Quick links:

• • • What is a rewards system?
    • 6 tips for designing a points reward system for your business
    • Final words
      
      

The ultimate goal with a reward points system is to motivate customer behavior that grows your business. However, it is also a good way to build brand loyalty and reward your most loyal customers. 

The Pareto Principle (also known as the Law of the Vital Few) states that 80% of all sales come from just 20% of your customers and that 20% are usually loyal, returning customers. 

Creating a rewards program lets you focus on that valuable 20%!

If you have ever wondered 

• What a reward points system is, 
• How to set up a simple rewards program for loyal customers, and 
• How you can increase your revenue with a loyalty program

Then you are in the right place.

Related: How Mecca Built One Of The World's Best Loyalty Programs

What is a reward points system?

According to Shopify, rewarding points is the most common type of customer loyalty program. A reward points system is an incentivization strategy that increases spending through earning in-store points or credits. 

Customers earn points on their account when they purchase. They can then redeem points the next time they shop or use them for other freebies and perks. Some loyalty programs also let customers accumulate points and move from a “regular” member to a “VIP” member in a tiered program. 

Evermore Toys is a great example of a simple points rewards system. Their mission is to create high-quality toys for their customers, and they implemented an elegant customer loyalty program that increased their revenue by 738.87%.

Customers earn 1 point for every $1 they spend; when they reach 100 points they get $10 off their next purchase. Evermore Toys saw a 95% per month increase in loyalty points over a one-year period, showing that you don’t need a complicated loyalty program to get results.

6 tips for designing a points reward system for your business

To implement a reward points system for customers, there are a few key systems you need. Your business and your customers are unique. 44% of consumers aren’t happy with rewards programs because the bonuses feel “irrelevant”. So it’s worth a bit of creative strategy! 

The most successful loyalty programs are specific to your brand community and are extremely customer-focused. 

Related: 7 Steps To Building A Profitable Loyalty & Rewards Program

1. Identify the main goals of your customer loyalty program

Obviously, your loyalty points system benefits your revenue potential. However, you can do so much more with it! So the first step to a successful points system is to identify what you want to achieve with it. 

Here are a few questions you can ask yourself: 

• • • Do you want to build brand loyalty by creating a unique community?
    • Do you want to reward your MOST loyal customers by creating a tiered reward system? 
    • Do you want to delight customers with unexpected surprises? 
    • Do you want to encourage more spending or points accumulation? 
    • Do you want people to share your business on social media or get people to refer their friends? 
    • Are you going to run “points promotions” to encourage higher spending in sales? 

All loyalty programs motivate particular behaviors. When you are starting out it is best to choose just one or two goals so that you can track their progress and then build from there.

2. Determine how customers will earn the rewards

Next, you will need to determine HOW customers actually get rewards. 

You might want to keep it simple like the Evermore Toys example above. They spend a dollar, they earn a point. There’s nothing wrong with avoiding complications.

Loyalty programs also offer points for customer behavior such as

• • • Sharing on social media 
    • Earning freebies on your birthday 
    • Giving product reviews
    • Referring a friend

Take Our Bralette Club as an example. Their loyalty program members can earn points when they make a purchase, for every friend they refer, for Tweeting about the brand, and even just for getting a year older on their birthday.

Other models include tiered rewards systems. This is where members can move from regular member to VIP status once they cross a spend threshold. VIP customers could have benefits such as Double Points (every dollar is 2 points) or other bonuses like automatic free shipping. 

You will also need to consider online versus in-person shopping. Can customers earn and spend points no matter where they shop with you? Using a points reward software like Marsello makes loyalty programs completely seamless across eCommerce and POS.

3. Determine how these rewards will be awarded to the customers

Once customers have earned their points, it’s time to reward them! Do you have a system for how they can claim points? 

Firstly it is important to have a login for members where they can easily see their points program total. Seamless integration with your eCommerce checkout and POS is critical for a successful loyalty program. Don’t make your customers work for it! 

Next, identify the timeline. Can they redeem points as soon as they earn them? Will they receive a coupon or code for their next purchase? Will you send them something for free? 

Lastly, consider what form their rewards will be in. It doesn’t just have to be points they can spend in-store. 

Here are a few ways you could reward your customers in a points program:

• • • Offer secret sales for people with  a certain number of points 
    • Collaborate with other businesses to do giveaways with similar products 
    • Give away freebies when they buy multiple items 
    • Do live in-person events for your most loyal customers 
    • Offer other bonuses like free shipping or first access to new products 
    • Set up an affiliate program where they can make actual money for referring new customers 

Nigerian shoe brand bCODE has an outstanding loyalty program strategy. When they first launched their online rewards, they created a double-point promotion as well as a spend threshold. 

With their email marketing and social media campaign, they encouraged increased sales, loyalty program sign-ups, reward redemptions, and more! They also encouraged bCode customers to sign-up by sending an email campaign that detailed how shoppers could sign up to the newly expanded loyalty program and earn points in the lead-up to the weekend’s promotion.

With a 94% increase in loyalty points spent, you know they are rewarding loyalty right! 

4. Identify the value of your rewards

If customers earn points-per-dollar, you will need to identify the value of your rewards. You can categorize rewards from low to high value based on how loyal customers are. 

Will they get a discount voucher? Do their points add up to free shipping? Can they move up a membership level if they reach a spend threshold? 

If you have a tiered loyalty program, the value of the rewards can go up with each level. 

For example, a first-tier member could earn points that add up to a discount voucher. A second-tier member could earn double points. A third tier, VIP member could have free shipping, triple points, and access to exclusive events. 

Remember, your most loyal customers bring in the most amount of revenue. It is worth going above and beyond to improve their experience with higher value rewards.

Look at outdoor apparel & footwear brand Merrell NZ. As soon as you sign up for their rewards program you can start moving up the tiers. Their silver and gold tier members enjoy generous discounts when they earn a certain number of points. Merrell NZ makes it simple for members to earn points with amazing rewards and a simple loyalty program widget.

5. Associate a name/brand to your loyalty program

No matter how amazing your product is, you are facing a huge amount of competition. Your customers are probably being asked to join a huge number of other loyalty programs. 

To make your customer reward system stand out, we recommend branding it. 

How can you make your loyal customers feel like they are part of a special community? This is where customer experience comes into play for modern business. It’s not enough to simply sell to your customers. Associating a brand name with your loyalty program makes you memorable. 

For example, Marsello user Our Bralette Club has a membership loyalty program called the Peach Party. Peach Party members enjoy generous discounts and free products, and most importantly the branded name makes them feel part of the club!

6. Promote your rewards point program

Finally, you need a system for promoting your points reward program. You can’t reward customers if they don’t know it exists! Don’t be afraid to promote it everywhere online and in stores. 

This isn’t just for new customers or new business. When Evermore Toys rebranded, they used a clever email marketing campaign to encourage existing loyalty members to engage with the newly branded store and earn more rewards.

We have a few tips for promoting your rewards system online:

• • • Let people register for an account at the checkout and remind them to sign in
    • Have a banner on your website telling people about the benefits of becoming a member and earning points 
    • Let customers know on your social media platforms 
    • Use an omnichannel marketing platform that combines your reward system online with your POS 
    • Automate your email marketing strategy to communicate effectively with new and existing members- you need to promote at the right times to ensure high engagement!

Your loyalty program is all about serving your customers even more. Shout its benefits from the rooftops!

Final words

A reward points system is an effective way to increase your revenue. It rewards your most valuable customers and goes beyond a transactional relationship. By branding your loyalty club, designing an easy-to-follow system, and promoting it for every new and returning customer, you will see incredible ROI on your rewards program. 

If you are looking for the easiest way to set up a loyalty program for your eCommerce or in-person store, you’ve already found it. Marsello makes it simple to set up, market and run a successful point system for rewards. Start rewarding your customers with Marsello!

Read more: 7 Steps To Building A Profitable Loyalty & Rewards Program

As it turns out, there are very good reasons for you to treat your customers on their birthday. A study by Vibes found that 77% of mobile consumers state that receiving surprise points, exclusive messages, and birthday/anniversary content "would have a major impact on their brand loyalty."

Birthday campaigns also tend to perform better. Research by Experian revealed that compared with promotional emails, birthday messages:

• • • have a 481% higher transaction rate
    • generate 342% more revenue
    • have a 179% higher unique click rate
    • See an 89% higher open rate.
      

These numbers tell us that birthday email campaigns can be a huge treat – for both customers and brands. So, it’s worth investing the time and effort to make your birthday initiatives shine. Read on for ideas and tips on how to do just that.

What are the benefits of birthday rewards for your business?

The biggest benefit of birthday rewards programs is that they are a win-win strategy. They put the focus on the buyer experience which benefits your best customers while simultaneously increasing revenue and loyalty.  

There are several key reasons why birthday rewards should be part of your overall loyalty program strategy:

• • • Firstly, birthday rewards programs increase customer loyalty. 84% of customers opt to stay with a brand that surprises them and takes a customer-centric approach. Who doesn’t like being spoiled on their birthday! 
    • Secondly, loyalty programs (that include things like birthday surprises) are proven to improve customer retention rates. Even a small increase of 5% in retention can boost profits by a whopping 25-95%.
    • Lastly, you can gather personalized data on your best customers. This allows you to personalize customer experiences and again improve loyalty. 

By adding birthday rewards to an existing loyalty program, you can personalize customer experiences, gather data on what campaigns are resonating with which customers, and re-target loyal customers who redeem rewards. 

Read more: 7 Steps To Building A Profitable Loyalty & Rewards Program

How to prevent birthday rewards abuse

You might be asking “what if people sign up to our birthday points program with a fake birthday?”. 

We have three suggestions to help stop birthday rewards point abuse. 

1. 1. 1. Apply a “cooling-off” period when people sign up to your loyalty program, i.e. don’t let people put in a birthday date that is within the first month (“What a coincidence, my birthday is TOMORROW!”). This will deter people who want “quick points” or instant freebies and then disappear. 
      2. If you are using a points system, make it less than the points they receive for making an actual purchase while still being valuable.
      3. For birthday programs where you give out a freebie, make it a surprise! Don’t explicitly say what free item they will receive before they sign up. That way people will be less likely to sign up for that one specific item and you can still treat your loyal members.

Ultimately, there will always be people who want to take advantage of free points. The benefits you get from creating positive customer experiences for your loyalty club members will almost always outweigh the potential for rewards abuse. 

Examples of Birthday Rewards Campaigns

When you do it right, birthday rewards campaigns can improve customer retention, loyalty, and engagement. Whether it’s sending specialty coupons, giving out freebies, or something a little more creative, these examples hit the nail on the head. 

Send a one-off special discount and build excitement

This one can seem to be a low-hanging fruit of birthday rewards, however, special discounts are known to yield quick results and valuable data when implemented correctly. If you’re new to birthday campaigns, consider starting things off with a special discount that shoppers can use on the month of their birthday.

It’s simple, straightforward, and easy to test. Just make sure to create unique promo codes for each celebrant, so you can track who’s redeeming your offers.

Offer free products on special occasions

Alternatively, you can opt to give shoppers a freebie on their special day. Some examples of brands that offer birthday freebies include Starbucks and Sephora. In fact, birthday freebies are growing increasingly common. Australian burger joint Hello Harry’s openly offers their customers a free birthday burger… with a small caveat that protects the business – the birthday burgers are free up to the value of $12.

Freebies are a great option if you want to encourage your customers to try your products or if you have samples and surplus stock to give away.

Offer creative rewards to encourage engagement

Here’s the not-so-great reality of loyalty or rewards programs: while many consumers sign up for them, not everyone participates in all the programs they join. 

A 2018 survey found that almost "two-thirds of respondents actively engage with less than half the loyalty programs to which they are members.” The survey found that only 18% actively engage with all their rewards programs.

If your loyalty or rewards program is suffering from low engagement rates, consider incorporating birthday rewards to stir things up. When implemented correctly, this tactic can fuel engagement among your members and put your brand back on their radar.

Anna Beck, a Shopify Plus-powered Jewelry store with multiple resellers and stores, has done a great job at subtly incorporating birthday rewards into their loyalty program to incentivize customers but not create so much buzz that they risk sign-ups for just that reason.

Members of the program automatically get 20 points on their birthday, but with 100 points for creating a profile and 25 for completing their profile information, it’s easy to see how customers quickly earn enough points to reap the rewards.

Since they started using Marsello, Anna Beck has experienced a 728.33% increase in revenue, directly attributable to their loyalty program. And even better, they’ve developed a really thorough understanding of their customer database and how to convert them into loyal customers. They had this to say about developing their loyalty program with Marsello:

“​​Through the data, we’ve found that we have incredibly loyal customers. Once they make their second purchase, they are highly likely to be lifelong customers. Marsello allows us to easily reward those loyal customers for sticking around, it was a no-brainer. Anna Beck has only been an online retail brand for a handful of years, and a loyalty program was the natural next step.”

Another great example comes from Smack Bang, a Wellington-based pet products specialist is one brand that's using a powerful loyalty program to its advantage. With a 100% engagement rate and 6x ROI, the addition of loyalty marketing to SmackBang's all-over marketing tech stack really helps them to capture customers' attention time and time again. 

Loyalty members earn points for actions such as creating a profile, referring a friend, reviewing products, making purchases, and engaging on social media. And the benefits include % discounts off as well as first-looks at product releases. 

The Smack Bang team makes sure to keep their loyalty program members up to date with emails regarding product releases, business updates, sales, events, and more! By keeping regular contact with their customers, they set the expectation that the more loyal a customer is, the better deals they’ll get. And we love that SB lives up to this expectation!

Create a sense of mystery and surprise your customers 

Want to keep shoppers on their toes or still trying to figure out which reward type is the best option? Consider offering a range of rewards and surprises that your customers can enjoy on their birthday month.

That’s what the lingerie retailer ThirdLove is doing. Members of their ‘Hooked’ loyalty program get an annual free birthday gift, which remains a surprise until the customer's special day. According to the company's website:

“We’re not ones to spoil a surprise! While we won’t tell exactly what they are, they’ll change regularly and might be a freebie, a discount, or a little something special just for you.”

Surprise freebies are a wonderful way to keep your customers excited, but our tip? Don’t be tempted to fall into the trap of ‘pawning off’ your hard-to-sell stock on these customers. Make sure your birthday freebies are worth the hype and keep shoppers wanting more.

Celebrate your business’s birthday and say thanks to your customers

A nice twist to the concept of birthday rewards is to celebrate your brand’s birthday. This is a good way to mark an important milestone, and it gives you the opportunity to thank customers – both new and old.

Bare Wholefoods, a Sydney-based cafe, did just that when they celebrated their 4th birthday. 

To mark the occasion, Bare Wholefoods sent a pre-birthday email to their customers, which included a $10 discount code along with a sincere message of appreciation. The result? The small but mighty campaign saw a 6.59% conversion rate!

By celebrating their own birthday, Rough & Bare was also able to show appreciation to the customers that keep them going – and this is such a powerful message in the wake of significant changes brought about by COVID-19.

Tips for implementing birthday rewards

We’ve talked about the different types of birthday rewards you can offer; now let’s discuss how you can take your campaigns to the next level. If you’re looking to start or further optimize your birthday rewards initiatives, follow these best practices to ensure that your efforts hit the mark:

Integrate birthday perks with your loyalty or rewards program

While it’s certainly possible to offer birthday rewards to non-loyalty program members, your campaigns will perform far better if they’re incorporated into your loyalty program.

Roping birthday rewards into your loyalty program enables you to build data-rich customer profiles. Having your shoppers’ purchase histories, shopping activities, and birthdays in one place means that you have a clear view of who each customer is. That, in turn, can enable you to improve and personalize their shopping experiences even more.

LEGO Certified Stores South Africa has done this to great success!

By awarding customers points on their birthdays and for purchases, LEGO creates a feeling of scarcity but customers also quickly rack up the points with each purchase. This means that when customers earn a reward, it feels all the sweeter!

Automate your campaigns

Keeping track of everyone’s birthdays and setting up individual messages isn’t just tedious, it’s impossible as your business grows. Campaign automation is not only a remarkable time-saver – automation as a whole (along with personalization) has actually been pinpointed as the future of marketing. 

Thankfully, Marsello has done the hard work for you and already has a number of pre-made automated flows that are easy to review and enable. One of these automated flows includes a Birthday Flow which automatically triggers an email sequence to engage customers on their birthday month. This pre-designed email series is populated with an offer of a small discount and is already tied to your customer database, so there’s no need to manually configure the campaign. 

Just take a look at this example from Nigerian shoe retailer bCODE:

Notice that they’ve given their customers a lovely surprise by automatically adding 5 points to their account to celebrate! We love that this campaign stands out, has a compelling subject line, and gives customers value right away.

In fact, all of Marsello’s automated campaigns are designed to be easily enabled in just a few clicks. Learn more about Marsello’s marketing automation functionality or start a free trial and explore yourself.

Test your offers

While we can certainly recommend birthday rewards and ideas, ultimately, the performance of your birthday promotions will depend on your specific store and customer base. That’s why it’s important that you test and analyze different birthday promotions to see what works best for your business.

As mentioned above, coming up with unique promo codes makes it easier to monitor the performance of your offers, as well as the customers who are redeeming their rewards.

In fact, the NZ arm of international sporting goods specialists Merrell are pros are testing all of their marketing. They had this to say when we spoke to them about their Marsello-powered marketing.

“Marsello offers automations, loyalty, rewards, email campaign segmentation, SMS. All the tools that we knew we wanted to test in stages as our eCommerce and business grows. Step 1 was swapping from [our old provider] to using Marsello’s email marketing campaigns. Step 2, we’re using marketing automation. Step 3, it’s loyalty!”

It was essential to the team to find an all-in-one tool that they could use to build their marketing functionality while also testing each and every change. And that didn’t stop when it came to building their loyalty program and testing their promotional offers!

One way you can use birthday rewards to understand your customer engagement patterns is to test which different promo types (e.g., free shipping vs. 20% off vs. $5 off) your customer responds well too. Then, it’s easy to apply similar logic to any other promotions and offers that you create in the future!

Integrate SMS marketing

While email is still the most popular channel for sending birthday promos and rewards, SMS is rapidly gaining steam – and it won’t slow down anytime soon. Industry experts are predicting SMS marketing to grow by 52% by 2023.

As such, if you’re thinking about using SMS marketing, customer birthdays present the perfect opportunity to touch base. Consumers will likely be checking their phones for birthday greetings, and having a timely text from your brand could serve as a pleasant surprise. 

Just remember, SMS marketing comes with a few rules to keep in mind and not every merchant is eligible. To make sure you’re doing everything right, check out our help center on SMS compliance. 

Final words

Birthdays can be a real treat not just for your customers, but for your brand, as well. So, take the time to create campaigns that make your customers feel appreciated on their special day.

Need help doing just that? Check out Marsello’s customer loyalty features and discover how you can engage each customer on their birthday and beyond.

Make sure to check out our comprehensive loyalty guide to ensure your loyalty marketing is up to date in all areas.

Quick links:

• • • 1. Design your tiered loyalty program
    • 2. Get everything ready on your website and in-store
    • 3. Promote your program
      
    • 4. Set up important notifications as SMS messages
    • 5. Keep optimizing!

Want to build a loyalty program like Mecca’s Beauty Loop, but don’t have the money or time for custom solutions?

Before building brand loyalty, you need to build a brand. And building a brand? That journey starts with the very first business plan, that spark, that idea on a napkin, that leads you to register a company and step into the wild, wicked, unruly world of retail.

So let’s forget loyalty points programs for the time being.

Look inward for a minute, and ask: Why did I start this business?

For a lot of retailers, their business started out of frustration. Frustration that you couldn’t find what you wanted at other stores, frustration about the lack of selection or curation, frustration about the customer service, concern that salespeople only wanted to sell you what they were getting the most commission for (rather than what suited your needs best).

Mecca Founder Jo Horgan shared why Mecca came to be back in 1997 in an interview for the Australian Financial Review.

“I loved cosmetics – I thought there was a real space for them that should be fun and entertaining. And yet when I went to a department store I found it exhausting, going from one counter to another,” Horgan says.

So she started to think: “Imagine the best product offer, a beautiful environment and my best beauty friend next to me taking me from zero to expert in one session…” 

“That’s how I wanted to experience cosmetics myself,” she says.

The first time I went to Mecca, I admitted I used $3 foundation and substituted in cheap eyeshadow with a 10-year-old makeup brush for eyebrow pencil. The response? “Oh darling, sometimes that’s all you need to do the trick!”

He told me he often does the same… and still managed to sell me $150 worth of foundation and an eyebrow pencil. Now that’s some serious sales game.

I tried to unpack this later. The feeling I got was: He’s on my side. He knows where I’m coming from. And I can trust him.

Lesson 1: Hold on to that “why” and don’t lose sight of it. It’s your greatest brand asset.

It’s highly likely the reason you started your business is why your customer is here. 

I was surprised to learn that Mecca founder Jo Horgan felt frustrated by the department store experience, just like I did. But in the same vein, it makes sense, based on how shopping at Mecca makes me feel.

Lesson 2: Points programs do not magically create brand loyalty.

A points program is one tool you can use to keep customers coming back. But the truth is, if you’re not doing anything else to support it—it’s not going to have the Mecca effect.

So, let’s take your “why” and I’m going to show you how you can build an extraordinary loyalty program with ordinary, off-the-shelf loyalty software.

How to Build An Extraordinary Loyalty Program With Ordinary, Off-The-Shelf Software

Everything here can be done using Marsello, when integrated with your eCommerce and POS software.

Step 1. Design your tiered loyalty program

Most loyalty software has the functionality to build a tiered loyalty program off the shelf. But before you jump the gun and turn it on, think about what the tiers should look like. Revisit your brand’s vision and mission, and come up with a strategy.

How many tiers are there?

Three is a good place to start. Mecca recently added a fourth tier to give those extra high spenders a more tailored experience, but we’d recommend only adding more than three tiers when you see a clear need for it.

How are the tiers structured?

Are the tiers based on spend, or number of loyalty points? And is it lifetime spend or annual spend? Generally, most retailers want their customers to maintain a minimum spend or number of points per year to keep their status. This requires the ability to expire tiers (you can do this in Marsello).

What are the rewards?

This Level 4 Beauty Looper (below) worked out that her free sample box had a retail value of $80. With 4 of these per year, plus an extra birthday box, that’s $400 for a year of free gifts. However, this person had to spend $3,500 to reach this tier. That’s an 11.4% discount, or about the same as giving away every 10th coffee for free.

The beauty (ha) of giving away free boxes, is that you mitigate price perception. Receiving a free box in the mail is a serious dopamine hit, and Mecca knows this. Customers perceive the value of the loyalty reward to be much higher than it really is. They will happily spend more to receive the reward than “risk” missing out on retaining their status by shopping somewhere else.

What will you call the tiers?

Don’t rush this part, take your time to really find the right fit for your brand. “Bronze, Silver, Gold” isn’t very creative. Mecca chooses names that really connect to its brand mission, product, and the relationship they have with its customers.

Step 2. Get everything ready on your website and in-store

Now that you’ve got your loyalty program designed, you need to make sure it’s all set up properly.

Do you have an online store and physical shops?

If so, make sure your loyalty software is integrated with your POS and eCommerce platforms. This will ensure that points can be earned and redeemed easily across all your sales channels. Marsello integrates with a range of POS and eCommerce apps off-the-shelf, no expensive customization required.

How will customers find out about it?

In-store: Train staff on your loyalty program, and make sure they’re asking customers to sign up point-of-sale. Focus on the benefit to the customer—if you’ve really taken the time to build a considered loyalty program, customers won’t be able to resist.

On your website: Make sure it’s impossible to miss! Set up a loyalty widget on your online store to show visitors how they can earn and redeem rewards, and show the available tiers. Best practice is to create a website page dedicated to your loyalty program that goes into even more detail. See Mecca’s Beauty Loop page:

Step 3. Promote your program

How do I launch it?

Once you’ve designed your program, prepare a launch campaign. Whether it’s a ‘soft’ launch or a full-scale event—make sure your customers know about it. Marsello has all the marketing tools you need to communicate with your customers: email, SMS, automations, website pop-up forms, and more. Use these to craft your promotional campaigns.

• Teaser campaign: Pre-launch, let people know something’s coming. Get people curious and excited for the launch date. For example, you could run contests or giveaways to generate hype.
• Soft launch: It’s okay to do a soft launch to start off, just to test everything is working. But once you’re confident, prepare a launch campaign.

• In-store promotion: Let your customers know about it in-store. Make sure staff are trained on your loyalty app and can answer basic questions about how to get set up, the tier structure, and what the benefits are for the customer.

• Full marketing launch: add a pop-up to your website, send out email campaigns to your database, and promote the program on social media. You can even run a limited-time launch offer—for example, 200 extra points for signing up in the first week.

How do I keep customers engaged?

The promotion doesn’t stop after you launch the campaign! There are lots of light-touch, low-maintenance campaigns you can run to keep your loyalty program interesting. Plus, you can talk about all the cool campaigns you’re running to non-loyalty subscribers to get that FOMO going.

Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Run points campaigns: For example, you could have a double points week. These are great to run in slower sales seasons, as they incentivize loyal customers to accelerate their points growth.
• Hype the program on social media: Use social media to promote the loyalty program and engage with customers through interactive content and contests. See Mecca’s Beauty Loop hype in the Instagram post above!
• Run limited-time offers: Offer special rewards for a short period of time to incentivize customers to participate in the loyalty program.
• Build up a community: Foster a sense of community among loyalty program members through events, forums, or social media groups.
• Collaborate with partners: Partner with other brands to offer joint rewards and increase the value of the loyalty program.
• Build your mobile experience: Encourage customers to save your loyalty portal to their mobile home screen, so they can access their points balance and engage with your brand on the go.
  
  

Step 4. Set up important notifications as SMS messages

Your customers get so many emails, they’re missing important updates. An SMS will cut through the noise by going direct to their mobile. While you don’t want to overdo SMS marketing, automated texts triggered for important loyalty updates and reminders will be much appreciated.

Notify customers when they have a reward coming!

Whether it’s a discount in their inbox ready to redeem, or a gift coming to their physical address, let them know it’s on the way and when they can expect it. 

Let customers know when their tier is about to expire

Like Mecca, you probably want customers to keep up a minimum annual spend. Expiring tiers is a fantastic way to keep customers spending to retain their status… but it won’t have much impact unless they know how they’re progressing! Send customers an automated text message to let them know they’ve got a bit more shopping to do to keep up their tier.

Let customers know when they hit a milestone

Your loyal customers will want to know when they’ve unlocked a new reward, or hit a big points milestone (for example, they’ve entered a new tier). Don’t leave them guessing, automatically deliver the good news right to their mobile.

Step 5. Keep optimizing!

The final step is that… there is no final step. Running a loyalty program is an ongoing, ever-evolving journey that you’re on with your customers. So it’s important to have fun and keep innovating as you go. Loyalty is a regular and ongoing business activity, just like marketing and sales. There will always be improvements and new ideas you can implement, so have a regular reminder set up to check in and evaluate how it’s going.

What are the top loyalty metrics I should be tracking?

Marsello’s dashboard keeps track of all your important loyalty metrics. Top things to track are repeat purchase rate and rewards redemption rate. These will show you that your loyalty program is moving the needle on sales and revenue, and getting good engagement from customers.

How do I know if my brand is doing better over time?

While Marsello doesn’t track brand impact, there are some incredible new tools you can use to measure your brand health. Take a look at Tracksuit, as one example.

Final Words

Building a successful loyalty program like Mecca's Beauty Loop starts with understanding your brand's "why." A loyalty program is just one tool to keep customers coming back, and it should be built with a clear strategy based on your brand's vision and mission.

Mecca's founder Jo Horgan was frustrated with the department store experience and wanted to create a fun and entertaining shopping experience, which is exactly what Mecca and the Beauty Loop experience provides.

Using ordinary, off-the-shelf loyalty software like Marsello, you can create a tiered loyalty program with rewards that offer value to customers and keep them engaged. However, it's important to remember that a loyalty program is only effective if you're doing other things to support it and build a strong brand relationship with your customers.

Read more: 7 Steps To Building A Profitable Loyalty & Rewards Program

Quick links:

• • • 1. They use the right tool for the job
    • 2. They use customer data for lazer-focused personalization
    • 3. They give compelling reasons for customers to opt in (and stick around)
      
      

Massive international businesses like Dominoes, Sephora, Uber, and Airbnb are all using SMS to increase their revenue and efficiency. By leveraging text marketing, they have been able to reach their customers, boost engagement, and drive sales. If SMS marketing didn't work, these brands would not be using it.

So what do they know that we don’t?

We’ve looked at some of the world’s most successful brands to look at the anatomy of an SMS strategy that converts.

What did we learn? 

1. The science behind running high-performance SMS marketing campaigns actually isn’t as complicated as it looks.

2. By not leveraging SMS marketing, we’re missing out on a powerful tool that can help us reach our business goals faster and more efficiently.

So, we’ve wrapped up the know-how in this article, so you can see how they’ve cracked it. Inside you’ll find practical tips and strategies that you can use to create high-performance SMS campaigns that deliver results.

Best of all, it won’t cost you much to give the big-brand tricks a go.

1. They use the right tool for the job

Big box retailers aren’t afraid to try something new or unorthodox if they think it will get the job done. They just ask—what is the best way to reach our customers to achieve this goal?

This is one of the biggest perceived challenges for SMBs. When you’re time-poor, it’s easier just to stick to what you know.

The reality is, it doesn’t cost much (time or money) to test a new channel like SMS. And the learnings are worth their weight in gold. If you chat to one of our SMS experts, you can even be in to win 1000 free credits to play with.

Email or SMS?

When choosing between sending an email or sending a text, the main consideration should be time. Does the customer need to act on this right away? If so, use SMS.

If you’re running lots of these time-sensitive campaigns, though, be careful that you’re not overloading your customers. SMS is extremely targeted and almost always opened, so it should be used sparingly for one-off blast campaigns. We’d recommend sending no more than 2 of these to your customers per month.

Another good way to use SMS is for notifications. These only trigger when customers act, so they won’t be as intrusive or annoying (customers will understand why they’re receiving the message). While emails can be used too, they can sometimes get lost in the inbox. SMS will ensure important messages get where they’re meant to go in a near-instant fashion.

Chatbots or SMS?

Chatbots are great when a customer is looking for answers in real time. They work well on messaging apps (Messenger, WhatsApp) and on your website. This is mostly inbound, although you may have a chatbot notification to communicate something when customers visit your online shop.

SMS is better for outbound notifications, like when you’re running a sale or have a personal, time-sensitive invitation or offer to share. You can also use SMS for automated messages, for example, let a customer know delivery updates on their order.

Digital advertising or SMS?

I’ve heard merchants say, “Why would I send a text when it’s so much cheaper to run ads on social media?” I’d respond to this in two parts.

Firstly, is it really cheaper? On average, it costs $17.60 to reach 1000 people on Facebook. For Instagram, it’s $8.30. SMS sits almost bang in the middle—from around $10.00 per 1000 recipients. And that’s not even taking cost per conversion into account. 

Secondly, it depends on what you’re trying to achieve. For example, SMS can drive conversions through high personalization. You have more scope to get really specific to the customer; you know more about them because they’re in your database.

You could use this same idea for secret menu items or order freebies too.

2. They use customer data for lazer-focused personalization

If you’re tracking sales (i.e., if you have a digital POS system and/or an online store) you own a lot of customer purchase data. Now, let’s put it to use!

I’ve just been looking at a merchant account where they’ve automated more than 25% of the revenue. That’s purely just from sending campaigns when customers hit specific criteria or make a particular action.

This business is sending automated emails and SMS messages to customers who haven’t shopped in a while, giving them a small discount, and generating revenue from that.

They’ve also got automated SMS campaigns going out to their loyalty members, letting them know when they have points they need to redeem, or when they’ve unlocked a reward.

This is exactly what the big brands do—they put their data to work. It’s really exciting seeing smaller retailers take that concept and run with it. The set-up time is so minimal, especially because SMS doesn’t require any design work. And the results are incredible.

There are also businesses who are dipping their toe in the water, giving SMS a go with a one-off campaign, and being absolutely blown away at the impact.

Pinjarra Bakery is an example that comes to mind. This is an example of a merchant taking a step back and thinking: what’s the best channel for this campaign?

Every month or so, they’ll make a once-only, off-menu meat pie. They wanted to let their regulars know about it, but the promotion needed to reach them at exactly the right time.

So they sent an SMS, just before lunch time, to encourage customers to come in and try this one-off pie.

After just two SMS campaigns contributed to 15% of revenue over a 3-month period… it’s safe to say, SMS marketing is yet another Pinjarra success.

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

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

- Daniel Pantaleo, Pinjarra Bakery

Another bonus learning: Don’t just track customer purchase data, track the brands and products they’re buying too. With SKU-level data, you can pitch co-marketing campaigns to wholesalers, negotiate better stock prices, and just generally deepen your relationship with your vendors.

3. They give compelling reasons for customers to opt in (and stick around)

If you already see the value in texting your customers, your next challenge is: how do build my SMS database?

The big brands know that people will sign up to get an offer, but will opt out if they aren’t promised continuous benefits. If you want people to stick around (and you want to keep reaping the rewards of high conversion rates), you have to make an offer they can’t resist.

Case study: Sephora

Sephora has a finely-balanced strategy to keep a regular stream of SMS subscribers coming in, while sending exclusive offers and insider info to keep them there long-term.

Opt-in incentive: Sephora uses a 10% discount code to get customers signed up for SMS marketing.

Continuous benefits: Then, Sephora shows the value of being on the list. Their SMS subscribers and beauty insiders get access to all sorts of exclusive offers, as well as being kept in the loop with new stores and events.

Case study: Domino’s

Domino's takes a slightly different approach. The incentive to sign up is access to the deals themselves… and they’re very good deals.

Opt-in incentive & continuous benefit: Exclusive access to time-sensitive deals.

These deals are so good, you wouldn’t find much better. While smaller retailers and hospitality businesses can’t compete with the big brands on price, you can still use this method. Even if you don’t want to offer 50% discounts, your database will still appreciate a $5 voucher or small freebie.

Finally, to make a lasting impression on your audience, don’t be afraid to lean on your customer experience, product quality, and level of service as your point of difference in these kinds of campaigns.

How SMB Merchants Can Leverage SMS Marketing

1. Build Your SMS List: Start by building your SMS list by obtaining your customers' opt-in consent. You can do this by offering a discount or promotion in exchange for their phone number.
2. Expire Discount Codes: When you use discount codes for campaigns, make sure you set an expiry date to make the offer time sensitive.
3. Personalize Your Messages: Use customer data to personalize your SMS messages and offers. This could be based on their purchase history, location, or interests.
4. Time Your Messages: Send timely and relevant messages to your customers to maximize their impact. This could be about promotions, new products, or special events.
5. Keep It Short and Sweet: Keep your messages short and concise, with a clear call-to-action. This will encourage your customers to take action and engage with your brand.

Meet with one of our experts and be in to win 1000 free SMS credits.

Discuss how SMS could work best for your business. Meet with an SMS expert before the end of June and be in to win 1000 SMS credits.

Standard T&Cs apply. Additional competition terms: 1) Offer not available for SHAFT-regulated merchants. 2) To be eligible, you must book and complete a call with a Marsello SMS expert before UTC 11:59pm, 30th June, 2023. 3) Only one entry per eligible business will be accepted.

Read more: 7 Steps To Building A Profitable Loyalty & Rewards Program

Quick links:

• • • 1. The Very Secret Sale

    • 2. Mystery Discounts

    • 3. Secret Menu Items or Freebies

    • 4. Pop-Up Store Google Maps Link

    • 5. The Birthday Offer

    • Before you begin: Tips From The Experts
      
      

    • Win 1000 Free SMS Credits

      
      

We all know what bad marketing looks like. It’s the emails we bulk delete, the text message that gets us up on the wrong side of the bed, and the intrusive ad in the middle of your Facebook message inbox.

We sign up for things left right and center, opting into emails when we buy something, accepting SMS marketing when we make an appointment… Then before we know it we’re inundated with marketing messages and we’re subjected to a total advertising overload.

That’s why, as business owners, we’re hesitant to send too many emails, or annoying texts, or set up pesky retargeting ads that don’t turn off even when customers have already bought the dang thing.

However, when marketing is done well, we don’t see it as marketing. We see it as a story, or a relatable anecdote, or a club we are genuinely excited to be part of.

So how do we take SMS—one of the more intrusive forms of marketing—and make it exceptional? How do we make SMS marketing so good that customers will be throwing their mobile numbers at us, begging to be part of our list?

The fact is, SMS has a reputation as one of the most annoying forms of marketing because it is the most direct. It comes right to the user's personal device, without the need for an internet connection or mobile data. It’s almost guaranteed to be delivered and opened. There’s really no barrier shielding the recipient from an annoying message if they’re opted in.

But what makes SMS annoying also gives it its edge.

So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to design 5 creative, tantalizing & clever SMS campaigns that you can use or modify and promote as part of your brand’s customer experience.

Ready to say goodbye to SMS opt-outs?

Goal: To attract new text subscribers and build up a marketable database for SMS. 

Benefit: Better engagement, higher read rates, and more return on your marketing investment.

Understand that these campaigns should be exclusive (or at the very least first access) to text message subscribers. In return for their mobile number and marketing consent, you want to make it well worth their while. Customers need to know that opting out means they will no longer have access to these incredible offers and campaigns.

Here are 5 SMS Campaigns That Will Have Customers Eager To Share Their Number.

1. The Very Secret Sale

Every month, 1 text subscriber is chosen randomly to participate in a secret sale. This creates hype and excitement within your database, and you can use it in your list of amazing things your subscribed customers get access to. This campaign creates a sense of exclusivity and urgency, while also encouraging customer engagement, referrals and social shares.

Yep, it’s pretty much just a one-off discount or voucher for one person, once a month. But make the offer tantalizing enough that everyone wants it.

Steps: 

1. Export a list of your SMS subscribers as a CSV file (or download a full list, and sort by SMS subscribers, deleting the rest).
2. Use a Random Name Picker like this one, where you can upload a CSV file of your database
3. Pick a name at random (or as many as you like).
4. Create a campaign list or segment with that customer.
5. Generate a single-use or customer-specific discount or voucher code. Adding a time limit or expiry date creates urgency.
6. Send an SMS campaign (copy the text below and modify to your liking).

2. Mystery Discounts

This campaign creates a sense of excitement and anticipation for customers, as they wait for periodic messages with surprise discount codes. By keeping the value of each code a mystery, you’ll incentivize customers to jump online and add items to their cart to apply the code.

You can use this type of campaign alongside other campaigns and releases, for example for early access to new collections, to further increase customer engagement.

3. Secret Menu Items or Freebies

In one of the most creative SMS campaigns we’ve seen, Pinjarra Bakery promotes exclusive meat pies to their local customers. They’ll create whacky recipes and do a one-off batch, then send a text just before lunch to let customers know.

Campaigns like this are great. they’re time-sensitive, they’re fun, and they get customers excited to try something new and different.

You could use this same idea for secret menu items or order freebies too.

4. Pop-Up Store Google Maps Link

Running a pop-up store? Offer first access to the pop-up store Google Maps location to SMS subscribers. When promoting your pop-up store, you can create a landing page or add a form to your Link In Bio. Ask customers to add their mobile number to receive the location 24 hours before the store opens.

Pop-up stores can offer an air of mystique and exclusivity. They’re outside your usual store location, run for a limited time, and often promise the best deals and last-of-run items.

I was recently out shopping and needed a different size in the hoodie I wanted. I was told that there was only one left, that it wasn’t available online or in any of the physical other stores, but that it would be at the pop-up, happening later that week. Plus, the store assistant whispered as an aside, it would be half the price.

I got there on the day and the line was halfway down the street.

Pop-ups and markets are a popular way for stores to run sales and move stock quickly. Having everything for sale in one place, and for a limited time, creates urgency and demand. They are also great for ecommerce/DTC brands who want temporary, cheaper floorspace to build their brand presence in a particular market.

5. The Birthday Offer

Last but certainly not least! Most customers expect birthday offers when signing up for a loyalty program or marketing emails these days. But why not offer something extra to SMS subscribers?

This campaign creates a personalized experience for customers, making them feel valued and appreciated on their special day. Additionally, by setting a time limit on the offer, you’ll create urgency and encourage customers to take advantage of the offer before it expires.

Before you begin: Tips From The Experts

Above: Wildfang leads with the benefit of opting in when promoting their SMS marketing program at checkout.

1. Be upfront. Dominoes lead the charge in transparency, letting customers know before they subscribe to expect no more than 6 text messages a month. If you’re open, people know what they’re signing up for and will be less likely to opt-out.
2. Lead with the benefit. Retailer Wildfang asks customers to opt-in by self-selecting whether or not they want a discount. Be clear under the initial copy/headline that customers are signing up for SMS marketing, and make sure you deliver the discount in the first SMS message you send them (automate it to be extra certain).
3. Keep compliant. Make sure you’re staying within global, regional and industry SMS legals. While we stay up-to-date with the rules and regulations, we’re not legal experts, so make sure you check the TCPA and other legislation and guidelines to make sure your campaigns don’t miss the mark.

Final words

SMS marketing campaigns can be highly effective if they are designed well, creating a sense of excitement and exclusivity among customers. As SMS is the most direct form of marketing, it is important to ensure that campaigns are designed with care to avoid being seen as intrusive. The campaigns outlined above all offer creative and tantalizing options for customers to engage with a brand through SMS. By providing exclusive access to offers and campaigns, customers are more likely to opt-in to SMS marketing, leading to higher engagement and return on investment.

Meet with one of our experts and be in to win 1000 free SMS credits.

Discuss how SMS could work best for your business. Meet with an SMS expert before the end of June and be in to win 1000 SMS credits.

Standard T&Cs apply. Additional competition terms: 1) Offer not available for SHAFT-regulated merchants. 2) To be eligible, you must book and complete a call with a Marsello SMS expert before UTC 11:59pm, 30th June, 2023. 3) Only one entry per eligible business will be accepted.

Read more: 7 Steps To Building A Profitable Loyalty & Rewards Program

With over 800 plugins listed in the WooCommerce extension marketplace, it can be overwhelming to choose which ones to use. That's why we've compiled a list of the 9 best plugins to help you grow your WooCommerce store.

From boosting sales and customer loyalty to improving the user experience and site performance, these plugins can help take your store to the next level in 2023.

1. Marsello: Seamless In-store & Online Loyalty
2. Klaviyo: Email & Text Marketing
3. Zapier for WooCommerce
4. WooCommerce Product Table
5. Google Product Feed for WooCommerce
6. LiveChat for WooCommerce
7. Tiered Pricing Table for WooCommerce
8. WooCommerce Wishlists
9. Back In Stock Notifications
   
   

9 Best WooCommerce Apps to Grow Your eCommerce Store in 2023.

1. Marsello for WooCommerce: Seamless in-store & online loyalty

Know your customer, no matter how they shop. Marsello is the only loyalty platform that integrates with a range of POS apps. This means you can track every sale, in-store or online, to a customer profile.

Then, turn this 360-degree data into revenue with personalized campaigns and incentives to drive repeat sales—all with one smart loyalty marketing app.

How it can help drive sales:

• With a loyalty program in place, customers are more likely to return to your store and make repeat purchases in order to earn rewards.
• Tiered rewards incentivize customers to spend more in order to reach new ‘levels’ in your loyalty program.
• By connecting your in-store sales data and WooCommerce sales to Marsello, you’ll get deeper insights into customer behavior and preferences, allowing you to optimize your marketing and maximize sales.

Pricing: From $100/month

Start a free trial

2. Klaviyo: Email & Text Marketing for Ecommerce

A unified customer platform for email, SMS, and more. Klaviyo helps you convert data into personalized customer conversions with smart campaigns and automations. Whether you’re sending a drip campaign, a transactional email, or a special holiday campaign, ultra-relevant content can help you boost engagement—and earn more revenue.

How it can help drive sales:

• Personalized messages such as abandoned cart reminders, product recommendations, and post-purchase follow-ups can help you increase conversions.
• The plugin allows you to sync your customer and order data and create more personalized and targeted campaigns.
• Automation tools such as follow-up emails can help you automate your marketing workflows and drive more sales.

Pricing: From $0/month (pricing scales with your business)

View on the WooCommerce Marketplace

3. Zapier for WooCommerce

Zapier enables you to connect your WooCommerce store to over 2,000 apps, automating tasks such as order processing, customer data management, and shipping notifications.

How it helps you drive sales:

• You can create custom workflows based on triggers and actions, such as sending a discount code to a customer who abandons their cart or adding a customer to a specific email list when they make a purchase.
• Automated workflows can help you increase conversions and drive more sales.

Pricing: $59/annum

View on the WooCommerce Marketplace

4. WooCommerce Product Table

The WooCommerce Product Table plugin displays products in a table format, allowing customers to view multiple products at once and compare them side by side.

How it can help drive sales:

• Customers can filter and sort products based on various criteria, making it easier for them to find what they are looking for and reducing the likelihood of them leaving your store without making a purchase.
• The plugin is mobile-friendly and responsive, providing a seamless shopping experience for customers on all devices. Using the WooCommerce Product Table plugin can enhance the user experience on your store, increase conversions, and drive more sales.

Pricing: Paid plans start from $59/month.

View in the WooCommerce Marketplace

5. Google Product Feed for WooCommerce

This plugin creates a product feed for your WooCommerce store that can be used to advertise your products on Google Shopping, allowing you to reach a broader audience and increase sales.

How it can help drive sales:

• This plugin can be used to increase your visibility and drive more traffic to your store.
• It ensures that your product data is accurate, complete, and relevant, which Google favors.
• You can easily manage your product listings and make changes to your data as needed.
• You can tap into a large audience of potential customers who are actively searching for products online.

Pricing: $79/annum

View listing in WooCommerce Marketplace

6. LiveChat for WooCommerce

LiveChat provides real-time customer support and engagement through live chat, improving customer satisfaction and retention.

How it can help drive sales:

• Live chat support provides immediate and personalized support to customers, which can increase customer satisfaction and ultimately drive more sales and repeat business.
  

Pricing: From $20/month.

View in WooCommerce Marketplace

Easily set up individual pricing for various quantity ranges, and your customers can see instantly how the price for one item changes depending on the quantity they have chosen.

How it can help drive sales:

• The plugin allows you to offer bulk discounts to customers who purchase larger quantities of your products.
• By offering these discounts, you can incentivize customers to purchase more products from your store, which will increase your sales and revenue.
  

Pricing: $79/annum

View in WooCommerce Marketplace

8. WooCommerce Wishlists

This plugin enables your customers to create and manage wishlists on your WooCommerce store, increasing engagement and encouraging customers to return to your store to make a purchase.

How it can help drive sales:

• When a customer creates a wishlist on your site, they are more likely to return to your store to purchase the items they have saved.
• By allowing customers to share their wishlists with friends and family, your products get more visibility and can attract new customers to your store.

Pricing: $79/annum

View on WooCommerce Marketplace

9. Back In Stock Notifications

The Back In Stock Notifications plugin allows customers to sign up for alerts when a product they are interested in is back in stock. This can help you gauge demand for out-of-stock products and drive sales when those products become available again.

How it can help drive sales:

• By providing customers with the ability to receive notifications when a product they want is back in stock, you can increase the likelihood of them making a purchase and help prevent them from going to a competitor.
• The plugin integrates with popular email marketing platforms such as Klaviyo, allowing you to easily send targeted emails to customers who have expressed interest in specific products.
• By providing customers with a way to receive notifications when a product is back in stock, you can build stronger relationships with them and encourage repeat business.

Pricing: $49/annum

View on the WooCommerce Marketplace

So, which WooCommerce plugins should I install?

Whether you're a new eCommerce entrepreneur or an established WooCommerce store owner, you'll want to take advantage of the many great apps the WooCommerce Marketplace has to offer.

Before you start your Marketplace search, we suggest you take a moment to reflect on your business goals and needs. Ask yourself these simple questions:

1. What challenges am I facing as a WooCommerce business?
2. What specific tools do I need to address my problems?
3. What does my ideal state look like, and will this plugin help me get there?
4. Does this app have what I need, what is the cost, and am I willing to pay for it?

By answering these questions, you'll gain a clearer understanding of your business objectives, and it will become easy to choose the plugins that align best with your goals.

Remember, with the right tools at your disposal, you'll be poised for success and ready to take your WooCommerce store to new heights. Best of luck with your search!

Next read: 7 Steps To A Profitable Loyalty & Rewards Program

WooCommerce retailers now have access to seamless in-store and online loyalty. 

We are thrilled to announce our latest integration with WooCommerce, an open-source eCommerce platform built for WordPress.

“WooCommerce is one of the most requested integrations we've ever had,” says CEO Brent Spicer. “Retailers want to be able to create a seamless experience for their consumers both in-store and on their WooCommerce online store through Marsello. This is game-changing for many of our current, and future, retailers.”

Ready to get set up? Watch the video.

With Marsello for WooCommerce, you can connect your online sales data with a range of POS providers.

To really know your customer, you need all the data—no matter where they’re shopping. But it's notoriously difficult to track customer behavior seamlessly across in-store and online channels. Until now.

The Marsello plugin for WooCommerce means you can…

• Create a better shopping experience. It's easy for customers to earn and redeem points no matter how they shop.
• Know your customers better than ever before. With all the data you need to send personalized, targeted campaigns.
• Keep customers coming back. Loyalty, email, SMS and automation features are all designed to increase average order size and incentivize repeat sales.

Step-by-step: How to connect Marsello and WooCommerce.

How it works

Marsello is an advanced loyalty and marketing platform that is powered by your eCommerce and point-of-sale integrations. Using offers, sign-up forms and a customizable loyalty program, WooCommerce merchants can now collect invaluable first-party customer data in-store and online. This data syncs to unique customer profiles so you can know your customer and their preferences better than ever before.

As well as loyalty and list-building, Marsello also gives you tools to keep growing those customer relationships (and sales). Emails, SMS campaigns, automations, reviews and more. It’s all possible for WooCommerce and Marsello users.

"We've created a seamless redemption process with Marsello because we’re committed to prioritizing the customer’s experience,” says Product Manager, Kat Williams. “But staff will love it too—there’s much less confusion from customers about how and where they can redeem and earn points. It all just works, whether transactions are in-store or online.”

Senior Software Engineer, Rukshan Dangalla, agrees. "I'm so excited to see this integration launched. The end result will provide a seamless experience for our merchants, and it's a significant milestone for our company. I'm proud to have contributed to its success!"

Your fully integrated tech stack

With Marsello, WooCommerce sales tracking is seamless in-store and online. Marsello has direct integrations with all major POS platforms including Lightspeed Retail, Cin7, Heartland and Shopify POS.

Getting set up

Setting up the integration is a breeze. You can connect Marsello with just a few clicks and start using the platform to create your marketing campaigns. The integration also ensures that your data is synced between your WooCommerce store and Marsello, so you can track your progress and make informed decisions about your marketing campaigns.

Marsello: Seamless in-store and online loyalty. Drive repeat sales with a loyalty and rewards program Send email and SMS campaigns to customers Create set-and-forget marketing automations Track the direct impact of all your marketing on revenue Build a customer database

Marsello is now fully integrated with Lightspeed Retail (R-Series). 

R-Series retailers can now run their loyalty program seamlessly in-store and online. Marsello helps R-Series users provide an enhanced customer experience, personalized rewards, and targeted marketing campaigns.

"Lightspeed is a leader in the retail industry and we're proud to integrate with their R-Series platform," said Brent Spicer, CEO of Marsello. "Our partnership will empower more retailers to grow their business and foster strong relationships with their customers through personalized loyalty marketing."

Why connect R-Series + Marsello?

R-Series retailers can glean valuable customer insights with Marsello. This empowers them to make data-driven decisions with ease.

🗣️ Attn: R-Series users! You can now…

• Sync your POS and eCommerce sales data all into one customer marketing platform
• Attach customers to a sale on the POS sale screen to attribute purchases to a unique customer profile in Marsello
• View a customer’s loyalty profile right from within your R-Series sales screen
• See how your loyalty and marketing activities impact sales in-store and online
• Get a 360-degree view of customer behavior and purchasing habits
  
  

Your fully integrated tech stack

With Marsello, R-Series sales tracking is seamless in-store and online. Marsello has direct integrations with all major eCommerce platforms including Shopify, BigCommerce, Ecwid, and WooCommerce (coming soon).

Getting set up

Marsello users can now add R-Series in their Integrations tab in the left navigation menu in Marsello. Staff can also access customers’ loyalty and marketing profiles directly from the R-Series sales screen.

About Lightspeed Retail (R-Series)

Lightspeed R-Series is a point-of-sale (POS) system developed by Lightspeed, a leading provider of cloud-based commerce solutions. R-Series is a Lightspeed Retail product, designed to help retailers manage their brick-and-mortar operations, including sales processing, inventory management, customer management, and reporting.).

Marsello: All your marketing, in one place. Drive repeat sales with a loyalty and rewards program Send email and SMS campaigns to customers Create set-and-forget marketing automations Track the direct impact of all your marketing on revenue Build a customer database

The Shopify App Store holds the key to transforming your operations and unlocking revenue growth for your business. But, with thousands of apps to choose from, it can be overwhelming to choose which apps are the right fit for your store.

To help you get started, we’ve compiled a list of the 10 best Shopify apps to grow your business in 2023.

1. Keeper—Recover Abandoned Carts
2. Shopify Flow
3. Marsello: Loyalty, Email & SMS
4. Loop Returns & Exchanges
5. PageFly Landing Page Builder
6. Stamped Product Reviews & UGC
7. Booster: Page Speed Optimizer
8. Appstle Subscriptions
9. Peek! Better Replay & Survey
10. Easyship - All in one Shipping

10 Best Shopify Apps to Grow Your eCommerce Store in 2023.

1. Keeper—Recover Abandoned Carts

According to the Baymard Institute, the average abandoned cart rate in 2022 was 69.99%. That means that for every 100 people that visit your online store, almost 70 of them will never make it to checkout—that’s a lot of potential revenue you’re missing out on. 

Keeper is a one-click install Shopify app designed to recover abandoned carts and increase your store’s revenue automatically in the background. When customers log in across multiple devices they will find their abandoned shopping cart waiting for them, ready to complete their order. This makes it easy for them to pick up where they left off, resulting in more sales for your Shopify store.

Key benefits:

• Automatically prompt users to complete their orders.
• Remember customers’ shopping carts across their devices.
• Merge previously abandoned carts with current ones and drive more sales.
• Reduce your abandoned cart rates and drive more sales.

Pricing: Free

Shopify Review | CHIC 414 Boutique

“SO helpful for regaining sales and reminding our clients that they have abandoned their shopping carts. We have definitely seen an increase in our sales.”

2. Shopify Flow

Shopify Flow helps automate processes that solve unique challenges eCommerce store owners face. With Flow, you can easily build custom workflows to solve specific challenges and tasks that would otherwise burn precious time and resources.

Flow is a powerful but simple automation tool. You can quickly customize unique triggers and conditions to create advanced workflows that run on autopilot, all without needing prior developer knowledge. 

Key Benefits:

• Create custom workflows and automate processes to streamline your operations
• Save time by turning repetitive, time-consuming tasks into automatic workflows
• Simple to set up: Automate workflows in a few clicks and get back to business

Pricing: Free

Shopify Review | Landyachtz Skateboards

“In my opinion Flow is the single most valuable aspect of Shopify Plus! The biggest limitation of Flow is your imagination and the things I've been able to automate have been game-changers for our operations. One aspect I never expected was how effective Flow is in helping me build safety nets and redundancies for problems that would go unseen without it. Probably my favourite app.”

3. Marsello

Marsello is an intuitive marketing platform designed to help eCommerce businesses drive sales from your existing customer base. It offers a variety of features including loyalty programs, email and SMS, automation, social posting, and more.

One of Marsello’s key strengths is its all-in-one solution, which allows Shopify store owners to consolidate their tools and streamline their marketing efforts—saving money on subscription fees, and simplifying your store’s marketing campaigns.

The platform also integrates seamlessly with Shopify eCommerce and POS platforms, helping you reach your customers online and in person, and providing a comprehensive overview of your customers, no matter how they interact with you.

Key benefits:

• Manage all your marketing tools from one platform. 
• Save money on subscription fees by consolidating all your apps into one.
• Analyze the results of your marketing campaigns and see which activity brings in the most revenue for your Shopify business.
• Connect your eCommerce and POS to create a seamless brand experience

Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans start from $100/month

Shopify Review | Tomato Vintage, United States

“As a small business, it's hard to keep track of all the digital moving parts. Marsello made it easy for my team to quickly set up email campaigns and establish branding with our clientele. Straightforward. User-friendly. Worth a try.”

4. Loop Returns & Exchanges

Loop is a returns app that aims to simplify and automate returns, exchanges, and store credit processes for brands. With the global economy facing a potential recession in 2023, retaining customers and cutting costs are more important than ever.

With Loop, you can analyse your customer interactions from a cost-saving lens, helping you to identify opportunities for revenue retention, and nurturing your customers through their most fragile interactions with your store. Control how and when returns get approved, optimize costs, prevent losses of returned products and retain more revenue with ease.

Key benefits:

• Retain customers through fragile interactions with your brand and optimize costs.
• Save time and automatically control how and when returns and exchanges get approved.
• Reduce refunds and negative reviews, and drive repeat purchases from happy customers.
  
  

Pricing: Paid plans start from $59/month.

Shopify Review | Mediclio

“Love that this app continues to keep customers and merchants comfort in mind. They continue to vamp up the features so that returns and exchanges process can run as smoothly as possible…”

5. PageFly Landing Page Builder

Running a successful eCommerce store requires regularly creating and optimizing landing pages that help turn traffic into revenue. With PageFly, you can drag and drop your way to high-converting landing pages that engage shoppers and grow revenue for your business.

PageFly helps bring your website pages to life with intuitive page-building features and pre-made elements that help you design your storefront how you want it. With its user-friendly interface and pre-built elements, it offers a convenient solution for new Shopify store owners looking to improve their performance.

Key benefits:

• Simple drag-and-drop landing page builders that help create pages that convert.
• Build landing pages with or without code.
• Suitable to build pages of any type and on any device.
  
  

Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans start from $24/month.

Shopify Review | The Sustainable Watch Company

“Really easy to use, similar to the Shopify page builder. Really knowledgeable, helpful support and after-sales service.”

6. Stamped Product Reviews & UGC

When a customer has a positive interaction with your brand they’re more likely to tell other people about you.

With Stamped, you can encourage customers to leave reviews after positive experiences with your brand, then use those reviews to improve your online reputation and stand out from the crowd.

Key benefits:

• Collect and showcase product reviews to build trust and transparency.
• Improve your website’s SEO and Google Shopping rankings.
• Gain deeper insights into what your customers think about your service.
• Use reviews to promote your business and drive more sales via your store.
  
  

Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans start from $25/month.

Shopify Customer Review, Seed Cycle Brand

“Stamped Product Reviews is a great app if you want a more minimalist and stylish review app. Their support and technology upgrades are great also!”

Page load speeds are everything when it comes to conversion. According to Hubspot, website conversion rates drop by an average of 4.42% which each additional second of load time. 

Booster helps your eCommerce stores prevent lost sales by making your Shopify store pages feel like they load almost instantly. With Booster, you can pre-load landing pages and increase your website performance without needing any code.

Key benefits:

• Improve your store’s load speeds on desktop and mobile.
• Reduce bounce rates and improve your chances of conversion with faster loading times.
• Pre-load landing pages in the background when a customer hovers over a website link.
  
  

Pricing: Free

Shopify Customer Review, Zael Findings

“Very friendly customer service quick to respond and if you are ever looking for a service to get a speed boost I highly recommend for you to check it out.”

8. Appstle Subscriptions

Subscription-based selling provides a consistent, predictable revenue stream from your best customers. If you're running a subscription-based business model, then Appstle Subscriptions is the perfect solution for managing orders and driving repeat purchases.

The app makes it easy to choose and manage subscriptions via the Shopify checkout page and encourages customers to spend more with personalized product offers, up-selling and product bundling. This helps increase customer engagement and provides reliable, recurring revenue.

Key benefits:

• Provide subscription plans for customers during their checkout process in Shopify.
• Allow customers to manage their subscriptions and skip, reschedule or edit deliveries.
• Drive consistent revenue from customers and up-sell personalized offers and bundles.

Pricing: Free to install. Paid plans start from $10/month.

Shopify Customer Review, Friendly Soap

“This app works like a dream. It’s really popular with our customers and the support team are very responsive and helpful. Highly recommend.”

9. Peek! Better Replay & Survey

Ever wonder why customers aren't converting on your website? If you do, then Better Replay can help. With free session recording and playback options, Better Replay allows you to observe how visitors interact with your site. 

Boasting a 4.7-star rating on the Shopify App Store, Better Replay eliminates the uncertainty of why your pages aren't converting, helping you enhance your user experience and increasing conversions.

Key benefits:

• Learn how your visitors interact with your website with session recordings.
• No more guesswork. See exactly why your landing pages aren’t converting to sales.
• Gain insights into customer behavior and improve your website conversions.

Pricing: Free. Paid plans start from $29/month.

Shopify Customer Review, Smaller Living

“I recommend gaining knowledge of what leads to a bounce rate. You can review live sessions, and it shows where you are losing customers.”

10. Easyship - All in one Shipping

Online shoppers have extremely high expectations when it comes to shipping times and order management. According to a Retail Dive study, 62% of shoppers expect to receive their shipping orders to arrive in less than 3 days. 

Easyship is an all-in-one shipping management platform that helps Shopify businesses manage their shipping operations and save time and money. The app helps customers easily compare costs and delivery times with dynamic rates during the checkout process. It helps you create a tailored shopping experience and requires little effort so you can focus on growing your business.

Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans start from $29/month.

Shopify Customer Review, Mokuyobi

“I use this app to help fulfill our orders efficiently. It has worked great in the 3+ months that I have been working where I currently am. So far I have not had any real issues with Easyship.”

So, which Shopify apps should I install?

Whether you're a new eCommerce entrepreneur or an established Shopify store owner, you'll want to take advantage of the many great apps the Shopify App Store has to offer. From all-in-one marketing solutions to shipping and customer service apps, Shopify has something for everyone.

But the truth is, there's no one-size-fits-all solution for Shopify stores. Each business is unique and faces its own set of challenges, but with the right app, you can overcome these challenges and achieve success.

Before you start your app store search, we suggest you take a moment to reflect on your business goals and needs. Ask yourself these simple questions:

1. What challenges am I facing as a Shopify business?
2. What specific tools do I need to address my problems?
3. What does my ideal state look like, and will this app help me get there?
4. Does this app have what I need, what is the cost, and am I willing to pay for it?

By answering these questions, you'll gain a clearer understanding of your business objectives, and it will become easy to choose the apps that align best with your goals.

Remember, with the right tools at your disposal, you'll be poised for success and ready to take your Shopify store to new heights. Best of luck with your app store search!

Next read: 7 Steps To A Profitable Loyalty & Rewards Program

In an analysis of over 60 million purchases, Marsello found that 25% of orders come from the top 2% of customers (2022).

While it can be tempting to focus on getting new customers, marketing to your database can be much more profitable. We call this customer marketing or loyalty marketing because it focuses on bringing back customers who already know you.

💡 Did you know? According to the Pareto Principle, 80% of your profits come from the top 20% of your customer base.

Loyalty programs are one of the most popular customer marketing tactics for several reasons.

• They only reward high-value customers. Unlike discounting, loyalty programs only offer discounts and rewards to your best customers.
• They give you valuable data and insights. Loyalty programs build a profile of your customer’s shopping behavior, in-store and online. To earn points on a purchase, customers have to identify themselves. That means you can track each sale against their unique loyalty identifier. This then adds to their profile in your database and helps you engage them with marketing.

Done correctly, a loyalty program can be one of your most important marketing tools.

7 steps to make your loyalty program profitable.

• • 1. Know your customer
    2. Make it easy to use
    3. Promote the program
    4. Personalize the program
    5. Offer exclusive rewards
    6. Keep it fresh
    7. Track success metrics
       
       

While most loyalty apps work out of the box (with some setup time), the reality is the best results come with a bit more effort.

To ensure you’re getting the most out of your loyalty program, follow these simple steps. Trust us, a small amount of planning and reporting each month or quarter will go a long way.

1. Know your customer.

Before setting up your loyalty program, look through the data and customer records you already have. What do you know about your customers? What resonates with them? Do they have any common preferences, qualities or identifiers?

Putting in a bit of work upfront to understand your customer will help you design and structure a loyalty program that resonates with them. After all, you want the program to be enticing and engaging, and ultimately, to incentivize repeat purchases.

Things you could consider:

• What age bracket are your customers in? What are their interests?
• Are they in-person shoppers, or more likely to buy online?
• What emails worked best with your database? Did any particular imagery or copy work well?
• What sales or offers generated the most sales? Can any of these past campaigns provide insights into what rewards might be most enticing?
  
  

2. Make it easy to use.

Make sure your loyalty program is user-friendly and easy to navigate so that customers will be motivated to participate. Barriers like long load times, delays in points balance updates, or a poor mobile experience will deter customers.

We know, as consumers ourselves, that if something isn’t easy, we won’t bother!

Before you invest in any particular software, do a bit of research. Read reviews, sign up for a few free trials, shop around. Make sure the app you go for has all the integrations you need as well (if you’re omnichannel, integrations with both your POS and eCommerce software is a must)!

3. Promote the program.

Once you’ve designed your program, prepare a launch campaign. Whether it’s a ‘soft’ launch or a full-scale event—make sure your customers know about it.

• Teaser campaign: Pre-launch, let people know something’s coming. Get people curious and excited for the launch date. For example, you could run contests or giveaways to generate hype.
• Soft launch: It’s okay to do a soft launch to start off, just to test everything is working. But once you’re confident, prepare a launch campaign.
• In-store promotion: Let your customers know about it in-store. Make sure staff are trained on your loyalty app and can answer basic questions about how to get set up, the tier structure, and what the benefits are for the customer.
• Full marketing launch: add a pop-up to your website, send out email campaigns to your database, and promote the program on social media. You can even run a limited-time launch offer—for example, 200 extra points for signing up in the first week.

Remember, promotion doesn’t end after launch week. Encourage new loyalty signups in-store and online on an ongoing basis (see Step 6 below).

4. Personalize the program.

<First name> merge fields in a blast email campaign are old news. Now we’re all about unique customer journeys—using triggers, automations, and even AI for targeted messaging.

To offer more tailored experiences and increase customer engagement, add some automated workflows to your loyalty program setup checklist. Birthdays, loyalty points updates, and sign-up anniversaries are all super simple to create and give a personal touch to the customer’s experience.

5. Offer exclusive rewards.

Provide exclusive rewards for higher-tier members to incentivize them to remain loyal and engage more frequently with your brand.

Be clear about your tiers and what they mean, and let people know how far away they are from advancing up the ranks.

You can also send surprise awards to delight your most loyal customers and make them feel valued.

6. Keep it fresh.

The promotion doesn’t stop after you launch the campaign! There are lots of light-touch, low-maintenance campaigns you can run to keep your loyalty program interesting.

Plus, you can talk about all the cool campaigns you’re running to non-loyalty subscribers to get that FOMO going.

The bCode launched this ‘double points’ campaign. This email had a 20% open rate and saw a 94% increase in customer’s average loyalty points spent.

Need inspiration? Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Run points campaigns: For example, you could have a double points week. These are great to run in slower sales seasons, as they incentivize loyal customers to accelerate their points growth.
• Hype the program on social media: Use social media to promote the loyalty program and engage with customers through interactive content and contests.
• Run limited-time offers: Offer special rewards for a short period of time to incentivize customers to participate in the loyalty program.
• Build up a community: Foster a sense of community among loyalty program members through events, forums, or social media groups.
• Collaborate with partners: Partner with other brands to offer joint rewards and increase the value of the loyalty program.
• Build your mobile experience: Encourage customers to save your loyalty portal to their mobile home screen, so they can access their points balance and engage with your brand on the go.
  
  

7. Track success metrics.

Remember, the purpose of loyalty programs is to increase repeat sales, average basket size, and the average value of a customer to your business.

So, what should you be tracking? Here are a few metrics you can use to see how well your loyalty program is performing over time:

• Order frequency
• Repeat purchase rate
• Average customer lifetime value

If you’re using a loyalty program app that integrates with your sales channels, you can also directly attribute sales to your loyalty program activities.

Marsello made the most sense as it offers a single loyalty program that extends to customers online and in-store.
- Hayley Greenstein, LEGO® certified stores

Marsello’s dashboard also allows you to see how your loyalty program is performing compared to all your other marketing efforts.

Don’t be afraid to make adjustments as needed, but make sure you test how these impact your results.

Are loyalty programs worth it?

Yes! Loyalty programs can boost important metrics in your business. For example, the average amount customers spend per order, the total amount they spend over time, and how often they make purchases.

But that's not all! When done right and in line with your brand, loyalty programs can also give your customers a better experience and make them feel valued.

To make sure the benefits of the program outweigh any costs, connect your loyalty program to both your physical and online stores. This way, you can see the direct impact your loyalty program has on revenue. 

Read next: A complete guide to creating effective tiered loyalty programs

Marsello: All your marketing, in one place. Drive repeat sales with a loyalty and rewards program Send email and SMS campaigns to customers Create set-and-forget marketing automations Track the direct impact of all your marketing on revenue Build a customer database

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. Pressure to offer more competitive wages will continue

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

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

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

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

2. Demand from lower-income consumers will drop

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4. Customer loyalty and a strong brand will pay off

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

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

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

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

Nathaniel Robson, Economics Lecturer

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

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

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

5. Innovative, flexible brands may see the most success

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

— Nathaniel Robson, Economics Lecturer

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

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

What does all this mean for your 2023 marketing plan?

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

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

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

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

Question 1. What is the key insight?

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

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

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

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

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

Question 3. Who will be your campaign audience?

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

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

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

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

Example:

• Loyalty members – SMS, email

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

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

• Social followers – Instagram, TikTok ads & posts

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

Manage your 2023 marketing campaigns with Marsello

All your marketing, in one place. Turn one-time shoppers into loyal customers with loyalty and rewards Send email and SMS campaigns to your customer database Create, schedule and publish social posts across Instagram, TikTok and Facebook Create set-and-forget marketing automations Plan all your campaigns in one simple marketing calendar Track the direct impact of all your marketing on revenue

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

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

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

Quick Links:

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

3 Reasons Retailers Are Opting Out Of Black Friday This Year

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

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

2. Their audience is made up of conscious consumers

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

3. Their brand values simply aren’t aligned

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

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

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

Take a position on Black Friday

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

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

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

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

Position 1: Avoid It

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

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

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

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

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

— Jamie Stott, Ecolateral

Source: Ecolateral Instagram

Position 2: Subvert It

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

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

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

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

Source: Patagonia

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

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

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

Position 3: Lean Into It

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

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

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

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

Tip #2. Get personal with segmentation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How To Use Sales Season To Acquire Lifelong Customers

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

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

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

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

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

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

For retailers, Halloween is the perfect opportunity to prime your audience for the upcoming sale and holiday season (Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas).

Here are 5 social media tips for Halloween 2023 that can help you get more conversions.

Quick Links:

• • • Encourage User-Generated Content
    • Get creative with social media posts
    • Give discounts or promo codes
    • Use UTMs to track sales and run retargeting
    • Use TikToks and Reels
    • Final words
    • Marsello: All your BCFM marketing in one place
      
      

1. Encourage User-Generated Content

User-generated content (or UGC) is one of the most powerful tools that marketers can use to drive engagement. Not only is it more authentic and relatable, but it’s also more efficient—it’s free and can generate more engagement than your own branded content.

You can encourage people to share their photos or videos, and tagging your brand. For example, competitions or challenges. Ask them open questions and play around with their answers. Feature the best or funniest answers. 

Looking for an even simpler competition? Ask your followers to tag their friends and share your contest post on their Instagram or Facebook story.

Make the most out of your social media marketing; you can use marketing automation to schedule your content strategy ahead of time. Set posts across several platforms in a single calendar or even repost good user-generated content across different platforms.

2. Get creative with social media posts

Think about your brand and what kind of content and campaigns might work best. You could include Halloween-related images with your product, or it might just make sense to offer your audience a holiday discount without adding spooky flair to your brand creative.

Halloween is the perfect holiday for Scotty’s Makeup & Beauty—who supply makeup and beauty products to the TV, film, and theatre industries.

Every year, they make the most of the promotional period with a carefully planned calendar of social posts, email campaigns, and automations. Their in-store artists are also available to guide and advise on Halloween costume make-up and products.

"Halloween is a huge selling month for us. Since using Marsello, our online sales over this period have increased dramatically as have our in-store sales – a lot of these purchases are from an average customer, not a student or pro makeup artist as well."

—Hollie, Scotty’s Makeup & Beauty

If your brand is not so closely Halloween-related, you can still run photo contests on your Facebook page and encourage users to upload images. Encourage your followers to share pictures of themselves dressed up, or their kids’ trick-or-treat costumes. In exchange for their contribution, you can share their content on your page, reward them with a discount, and ask them to share the contest on their blogs.

3. Give discounts or promo codes

A Halloween sale or discount code can be a great way to draw in new customers ahead of Black Friday / Cyber Monday. You can host a Halloween sale on your website and promote it across your email campaigns, social accounts and even SMS.

Remember: You don’t have to alter your brand to fit with Halloween theme! You can simply run promotions and add emojis in your captions for holiday flair.

4. Use UTMs to track sales and run retargeting

Track sales made across your Halloween social media posts and campaigns. The sales data you gather through UTM codes can also be used for retargeting. 

Insert UTM parameters on your sale URLs and include them in your social media bios or link in bio pages. This allows you to create custom audiences for your retargeting efforts.  

Using ads, you can retarget your website and visitors on social media. You can also see whether they make a purchase or not. In this case, the focus should be on communicating the right message to your audience and experimenting with different approaches. For example, you can vary your copy and imagery.

5. Use TikToks and Reels

Video marketing (for example, on Instagram Reels or TikTok) is a powerful social media marketing medium. It’s a great way to attract attention and engage with your target audience.  

Videos can also be an excellent medium to authentically and genuinely connect with your audience. Break down your brand’s key messages, describe individual products, add value by creating how-to content and reviews.

Your Halloween-themed videos don’t have to be complex. For example, create a how-to video that shares a fun technique for Halloween decorating. You can present your audience with several possibilities for decorating their homes or offices.

Remember: UGC content works best, so if you’re creating TikToks or Reels, keep this in mind. Create videos and ads that look like they’re made by a user, not by a brand.

Final words

Halloween is a time that allows business owners to promote products and services. You can use user-generated content, discounts, and promo codes to generate engagement. You can also generate sales from social media by using UTM codes and retargeting. 

Have you tried any of these tactics? Let us know!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quick Links:

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

Why User-Generated Content Works Best

TikTok is all about authenticity.

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

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

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

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

Let’s dive in!

Top 5 TikTok Trends To Use This Black Friday

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

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

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

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

1. Black Friday Hauls

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

Example of a Black Friday haul:

Some hashtags to add: 

#blackfridaydeals #blackfriday #haul #christmashaul #shoppinghaul

2. Deals You Need To Know About

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

Example of a deal finder:

Some hashtags to add: 

#cybermonday2022 #blackfriday2022 #blackfridaydeals #christmasgiftideas #giftguide2022

3. Unboxing Experiences

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

Example of an unboxing:

Some hashtags to add: 

 #unboxing #blackfriday #ASMR (if applicable)

4. Get Ready With Me (GRWM)

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

Example of a GRWM:

Some hashtags to add:

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

5. Come shopping with me

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

Example of a shop with me:

Some hashtags to add:

#comeshopwithme #mallshopping #shoppingaddict

Dos and Don’ts for Black Friday TikTok success

Don’t brand your videos.

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

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

Do make sure your videos are well lit.

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

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

Do get creative with transitions.

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

Do get familiar with editing apps.

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

Don’t try and tell your whole brand story.

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

Don’t use muffled audio.

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

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

Don’t spend thousands on equipment.

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

Do have fun with it!

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

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

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

Top marketing statistics for retail and hospitality businesses 👇

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

Quick Links:

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

Sales & shopping habits

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

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

Social media statistics

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

Loyalty statistics

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

Watch: Loyalty Marketing Masterclass

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

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

Segmentation statistics

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

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

SMS marketing statistics

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

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

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

Marketing automation statistics

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

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

Read more: 4 simple marketing automations for easy revenue wins 

Customer experience statistics

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

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

Referral & word-of-mouth statistics

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

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

Read more: Ways to provide incentives for customer referrals

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?
    • 5 tips for tracking sales on social media
    • Start with a plan
    • Track social media sales using a special promo code
    • Use special links and UTMs
    • Ask your customers
    • Use sales tracking tools
    • Bringing it all together
    • Marsello: All your social media marketing in one place
      
      
      

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Does your engagement convert? Learn how to find out 👇

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

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

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

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

Quick Links:

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

How do I turn engagement into revenue?

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

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

1. Use Product Tagging to drive social sales

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

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

Take advantage of every opportunity to tag a product.

2. Create a custom link in bio landing page

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

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

3. Plan campaigns and posts ahead of time

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

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

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

Here’s how you could do it differently:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How do I know what posts generate sales?

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

Get a social media analytics tool to track sales

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

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

Using a tool like this, you can see:

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

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

Include discount codes in social posts

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

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

Use UTMs to track links back to your online store

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

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

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

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

Let’s put that in simple terms:

Campaign: Social Media
Source: Facebook
Medium: Paid Ads

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Final words

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

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

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

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

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:

• • • Use data to inform your BFCM initiatives and planning
    • Iron out the BFCM promotions you’ll be running
    • Create compelling images
    • Use a calendar to track and schedule your BFCM content
    • Keep your marketing collateral organized
    • Keep your BFCM initiatives consistent across all platforms
    • Leverage built-in social selling features
    • Final words
    • Marsello: All your BCFM marketing in one place
      
      
      

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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:

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:.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Quick Links:

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

Run pre-Black Friday sales

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

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

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

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

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

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

Segment your database for personalized deals

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

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

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

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

Add urgency with a countdown timer

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

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

Leverage the 98% deliverability of SMS

Did you know…

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

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

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

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

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

Send product recommendations with a discount code

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

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

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

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

Run VIP offers to your existing customers

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

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

Set up automated Abandoned Cart reminders

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

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

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

Last but not least, build your customer database!

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

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

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

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

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

“I didn’t have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote you a long one” - Mark Twain

Apparently, Mark Twain hadn’t heard of pre-built SMS templates, something we’ve just added to Marsello alongside the automations template library, emojis, merge tags for SMS, and to make your SMS marketing go even further cut SMS rates by up to 50% on some pricing plans.  

Here's what's new in SMS:

We’ve cut SMS rates by 50%*, doubling SMS credits across some plans

We’ve cut SMS rates by up to 50%* on some pricing plans, starting from our base $25/month plan. That means some plans will receive more than double the SMS credits per dollar.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quick Links:

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

How can my business thrive through a recession?

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. Future-proof with technology

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. Double down on smart marketing

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

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

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

However, your marketing does need to get smarter.

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. Build relationships with your customers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Key takeaways:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quick Links:

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

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

– Daniel Pantaleo, Pinjarra Bakery

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

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

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

2 things you must understand before you try SMS

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

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

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

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

The best SMS campaigns we’ve seen yet

Hospitality: Pinjarra Bakery

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

Simple right? 

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

Here’s why it worked:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Retail: Scott Home Delivery

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

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

Both of these campaigns follow a tried and true formula:

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

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

Is SMS right for my business or industry?

Hospitality

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

Retail 

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

Grocery

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

Healthcare & Pharmacy

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

Some SMS campaign ideas to get you started

1. Send a Personalized ‘Welcome’ Message

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

2. Send Time-Sensitive Abandoned Cart Reminders

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

3. Deliver VIP Offers

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

4. Run Customer Feedback Campaigns

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

Give your SMS campaigns new life with Marsello

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quick Links:

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

1. Welcome new customers

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

Example: Federation

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

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

Example: Taco Medic

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

How it works:

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

Further reading: Delight customers with WhatsApp automations

2. Bring back lost customers

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

Example: Pinjarra Bakery

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

How it works:

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

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

3. Abandoned cart notifications

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

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

Example: Brandini Toffee

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

How it works:

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

Example: Ozzie Collectables

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

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

How it works:

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

4. Automated birthday offers

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

Example: Our Bralette Club

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

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

How it works:

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

For hospitality businesses:

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

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

How to drive repeat purchases and increase revenue with marketing automation

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

Here are a few tips:

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

Marsello: Automations made even easier.

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

Using our tools, you can…

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quick Links:

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

Here’s why hospitality businesses should collect customer details.

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

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

1. Segmentation

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

2. Automation

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

3. Testing & Measuring

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

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

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

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

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

SMS registration at point-of-sale

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

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

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

Complete customer account (via SMS automation)

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

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

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

Registration QR codes

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

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

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

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

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

In-store customer portal

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

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

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

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

Watch the demo video

Want to try these features out?

For now, these features are available to…

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

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

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

What does it feel like to be a loyal customer?

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

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

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

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

Quick Links:

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

Are loyalty programs worth it for hospitality businesses?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Loyalty is just one part of your broader marketing strategy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now that’s closing the loop. 

Looking for a way to increase revenue and reward your loyalty program customers? Referral program incentives are the answer! 

A referral program, also known as an affiliate program, encourages existing customers to share your brand with their friends in exchange for loyalty points or rewards. They work because people are as much as 4x more likely to make a purchase when referred by a friend. 

Keep reading to find out how a referral program works, why they are so effective, and the steps you need to take to successfully run a referral program in your own business.

Quick Links:

• • • How does a referral program work
    • Why is it important to choose referral incentives
    • 3 steps to choosing your rewards incentives
    • Creating demand for your referral program
    • Examples of successful referral programs from existing brands
    • Final words

How does a referral program work

Retail referral programs reward existing loyal customers for bringing new customers to your brand. 

They work by incentivizing existing customers to tell their friends about your business by offering them points, discounts, or other rewards in return. Referral rewards programs also make the ‘KnowLike Trust’ (KLT) factor easier because loyal customers reduce barriers on your behalf and their positive relationships with your store and subsequent promotion of it help their referred friends to feel confident and inclined to shop.

If you set it up correctly, it is a win-win-win strategy for growing your business.

Firstly, your existing loyal customers see instant benefits because when they refer new customers, those referred shoppers use a unique customer code tied to your original customer. In return for each successful referral (tracked by their unique customer code) they receive tangible rewards. 

Secondly, the new customers reap the rewards. They receive rewards or discounts for their purchase, as well as a good retail recommendation from someone they know and trust. 

Lastly, your business sees huge growth in revenue and in customer loyalty. Did you know that referred customers are actually much more likely to stick around too? Let’s dive into why referral marketing is an important addition to your marketing strategy.

Why is it important to choose referral incentives

Customer referral programs are one of the best forms of marketing you can run. The numbers speak for themselves:

• • • Customers acquired through referral programs have a 37% higher retention rate.
    • In general, referred customers increase profits by about 16%.
    • Referral programs mean that loyal customers are marketing your brand for you – 83% of customers trust recommendations from people they know. 
    • 65% of a company’s revenue comes from existing customers, so incentivizing loyal customers will always be beneficial to your bottom line. 

Not only this, but a referral program also encourages new customers to sign up. This means that instead of losing potential sales, you can target your marketing and follow up on abandoned carts to increase conversions. 

Creating a rewards program is worth the investment!

3 steps to choosing your rewards incentives

No matter what referral incentives you choose, there is one question to keep in mind: “are we giving our customers the best possible experience?”

Yes, you benefit greatly from referred customers (they have a lifetime value of about 25% more than other customers). However, your referral incentives should always have the customer experience at the center.  

Whether your incentive structure rewards existing customers, new customers, or both, this step-by-step guide will show you which structure is best for your brand.  

• • • Step 1: Choose the right incentive structure 
    • Step 2: Choose the type of reward you want to give 
    • Step 3: Set the terms and conditions of your referral program. 
      
      

Step 1: Choose the right incentive structure

Your incentive structure will depend on your business and customer experience goals. 

Integrated loyalty programs are one of the easiest ways to set up referral incentives. This allows for several different referral programs: 

• • 1. Incentives for your existing customers (one-sided incentive)
    2. Incentives for the new customer when they sign up (one-sided incentive)
    3. Incentives for both existing and new customers (two-sided incentives)

Let's explore these in a little more detail:

1. One-sided incentives for existing customers

The first incentive structure is rewarding the customer that refers people to you. 

Rewarding your existing loyal customers is always a successful marketing strategy. With a loyalty points program, you can easily award customers points when they refer friends to your brand. 

For example, Bulo Shoes’ loyalty program lets customers earn points even when they’re not making a purchase. Customers are encouraged to share Bulo’s channels on social media, complete their profile and follow Bulo on social media so they can earn points that they can spend in-store.

2. One-sided incentives for the new customer

You could also set up a one-sided incentive that rewards the new customer. 

This could look like:

• • • A discount for their first purchase
    • Automatically earning points when they sign up to your loyalty club 
    • A free shipping discount for first purchases only 

As a referral program, this might look like giving loyal customers discount codes to share with their friends. For example, you could let people share a code for free shipping on their first purchase with you.

One-sided incentives might work for extremely loyal customers, however, it will always work best when you reward existing customers for their efforts. This particular structure works better with influencers who are already receiving incentives in other ways (e.g. Use Code AMANDA10 for 10% off).

3. Two-sided referral incentives: rewarding both customers

Rewarding both customers is the best option for optimum referral program results. This is the standard program for Marsello referral programs. 

In this setup, you reward your existing customers for bringing in referrals, as well as making a great first impression on your new customers. This strategy is win-win-win.

Step 2: Choose the type of reward you want to give

Now that you know who you are rewarding, you need to choose what you are going to offer them. 

The best referral incentives both encourage existing customers to rave about your brand as well as boost your sales and brand image. 

1. Discounts

When an existing customer refers a new person, sweeten the deal by offering a referral discount off their first purchase. This gives them a positive first experience and lets them try out your brand without committing at full price. 

An example of a referral discount is the successful jewelry and women’s wear brand, Katie Waltman. They have a two-sided incentive structure. 

The team at Katie Waltman has not only boosted customer retention with their generous loyalty program, but they've also added a referral program for their customers. The referred friend is incentivized with 10% off their first order and the existing customer earns 200 points when their referred friend makes their first purchase. 

As a result of their creative loyalty program marketing, Katie Waltman has seen 100% customer engagement rate with their omnichannel loyalty program, and a 75% reward redemption rate!

2. Cash / Cash-back

Another referral award is a cash-back program. This more closely resembles an affiliate or commission program than a loyalty rewards program. 

In this setup, customers get a cash reward or percentage of the new customer’s purchase. For example, customers could get $5 every time someone uses their unique code for a purchase of $30 or more. 

For an effective cash-back program, you need to make sure that the minimum purchase amount is more than the cash-back reward. 

Take another look at Katie Waltman’s loyalty program!

The KW loyalty offering includes a “5% back on all purchases for creating an account.” With an offer like this, Katie Waltman not only incentivizes customers to join their loyalty program, they really make it worth the customer’s journey from window shopper to a loyal customer. 

3. Store credit

Earning store credit or loyalty points is a great way to reward customer referrals. That way loyal customers can enjoy your brand even more, and money keeps coming back into your business. 

NZ streetwear brand, Federation +, is a great example of using customer referrals to earn store points. 

With a customer referral program in place, Federation + encourages their current customers to refer friends and earn loyalty points as they do so. This way, the brand grows their customer database, while also improving customer loyalty. 

4. Gift cards

Gift card rewards are similar to store credit incentives. 

A study from First Data shows that on average, U.S. consumers spend around $59 more than the value of a gift card. You could give gift cards to either the new customer,  your existing customer (as a referral reward), or both!  

Combined with a loyalty program, automatic upselling, and investment in customer experience, gift card rewards can be an effective way to boost your average cart value (as well as rewarding referrals). 

6. Free subscription period

Offering a free or reduced subscription lets new customers “try before they buy”. This is most effective for businesses that have a long-lifetime or recurring product. Crealunch is a good example, where customers would be buying meals on an ongoing basis. 

Once they have crossed the threshold, your automatic email marketing can step in and keep them convinced! 

Step 3: Set the conditions for your referral program

The last step for effectively incentivizing referrals is to establish parameters. You don’t want to accidentally encourage referral program abuse or suddenly be out of pocket! 

Posting referral program terms and conditions clearly will mean you get the sales benefits without the headaches. 

Here are some questions to ask yourself when setting conditions.

When will the referral reward be given? 

Decide on a timeframe for giving out rewards. This might look different depending on what reward type you choose. 

Here are a few things to consider: 

• • • Do new customers automatically get a discount or only after they sign up? 
    • For cashback, do they get it immediately after the purchase has been made or each month? 
    • Do existing customers only get rewards when friends actually make a purchase?
    • Is there a time limit on the discount code once new customers sign up? 

Thinking about these conditions early on will mean you make money from referrals rather than lose it. 

Should you use a tiered reward structure? 

A tiered reward program is a customer incentive strategy that rewards people the more they spend. 

Consumers who engage with high-performing loyalty programs are 78% more likely to spend a premium. So the more you reward people, the more loyal they will be!

A referral program rewards your most loyal customers for advocating on your behalf. If you use a tiered reward structure, your referrals could increase as customers move up the levels. A tiered system gives more rewards to people higher up to encourage loyalty and higher spending.

Let's look again at modern streetwear brand Federation +. Their loyalty program features three loyalty tiers: silver, gold, and platinum. With an 88% reward redemption rate and 20% repeat purchase rate, it’s no wonder that they have seen almost a 10% revenue boost from loyalty marketing alone.

Creating demand for your referral program 

You don’t need to reinvent the wheel to have a successful reward program. Marsello customers see the best results when they keep it simple! However, there are a few things you can do to make your referral program incentives more desirable or effective.

• • • Create scarcity: Add a limited timeframe for coupons. This creates scarcity and encourages people to spend now
    • Reward loyal customers: If you are a new brand you might consider offering a slightly bigger reward for your existing customers to increase loyalty. For example, if sign-ups receive 20 points, you could make referrals 25 points
    • Run a seasonal campaign: To give your referral program a boost you could give double points for a limited time 
    • Create multiple referrals: instead of giving out store points, you could give people free gifts after a certain number of referrals
    • Make an ambassador program: This is like a loyalty program except exclusively for referrals. This lets your most loyal customers feel like they are “in the club” and are rewarded with raving about you 

Examples of successful referral programs from existing brands

Still not convinced that a referral rewards program is the way to boost sales and build customer loyalty on autopilot? Take a look at these examples of successful referral programs and how simple they can be! 

Merrell NZ

Merrell NZ is a footwear brand that helps people get into the great outdoors. Their loyalty program has a 15% repeat purchase rate and an average purchase frequency of 3.5x, showing that Merrell NZ’s customers are already proven loyal regulars. Customers can earn 100 points to spend in-store when they refer a friend.

Smack Bang 

Smack Bang is a New Zealand-based merchant that specializes in locally-made pet accessories, gifts, and treats. The gorgeous pet boutique also has a lovely loyalty program that’s paying dividends; these loyalty initiatives have generated a 100% loyalty engagement rate, and a reward redemption rate of 38%. Using their adorable, branded widget, customers can earn 10 points when they refer a friend which they can see immediately on their dashboard. 

Carolina Lifestyle 

Carolina Lifestyle also rewards customers who successfully refer their friends. Members get 100 points (equivalent to $10) for every successful referral – and those customers immediately get $20 simply by joining!

All these initiatives, combined with Carolina Lifestyle’s exquisite and unique products, help to ensure that shoppers keep coming back. And it works – the company’s average customer lifetime value (CLV) is $716.94, and about a third of Carolina Lifestyle's customers return to shop again within two months.

CROSBY by Mollie Burch 

CROSBY by Mollie Burch is an eclectic, modern fashion brand. Their loyalty program, The Crosby Collectors, lets customers earn Pink Points. Their referral program is a good example of setting conditions for rewards. For example, customers receive points for referring a friend which can then be spent in store on orders over a certain amount.

Final words

Offering your new and loyal customers referral program incentives is a win-win-win sales strategy. Whether you are offering limited-time discounts, points to spend in-store, or other fun freebies, a referral program is sure to keep your customers (and bank accounts) happy.

Customer advocacy starts by creating a rewarding and engaging experience no matter how your customers choose to shop. Marsello makes it easy to launch a bespoke loyalty and referral program that is proven to increase customer lifetime value and maximize ROI.

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?
    • Why do Google Reviews matter?
    • How can retailers collect Google reviews?
    • The right way to request a Google Review
    • How should retailers respond to positive and negative reviews?
    • Final words

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?

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?