforms, such as social media or your website.

    Here are some actionable ways that your business can collect Google Reviews:

    Email and SMS automated flows

    It isn’t practical for your business to manually send out review requests to individual customers. Instead, you need a tool that allows you to contact customers in bulk at a time of your choosing. 

    Marsello’s email and SMS automation tool enables brands to build custom email and message flows to request reviews. Marsello customer Harry & Her send automatically triggered email campaigns coupled with the Google Reviews Manager tool to build a solid review base and, in turn, boost their credibility as a retailer. Here's what they had to say about the tool:

    A quote from Harry and Her about how they've automated the Google Reviews collection and promotion process.


    At the POS/checkout directly after a sale

    While the “right” time to ask for a review will depend on your business, products, and customers (more on this below), striking while the iron is hot is usually the best way to get customers to leave reviews. In-store visitors have the chance to form a relationship with sales associates during the shopping experience, which can make customers more responsive to review requests. Consider speeding up the process by having a QR code at the checkout that directs customers straight to your review page.

    When a sale is completed during a promotion

    It’s always a good idea to ask for reviews while your brand is hosting a sales promotion. When customers have gotten a great deal from your business, they’re more likely to have a favorable impression and leave a positive Google review.

    For example, if your brand runs a flash sale for 24 - 48 hours, you can set up an automation flow that sends a review request to a specific segment of customers (i.e., those who placed an order during your flash sale). By using Marsello’s customer segmentation, your business can solicit reviews from customers who are most likely to engage and give glowing feedback.

    When customers join the loyalty program or progress tiers

    Loyalty reward programs can act as their own form of customer segmentation. The shoppers who join your program are usually those already loyal to your brand, meaning they’re also more likely to leave reviews.

    Brands have multiple opportunities to target loyalty program customers, such as when they sign up, redeem a loyalty reward, or progress to a new loyalty tier. These touchpoints are a great time to ask for a Google Review and show members that you care about their experience.

    Smack bang's earn and rewards options from their eCommerce store's loyalty widget displayed on a light pink banner

    You can also take this a step further like Marsello-powered pet boutique Smack Bang by offering loyalty points in exchange for leaving a product review on the product listing itself. With custom automations, it’s easy to create an automated campaign that is triggered when customers leave a positive product review. Product reviews provide a great opportunity to encourage your customers to leave a Google Review about your business.

    Promote/encourage reviews on social media

    Cross-channel promotion is a critical part of collecting Google Reviews. In addition to asking customers for reviews in-person or via email and SMS, you should put out a call on your social channels asking customers to share their experiences.

    It’s important to note that Google does not allow you to use reviews as advertising collateral on other platforms. But there are some less direct ways to achieve this.


    3 social media reviews from Instagram for Chat Thai's restaurants.

    Thai restaurant Chat Thai has a collection of reviews on their Instagram account created from photos and videos they have been tagged in. Consider resharing user-generated review content to steer customers towards leaving Google Reviews.

    Make your Google My Business page easy to find and direct customers there

    Customers won’t leave Google Reviews if your Google My Business page is difficult to find. Some of your customers may never have left a Google Review before. When making review requests via email and SMS, ensure you provide a link to your Google My Business page. Also, consider adding a review page to your website so that you can direct customers to your Google listing.

     

    The right way to request a Google Review

    We’ve gone over some of the best ways to collect Google Reviews. But when is the best time to request a review?

    It can be a tricky balance to get the timing of requesting reviews right. If you leave it too long, your customer’s experience will be less fresh, which could affect the quality of their review. But asking too soon risks annoying your customer, especially if their order hasn’t arrived yet.

    You should also factor in different customer segments. Some of your loyal customers may be more eager to submit reviews straightaway, while those who are new to your business may need some time before they’re ready to leave feedback.

    Marsello’s SMS and email automations allow businesses to automate the process, segment customers, and ensure communications are sent at the optimum time to encourage positive reviews.

    It’s also easy to combine automated campaigns with other review collection methods. For example, a restaurant can prime diners by asking them in person to leave a review and following up by sending an automated email reminder the following day.

     

    How should retailers respond to positive and negative reviews?

     

    Managing positive reviews is simple enough – simply thank your customer for their feedback and say you hope you’ll see them again soon. But what if their experience was less than positive?

    No business wants to receive a bad review. But the most important thing to remember about Google Reviews is whatever you say (or don’t say) is there for potential customers to see. How you respond affects the customer who left the review and onlookers who make decisions based on the reviews left about your business and how you choose to respond. 

    If you receive a negative review, always thank the person for their review. Take the time to investigate the issue to find out what went wrong so you can explain in your response. Most importantly, tell your customer the steps you will take to ensure this doesn’t happen again. Consider offering them a discount for their next visit to encourage them to return and see the changes you’ve made; this puts the ball back in their court and shows onlookers that you have made a serious effort to resolve the issue.

    In some cases, it may help get more information from the customer. In this case, you can respond by encouraging them to tell you more about their experience. As always, it’s best to stay courteous by thanking the customer for their feedback and empathizing with them. 

    Check out this example from Romano's Macaroni Grill.

    A 1-star Google Business Review for a hospitality business with a well-delivered, positive reply from the business owners

     

    Final words


    Google Reviews can feel like a business’s best friend or worst enemy. Using a tool like Marsello to support your Google Review strategy enables you to streamline Review management and ensure that you’re sending the right response at the right time to foster customer loyalty.

    By taking a responsive and automated approach to Google Reviews, your business can proactively enhance its reputation and build stronger relationships with customers – one review at a time.

     

    Book a demo

     

    How to Encourage Google Reviews From Your Customers

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    Learn how to promote and acquire Google business reviews to increase your online presence and brand recognition – activate your reviews strategy today!

    If you’re searching for a product or service online, do you read a review or two before clicking “book” or “purchase”? If so, you aren’t alone: 93% of consumers say that online reviews influence their purchasing decisions, while 70% of people will only use a business if it has a star rating of four stars or more.

    But it’s no longer enough to list a review or two on your website and call it a day; today’s customers want to see a large amount of social proof before they trust a business. In fact, 54.7% of consumers read at least four product reviews before making a purchasing decision.

    So, what does this mean for businesses?

    It means that you need an ongoing source of positive Google customer reviews to maintain a strong customer acquisition rate. In this post, we’re going to explain how you can get more Google reviews with ease – with a little help from Marsello.


     

    Quick Links:

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    Why Google business reviews are essential for any business


    With a whopping 92.6% of all search queries going through Google as of June 2021, it’s no secret that Google business reviews are some of the most valuable. 

    When Google is the one-stop shop for consumers searching for everything from hairdressers to restaurants, you need to ensure that you’re at the top of those search results. Otherwise, your business is practically invisible to potential customers. And if they can’t see you, they’re not going to click through to your website.

    By managing Google reviews more effectively, you can make your business more visible – all thanks to something called local SEO.


    Why frequent positive reviews are essential for good SEO


    Local SEO focuses on optimizing a business’s online presence to assist nearby consumers in finding it more easily in search. If a consumer is showing search intent for a particular product or service, Google’s algorithm matches that search query with relevant businesses close to where the person is located.

    For example, if you’re a restaurant in Manhattan, your target audience is likely to be people who are living or visiting in that area. So, if a person searches for “best restaurants in Manhattan” you want your establishment to be as high as possible in those results. 

    According to Moz’s State of Local SEO Industry Report 2020, 90% of search experts believe that review activity is “moderately important” or “very important” in determining local SEO, while 78% agree that Google has become the new homepage for businesses. As such, Google reviews are a fantastic tool to boost local search presence – if you do it right.

    How Google My Business reviews work


    To start collecting Google reviews, you need to either claim or set up a Google My Business listing. This is a free tool offered by Google that allows businesses to manage their presence on the search engine. In addition to reviews, Google My Business listings can also include information such as:

        • Opening hours
        • Address/Contact details
        • Menus
        • Booking widgets 
        • Photos of your establishment

    It’s important to make an effort to fill out as many parts of your profile as possible, as a comprehensive listing will help to boost your local ranking. 

    Check out the listing of the restaurant Chat Thai, which has a number of locations across Australia. All of Chat Thai’s Google listings are fully populated; you can view key business details and contact info, as well as photos and reviews. There’s even an “Order Online” button that lets customers order straight from Google.


    A screenshot of Chat Thais Google business reviews overlaid on a photo of their restaurant

    Once Google My Business is set up and optimized, you’re ready to start driving review activity.

    This is where Marsello’s Google Reviews feature comes in.

     

    How to use Marsello’s Google Reviews Manager

     

    By integrating your Google My Business account with your Marsello marketing, you can easily generate new reviews through automated email and SMS campaigns. 

    Here’s how it works: connect your Google My Business account to Marsello, then enable automated email or SMS flows to encourage people to leave a review. You can customize your email flow with segmentation rules to ensure that you’re engaging the right customers. For instance, you can configure the workflow to only ask your “Best” customers for a review after they purchase. 

    Note that Google Reviews workflows will only be triggered after someone places an order, so you can guarantee the authenticity of your business reviews.

    A Google Reviews collection flow showing tiggers, an SMS campaign, and the eventual Google Review all using Marsello's Generate and Manage Google Reviews feature.

    Finally, it’s easy to track the success of your review automations. And when you receive a review, you can respond to your customers in-app, reward them with loyalty points to say thank you, or email the customer directly – manage reviews your way! 

    Get in touch with our team to book a demo and learn more.

     

    Book a demo

     

    How to use Google Reviews to increase brand awareness


    Before the web existed, businesses and hospitality establishments had to rely on being as visible as possible to attract foot traffic. Everything from flyers and store signage to branded shopping bags have been valuable tools to help businesses increase brand awareness.

    This principle is no different online. Your business needs to take up as much “space” as possible to become known and recognized by as many customers as possible in such a competitive environment. 

    In a time where digital marketing can feel increasingly like a pay-to-play model where only the biggest budgets see results, Google reviews offer a way for less-established businesses to level the playing field. By getting more reviews on Google, you’ll stand out over bigger but less-reviewed competitors.

    How to encourage customers to leave positive reviews

     

    It’s easy to assume that customers will shout from the rooftops when they have a stellar experience at your establishment. But this isn’t the case in reality; less than 50% of customers (47%) say they don’t post negative or positive reviews online at all.

    There are a variety of reasons for this. A lot of us are busy and forget to write a review. Many businesses don’t make it easy or intuitive to leave reviews. If we’ve written reviews in the past and haven’t gotten a response, we might decide it’s not worth the effort.

    By this point, you’re probably asking: How can I get more Google reviews for my business? Continue the following top tips:


    Prompt for reviews after purchases with automated emails and SMS


    The first step to getting customers to leave reviews? Strike while the iron is hot.

    Businesses want to create balance by asking for reviews while a customer’s experience is fresh – this can be tough to coordinate if your establishment asks for reviews manually. 

    Moreover, sending out individually-written emails or SMS is a massive drain on your time. To make asking for reviews as painless as possible, consider investing in marketing automation software that can handle review requests on your behalf.

    Marsello’s automated email and SMS campaign tool enables businesses to send and manage review requests via a straightforward interface. Set the ideal time for your messages to go out to customers and even automate the sending of follow-up messages to give you another shot at securing positive reviews.


    Make an effort to respond to customer feedback


    Getting more customers to leave reviews isn’t just about how you ask for them, but how you choose to respond when you receive them. 

    In fact, 89% of consumers read a business’s responses to reviews during the consideration stage. Why? Because how an establishment engages with positive and negative reviews tells potential customers a great deal about how that business treats its patrons.

    Suppose a customer leaves a negative Google review and that business makes no effort to respond; this could be interpreted as the company not caring about the quality of their customer’s experience, which is a massive red flag. 

    Plus, if you aren’t in the habit of replying to reviews and showing that you’re listening to feedback, what incentive do customers have to put in the effort?

    Restaurant and Bar, The Monday Room, has done a great job of replying to Google reviews, even thanking customers who write more detailed reviews and provide photos:

    The Monday Rooms Google Business Reviews page featuring a response from the business to the reviewer.

     

    Use positive reinforcement, but don’t bribe customers


    If you’re looking to shape consumer behavior in ways that are advantageous to your business, it might seem like a good idea to offer customers a discount on their next order in exchange for leaving a positive review. However, this isn’t a good long-term strategy for most businesses. 

    Too many 5-star reviews on a business listing create suspicion, with studies finding that consumers were more likely to purchase a product or service when the rating is between 4.2 to 4.5 stars. You don’t want your efforts to come across as though your business is buying reviews or deleting negative Google reviews, which can cause potential customers to doubt their authenticity and can even result in your business being penalized by Google. 

    It’s much better to reward customers after leaving a review to guarantee honest feedback. For example, lifestyle and clothing boutique Harry & Her rewards customers with loyalty points if they leave 4 or 5-star reviews, but they don’t actively promote this policy on any of their marketing channels. This practice increases customer satisfaction and ensures that all positive reviews are genuine. 

    The team at Harry and Her was also one of the first to test Marsello's Google Reviews Manager and they've found that Google Reviews are an undeniable source of revenue growth for their business. So much so, they're not going back! Here's what they had to say about their review process and the response from customers:

    "We use Marsello's Google Reviews feature to encourage customer reviews after they buy something from one of our stores. First, we send an automated SMS; then we follow that up with an email to those who have not seen the SMS campaign. It's also been exciting to see our customers respond with so many positive reviews – we now have a 5-star average across our stores!"

     

    Final words


    Managing online reviews can feel a bit overwhelming, especially if you have a brand-new Google My Business listing and gather reviews from scratch. But it’s well worth the effort to create a streamlined outreach strategy to build social proof for your business; when you have a long list of positive customer testimonials, you’re in a much stronger position to acquire new customers.

    By taking advantage of SMS and email automation to coordinate review requests and communicating how feedback enhances the customer experience, you can build a lasting Google review strategy that acquires and retains loyal customers. Marsello’s Google Reviews Manager makes this easy! Book a demo to get started today.

    How to Implement SMS Marketing

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    SMS Marketing receives some of the highest engagement rates. Make the most of text message marketing within your marketing strategy with our top tips.

    Getting customers to pay attention to your brand is becoming more and more of an uphill battle.
    Email inboxes are overflowing. Social media is saturated. Even with the right messaging and the right tools, there is sometimes too much noise to be able to stand out.

    So, how can you make people actually see your marketing efforts?

    Enter SMS Marketing; the marketing channel that receives some of the highest open rates and engagement.

    In this post, we’ll be giving you an in-depth look at SMS marketing. You’ll learn what it is, why it works, and the best practices for developing an SMS marketing strategy that's cost-effective and boosts your bottom line.

    Let's get started.

     

    What is SMS marketing

    Short Message Service (SMS) marketing is a strategy where businesses use SMS messaging to send timely and relevant short-form content directly to a customer's mobile device. 

    The uses of SMS marketing span from informative (i.e. letting someone know that their order is ready for pick up) to promotional messages, like alerting customers to your latest special offer.

    SMS marketing can be used for an even broader variety of purposes, such as:

    • Abandoned cart notifications
    • Giving out discount codes or coupons
    • New products arriving in-store
    • Order/shipping confirmations
    • Loyalty or VIP programs
    • and many more.

    Because it allows for such direct and personalized brand communications, text message marketing is a fantastic tool for building customer loyalty and driving repeat purchases. It enables customers to be better informed about your brand’s activities, while also giving them the tools they need to take action quickly and effectively.

    SMS Marketing: The Numbers 

     

    "48.7 million consumers have willingly opted to receive SMS, while 58% say they
    would be happy to hear from their favorite brands multiple
    times per week."

     

    Text messaging is hardly a new innovation. Mobile phones with full keyboards have been around since the late nineties. So, why is SMS marketing receiving so much hype from marketers?

    Many brands worry that SMS marketing messages might come across as intrusive – but this view is not supported by consumer surveys. By the end of 2020, it’s estimated that 48.7 million consumers have willingly opted to receive SMS, while 58% say they would be happy to hear from their favorite brands multiple times per week.

    Why? The answer is simple; internet-capable devices have given us unprecedented connectivity with businesses and brands. This gradual shift towards mobile eCommerce is a clear sign of our increasing desire to shop on the go; 56.7% of shoppers are now going “mobile-first”, while only 6.7% primarily use desktop for online shopping. 

    56.7% of shoppers are now going "mobile-first", while only 6.7% primarily use desktop for online shopping. 

    "56.7% of shoppers are now going "mobile-first", while only 6.7% primarily use
    desktop for online shopping. "

     

    As we become more reliant on cell phones to help organize our lives, our responsiveness to these devices only grows. A whopping 90% of customers will open a text message within the first three minutes of receiving it. 

    With this in mind, let’s look at a few more reasons why your business should consider SMS marketing.

     

    Why businesses should engage in SMS marketing

     

    1. It’s conversational

    When consumers are interacting with a brand, they want to feel as though they’re talking to a real person. But it’s easy for many B2C communication tools, such as email or even live chat, to feel stilted and lacking in personality.

    SMS is a winning communication channel because it presents a much more intimate touchpoint with consumers. It’s fun, free-flowing, and puts us more in the mind of talking with a trusted friend rather than a business.

    It also makes us far more receptive; over half of Americans say that a text with a coupon code is more effective than a targeted digital ad!

     

    "Over half of Americans say that a text with a coupon code is more effective than
    a target digital ad!"

     

    2. It can be used to amplify your other marketing efforts

    The secret to a good marketing strategy isn’t down to the number of marketing tools you use; it’s about whether you can make them work together to reinforce brand messaging and reach a bigger audience. 

    With its high engagement and low time investment, mobile marketing can be used to drive customers to much larger pieces of content via links and CTAs, such as blog posts, podcasts, and videos on your social media channels. 

     

    3. It’s cost-effective

    We all know that marketing can get expensive, especially when you’re balancing a lot of different strategies at once. And as eCommerce grows more competitive, customer acquisition costs will only rise. 

    After a slight knock with the onset of the pandemic, digital ad costs are increasing once again – yet struggling more than ever to reach the right target audiences. 

    SMS marketing campaigns offer businesses a far more affordable alternative because the associated costs are low. Unlike other forms of content, you don’t need to invest in graphic designers or content writers to create messaging that resonates with your audience. 

     

    An iPhone screen with an SMS campaign offering 15% off on a customer's birthday.

     
     

    How to develop an SMS marketing strategy

    Ready to craft your SMS marketing strategy? Consider the following steps.

    Decide on your objectives

    First things first: What are you hoping to achieve through SMS marketing, and how are going to measure it? The latter part of this question is particularly important; if you don't know whether you've hit your goal, it's very difficult to track whether your expenditure was worth it.

    Let's look at a few sample objectives, and how you can measure them:

      • Brand awareness. Brand awareness is a less tangible entity that can feel difficult to pin down. However, there are several metrics, such as SMS open rates and referral traffic to your website, which provide a good picture of whether customers are searching out your content.

      • Growing your subscriber base. This is important when you're starting out with SMS marketing. Metrics such as your list's growth per month/quarter and your subscriber drop-off rate can be used to gauge whether your messaging is striking a chord with your audience.

      • Boosting sales. If you plan on using SMS to inform customers of your latest specials in-store, it's a good idea to insert a trackable link within your message that directs people to a specific landing or product page. This makes it easy to see whether your SMS has helped to boost conversions.

     

    Develop a system for customers to opt-in

    Building a contact list isn't just about gathering phone numbers; by law, to use SMS, you also need to get permission to contact customers this way. 

    According to the TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act), it's unlawful to send consumers promotional messages unless they have given their number voluntarily and also given their consent to receive communications. You also need to give them a straightforward opt-out method.

    There are two main ways to allow customers to opt-in; by getting customers to text a specific keyword to a short code set up by your brand, or by adding a tick-box option when your customer is accessing gated content or going through online checkout (in the same manner as asking permission for email communications).

    Have a strategy to grow your contact list

    Your customers aren't going to sign up for your SMS marketing if they don't know it exists. If you're going to grow your SMS contact list effectively, you need to put effort into marketing this communications channel through your other media outlets.


    You can do this through the following methods:

    • In-store signage
    • Verbal communication
    • Email
    • Digital marketing (i.e. social media or influencer marketing)
    • A banner on your website
    • Flyers containing QR codes

    Find the right SMS marketing platform

    SMS marketing automation software that allows you to send bulk SMS messages, so it’s a good investment for both emerging and established retailers. For starters, it simply isn't workable to have staff members laboriously sending out text after text. You'll also gain valuable data insights that will help to refine your SMS strategy.

    So, what should you be looking for in SMS marketing software? Here’s a quick checklist:

    • Intuitive workflows that require little training time
    • Ability to schedule SMS by date/time
    • Ability to integrate with other marketing/eCommerce tools
    • Extensive data relating to open rates and CTR (if relevant)
    • Ability to scale as your activity grows

    Check out Marsello’s marketing platform, which allows you to run targeted SMS campaigns to drive customer engagement and sales. With Marsello, you can easily schedule messages and measure your results to continuously improve performance. 

    Marsello also integrates with leading POS systems and eCommerce solutions, so you can connect all your retail platforms and offer a seamless experience across multiple channels.

     

    Man in a white shirt scrolls on his cellphone

     

    Best practices for SMS marketing

    Let's take a quick look at some of the suggested best practices for SMS marketing.

    Know who your customers are

    Before you start sending any messages, you should build a picture of what's going to resonate with your subscriber list. Where is your audience located, and how will this affect what time you need to send messages? Which products are your best sellers, and most likely to produce the highest conversion rates from promotions? 

    As a retailer, you have a lot of data at your fingertips to help answer these questions, such as your sales history and Google Web Analytics. If you use a CRM, this is a fantastic way to track your customers' journeys and tailor SMS touchpoints to what is most informative at each stage.

     

    Keep your communications to the point

    A single SMS message can only contain a maximum of 160 characters, so you need to keep your communications short and sweet.

    You can do this in two ways. Firstly, make sure that you limit the use of complex wording that could confuse customers. 

    Secondly, make sure that you have a reason for messaging your customer. If you're running a promotional deal you think they'd be interested in, limit your SMS to only the important details, such as the discount i.e. 20% off, and the date it finishes to help drive urgency to purchase.  

     

    Choose the right time of day

    When it comes to marketing, timing can be everything. This is certainly true for text message marketing. For example, waking your customer up at an ungodly hour is likely to result in some resentful feelings towards your brand. 

    Not to mention, texting your customers outside of “waking” hours — i.e., between 8 am and 9 pm in their local time — is a violation of the TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act). Non-compliance can land your company in legal hot water, so be sure to schedule your messages accordingly.

    Based on our data, the right sending times will depend on your industry. For example, we’ve found that fashion retailers see the best results when they schedule their SMS campaigns between 9:00 am and 1:00 pm.  

    So the best scheduling best practice is to test different time slots and see what works best for your audience.

    The right sending time varies from industry to industry. Fashion retailers see best
    results when scheduling their SMS marketing between 9 am and 1 pm,
    meanwhile, specialty stores see best engagement results from1 pm to 4 pm.

     

    Personalize your messaging

    If your SMS marketing only involves mass texts and promotional messages, you're going to see customers unsubscribe in huge numbers. 

    Because unless communications feel tailored to them, they have little reason to feel excited when they receive a message.

    Making sure that you use your customer's name is an easy way to make an SMS feel more personal. To really improve your interactions, consider allowing your customers to set preferences when they sign up. This could include asking them how often they'd like to hear from you, and what kinds of content they're interested in (i.e. specific product categories or order/delivery notifications).

     

    Focus on adding value

    This is the golden rule of any marketing campaign; if you're going to boost sales or brand engagement, your starting point needs to be what you can offer your customer - not what they can offer you.

    For example, if you want to boost engagement on social media, simply running Facebook ads isn't going to create any meaningful change on its own. Instead, consider running some form of sweepstakes that you can promote via SMS message. Because it offers your customers a clear incentive, they're far more likely to get involved.

     

    Brands that are doing SMS marketing right

    Federation +

    New Zealand streetwear brand, Federation +, knows first-hand the power of an SMS campaign when paired with their marketing efforts. 

    In December 2020, they sent a Boxing day-themed SMS campaign that encouraged customers to shop with a 20% discount both in-store and online. With a 95% delivery rate and 8% click rate, Federation +’s last SMS Campaign for 2020 saw an impressive 11% conversion rate! 

    Read about Federation +'s marketing.

    Federations SMS campaign overlaid on branded imagery

     

    Parker Panache

    Marsello customer Parker Panache intelligently used one-off SMS campaigns to build a buzz around their annual Black Friday sale, one of the biggest events in the retail calendar. In conjunction with other marketing tools, they used SMS message blasts to spread the word by taking advantage of the medium's high open rates. It certainly paid off, with their total ROI reaching 240x over the two months leading up to Black Friday.

    Parker Panache sends Seasons Greetings SMS to promote 20% off in-store and online sale.

     

    American Eagle Outfitters

    American Eagle was an early adopter of SMS marketing, and this strategy has clearly paid off.In the 2015 holiday season, their "legendary gifts" campaign gave consumers the chance to win $10,000. The 12-day campaign took place across SMS, email, and social media and required customers to 'opt-in' to receive personalized URLS that directed them to their daily gift. As well as winning the grand prize, customers were also in to win exclusive discounts and perks.

    These creative efforts helped American Eagle to reach more than 8 million email and SMS subscribers within the 12-day period, with a 60% SMS click-through rate.

     

    Final words

    Ambitious marketing campaigns can be challenging to coordinate for some businesses, especially due to time and budget constraints. SMS marketing is a highly engaging strategy that takes advantage of our attachment to mobile devices to deliver exciting updates in real-time. As retail grows more mobile-based, this marketing tool is only going to grow more effective at driving sales and brand awareness. Our take? The sooner you get started, the better.

    How to Collect and Manage Customer Feedback

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    Learn which methods of customer feedback collection could work best for your business and discover why you should consider this essential growth data.

    A Guide to Navigating Shopper Input

    A women leaves feedback on a wall-mounted tablet which prompts 'how was your experience'.

     

    Did you know that poor customer experiences result in an estimated $83 billion loss by U.S. businesses every year? 

     

    Gathering, managing, and analyzing customer feedback is a vital part of your customer success strategy, but is often neglected by businesses. In fact, a recent study by Hubspot found that 42% of businesses don't collect customer feedback at all. 

     

    If you don't know what your customers think or want, it's impossible to put them at the center of your growth plan. That's why a robust customer feedback management strategy is the key to fostering lasting relationships with your customers.

     

    In this post, we're going to:

    • Discuss why customer feedback matters
    • Identify key types of customer feedback
    • Talk about how to collect, manage, and analyze customer feedback

    Let’s dive in!

     

    Why is it important to collect customer feedback? 

    Let’s kick things off by discussing the benefits of having good customer feedback management practices in place. 

     

    It helps to refine your product/service

    Making the effort to collect customer feedback helps you to identify pain points, as well as gather suggestions that you can communicate to your customer success and product teams. In turn, this helps to enhance your product/service and promote a better user experience.

     

    Essentially, any omnichannel retailer should be making the customer the focal point of their business, and collecting customer feedback will enable this process. 

     

    It improves customer satisfaction and retention

    No matter what business you run, your customers want to feel as though their experiences matter. When customer service representatives take a long time to respond to concerns – or worse, don't respond at all – this can seriously damage the customer relationship. 

     

    On the flip side, when you make the effort to implement changes or updates on the back of feedback surveys, it showcases a customer-centric approach that aims to meet the expectations of loyal customers. And when customers are satisfied, your retention rates will soar.

     

    It strengthens your WOM (Word of Mouth) marketing efforts

    Here's a fact about marketing: We're far more likely to trust other people's perception of a business than what that business says about itself. In fact, 88% of consumers say that they trust online reviews just as much as personal recommendations.

     

    With the rise of social media and community forums, we're no longer passive consumers of advertising. By making customer feedback a core functionality of your business model, you have a powerful customer acquisition strategy.

     

    Types of customer feedback 

    Customer feedback can be divided into two main types: Direct/solicited customer feedback, and indirect/unsolicited customer feedback.

     

    Direct/solicited customer feedback

    This refers to feedback processes that rely on the business reaching out to their customers for feedback. The advantage of this approach is that businesses can either tailor their surveys to specific topics, such as the usability of certain features, or they can ask about the customer journey as a whole. However, invitations for direct feedback often struggle with low uptake.

     

    Direct/solicited customer feedback methods include the following:

    • Customer surveys
    • Customer reviews
    • Focus groups
    Indirect/unsolicited customer feedback

    Conversely, indirect/unsolicited feedback is when a customer reaches out to a business with queries or concerns. It's within a business's interest to encourage this behavior, as unsolicited feedback can often bring up issues or opportunities they wouldn't have identified on their own. 

     

    The following can be considered types of indirect/unsolicited feedback:

    • Social media
    • Customer support centers
    • Live chat

    Note: It's a good idea to use a combination of methods to ensure that your business is getting impartial feedback data. In this next section, we're going to dive into some of these methods in more depth.

     

    How to collect customer feedback

    Now let’s look at the different ways that you can gather feedback from shoppers.

     

    Customer surveys

    Customer surveys are one of the most common methods for feedback collection. You can completely customize a survey depending on what your needs are, making it one of the best options for collecting feedback on a large scale.

     

    However, putting together a good feedback survey is a lot of work. Once you've chosen the area that you want feedback on, you need to decide what survey format is most appropriate.

     

    While a qualitative survey using free text fields is one of the easiest to put together, it can be a discouraging time investment for customers, and setting it up effectively could be time-consuming for you too.

     

    Instead, you could consider using some qualitative forms of customer satisfaction survey, such as:

     

    Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

    CSAT is a metric for determining how satisfied your customers are with different touchpoints in the customer journey. It captures customer sentiment when they're interacting with that stage of your offering i.e. "How would you rate your recent order or experience?"

     

    KiwiCo asks subscribers to rate their experience of using a specific product with 5 stars.

    CSATs usually give customers the choice of choosing a number between 1 and 5, with 5 being “very satisfied” and 1 being “highly dissatisfied”. CSATs can be single questions or use several back-to-back questions depending on how broad you want your survey to be.

     

    Net Promoter Score (NPS)

    NPS is another qualitative survey measure but it differs from CSAT. NPS measures long-term customer loyalty. It helps to benchmark a customer's willingness to recommend/promote your brand to others, which indicates their commitment to repeat purchases. So, if your NPS is low, this means your churn rate is likely to be high.

     

    Most NPS surveys use a 10-point scale, as shown in this template by Le Tote:

     

    Le Tote asks customers how likely they are to recommend the store with a 1-10 scale.

    2-choice questions

    In some cases, you want to make it as simple as possible for customers to provide feedback. This is why 2-choice surveys can be extremely useful when you want to gather a quick pulse from your customers. 

     

    The following example from Katie Waltman, which lets people indicate their feedback by simply tapping a happy or sad face is an example of quick and easy feedback collection.

     

    And in case customers would like to share additional details, Katie Waltman asks a quick follow-up question based on the shoppers’ initial response. Katie Waltman has a 97% customer feedback rating. Their customers have particularly positive feedback for KW’s product quality, customer service, and the value of their products. Keeping in mind that customers are most inclined to leave feedback when they are passionate, this makes praise that Katie Waltman has received all the more impressive.

     

    Marsello-Case-Study-Katie-Waltman

    Social media monitoring

    Did you know that 1 in 3 consumers would rather post service or product feedback on social media than contact a business directly? Quick and appropriate follow-ups to comments and mentions by your customers are vital on an open forum, and also presents opportunities to ask for feedback via polls and surveys:

     

    PlayStation uses Twitter to run a poll asking follower if theyll be buying a game this week.

    Qualitative customer interviews

    If you're wanting more in-depth customer insights, organizing a series of interviews with customers is a great tool for adding more context to NPS and CSAT surveys. Getting direct information straight from shoppers can help to highlight and create understanding around areas that are working well, versus areas of your business that could do with attention.

     

    This technique is best suited for interviewing long-term customers who can answer more in-depth questions about your product/service. It's a good idea to use your CRM to pick out loyal customers who can offer you the most valuable insights.

     

    How to manage customer feedback 

    Once you’ve collected a good amount of feedback, it’s best to set up processes for managing all that information so you can act on it. 

     

    Use the right CFM tools

    Feedback management tools are vital to getting the most out of your feedback collection. CFM (customer feedback management) software allows you to sort and analyze customer data effectively, rather than having your customer success team spend days or even weeks sorting through it manually.

     

    The right tools depend on how your business plans on gathering customer feedback. For example, if you plan on doing customer surveys on a regular basis, a survey tool like SurveyMonkey or Typeform is a good investment. Likewise, you're a brand with a large social media presence, consider a social listening tool such as Brand24 that uses AI to monitor brand reputation in real-time, a popular technique with SaaS companies. 

     

    On the other hand, if you want to grab quick feedback on the product or shopping experience of your customers, then an eCommerce CRM like Marsello is a great option. Marsello’s feedback tool makes it easy to attach quick surveys to your transactional emails so customers can let you know how they feel.

     

    From there, you can get detailed reporting on customer satisfaction and find ways to improve. 

    Marsello-Madame-Fancy-Pants-Customizable-Feedback-Survey

     

    Learn moreStart collecting feedback

     

     

    Implement a Voice of the Customer (VoC) program

    The Voice of the Customer (VoC) is a broad term referring to all of the data and metrics you've gathered from feedback management tools and unsolicited customer feedback. A VoC program collates all this data from across channels to identify emerging themes that indicate specific pain points, then develops a roadmap to address them.

     

    For a VoC program to work effectively, it can't be siloed just to your customer success division. It requires active collaboration with the product development, marketing, and sales teams to identify trends within their own workflows. For example, if the sales team keeps coming across a particular feature request, this can be passed onto the product team far more seamlessly.

     

    Close the feedback loop

    Once you've identified issues or opportunities and taken action in response, it's important not to miss out on informing customers what you've accomplished. This is known as “closing the feedback loop.”

    Unless customers receive a follow-up, they have no idea whether their concerns have been listened to. This leaves the feedback loop wide open and could affect your retention efforts.

     

    So, once you've decided to introduce a change in response to feedback, you need to think about the best way to communicate this. The appropriate channel will depend on the demographics of the respondents. For example, if your survey was hosted on social media, it makes sense to inform customers using the same medium. If it was an on-site survey, you could consider producing a webinar that discusses your initiatives.

     

    How to analyze your customer feedback 

    The best way to get the most out of customer feedback is to analyze it. Here are some tips to help you organize what you’ve collected and ensured that you gain actionable insights from them.

     

    Categorize your feedback types

    Once your data is in one place, assigning it to a specific group will help you get a broad overview of what areas are receiving the most attention from your customers. For example, you could use categories like:

    • Onboarding
    • Pricing/billing
    • Feature requests
    • Product/user experience
    • Technical support.

    You can also break these down further into sub-categories i.e. whether the feedback is negative or positive.

     

    This exercise will help you to highlight any overarching trends and “hidden” issues that your business might not have identified, such as confusing pricing structures or difficulty finding support documentation.

     

    Start feedback analysis

    While it's possible to analyze your feedback manually, this is a very time-consuming process and requires someone with strong expertise in coding and data analysis. Moreover, there's always the potential for personal bias to get in the way of finding actionable insights from your customers.

    Instead, consider using a tool such as Marsello, which can organize feedback data into graphs and tables that make it easy to analyze the information.

    Marsello-Feedback-ReportAs patterns start emerging, it's important to ask yourself some key questions:

    • Are these new or established customers?
    • Where are they located?
    • Who has been assigned to manage their account?

    This helps to add context to the results of your analysis – and may also establish some underlying causes for recurring issues.

     

    Present your results

    Once you have the results of your customer feedback campaign, you need to think about the best way to present them to your teams. This will depend on whether you're doing a relatively focused feedback survey or a landmark study on your product/service as a whole.

     

    If it's a small feedback project, you can likely present the results on a one-page that summarizes the key takeaways via bullet points or tables. In the case of large, multi-question studies, you will need to break this down in a lot more detail.

     

    Large-scale data visualization using line or bar graphs are a great way to communicate to your staff the changes to customer sentiment over time and provide answers to key questions. Check out this visualization by Thematic investigating the reasons behind a drop in NPS:

     

    Thematic uses a graph visualization to represent how a customer rating has dropped.

     

    Thematic not only displays the drop-in NPS rating over time but also offers the user detailed information that highlights why their performance could be taking a downward turn. 

     

    Final words

    Customer feedback has traditionally been one of the most neglected elements in customer success. It's easy for businesses to tell themselves that gathering customer feedback is too time-consuming or difficult to analyze to be worth the effort. 

     

    But at the end of the day, customer satisfaction is the key to long-term success as a business. If your customers are unhappy with your service or product offering, your churn rate is going to skyrocket. But by implementing a strong customer feedback program, you're in a much better position to foster retention and loyalty.

     

    Need to collect and analyze customer feedback? Marsello has powerful tools to help retailers gather input from shoppers and turn them into actionable insights. 

     

     

    Learn more about Marsello's featuresGET MARSELLO



     

    What is Omnichannel Marketing?

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    Omnichannel – the 'in' phrase of the retail space. So what does omnichannel mean & how can you implement it into your business? Read on to learn more.

    A Guide to Marketing Across Multiple Channels

    It's one of the biggest buzzwords in retail and marketing, and one that all businesses should be paying attention to. 

    Omnichannel.

    Industry data shows that marketers using three or more channels in any one campaign earned a 287% higher purchase rate than those using a single-channel campaign.

    With numbers like this, retailers have few reasons not to embrace the power of omnichannel marketing. 

    In this post, we're going to define omnichannel marketing, why it matters, and how to implement your own omnichannel marketing strategy for better customer engagement and sales.

    What is omnichannel marketing? 


    Simply put, it’s a retail strategy that involves the complete integration of all offline and digital channels. It denotes a customer-centric approach by prioritizing seamless, high-touch shopping journeys that take place across multiple channels.

    With seamless channel integration, customers can easily complete actions like checking inventory levels online before turning up at their local store. And it's shopping experiences like these that positively influence customer loyalty and helps to create brand advocates. 

    Omnichannel marketing ensures that customers receive a cohesive shopping experience. All sales and marketing channels operate in sync with one another to build trust and brand engagement.

     

    The difference between multichannel and omnichannel marketing


    Don't confuse omnichannel marketing with multichannel marketing. 

    While both involve coordinating marketing strategies that span several channels (such as eCommerce, social media, SMS messaging, and mobile apps), the execution is very different.

    Multichannel puts the product, rather than the customer, at the center of marketing activities. So, while multichannel marketing allows consumers to engage a brand via several channels, they cannot transition seamlessly between them. This silos messaging and keeps it static, rather than adapting to the needs of each customer.

    In contrast, the channel integration of omnichannel marketing means that every message is relevant and tailored to your individual customer as they shop across multiple channels and devices.

    For example, if a customer puts an item in their cart with the intent of coming back for it later, they might receive a push notification or SMS alert to let them know when that product is low in stock. They might also get a tailored promotion to entice them to purchase. It's these personalized interactions with customers which make omnichannel marketing efforts much more successful than a generalized multichannel approach.

     

    A retailer and a customer using an in-store POS system while smiling and chatting.

    Why implement omnichannel marketing? 


    Here’s a quick rundown of the advantages you can unlock from omnichannel marketing.

    Providing a consistent experience across channels

    If we think about our most negative retail experiences, they're likely to involve scenarios where retailers have obstructed rather than aided our efforts to shop efficiently. 

    As consumers show a growing preference to use multiple channels to execute their shopping journeys, it's never been more important for retailers to meet these expectations. According to a study by Invespcro, the most in-demand services are: 

        • Checking product availability before arriving in-store (82%)
        • BOPIS (Buy Online, Pick-Up In-Store) (57%)
        • Having a customer profile stored across channels (50%)
        • Personalized shopping experiences (47%)

    By implementing advanced omnichannel experiences like these, your customers have the freedom to shop how they want without barriers. This makes them feel empowered during their shopping journey and helps to foster trust in your brand.

    Maximizing touchpoints with your customer

    In the past, we would walk into a brick-and-mortar store, browse for a bit, and then make a purchase – often within the same visit. 

    Today, consumer behavior is very different. People want as much information as possible before committing to a purchase, especially if they are new customers shopping with a brand for the first time. This involves utilizing multiple channels to research and compare options.

    Today, 82% of customers use their mobile devices to browse before purchasing at a physical store. By offering customers a unified experience across digital and offline channels, you can add a huge amount of value through engaging touchpoints that build brand awareness and customer loyalty.

    Valuable data-driven insights

    Seamless experiences across different channels mean more opportunities to gather customer data. Omnichannel integration allows you to follow the customer journey from beginning to end, meaning that you gain access to in-depth insights about who your customers are and what they're looking for. 

    It allows you to identify key buying patterns and personas within your target audience – including those you hadn't anticipated shopping with your brand. This makes it easier to deliver the appropriate messaging that coaxes prospective customers along the path to purchasing.

    When you understand your customers, you have a much better sense of how to encourage repeat purchases. This is why retailers who use an omnichannel approach see 90% higher customer retention can those who don't.

     

    How to start an omnichannel marketing strategy from scratch 


    Ready to kick off your omnichannel marketing strategy? Here are the steps you should take to set yourself up for success.

    1. Start thinking customer-centric

    Going omnichannel in your marketing is about more than just integrating your channels. For many retailers, it requires a fundamental shift in how your brand relates to its customers.

    Why? Because what's most convenient for your customers might not be what's easiest for business. To make this transition effectively, you need to have everybody on board inputting customer success at the center of the shopping experience.

    Making omnichannel campaigns run effectively is a lot of work, and requires serious consideration of every touchpoint within the buyer's journey. 

    For example, when your customer enters your website, does it have a responsive design that easily adjusts to mobile? Are your social media posts optimized to drive prospective customers to the appropriate product pages?

    By having your operations, sales, and marketing teams evaluate your marketing approach step by step, you can ensure a positive omnichannel customer experience.

    2. Know who your customer is

    You might be surprised by how many businesses don't have an in-depth understanding of who their customers are. A study by HubSpot found that 42% of businesses don't run customer engagement surveys or collect feedback.

    This is a problem because if you don't touch base with customers and get their feedback, you won't get insights into what they want and need. Collecting feedback also helps you determine the right demographics, so you can create more effective personas for your campaigns.

    To  put your customer first, you need to invest in gathering data that gives you the full picture of their activities and preferences, such as: 

        • What problems does your business help customers to solve? 
        • Through what channels do they like interacting with your brand most, and why? 
        • Which kinds of content do they find the most useful/valuable?

    You can accomplish this by using data from your CRM, or by running surveys across channels and asking for feedback at multiple points during the shopping journey. 

    3.  Invest in the proper toolkit

    Example of Marsello's POS integration working with Loyalty.

    When it comes to omnichannel marketing, your strategy is only going to be as strong as the tools supporting it. 

    As well as helping you to generate and nurture more leads, marketing automation allows you to build personalized experiences for your customers by sending them targeted content that supports their needs. Best of all, the data captured from these workflows in the form of CTRs and engagement rates will tell you whether your efforts are hitting the mark.

    This is where a solution like Marsello comes in handy. Our software serves as an all-in-one omnichannel marketing platform that combines email, SMS, and loyalty programs. Since everything is accessible on a single platform, data flows smoothly from one channel to the next, and it's easier to provide a seamless shopping experience no matter where your customers are. 

    Marsello also integrates with leading point-of-sale systems and eCommerce platforms, so you can easily sync your physical and digital stores as one.

    GET MARSELLO


    4. Content, content, content


    No matter how advanced your marketing software is, the content remains the backbone of omnichannel marketing. This involves everything from your social media content down to in-store signage

    For example, let's say that your business is running a promotion that gives your customers 20% off storewide both offline and online. Your online store has a big banner on the home page publicizing the discount, and a promotional email has been sent out to your mailing list to spread the word. 

    But when customers walk into one of your physical store locations, there's no signage greeting them at the door to make them aware of the discount. 

    A lack of cohesion between your offline and digital marketing efforts can result in a lot of missed sales opportunities; if in-store customers don't know about the promotion until checkout, they're a lot less likely to maximize spending to get a better deal. This makes informative touchpoints essential for successful omnichannel retailing.

    Want to see an omnichannel content strategy done right? Check out Federation, a streetwear brand that runs a powerful omnichannel loyalty program. Federation allows customers to earn and redeem points in-store and online, so shoppers are rewarded regardless of where and how they're shopping. 

    Plus, the program’s content and messaging are consistent on all channels, so the customer experience always feels seamless and on-brand. 

     

    Federations SMS campaign overlaid on branded imagery

     

    Another excellent example comes from the jewelry brand and clothing stockist, Katie Waltman. The store runs a comprehensive marketing initiative that covers loyalty, feedback collection, and email marketing. In doing so, Katie Waltman is able to connect with customers across multiple platforms. 

    Just like with Federation, the content and messages that Katie Waltman puts out there are consistent on all channels and devices. So whether people encounter the brand in-store, on their eCommerce site, or via email, customers are treated to the same look and feel. 

    Marsello-Loyalty-Katie-Waltman-Email-Campaign

     

    5. Segmenting your messaging

    As we mentioned above, what separates multichannel marketing from omnichannel is that customers are not treated as a one-size-fits-all group. 

    The valuable data insights that omnichannel retailing gathers from across the shopping journey give you the ability to segment customers according to demographic data, shopping behavior, and the “warmth” of leads. 

    According to Epsilon, 80% of consumers are more likely to purchase from a brand that offers personalized experiences. In short, you can deliver the right content at the right time to enhance customer lifetime value. 

    For example, with the aid of marketing automation, you can set up specific triggers to target customers who've purchased certain items (e.g. "you might also like..." emails) or those who've been “inactive” for a certain period of time by sending an SMS with a link that allows them to set their communications preferences. 

    We can see this in action in Brandini Toffee, which uses Marsello to send automated marketing emails based on user behavior. One notable example? The Brandini team sends a campaign automated email geared towards shoppers who have abandoned their cart. To entice this segment to complete their purchase, Brandini Toffee sends a reminder email with a built-in product recommendations section that is automatically populated with similar products and items which the customer is likely to enjoy (based on their previous shopping behaviors). 

    Since they first created automated campaigns, Brandini Toffee has seen as much as a 583% increase in attributable sales and this campaign alone has generated 95% of the total orders generated by Brandini’s automated campaigns.

     

    Brandini Toffees abandoned cart email campaign on a mustard yellow background

     

    Learn more about Marsello's features


    6. Track and analyze

    The power of your omnichannel marketing efforts becomes more evident the longer they're in play. The more you invest in gathering and utilizing data from customer journeys, the more you can refine your approach to target exactly what it is your customers want.

    This is why it's important to test and track different elements of your marketing strategy to find what appeals most to your customers. This includes A/B testing of different copy, subject lines, images, and CTAs to see which gets the best response. 

    It's also important to compare your content across channels to see what works for each medium – what works on email, for example, isn't necessarily going to resonate with your audience on Instagram.

     By regularly analyzing the results of your omnichannel marketing campaigns, you can ensure that your business is using the very best formula to inform and excite your customers.

     

    Final words


    Implementing a thoughtful omnichannel marketing strategy is a big step up for retailers who are used to more siloed multichannel strategies. But if you want consumers to choose your business over the likes of Amazon, it's essential that you can facilitate seamless shopping experiences that allow customers to move between channels with ease.

    At the center of successful omnichannel marketing is a core philosophy; it’s seeing your customer as the center of gravity that your brand revolves around. So long as you stick to this core idea, the rest will follow.

     

    Re-opening Your Store After COVID-19

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    Read about how improving your store's marketing and practices could be the secret to a busy period once the coronavirus pandemic is over.

    Blog banner featuring a store worker changing an Open sign.

    How to Kick Off Strong When the Pandemic is Over

    Have you started planning for your store after lockdowns and ‘shelter at home’ orders are lifted?

    While it’s true that much of the world is still on lockdown, there will come a time when stores will be allowed to open their doors once again. In-store sales will start picking up again as foot traffic increases, and the merchants who are adaptable and have plans in place for any changes to shopping patterns will be in a much better position to continue selling well beyond the pandemic lockdown. 

     

    That’s why it’s never too early to start planning. If you take proactive steps to market and improve your business during this period, you could hit the ground running when the coronavirus pandemic is over; even if that means that your store stays online, embraces omnichannel, or you have to adapt your business model. 

     

    Here are some suggestions on what you can do to prepare your store for emerging from lockdown.

     

    Stay in constant contact with your customers

    Whether or not you’re selling at the moment, it’s crucial that you keep in touch with your customers. Doing so helps you stay top of mind so that when shoppers are ready to make purchases, your store will automatically be on their radar. 

     

    The types of messages that you send will vary depending on the state of your business, but here are some ideas.

     

    Online product launches

    If you have new products in stock, find creative ways to launch (or re-launch) them digitally. Put out teasers, create email and social media campaigns, and try to generate as much excitement as possible. 

     

    Need an example? Check out this email from, T.C. Elli’s, which lets their customers know that they’re launching new products, and they’re doing so in an innovative and exciting way considering the circumstances around COVID-19 – They’re hosting a live video launch!

    T.C. Elli’s Live Videos One-off Campaign

    This clever email also allows T.C. Elli’s to capture customer information for a wide range of their customers, helping them to increase their marketing reach in the future. 

     

    Offers and promotions

    If you’re still open or are currently selling online, continue emailing your subscribers about any sales or offers you have going on. You can make your offers more relevant by either running promotions on items that shoppers are likely to buy or by segmenting shoppers based on their brand interactions and activities. 

     

    Consider the case of Lightspeed & Shopify retailer, The BCode, a Havaianas and Skechers shoe distributor. Rather than sending out generic email blasts to everyone, The BCode makes use of customer segments. For instance, in the summer, they launched a campaign specifically for customers within their "loyal segment," and were able to convert 13.79% of subscribers – that’s way above the industry average. 

    An email from The BCode the showcases their products and gives a product explanation.

    Company updates

    People want to know what’s going on in your business, so keep shoppers posted on important updates to your company. Have you made any changes to your staff’s work arrangements? Do you have new policies in place? What can customers expect from you during these times?

    Have a look at this email from Australian retailer, OnceWas

    An email campaign from OnceWas providing customers with a COVID-19 store closure update.

    The OnceWas team uses a simple design to compliment a clear and concise message: that their Hampton-based brick-and-mortar store has temporarily closed as a direct result of COVID-19. But they don’t just leave the communication there, they go on to offer customers a styling service that encourages shoppers to stay engaged with OneWas and keep making purchases. OneWas further reinforces this objective by adding a link to new arrivals and encouraging their customers to ‘explore’. 

    OnceWas’ COVID-19 related update cleverly encourages customers to keep shopping, rather than dissuading them and that’s a powerful marketing strategy to have in their toolkit. Beautiful design and clear communication are a winning combination in getting customers to keep shopping with you, and OnceWas have mastered this! 

     

    Tighten up your existing systems

    If you’re experiencing downtime due to the coronavirus, take this as an opportunity to tighten up all the operational tasks that you’ve been putting off. 

     

    Here are some ideas:

     

    Count and reconcile your inventory 

    Keeping your stock in check can fall to the wayside especially during hectic shopping seasons. Doing a full inventory count takes several hours (sometimes a couple of days) and many stores can’t set aside that time when they’re busy selling. 

    So if you currently have some time on your hands, now is a good opportunity to really get a handle on your stock. Count your items so you can make sure that the inventory levels in your system match what you have in your physical store or warehouse. 

     

    Streamline manual tasks

    Identify tasks that you’re still doing by hand, and find ways to automate them. 

    For instance, if you’re running a manual loyalty program that involves physical stamp cards, you could look into more modern solutions that allow you and your customers to track and redeem rewards easily. 

     

    Sales and inventory are two other common areas that small businesses should also look into. Many SMBs are still using pen and paper to track stock movements and revenues. If you’re one of them, it’s high time that you switch to a cloud-based POS and retail management system that automatically does that for you. 

     

    Streamlining manual tasks not only saves you a ton of time, it reduces human error and can also help grow your business. Switching to a modern loyalty solution, for instance, doesn’t just make it easier to run your rewards program, it also gives you the ability to offer better rewards and get to know your customers, which ultimately boosts shopper retention and revenues. 

     

    Integrate different platforms

    Already using modern software in your business? Make sure they’re tightly integrated. 

    Let’s say you’re running an online shop and a brick-and-mortar store. In this case, you want to connect your POS system with your eCommerce platform, so that sales, inventory, and customer data flow easily between the two solutions. 

     

    You can even add in a loyalty integration, so you can run a rewards program seamlessly across online and offline channels. And now is the perfect time to start rewarding your customers who have shopped during retail restrictions, thereby encouraging those customers to keep coming back to your store long after you’ve come past lockdown.

     

    One retailer that’s doing this well is Bulo Shoes, a retailer that runs a fully-integrated and robust retention strategy that runs across their online and brick-and-mortar stores.

     

    “We linked Marsello to our online and physical stores with a loyalty program and automated email marketing, making it easy for us to communicate with customers regularly and to offer them rewards that keep them coming back," says Silas Gomez, eCommerce manager at Bulo Shoes. 

     

    “With the recent COVID-19 developments, we have been able to direct our customers to our online stores and keep them updated with any changes.”

    Bulo Shoe's loyalty program's online widget.

    Bulo Shoes’ integrated strategy has paid off tremendously. The company is seeing 27x ROI by interlacing a generous loyalty program with a cleverly curated email marketing strategy.

    Bulo Shoes also has a 13% repeat purchase rate across all their stores; they're seeing an engagement rate of 45% and they've generated over $7,800 in reward redemptions alone. 

    Keeping your physical and digital stores in sync means you never have to worry about double-selling products and you can provide a more seamless and rewarding shopping experience to your customers.

     

    This is just one example of how you can integrate the apps in your business. Depending on the software you’re using, there are plenty of other solutions that you can connect, including:

    • Accounting software

    • Payment processor

    • Staff management

    • Reporting and analytics

    The easiest way to connect your platforms is to use add-ons. For example, if you’re selling online, you can research the apps that your shopping cart integrates with. 

     

    That said, if you can’t find direct integrations, you can use a solutions like Zapier and IFTTT, which enables you to connect various apps together. 

     

    Check out our recent blogs on top apps for Shopify and BigCommerce & Lightspeed and save yourself the times spent researching.

     

    Leverage data

    It’s best to make data-backed decisions when planning for your re-opening, particularly when it comes to what products to market and sell. 

     

    Admittedly, COVID-19 makes this task a bit tricky. While historical data still has some value, it may not be as reliable, given the drastic changes that have occurred. 

     

    That said, there are a couple of things you can do that can help you determine your sales and marketing strategy going forward.

     

    Engage in social listening

    Pay attention to what your customers are saying online and on social media. What have they been up to? Have they developed new interests? Are there any products or services in particular that they’re looking into?

     

    The answers to these questions can shed light on insights you can use when making stock, purchasing, and merchandising decisions for your re-opening. 

     

    Look into search trends

    Use tools such as Google Trends and Keyword Planner to see what people are searching for online. What keywords (related to your vertical) are seeing more searches than usual? 

     

    Uncovering those search trends can take some digging, but you might discover useful nuggets along the way!

     

    See what people are wishing for

    If you have a wishlist feature on your website, you can use that to figure out what people want to buy. Dig into your wishlist data and use it to determine which products to market and sell.

     

    When you combine the above with historical data and traditional demand forecasting, you’ll be able to effectively plan your assortment and sales initiatives. 

     

    Re-open with a splash

    Re-opening your store is a big deal, so it’s fitting that you make your relaunch… well, big. Create a huge campaign around your grand re-opening. 

     

    Rather than just putting your “OPEN” sign back up and hoping people will come in, proactively implement strategies to drive traffic.

     

    Here are a few ideas:

    • Launch celebratory offers and sales

    • Hold an in-store event complete with giveaways and swag bags

    • Email local press or influencers in your area to generate buzz

    • Market your grand reopening to email subscribers

    • Create a lead-up-to-opening campaign on your social media

    • Consider paid social media advertising to boost awareness

    Implementing a combination of the above tactics will allow you to open with a splash. And when you combine these steps with the data-backed insights that we talked about above, you’ll be able to maximize traffic and sales. 

     

    Re-emphasize health and safety

    Consumers will start shopping again, but they will likely be more cautious going back to brick-and-mortar stores. 

     

    Alleviate your customers’ concerns by communicating and enforcing extra health and safety measures. These measures will depend on your specific store, but will likely involve something along the lines of:

     

    Encouraging space between shoppers

    Maybe you need to keep your store displays and fixtures farther apart to give people more space to move around. You could also encourage physical space at the checkout counter by putting markers on the floor that are six feet apart, so shoppers know where they should stand while waiting in line.

     

    Limiting physical contact

    You could limit contact between customers and employees through things like self-checkout as well as by keeping your staff lean. You could also limit the number of people who can enter your store at any given time.

     

    Added cleanliness and sanitation practices

    Clean and sanitize your store often. Give extra attention to high-touch areas, such as popular product displays and the frequently visited sections of your store. If you have baskets or shopping carts, wipe them down before each shopper touches them. 

     

    And whatever measures you decide to take, communicate everything to your customers. Display prominent signage in-store and include your policies and action steps in all your customer communications. 

     

    For best results, use a reassuring tone in your messages. For instance, when emailing customers about your grand re-opening, craft a message that strikes a balance between promotional and reassuring. You want to welcome customers back to your business while making them feel safe and confident that they can shop at your store. 

     

    It’s never too early to prepare for retail’s bounce-back

    While no-one knows for sure when retailers can open their doors again, it doesn’t hurt to be prepared. Laying the groundwork today will put you in a position to succeed tomorrow and beyond. 

     

    Let us know in the comments how you’re planning to re-open your store and excite your customers. Good luck and stay safe!

    26 Shopify Apps for Retailer’s Grappling with COVID-19

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    Post-COVID-19 retail means adapting to a changing online retail landscape. Check out our selection of apps that could help to streamline your business.

    Marsello gradient over a Shopify logo. 26 Shopify apps for retailesr grappling with COVID-19

     

    Steering your business through the COVID-19 pandemic means adapting to a changing online retail landscape. With many businesses going through a temporary slowdown, it’s more important than ever to give your Shopify customers the optimum shopping experience they deserve. View these useful apps that are designed to streamline your business operations.

    Sales and Marketing

    Many people have temporarily cut back on online purchases, so it’s crucial to attract Internet shoppers who are searching for quality products. That’s where top-notch sales and marketing apps can make the difference.

     

    Marsello logo

    Marsello 

    Marsello can help you develop a customer loyalty program that lets you reward customer behaviors that benefit your business. You can also streamline and uplevel your marketing initiatives with automated, customizable email, promotional campaigns, and highly effective SMS text messaging service.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    In the retail business realm, having a steady stream of loyal customers who purchase from you again and again is like hitting the jackpot. Marsello can help you achieve that by powering an attractive loyalty program plus automating your marketing and customer communications. That way, you can focus on growing your business and serving shoppers better.

     

     

    Gift Box logo

    Gift Box  Free Gift Motivator

    This handy app encourages your customers to spend a little more and receive an enticing freebie. You design the free gift framework, and the gifts automatically appear in your customer’s cart when they meet the free gift criteria.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    Customers are often willing to spend a little more to get a free gift, which helps to increase your business’ Average Order Volume (AOV). Offering a free gift with purchase can help to build customer loyalty and encourage repeat business.

     

     

    Spin-a-Sale logo

    Spin-a-Sale

    The popular Spin-a-Sale app demonstrates retail gamification at its best. When a visitor enters their email address, this interactive pop-up displays a spinning prize wheel that settles on a random, one-time discount. Visitors can use those discounts on your eCommerce site.  

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    Visitors are likely to stay engaged with your emails and prize wheels, helping to boost your email signup rate and build customer loyalty. And, discount-laden shoppers are more likely to jump on your eCommerce site and make a purchase. This app easily adds subscribers to your Shopify customer list and automated email integrations.

     

     

    Yotpo logo

     Yotpo

    This customer-themed eCommerce marketing platform enables you to easily collect favorable customer reviews and referrals, plus photos and videos. Yotpo’s powerful marketing tools can spur on-the-fence visitors to become enthusiastic customers.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    Favorable customer reviews and referrals attract new customers who already have a positive impression of your business. Showcasing customer videos and photos on your website helps to strengthen your customer relationships and build customer loyalty.  

     

     

    Financials

    Tracking your online business’ financial indicators is especially crucial right now, so arm your business with solid financial apps. Here are some suggestions.

     

     

    Quickbooks Sync by Bold logo

    Quickbooks Sync by Bold

    This workhorse app automatically syncs your Shopify orders into your Quickbooks Online program. Data for expenses, payouts, and fees also migrate into your accounting program.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    You won’t have to manually enter your Shopify data into your Quickbooks Online program. This system efficiency enables you to quickly obtain a Shopify financial status report.

     

     

    XERO logo

    Xero by OneSaas

    OneSaas targets workflows that start with a specific transaction. When you create a quote, an order, an invoice, or a receipt, you only have to enter that data once. OneSaas shares that data so it’s available to all functions in that sequence.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    Xero by OneSaas can free up your time for other higher-value tasks. And, because time is definitely money, you’ll spend less time on mundane tasks that don’t enhance your bottom line.

     

    TaxJar Sales Tax Automation logo

     

    TaxJar Sales Tax Automation

    All businesses are required to pay sales tax to their respective state and local governments. The hardworking TaxJar Sales Tax Automation app maintains daily sales tax balances due for all your selling platforms’ sales. Plus, TaxJar automatically submits your business’ tax forms before their due dates.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    TaxJar Sales Tax Automation makes time-consuming manual sales tax calculation a thing of the past. Save valuable time crunching the numbers, and be confident that TaxJar is on top of sales tax payments for every applicable state. TaxJar submits the sales tax report to all required state and local government tax offices.

     

     

    SimplyCost logo

    SimplyCost ‑ Profit Tracking 

    Tracking your business’ expenses and profit is important, but you don’t want to spend excessive amounts of time getting the answers you need. SimplyCost – Profit Tracking automatically calculates your store’s profit after considering all recurring and one-time expenses associated with your sales.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    SimplyCost – Profit Tracking helps you save time by effortlessly calculating your store’s profits. By generating fast custom reports, you can gauge your store’s performance and determine your most profitable products. This valuable data will help you to execute better business decisions.

     

     

    Social Media

    Wide-ranging “stay at home” orders are keeping potential customers within their homes for weeks on end. With viewers constantly browsing their social feeds, smart retailers are executing compelling social media initiatives that will ideally translate into completed sales.

     

     

    WhatsApp Chat logo

    WhatsApp Chat

    For eCommerce retailers, smooth order communication and processing are key to completed orders. Toward that end, the WhatsApp Chat + Abandoned Cart app provides fast customer support and order functionality. To minimize abandoned cart problems, the Abandoned Cart Recovery app sends messages that include discount codes to help complete sales.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    Beyond WhatsApp’s eCommerce order functionality, this is a hugely popular communications platform. By blending it into your eCommerce online retail operation, you’ll gain added credibility with social media-savvy customers.

     

     

    Instagram Influencer Marketing logo

    Instagram Influencer Marketing

    In the realm of social media powerhouses, Instagram influencers carry a lot of clout. The Instagram Influencer Marketing app’s Carro program lists all the influencers that appear on your store’s customer, follower, and email subscriber lists. After Carro facilitates your collaboration with an influencer, you’ll be able to communicate with and supply products to them.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    When used properly, Instagram Influencer Marketing can widen your reach on social networks. By cultivating a long-term relationship with Instagram influencers, you have highly credible allies who will help to promote your brand.

     

     

    Facebook Messenger Marketing logo

    Facebook Messenger Marketing

    If you’re looking for an additional marketing medium, Facebook Messenger is an increasingly popular choice. In fact, Messenger boasts an impressive 80%+ message open rate. With that optimistic backdrop, you can use the platform to generate more engagement. But do it soon before the space gets too crowded!

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    Why leverage Facebook Messenger Marketing? Chances are, you’ll reach customers and prospects while they’re browsing through their favorite Facebook channels. It’s simple, in this relaxed and familiar setting, customers may be more receptive to your marketing messages, so it’s a great opportunity to try and reach them.

     

     

    Instafeed logo

    Instafeed – Instagram Feed

    Instafeed lets you boost your store’s online presence by adding crisp, new Instagram content. Images and videos are welcome, and you won’t need coding skills to complete this fast, easy installation.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    Adding Instagram content to your store will encourage browsers to enjoy the photos and videos. When visitors stay longer, they’re more likely to explore your store’s offerings and purchase products.

     

     

    Analytics

    As a retailer, you need to know exactly what’s working (and what isn’t working). You also want to pinpoint your revenue sources, and learn about emerging financial problems, so you can make smarter business decisions.

     

     

    Hotjar logo

    Hotjar Install

    Hotjar views your site from your visitors’ perspective and analyzes each aspect of those interactions. Note: The Hotjar Install (Unofficial) app isn’t affiliated with Hotjar. You’ll need a Hotjar account to implement this app.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    Hotjar will carefully analyze your store’s instant feedback, feedback polls, form analysis, surveys, and conversion funnels drop-offs, among other metrics. Using that data, you can determine what is (and isn’t) working so you can make adjustments to improve site effectiveness.

     

     

    Conversific logo

    Conversific

    Conversific has funneled varied Google Analytics data and eCommerce metrics into one powerful app. Even better, Conversific has distilled those mountains of data into 10+ action-oriented reports.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    With just a few clicks, you can view your gross profit, profit margins, and other reports that support profit growth and conversion. Doing so will allow you to get a steer on how your business is doing and you’ll get a good picture of your profitability and market position.

     

     

    Glew logo

    Glew: Multichannel Analytics

    You don’t have time to hunt through your inventory, marketing, sales, shipping, and other functions to get the analytics data you need. Enter Glew, a multichannel analytics app that gathers all your eCommerce tools in one place. View your data via customized dashboards that enable segmentation and filtering.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    Glew’s analytics solutions can identify your most valuable customers. Analytics results also help you to determine how (and when) to invest in channels with the best ROI potential, and develop other strategies to improve your bottom line.

     

     

    Customer Service

    Providing excellent customer service can set you apart from your competitors, and can help to build long-term customer loyalty. Armed with the right tools, you’ll be well equipped to provide your customers with customer service they’ll rave about. 

     

    Messenger Channel logo

    Messenger Channel

    While customers interact with your store’s Facebook Page, they can also buy products from your online Messenger store. If shoppers have questions, you can address them in Messenger. You’ll be able to fulfill Messenger-based orders through Shopify and track your Facebook sales through your Analytics pages.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    When customers order products while chatting on Facebook Messenger, you receive that sales revenue. At the same time, you’re engaging with customers, which boosts your profile and encourages relationship building and long-term loyalty.

     

     

    HelpCenter logo

    HelpCenter

    You want to provide good customer service, but spending time on emails and live chats is time-consuming. Instead, the Help Center app posts frequently asked questions on a searchable Help Center Page. Customize the page to match your brand, and offer services in varied languages.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    By serving your customers via the Help Center app, you’ll provide valuable details on your store and its offerings. You’ll spend much less time answering questions, enabling you to focus on helping your business grow.

     

     

    Tidio logo

    Tidio Live Chat

    Tidio Live Chat gathers your email, live chat, and Messenger channels together in one location. The Live Chat function utilizes intelligent bots that jump on abandoned cart issues and often save the sale via live chats and discounts. In fact, studies have shown that live chats can increase sales by 40 percent. Tidio Live Chat is available in multiple languages. 

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    Tidio Live Chat is an invisible partner who never sleeps. By interacting with customers on your behalf, you’ll see increased sales and fewer abandoned carts. You’ll also enjoy easy access to your email and Messenger channels in one location.

    Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

    Depending on your budget, you may need to reduce paid advertising in the short term. As a result, you’ll need to work extra hard to drive organic traffic.

     

     

    SEO Image Optimizer logo

    SEO Image Optimizer – Auto SEO

    Recognize the value of SEO-optimized images, but don’t have the time or expertise to handle these tasks yourself? With a one-click installation, the SEO Image Optimizer – Auto SEO app monitors and optimizes your store daily to comply with Google’s best image search practices.  

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    This hardworking app will automatically optimize your images to comply with Google’s best image search criteria. As a result, you’ll be favorably positioned in Google’s search rankings.

     

    Plug in SEO logo

    Plug in SEO

    The one-stop, Plug in SEO app fixes existing SEO issues with your Shopify store. The app also optimizes your blog, adds valuable keyword tools, and performs updates as search engines change their algorithms.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    Your improved SEO position will drive more organic traffic to your store. Better-optimized SEO also helps to improve your search engine rankings.

     

     

    SEO Manager logo

    SEO Manager

    This value-packed SEO package includes varied tools, and real-time feedback, designed to help your store rank better in search engines. SEO Manager also identifies and automatically repairs your website’s broken links.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    SEO Manager helps you to improve your search engine rankings. In turn, your store enhances its online visibility and will likely see increased traffic to your eCommerce store.

     

    Inventory Management & Order Fulfillment

    With more people shopping online, efficient order processing has become extremely important. Ecommerce merchants need an order fulfillment system that handles all transaction aspects. Brick-and-mortar stores need a proven tool that helps them to manage their curbside pickups and delivery orders.

     

     

    Shippo

    Shippo

    Processing orders through several sales channels can be a laborious process. Shippo syncs your channels so you can manage your orders on a single platform. You can also generate discounted shipping levels, efficiently track your shipments, and update your customers.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    Shippo’s time-saving order processing and tracking app saves time and reduces your frustration factor. This all-in-one solution reduces duplication of effort, giving you more time for higher-value tasks.

     

     

    ShippingEasy Logo

    ShippingEasy

    If you regularly ship via the United States Postal Service (or USPS), the ShippingEasy app can save you money on domestic and international shipping costs. You’ll receive a free Postal Service postage account, plus discounted rates on all services. ShippingEasy also supports delivery to APO/FPO/DPO locations. 

     

    Plus, you can print labels in batches, avoiding laborious one-at-a-time printing tasks. As an added bonus, ShippingEasy boasts an award-winning support team.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    ShippingEasy’s discounted USPS shipping rates will certainly save you money, and the savings will increase with your processed volume. Printing labels in batches will also save valuable time. 

     

     

    Stocky logo

    Stocky

    Managing your store’s inventory is a balancing act. You don’t want to run out of popular products, but you also don’t want to tie up too much money in inventory. Stocky enables you to manage your purchase orders from one location, and you’ll quickly learn when it’s time to replenish stock. Use Stocky’s data to evaluate inventory and make decisions accordingly.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    By giving you an accurate inventory snapshot, Stocky helps you to avoid spending your hard-earned cash on excessive stock. When an item reaches the “Replenish Now” level, you’ll get an immediate alert. This timely data makes it much easier to gauge your ongoing inventory needs.

     

     

    Store Pickup + Delivery logo

    Store Pickup + Delivery

    Retailers of all sizes can benefit from having store pickup and delivery options, so this app is a game-changer. Store Pickup + Delivery, you can implement local delivery and curbside pickup, while keeping your shipping calendar clean and up-to-date.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    Utilizing the curbside pick-up method saves you money on picking, packaging, and shipping costs. Local product delivery is a desirable concierge service. Social-distancing customers will appreciate these options for receiving their products with minimal risk. By offering these choices, you’ll help to build customer loyalty and encourage repeat business.

     

     

    Now Back In Stock logo

    Now Back In Stock

    This handy app tells your customers when their desired out-of-stock items are now available for purchase. Send alerts via email or SMS text messaging, and customize the messages to reflect your store’s brand.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    Because the customer already wants to purchase a “Now Back in Stock” item, you’ll likely generate a sale. By obtaining the customer’s email and mobile contact information, you can add the customer to upcoming marketing campaigns. You’ll also promote customer loyalty by offering this desirable service.

     

    Your turn

    Now we’d love to hear from you. Which Shopify apps are invaluable to your store during these times? Let us know in the comments. 

    BigCommerce Apps to Help You Thrive Through COVID-19

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    These BigCommerce apps help to ramp up your customer service and run your business in the wake of Coronavirus (COVID-19) as it continues to develop.

    Marsello-BigCommerce-Apps-Covid-19

    As the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic continues to impact businesses nationwide, many eCommerce retailers know that providing customers with exceptional shopping experiences is vitally important. These useful apps can help you to ramp up your customer service and run your business more smoothly.

    Sales and Marketing

    With fewer customers making purchases from online retailers, it’s especially important to attract Internet shoppers who are in the market for your merchandise. Innovative sales and marketing apps will help you to convert web browsers into paying customers.

     

    Marsello logo

    Marsello

    Marsello’s customer loyalty program rewards customers for engaging in behaviors that help to grow your store. You can also use Marsello to launch promotional offers, super-effective one-off SMS and email marketing campaigns, and automated, customizable emails that trigger at the perfect time, to the right customers.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    By implementing a well-crafted customer loyalty program and complimenting that with seamless automated marketing, you’ll build “win-win” customer relationships that will help your business grow. Worldwide, omnichannel stores (those that sell across multiple sales channels) are adapting to a new way of retail and communications with built-in customer rewards are absolutely essential for keeping your customers coming back!

     

     

    Answerbase logo

    Answerbase

    Answering your customers’ product questions encourages them to make a purchase. Answerbase helps ease the load of this by adding a product Q&A feature to your product pages. Your team’s product experts can address questions and drive people closer to a purchase decision.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    Answerbase helps to increase your conversions by giving them the info they need while they’re shopping. You’ll also improve SEO and organic search rankings because you’re adding quality content to your product pages.

     

     

    fomo logo

    Fomo

    Shoppers often want social proof before they’ll purchase a product from an online store. The Fomo app provides that validation by showcasing product reviews and real-time orders on your storefront. After customers view a Fomo notification, they can easily add items to their shopping cart without exiting the page.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    When shoppers see customers buying your products, they’ll likely be enticed to make a purchase. As a result, you’ll see an increase in your store’s on-page sales conversions and completed sales.

     

     

    affiliatly logo

    Affiliatly

    Maintain full control over your affiliate program with the multifunctional Affiliatly app. Track each affiliate’s user visits and customer orders. Manage your affiliates’ earning methods and income percentages. Customize the app so it blends with your store’s appearance.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    By definition, affiliates build links and help to promote your store. You’ll have full control over how the affiliates perform those activities and can structure your affiliate interactions to benefit your business.

     

     

    Financials

    Maintaining an accurate picture of your business’ financials is important, especially in today’s economic climate. These beneficial apps make it easy to view your store’s sales, expenses, inventory, and other relevant functions.

     

    QBO logo

    QBO

    The efficient QBO app collects data about your products, orders, customers, shipping charges, taxes, and more. Next, QBO transfers this vital data directly from your eCommerce store to your Quickbooks Online account.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    Using the QBO app eliminates the need for manual data entry. Potential data entry errors are also a thing of the past. Using this time-saving app enables you to devote your efforts to higher-level business growth tasks.

     

     

    Xero logo

    Xero

    The Xero online accounting app makes it easy for your small business to copy operations data to your accounting program. Xero syncs your products, orders, customers, shipping, taxes, and other charges to your accounting software. Automate frequently completed tasks such as creating invoices, recording expenses, and generating reports.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    Xero frees you up from endless data entry tasks, giving you valuable time to work on higher-level operations goals. You’ll also eliminate the possibility of manual data entry errors that can completely skew your accounting results.

     

     

    Taxman logo

    Taxman

    If your eCommerce store sells regulated products such as alcohol or nicotine, Taxman will automatically calculate and charge the correct excise tax for these product sales. You just need to define the geographic zone and tax rate, and Taxman takes care of the rest.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    With help from Taxman, you’ll navigate an often-forgotten type of product sales tax. Even better, you’ll remain compliant with all applicable tax laws.

     

    Social Media

    With increased time on their hands, more people are browsing their social feeds, looking for something to buy. Toward that end, you should introduce compelling social media initiatives that will draw them to your eCommerce store.

     

    Here are some BigCommerce apps that can help.

     

     

    Elfsight logo

    Instagram Feed by Elfsight

    Elfsight Instagram Feed will blend your eye-catching Instagram content into your eCommerce store website. Use numerous customization options to match the app’s widget to your website style and color scheme.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    Your Instagram-enhanced website will see increased audience engagement, and you’ll also get more Instagram followers. Most importantly, you’ll see a boost in your eCommerce website’s conversion rate.

     

     

    ContentPlum logo

    ContentPlum

    ContentPlum provides shoppers with multiple social feeds, and adds intriguing relevant content, to promote better social engagement and social trust. The app can be used for Shoppable Instagram Gallery, Social Hub, Social Wall, Social Contests, Social Campaigns, Media Buzz, and more.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    By inviting viewers to engage with social media widgets on your store’s site, you’ll enhance social trust and build credibility. Because customers are more likely to buy from someone they know and trust, you’ll improve the likelihood that these visitors will turn into paying customers.

     

     

    Promote your eCommerce store’s products on up to 14 social media networks without duplicating your efforts. The highly efficient Outfy app helps you to create visually appealing product videos, high-impact sales promotions, and automated posts designed for social media audiences.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    Outfy’s broad social reach will help to attract more viewers to your eCommerce store. Over time, you’ll see an increase in your product sales.

     

     

    Take advantage of free, customizable social sharing buttons for popular social media networks. You don’t need coding skills to build and load the mobile-friendly buttons. In addition, the installation process won’t slow down your store’s website.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    By installing the social sharing buttons, you’ll see an increase in followers and social shares. This increased viewership gives you the opportunity to promote product specials and collect more emails for your marketing list.

     

     

    Analytics

    Generally speaking, retailers want to know what’s working and what hasn’t met their expectations. They want to maximize their revenue sources, solve their financial problems, and set themselves up for success. These powerful apps can play a key role in that ever-evolving process.

     

    Shogun logo
     

     

    Build custom eCommerce website pages with Shogun’s versatile drag-and-drop page builder. Professionally designed home page, landing page, blog pages, and product pages templates are compatible with your existing theme. Compare completed pages for metrics’ results, and evaluate marketing campaigns with targeted analytics.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    Your well-coordinated eCommerce website will enhance your business’ online credibility. Concurrently, you can compare the effectiveness of different pages and marketing campaigns. The comparisons’ results will help you make adjustments that can move your business forward.

     

    Price2Spy logo

    Price2Spy

    Monitor your competitors’ prices with the real-time Price2Spy app. Applicable to businesses of all sizes, this service enables online retailers to track competitors’ prices and price changes. Track multiple competitors’ websites for maximum benefit. Determine which of your eCommerce store’s products can vary in price, and easily make these price changes.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    Price2Spy's comprehensive pricing reports will display incremental market changes. The reports will also show whether your competitors are ramping prices up or easing them down.

     

    Lucky Orange provides insights into your'eCommerce store’s functionality. View visitor recordings of site transactions, and learn why some shoppers don’t make a purchase from your store. To change that, Lucky Orange helps you answer visitors’ questions through live chat and offers live view to co-browse with them to help them find the product they need.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    When you learn why most site visitors don’t convert to paying customers, you can take steps to turn the situation around. By tweaking your eCommerce site, you’ll be well-positioned to increase your conversions and sales.

     

     

    Customer Service

    Top-notch customer service can help you rise above the competition and promote long-term customer loyalty. Adding the right communications tools to your eCommerce retailer’s toolkit can streamline the process and convert customer questions into sales.

     

     

    To chat with shoppers while they visit your eCommerce store, install the LiveChat + Product Cards widget on your website. You can also provide product suggestions and assist customers through the buying process.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    The LiveChat + Product Cards app enables you to interact with shoppers while they’re actively engaged on your eCommerce store’s site. When you answer their questions or provide other customer support, you increase your chances of making a sale.

     

     

    Social messaging platforms, including Quick Facebook Chat, are fast becoming preferred communications venues. With Quick Facebook Chat, your customer can easily use Facebook Messenger to get product-related assistance and gain satisfaction.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    By using Quick Facebook Chat, you’ll avoid the need for third-party live chat agents. Customers can “Like” your store’s Facebook page from the chat window, which increases their engagement. These Messenger encounters can also help you to cross-sell products and introduce new items.

     

     

    While you’re on the Slack communications platform, use the Live Chat for Slack app to chat with visitors. Customize the chat backdrop with your logo and other helpful visuals. Then, send visitors directly to your eCommerce store. While they’re browsing your site, convert them to email list subscribers and followers, and ideally to paying customers.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    By putting Live Chat for Slack into your communications mix, you’ll save money on a third-party chat platform. You’ll also maintain better control of the customer conversion sequence, increasing your chances of turning visitors into paying customers.

     

     

    Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

    You may need to temporarily tighten advertising purse strings. To get customers to your eCommerce sites and brick-and-mortar stores, you must take steps to drive organic traffic to your business.

     

    Let’s say you edit, optimize, and analyze your eCommerce store’s titles and meta descriptions for categories, products, and pages. FavSEO streamlines that process, enabling you to perform those operations at a single location. You’ll also uncover new keyword opportunities, track your keyword rankings in Google, and submit your sitemap for review.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    FavSEO’s one-stop optimizing tool saves you valuable time, freeing you up for other important tasks. By tracking keyword rankings and getting an SEO audit, you’ll improve your SEO program’s effectiveness. In turn, this helps to increase your store’s visitor traffic.

     

     

    ProSEOTracker logo

    ProSEOTracker

    Optimizing your SEO metadata and content and managing your blog and SEO issues is easy with ProSEOTracker’s one-stop SEO hub. Monitoring your competitors, and working with Google Analytics or AdWords, are simpler tasks when you’re not visiting multiple websites.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    With your SEO analysis and optimization resources in one place, completing SEO-related tasks will be a less laborious and time-consuming process. You’ll also realize increased efficiency by viewing the data from one location.

     

     

    Search engines (including Google) often display extra features on your eCommerce store’s search results. These features, such as product prices, review stars, and availability, work together to make the search results more useful and increase clicks to your site.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    With the SEO Rich Snippets App, you’ll be able to create FAQ pages, “How To” pages and Video structured data that combine to increase your site’s appeal. Over time, these features will bring extra traffic to your store, and should help to increase your sales.

     

    Inventory Management & Order Fulfillment

    With “stay at home” orders in place, consumers have plenty of time to browse and buy from eCommerce retailers. As such, you must have a reliable order fulfillment program so customers get their products on time.

     

     

    Lightspeed

    Lightspeed

    Manage your eCommerce + physical store’s inventory with Lightspeed’s cloud-based sales and inventory app. Edit product features in bulk, and reorder stock automatically. Lightspeed Retail also sheds light on key retail metrics in real time to help you make the best decisions.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    Lightspeed’s one-stop POS, inventory, and retail management system puts an end to tedious product entry and tracking work. At the same time, you’ll have access to a powerful cloud-based sales and inventory tool that provides all the data you need to keep your physical shop and eCommerce store’s inventory under control.

     

     

    The small business-friendly Sendle app enables affordable door-to-door package delivery. When Sendle integrates with your online store, you’ll receive live shipping rate quotes that you deliver to customers. Sendle also enables efficient order processing and tracking. Oh, and Sendle’s delivery service is 100 percent carbon neutral.

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    Sendle’s combined shipping rate quote, order processing, and package tracking services offer your customers an all-in-one shipping solution. Sendle is also a time saver, as you won’t have to wait for delayed shipping rate quotes that could delay order completion.

     

     

    Endicia logoEndicia

    If you regularly ship products via the United States Postal Service (USPS), the Endicia eCommerce integration offers several helpful services. With your no-fee Endicia account, you’ll save up to 51 percent compared to USPS Retail and USPS.com Click-N-Ship prices. Give your customers real-time USPS shipping quotes, and print shipping labels from your computer. 

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    The Endicia eCommerce integration will save you money. In addition, offering real-time shipping quotes and printing shipping labels gives you control over each step in the process.

     

     

    The Store Pickup + Delivery by Zapiet app invites customers to decide how they want to receive their purchased products. The customer can opt for traditional shipping, local delivery, or in-store pickup.  

     

    Benefits for Your Business

    By offering the customer several product receipt options, you’ll likely be perceived as highly responsive to their needs. That favorable attribute can play a key role in building customer loyalty.

     

    Your turn

    Did we miss anything? What other BigCommerce are helping retailers through COVID-19? Let us know in the comments.

     

    How to Encourage Ecommerce Sales Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic

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    To help you navigate post-pandemic retail and knock it out the park, we’ve compiled some tips on using online channels to encourage sales and engagement.

    No matter what type of retail store you have, there’s a high chance that your business has been severely affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

    Cities all over the world are enacting ‘Safer at Home’ orders and quarantine measures, and these actions have left many retailers no choice but to temporarily shut down their physical operations. Some countries are even requiring businesses to close unless they’re deemed an essential service.

    With most consumers staying home, it’s quite evident that the only way to reach them is through digital channels.

    Here are some tips on how to use online channels to encourage sales and engagement during this period.

     

    1. Keep your channels tightly integrated


    If you have an existing brick-and-mortar store and want to bring your sales online, the first step you should take is to integrate your online and offline systems. 

    Doing so will help you set up your sales channels correctly, so your inventory and sales data will be synced between your physical and online stores. Plus, you’ll save time from having to re-enter your product information and you can eliminate human error due to doubling up on data entry. 

    It’s best to use systems that are already compatible with each other, so get in touch with your POS solution provider and ask them about the eCommerce platforms that they integrate with. Be sure to discuss the types of data that are synced between systems and talk to your provider about how to get set up quickly and efficiently. 

    For best results, choose solutions that can also connect to your marketing software, so you can seamlessly launch email, SMS, and customer engagement campaigns for driving sales. 

    Pro tip: Did you know that Marsello integrates with leading POS and eCommerce platforms? Connect Marsello to your existing solutions so you can easily automate your loyalty marketing efforts and deliver a seamless customer experience.

     

    2. Promote relevant products


    The needs of your customers during the current coronavirus health crisis have shifted, so your marketing has to evolve along with these changes. Part of doing that involves promoting products that are relevant to what your shoppers are experiencing. 

    Go through your current catalog and look for items that consumers need at this time. For example, if you’re a furniture retailer, then now would be a great time to promote your office products, since most people are working from home. Selling books or gift items? Look for products that people would help people navigate what could be a high-stress situation.

    Here’s an example from the crystal store Energy Muse. Since many people are experiencing coronavirus stress and anxiety, Energy Muse recently sent out informative content on how to use the crystal Black Tourmaline to alleviate negative emotions.

    What’s good about Energy Muse’s message is it led with informative content. Rather than a hard sell, the email’s first call to action took people to a video in which Energy Muse’s founder-led viewers through a guided visualization to relieve stress and anxiety. 

    And should people choose to purchase the crystal, there’s a second CTA towards the lower part of the email. 

     

    Energy Muse uses a one-off email campaign to communicate clearly with their customers.

     

    Note: While this tactic can be effective, your marketing efforts shouldn’t be exploitive. For example, if you’re an apparel retailer that’s suddenly selling hand sanitizer, you’ll only forge distrust with consumers – and potentially get your ads banned.  

    Sites like Facebook are prohibiting exploitive tactics in ads by banning promotions for things like face masks.

    If you’re planning to market relevant products, stick with items that are already in your catalog or ones that are truly in line with your brand. 

     

    3. Tap into influencer and community marketing


    Digital content consumption is likely to increase in the coming days and weeks as more people turn to the web. Consumers are spending more time on websites and social media – with most doing it to pass the time, keep up with the latest news, and seek inspiration and entertainment.

    Consider tapping into that online attention by teaming up with influencers or even your existing customers. Send them product samples or create joint content pieces together. 

    Encourage your community to tag you in their posts. Emphasize the fact that with many businesses being forced to close, customer engagement (even if it comes from no-cost actions like liking or sharing posts) goes a long way. 

    Check out this post from home decor store Pretty Little Home, which thanks customers for the support that the community has shown the business. 

     

    Pretty Little Home uses influencer marketing to reach out to more customers.

     

    “Whether it’s a like, tag, share, or order on the website... It really means the world especially at a time like this,” read the post. 

     

    4. Spread the goodwill


    We’ve known for a while that good deeds and corporate social responsibility can drive customer engagement and loyalty. That’s why if your business can afford it, consider launching an initiative designed to help those in need during this crisis. 

    It can be a charitable campaign, a special offer for the less fortunate, or even a job opportunity. One brand that’s doing this well is the fitness store Gymshark. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, many gyms have been forced to close their doors, resulting in trainers and fitness instructors losing their source of income. 

    To help out, Gymshark announced that it’s offering an hourly rate to personal trainers struggling to find work. Trainers would be doing online workouts in partnership with the brand and earn money while they’re at it. 

    The post was widely shared on Instagram and thousands of people liked and commented on the post. 

     

    Gymshark offers personal trainers a covid-19 deal.

     

    5. Constantly reassure your customers


    Building trust is more important than ever. You won’t be able to drive sales if shoppers don’t feel safe and secure buying from you. That’s why you need to constantly reassure your customers about the health and safety precautions that you’re taking to keep everyone safe from COVID-19.

    How often are you cleaning and sanitizing your store? What are you doing to protect your staff? What measures are you taking to protect your customers? Be specific and outline everything in your customer communications assets (e.g., email, social media, in-store signage). 

    A good example of this practice in action comes from LA Cafe in Downtown Los Angeles. While the restaurant is closed to diners, LA Cafe still accepts online orders that can be picked up or delivered. 

    To make people feel safe about ordering, LA Cafe published a detailed post outlining everything that it’s doing to address COVID-19 concerns. 

     

    The LA Cafe uses Instagram and social media to communicate COVID-19 changes.

     

    6. Run promotions


    If sales are slow (and they likely are during this period), it may be a good idea to run a promotion to entice people to buy. 

    Do note that you’ll be competing with plenty of other brands for shoppers’ attention, so you want your promotions to be as relevant as possible. The best way to do this is to send offers based on each customer’s shopping history and brand interactions. 

    Consider the case of the designer footwear retailer Bulo Shoes, which couples Marsello's loyalty program with email marketing automation to send marketing messages that are always on-point. With Marsello’s help, Bulo Shoes’ automated emails are set up in segments based on customers’ previous behaviors. The store runs separate automated campaigns for first-time customers, abandoned cart recovery, lapsed customers, and to wish customers ‘Happy Birthday’. 

    By sending automated emails that are triggered by customers’ actions, Bulo Shoes are able to reach out to customers in the most relevant and timely way, and thus maximize both revenue and customer engagement.

     

    Bulo Shoes use automated emails to run promotions that target their customers following actions like making a purchase.

     

    What if you can’t sell or fulfill orders?


    The new measures and policies around COVID-19 have been particularly tough on SMBs that are deemed “non-essential”. In addition to store closures, some businesses have been forced to shut down their offices, facilities, and fulfillment centers to slow the spread of the virus. In such cases selling and fulfilling orders – even those made online – isn’t achievable at this time. 

    If you’re in this predicament, try the following tactics:

    Delay shipments and offer generous rewards

    If you can still technically sell online but are unable to fulfill orders, you could run special promotions to get people to buy. That’s what Madame Fancy Pants, a Wellington-based retailer is doing. Due to the coronavirus, the team at Madame Fancy Pants are unable to ship out products in the time being. But they’re still taking orders online, with the commitment to fulfill those orders once isolation measures have been lifted. 

    To encourage people to buy, Madame Fancy Pants sent out a one-off email campaign using Marsello. The email lets their customers know that Madame Fancy Pants will be rewarding shoppers with double loyalty points for their full-priced purchases.

     

    Madame Fancy Pants keeps customers up to day using Marsello’s One-off Email Campaigns

     

    Enable Wishlists

    Another tactic for keeping your customers interested and excited while you’re unable to fill their orders is to allow them to create wishlists of the items you usually stock. Check out our recent blog on top apps for Shopify for ideas on which apps you could use to integrate this feature into your store. 

    Wellington-based pet products retailer, Smack Bang, have done a wonderful job of communicating this recent update with their customers through their social media channels. Check out this Facebook post (note that they’ve even pinned it to ensure customers see the update) that lets their customers know that although they’ve had to shut up shop with the COVID-19 lockdown enforced in New Zealand, their customers can now create wishlists on the Smack Bang online store. 

     

    Smack Bang uses Facebook to let their customers know that they can now create wishlists.

     

    Consider digital products 

    If possible, sell digital products like ebooks, digital art, online consultations, or even courses. 

    One retailer that’s currently promoting digital products is Vroman’s, Southern California’s oldest independent bookstore. Like many other retailers, Vroman’s had to temporarily shut down its operations because of the coronavirus. 

    To continue driving sales, Vroman’s is encouraging shoppers to purchase its ebooks and audiobooks instead, and the bookshop provides instructions on how to do this on social media and on its website. 

     

    Vromans goes Omnichannel

     

    Sell gift cards

    If you’re not offering gift cards online yet, now is the time to sell and promote them. Digital gift cards give your customers the chance to support your business so you can secure much-needed income. In turn, your shoppers can enjoy your products and services once this crisis is over. 

    Consider the example of Pink Marble Studio, which offers lashes, nails, and waxing services. The company recently started offering gift cards online that customers can redeem at a later time.

     

    Pink Marble Studio offers gift cards

     

    Retail tip: For more results, sell these gift certificates at a discount rate to further entice your customers to make a purchase. 

     

    Keep up with social media and content marketing 

    Just because you can’t sell online, doesn’t mean you can’t connect with your customers. Maintain an active presence online by regularly updating your social media accounts and sharing valuable, ‘non-salesy’ content with your audience. 

    Doing so will help you grow your platform, traffic, and follower counts so that when business picks up again, you can hit the ground running. 

    We love this example from Australian wholefood retailer, Bare Wholefoods:

     

    Rough & Bare uses Instagram to update customers and encourage them to keep shopping.

     

    Bare Wholefoods cleverly show that they’re still actively and safely delivering customers’ orders with a photo of outgoing orders ready for shipping. They add a message of genuine gratitude to their customers for their continued loyalty and support. Updates like this help customers to feel confident that they will get the products they’ve ordered, and also gives them the morale boost of knowing they’re helping support the local economy. 

     

    Notify customers with stock updates

    Chances are you’ll find that changes to shipping or production translate to slower restocking times – you may even find yourself out of stock or running low before you can restock, but there’s plenty you can do to keep your customers shopping with you.

    We’ve mentioned using wishlist tools that enable customers to create lists of items they’d like to buy that aren’t currently available, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg! Why not let your customers know when their desired items are back in stock and actively prompt them to shop with you.

    Online multi-brand retailer, The Iconic does a great job of this. When an item or size is out of stock, customers with a registered account are prompted to automatically at the item to their wishlist and sign-up for a ‘back in stock’ email, all through a beautifully designed pop-up. Notice the clever addition of product recommendations that may get customers to shop in that session anyway.

     

    The Iconic ties their Wishlist and Back in Stock tools to create a seamless experience for customers.
     

    It’s tough, but hang in there

    We know that the current retail environment can feel far from ideal. The best thing to do right now is to focus on things we can control. If you’re a retailer, these include your customer communications and marketing messages; do your best to stop on top of them, so you can keep driving sales. 

     

    16 BigCommerce Apps that Can Help You Run a Better Retail Business

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    BigCommerce have an impressive selection of apps available to support BigCommerce stores. Read on to find the best BigCommerce apps to meet you

    BigCommerce Top Apps

    BigCommerce is cementing itself as a popular eCommerce solution offering merchants a range of competitive features, no transaction fees, and an incredibly user-friendly platform. 

     

    Whether you're a brick and mortar shop looking to go online for the first time or have already run eCommerce sites in the past, you'll get the hang of BigCommerce in a snap. 

     

    The platform also offers an expansive selection of apps that easily integrate to support merchants – no matter whether they need solutions for accounting, inventory, or sales. 

     

    An expansive selection is great, of course, but of the hundreds of apps in various diverse categories, a little guidance can go a long way in selecting those that are going to best support your retail business.

     

    To save you hours sifting through reviews and user information, we've gone and done it for you and found the best BigCommerce apps to meet your store's needs.

     

    Lightspeed-Logo 1. Lightspeed

    Point of sale, inventory, and reporting tools are a must for every merchant, both online and offline, and Lightspeed brings users all of those tools – POS, inventory, and reporting, as well as customer engagement – to remove the hassle of managing a business. 

     

    The Lightspeed app makes it easy to manage sales, customers, products, and inventory from one easy to use platform. BigCommerce merchants can integrate with Lightspeed, so their sales, inventory, and customer data are synced seamlessly across both platforms. 

     

    Lightspeed and BigCommerce give you everything you need to power your retail business online and in-store.

     

    With these two solutions, you can remove the complexity out of going omnichannel. You can on top of your sales, stock, and customers while Lightspeed POS and BigCommerce stay perfectly in sync. You can even sell on your favorite social media and marketplaces!

    - Francesca Nicasio, Content Marketing Manager, Lightspeed Retail

     

    Engaging and communicating with your customers is a MUST if you want to keep them coming back, and this one of the reasons why you want to have Marsello in your retail toolkit. 

     

    Marsello is marketing automation and loyalty software that enables you to run personalized, data-driven campaigns at scale with added tools like customer segmentation and feedback collection. You can use Marsello to create email and SMS campaigns tailored to each user based on their purchase history, behavior, and previous interactions with your brand. 

     

    On the loyalty side, Marsello lets you create a rewards program that works seamlessly across your eCommerce and brick and mortar shop, so your customers can earn and redeem perks no matter where or how they're shopping!

     

    Accounting is a task that very few business owners enjoy. However, thanks to the beautiful integration of Xero Accounting on the BigCommerce platform, accounting need not be a chore. 

     

    Your store can be easily connected with your accounting software for a seamless flow of information, with your online and offline data and accounts perfectly in sync. Xero covers payments, payroll, inventory, invoicing, expenses, and performance reporting, which is all mobile compatible for quick insights. 

     

    Importing, managing, and shipping orders is an arduous process that requires tech power to reign in and refine. ShipStation is just the tool to cover BigCommerce users.  

     

    With ShipStation, eCommerce merchants can import orders from all selling channels into a single platform, manage them with custom automation, and ship through all the best carriers. The platform also makes returns easy, allows for next-level branding and marketing, and offers first-class user support. 

     

    With ShipStation, you can say "goodbye" to copying and pasting. Seamlessly sync your orders from BigCommerce and all your selling channels into a single platform to automate nearly every step of your shipping process. Save time and money with the fastest, easiest way to get products to your customers and provide an exceptional post-purchase experience and a little peace of mind with your own branded tracking page. 

    - Adam Foster, Content Marketing Director at ShipStation

    Shogun  5. Shogun

    Successful eCommerce stores need sites that visually stun and captivate audiences. Shogun enables BigCommerce users to create this through their powerful page builder and content management system. 

     

    BigCommerce users can build landing pages, blog pages, product pages, and more with the intuitive Shogun drag and drop page builder. These pages are then easily optimized to perform through AB testing, and once in use, the system also provides analytics and marketing features to schedule campaigns, and measure performance.

     

    Bigcommerce merchants have discovered that the simplicity of using our page builder not only gives them control over their storefront, but it's also helping them save on costs by greatly reducing development hours and time to market. It's empowering their marketing teams to maintain and implement site changes quickly without having to submit engineering tickets.

    - Phill Moorman, Director of Marketing, Shogun

     

    Understanding why your visitors don't convert is the most valuable tool to enable you to make changes to your business to ensure that they do. Lucky Orange helps you to do this. 

     

    Lucky Orange eliminates guesswork and gives merchants clear insight into how to optimize their site for more sales. They do this by tagging and tracking visitor behavior in all areas of the site's usability with Sales Chat, Recordings, Form Analytics, Dynamic Heatmaps, Polls, and more.

     

    “BigCommerce merchants use our software every day to find ways to turn more visitors into customers. The most important thing we want merchants to understand is that getting more people to “add to cart” isn’t guesswork. You don’t have to rely on assumptions to find the problems people are running into on your website when you can watch a session replay of exactly where a person clicked and scrolled on your site or look at form analytics to see where most people are getting stuck and abandoning your website.”

    - Danny Wajcman, Chief Operating Officer, Lucky Orange

     

    Order and inventory management, when done well, significantly increases business performance. While it's the universal goal of merchants to boost business performance, managing orders and inventory can require a helping hand. 

     

    Integrated with BigCommerce, Pulse Commerce helps merchants with real-time visibility and control of their inventory, orders, and customers across all sales channels – i.e., in-store, eCommerce website, and marketplaces.  With a 360-degree view of each customer order and interaction history, modifications are easy, and issues resolved quickly. 

     

    Dealing with customers abroad can prove challenging, but there are tools like Zonos Checkout to simplify the process for merchants and make international transactions and interactions much more streamlined. 

     

    The Zonos BigCommerce integration makes cross border transactions simple with landed cost, localization, and compliance to enhance the buying experience for international customers. The Zonos app covers duties and taxes, currency conversion, payment solutions, and fraud coverage. 

     

     

    Without backups, an unexpected crash or hack can bring down your entire eCommerce business. Without a backup, there is nothing to bring back, and a new build may be required. To ensure that never happens to your store, you can leverage Rewind Backups.  

     

    Rewind Backups on BigCommerce completes daily, automated backups to keep essential data stored, secure, and retrievable should something unexpected occur. It also allows you to quickly undo unwanted changes in just a few clicks, eliminating the need for CSV exports and saving significantly on downtime. 

     

    Rewind® protects the data that runs your eCommerce business. BigCommerce backs up its platform – not your store. This means product catalogs, pages, themes, and more can be lost should something go wrong. Human error, malicious attacks, or third-party apps can all compromise or accidentally delete your data. And recreating a store can take hours, even days. With Rewind, you can quickly undo unwanted changes and never worry about making an irreversible mistake again.

    - Ryan Gibson, Content & Comms Manager at Rewind.io

     

    AfterShip 10. AfterShip

    In need of shipment tracking and delivery updates software? Look no further than the Aftership app for BigCommerce users, which supports all your carriers, including UPS, FedEx, USPS, DHL, and 400 more.

     

    The free Aftership app allows BigCommerce users to track all of their shipments in one place while giving their customers a powerful delivery experience where they can check the delivery status, and submit requests in just a few clicks. Tracking pages can also be customized with the merchant's logo, store URL, and imagery to boost brand recognition.

     

     

    Printful.com 11. Printful

    Want to sell custom-designed apparel and other goods but don't want to hoard stock? Printful, through BigCommerce, is a print-on-demand dropshipping app that allows merchants to print branded products, without needing ever to have them in-house. 

     

    Printful helps with free design templates, warehousing, order fulfillment, and discounted samples so that merchants can try products before they sell them, as well as 24/7 customer support. 

     

     

    Kudobuzz 12. Kudobuzz

    Positive product and brand reviews have the power to boost conversions and compel new customers to buy. It makes sense, then, to use them on your eCommerce site, wherever possible to influence your customer to act. 

     

    Kudobuzz makes this process easy. Through the Kudobuzz app, BigCommerce users can collect reviews from social channels like Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, and more, to then show them on the eCommerce site via clean, customizable widgets. Reviews from other apps are easy to import into Kudobuzz for future use.

     

    Pixlee 13. Pixlee

    Customer content is a powerful tool to harness in the exercise of branding. Just as customers trust the reviews of their peers, they also trust the social pictures of their peers using products that they are considering. 

     

    Pixlee helps BigCommerce users to connect with and leverage customer content to deliver personalized content in any marketing channel. The platform allows merchants to connect with their customers, collect customer-created content identified through tagging or hashtags, gain permission, and publish, all from one place. 

     

    Skubana 14. Skubana

    Skubana is a distributed order management platform that facilitates fulfillment, inventory, and business intelligence for brands operating across multiple channels. 

     

    Through BigCommerce, Skubana synchronizes data from sales channels, warehouses, 3PLs, POS systems, and wherever else it can be found, so that merchants can focus on what matters: customer experience. With Skubana, merchants can sell direct-to-everywhere, automate operational responsibilities, and transform multi-channel complexity into singular clarity.

     

    LiveChat 15. LiveChat

    Instant customer service chat is powerful to resolve questions and help customers move through to make purchases. The LiveChat chat widget for BigCommerce makes it incredibly easy to set this up and go live. 

     

    LiveChat allows brands to communicate with shoppers while they browse, answering all incoming sales and support questions, and even making product recommendations in the live chat widget. The app comes with a pre-installed chat dashboard and lets merchants monitor the results of the chat activities, right in the BigCommerce dashboard.

     

    Affirm 16. Affirm

    Alternative payment solutions are becoming increasingly more common across the world, and of them, buy now, pay later (BNPL) is one of the most widely adopted by both customers and merchants. 

     

    Affirm is one such app that integrates with BigCommerce and allows shoppers to pay their goods off over time, giving merchants the ability to secure more sales, while offering more agile solutions to their customers. The Affirm app shows customers what their payments could look like based on their shopping cart price. And on the backend, it provides merchants with insights into their customer's journey and preferences.

     

    Final Words

    While there's no magic bullet that can solve all your retail problems, the apps mentioned in the post can certainly help you take your business to the next level. Whether you have a brick-and-mortar store, an eCommerce site, or both, you can use the solutions mentioned above to streamline your operations, increase customer loyalty, and boost your bottom line 

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