7 Ways to Improve Promotional Campaign ROI
It used to be easy to know your customers and to reach them. They read your print ads, opened your mail and browsed your catalog. It's different today. Retailers face new challenges in dealing with the many online channels to reach customers and prospects.
While it's difficult for small and midsized retailers to reach their intended audience, there are also numerous opportunities. Before you embark on your next promotional campaign, consider the following steps to ensure you get the most bang for your buck:
1. Connect to your best customers. It's crucial to understand your customers’ purchasing habits and to tailor promotional campaigns accordingly. Identify customer profiles and behavior traits to target in promotional campaigns, including the following:
- loyal customers: These are your most valuable customers. You need to communicate with them on a regular basis. They're the group that looks forward to each new catalog.
- value customers: This group needs more than just a catalog, they need incentives for purchasing.
- discount or impulse shoppers: These consumers tend to rely on social reviews, ratings and likes/shares on sites such as Pinterest.
2. Boost revenues. If you're like most retailers, you're increasingly using multiple selling channels to reach your audience. An order management system is crucial for knowing what's in your inventory and available for sale, when it can be sold, and in what quantity. An order management system helps to generate lists for targeted promotions and enables you to process more orders with less staff.
3. Improve customer retention. With blog posts and product reviews, a small number of unhappy customers can have a disproportionately adverse effect on your brand. Make sure you can access specific customer information quickly for efficient customer service. The more you know and the smarter you sound, the more satisfied the customer will be — no matter the answer to their question.
4. Reinforce brand loyalty. What are you giving back to your loyal customers to show you care about them? Customers that are treated well will become loyal customers, even when prices fluctuate and products change. Invest in tailored loyalty programs because the payouts can be immeasurable.
5. Reduce shopping cart abandonment. An increasing number of shoppers are abandoning their shopping carts before completing a transaction. One easy way to prevent this is to offer free shipping, but only with specific parameters.
6. Get noticed. The internet should be used to level the playing field. Leverage search engine optimization techniques to make sure your brand is seen and heard.
7. You need promotions to compete. The bottom line is that your competitors are using promotions to do all of the above. You have the opportunity to be doing it smarter and faster, so why wait?
Design promotions that are consistent with and enhance your brand's image. Take time to review the success or failure of each promotion to determine the value and focus of future promotions. Be specific and personal — it can make all the difference.
Fred Lizza is the CEO of Dydacomp, a provider of business technology platforms for small and midsized e-commerce and multichannel merchants. Fred can be reached at fred.l@dydacomp.com.
