It may feel early to be thinking about holiday planning, especially if you have other big shopping events in your near future. But many retailers are starting to double down and plan early for the year-end holidays to put in place the best strategy that will win over their customers and prospective buyers.
When thinking about year-end holidays, your mind may go straight to Black Friday and Cyber Monday. These shopping days have become synonymous with the month of November. And because of the propensity for shoppers to browse and purchase online during these holidays, it’s also pushed many retailers to focus on creating (or improving) their online strategy.
Ensuring your website is in top shape for big shopping days is increasingly important, but it shouldn’t be the only channel you put your efforts behind. With many holiday shoppers switching between several channels before purchasing, having an omnichannel approach is more important than ever.
Not only that, but for retailers to be successful, they need an omnichannel approach that speaks to each customer as an individual. Why? Because more and more consumers are demanding a personalized and unique experience from brands to continue buying from them.
In this article, we’ll break down how marketers can create a cohesive and personalized omnichannel shopping experience for the year-end holiday season.
Personalization Is All about the Customer
When planning out a strategy, it’s important to remember why you’re doing any of this in the first place. Earning and retaining customers is the sole purpose of our role in an organization. Marketing to customers is all about creating an experience that delights them to the point of purchase. But even more than that, we need to keep them engaged enough to continue to purchase from our brand.
As marketers, we have to step back and realize that in order to do that, we have to rethink our strategies. When planning an omnichannel strategy, it can’t be about fitting customers into certain channels; it has to be about tailoring our channels and strategies to each individual customer.
Personalizing the Omnichannel Experience
As mentioned above, consumers are demanding personalized marketing experiences. The more data marketers are collecting, the more fuel you have to create a truly individualized experience for shoppers. Messages and product recommendations should be personalized. And in most cases, even incentives to purchase should be created and deployed on a one-to-one basis.
In short, marketing must be personalized, and personalization should be all about the individual consumer. But why then do we create omnichannel experiences that lead customers through a flat, one-size-fits-all lifecycle?
We can’t assume that every customer purchases in-store, gives us their email, and then purchases online after that. Customers find brands in several ways, and no two customers’ paths to brand loyalty are the same.
In fact, a study from Harvard Business Review of 46,000 shoppers showed that 73% shopped using multiple channels and those shoppers enjoyed using multiple touchpoints from retailers.
Below are examples of different touchpoints customers can have with your brand throughout their customer lifecycle. As you can see, there are several different touchpoints that intertwine between channels, and there are numerous customer journey possibilities. And for customers, if they’re switching between touchpoints and channels and have a bad experience, they’re less likely to purchase from you in the future.
Allow Customers to Easily Move Between Channels
For customers who regularly shop on a certain channel, they probably bounce between touchpoints and channels. The problem is that they’re probably also bouncing between your brand and your competitors. This is especially true for brands who lack a seamless (and easy-to-navigate) omnichannel experience.
Because of this, it’s incredibly important to ensure your omnichannel strategy allows customers to easily navigate between all your channels.
On every channel, make sure you include links and CTAs that also point customers to different channels. It’s important to give customers the option to visit you on other channels, and by including these links in your marketing messages, you have better control over the experience a customer has when navigating to a new channel.
Related Content: How to Use Omnichannel Marketing to Improve the Customer Journey
For some marketers, asking engaged users to opt-in to or just visit other channels may seem pushy, but because customers are already shifting between channels, you must give them opportunities to easily access your channels instead of a competitor’s. This allows your customers to follow their own lifecycle journey and enables you to support each customer as an individual. One of the best ways to do this is to create a strategy that leads with personalization.
After creating an experience that allows customers to easily move through your omnichannel offering at their own pace, you need to create a personalization strategy for each channel.
Personalization Channel by Channel
So how can you set up your channels to create the best possible experience for your customers? Let’s break down how you can add personalization throughout the customer experience on each channel.
In-store
As digital marketers, it may not occur to us to think of in-store first when it comes to creating an omnichannel strategy. But for customers, in-store still matters, and 22% of consumers say that physical shops were their most common source of initial product awareness, meaning customers are discovering products in-store before any other channel. And remember, this is more about the customer than your desired strategy.
Collect data in-store
Whether at the point-of-sale or during the browsing process, make sure to collect data on your customers now. Start by getting an email address and asking if they’d like to receive promotions on products they like and sales. From there, each time a customer visits or makes a purchase in-store, continue collecting additional information and asking them if they’d like to opt-in to other channel communication. Getting customer data (and opt-ins) ahead of the holidays is half the battle. Once you have that information, you can start learning more about their preferences and make sure you provide personalized communications come holiday time.
Offer free in-store pickup
In today’s omnichannel world, more and more stores are offering free in-store pickup to customers. For many consumers, the cost of shipping and the time it takes for delivery are some of the biggest deterrents from online shopping. If you can offer free in-store pickup, you give customers the chance to purchase from you on another channel and physically bring them into your store, where they might be interested in other products. This will be crucial for customers who drag their feet to shop — last-minute purchases (on Super Saturday) still account for a large amount of dollars spent in the holiday season.
Offer free shipping for out of stock items
For many retail brands, in-store availability of certain products may be limited. But if a customer comes in to purchase an item and you have it available online, consider ordering and shipping the product to the customer for free. Not only are you getting that purchase, but you’re also offering an incredible customer service experience that will encourage them to come back to your brand in the future.
By offering these cross-channel experiences and delivering exceptional customer service, you’re setting yourself up for success when it comes to converting in-store shoppers to online shoppers.
Website
Consider your website as your home base for all online channels. Wherever a shopper finds you (on Google, on a social media site, etc.), all roads should lead back to your website. After all, it’s the number one channel for online conversions. But outside of just making your website similar in look and feel to your other channels, you want to make sure to create a personalized website experience for each individual customer.
Collect customer data
Once again, collecting customer data will be the key to providing a personalized experience for customers. Even before you capture their data, cookies collect browsing history for customers. So, once you get an email address from a customer, her profile will backfill with any browsing history, giving you a more complete picture of who she is. Being able to understand more about your customer before the holiday season will be crucial for creating targeted and purposeful holiday messages.
Add product recommendation widgets
Your website should be all about converting browsers to customers. What better way to do that than to feed potential buyers with products they’ve browsed before or left in their cart? You can also create widgets that recommend products based on customer behavior. For example, if they were looking at a certain travel accessory bag on your site, recommend similar styles to them to entice a click and ultimately a purchase.
Include customer reviews
Many consumers visit several competing websites when shopping for a product. They want to compare prices, and they want to compare reviews. As consumers, we trust family, friends, and other shoppers before we trust a brand. Make research and comparison easy for your customers by including reviews of products on each page. You can also feature customer-generated content on product pages (or any page) that shows your real customers enjoying your products. Not only does this show your brand really loves your customers, but it also shows that customers love your brand.
Related Content: 3 Powerful Website Personalization Examples That Will Instantly Boost Conversions
If email is the primary way a customer hears from you, it’s important to make sure your brand is communicating with that customer in a way that makes them feel unique and understood. Launching one-size-fits-all marketing campaigns will never be the way to lead customers through the buying lifecycle. Instead, focus on customizable emails that focus on the individual customer’s behavior. This level of personalization will keep you top of mind during the holidays.
Include personalized product recommendations
In any email, it’s important to personalize when you can. And we don’t mean adding a contact’s first name to the email. Personalization today goes far beyond that. In addition to contact details, use browsing and purchase behavior to include recommended products in every email. Products that are related or similar to a past purchase (or browse session) will show customers you’ve taken the time to get to know their interests.
Personalize triggered emails based on behavior
Triggered emails, like browse abandon and abandoned cart, are very popular among marketers. After all, they offer a second chance for users to click through and purchase, and these types of email are fairly easy to implement. But for many marketers, they miss the point of why carts are abandoned in the first place. Customers often are bouncing between competitor sites and looking for the best deal. Use past customer behavior to include an incentive to drive a conversion. Did the customer use a free shipping code on their last visit? Consider throwing in free shipping to see if that will bring them back to your product page and purchase.
Mobile and Push Notifications
Over the past two years, mobile apps have become a critical way for customers to interact with brands, especially during late November and December. Consumers who regularly use retail apps have grown accustomed to helpful features built into the app, like in-app messaging. Mobile marketing can be a powerful tool you’ll want to start using before the year-end holiday events.
Ask users to opt-in to push messages
If customers download your app, it’s important to make sure they opt-in to push notifications. These messages can be the most lucrative for retail apps. When customers sign in to your new app, give them directions on how to opt-in on their mobile device to ensure they never miss an important sale or new product. This allows you to get the opt-in before you start pushing holiday sales.
Use push notifications wisely
Just because apps and in-app messaging are increasingly popular, that doesn’t mean you should abuse the power. Just like emails, too many messages can cause fatigue for customers. Make sure your notifications are personalized and purposeful. Again, sending a one-size-fits-all message constantly to your users will make your brand seem like you don’t understand them at all. Create personalized campaigns that send messages about certain products and promotions that are in line with each customers’ behavior.
SMS
While SMS marketing messages have a staggering 98% open rate, not all opens will result in a purchase. But that doesn’t mean they won’t convert – 29% of targeted customers will respond to text messages, and 47% of those responders go on to make a purchase.
Optimize send times for individuals
Not all of your contacts are in the same time zone, meaning you shouldn’t send messages to your entire list at the same time. Beyond time zone considerations, each individual also has a unique time when they are most likely to respond to your messages. Use A/B testing to identify the best time to reach each customer and give them a personalized experience while also giving your brand a better chance for a conversion.
Use targeted and personalized offers
Once again, creating messages and campaigns based on user behavior will make you stand out among your competitors. Rather than sending mass SMS texts, send segmented, individualized messages based on past purchases, browsing, and interests.
Digital Advertising
Digital advertising no longer means just bidding on keywords on Google. For retailers, social media sites like Facebook and Instagram have opened up an entirely new way to reach customers. Not only that, but brands can now target customers using ads on other sites, making it easier to follow your customer around when they are researching products and just browsing the internet.
Retarget based on customer data
The best way to create a personalized experience that sets up your brand for success during the holidays is to use customer data to influence which ads they see. Retargeting ads use data to show products that a customer recently browsed or added to a cart on different sites they’ve visited. This shows customers that your brand knows what they like — it also shows you’re willing to meet them where they are in their buying process.
Source: Madewell
Use behavior to trigger the ads
Create ads that are triggered based on certain events. Did a customer browse a few items and then leave without doing anything? Or did they put something in their cart and leave the site without purchase? Use these events to trigger retargeting ads specific to the behaviors your customers are exhibiting. Just like abandoned cart and browse abandon emails, these ads will keep your brand top of mind for customers during the holidays.
Social Media
Social media continues to be a big influencer on online and offline purchases, but it’s also one of the public faces of your brand and goes a long way toward establishing a positive relationship with your audience.
Monitor sentiment of your brand
Customers are far more interested in hearing what other customers have to say about your brand than they are in hearing what you think about your brand. As mentioned before, customers jump between channels looking for competitor prices and overall reviews of products and brands. Make sure you keep a handle on what customers are saying about your brand on social media. If a customer has a bad experience (or a good one), a brand reaching out and addressing the situation goes a long way with customers. You don’t want one bad review to turn into several because you didn’t reach out, especially during the holidays.
Interact with your customers
Outside of ads, personalizing social media for individual customers at scale may seem rather difficult. But what if you monitored and interacted with your customers? Even more than that, what if you used social media to reward your best customers by sharing their experiences? During the holidays, customers look for more than just pricing; they look for a brand who gives them a great experience. By interacting with your customers and rewarding their loyalty publicly, you’re showing how much your customers mean to you and creating a positive sentiment among your audience.
Final Thoughts
With the holidays quickly approaching, marketers must step back and rethink their strategy if they want to stand out from the competition. Putting the customer first means re-evaluating not only your omnichannel marketing strategy, but also how your customer fits into the mix. Because customers shift between channels and every customer journey is different, your strategy needs to be equipped to handle the omnichannel holiday shopper. By adding personalization to each channel and enabling customers to move through your channels seamlessly, you’ll create an unbeatable customer experience that will build loyal customers who will keep coming back even after the holiday dust has settled.
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Mário Costa is Head of Technical Client Services at Emarsys where he focuses on web development, PHP, web servers admin, web design, and tech support. He has been with the company since 2013, and is lives and works in Reading, UK.
Kath Pay is the Head Consultant at Holistic Email Marketing. Kath lives and breathes email marketing. She is not only a world-renowned speaker and trainer but also practises her art with her consultancy, Holistic Email Marketing, where she is Founder and CEO. Many years ago she coined the phrase Holistic Email Marketing, practising this approach within her consultancy and teaching it to her students and clients. She is one of the World’s Top 50 Email Marketing Influencers (Vocus, 2014).
Cameron Halcomb is a Customer Experience Consultant at Emarsys. She works with global brands to help them engage with their customers through cutting-edge technology and customer-centric strategies.
Dennis Dayman, CIPP/US, CIPP/E, CIPT, FIP is Chief Privacy and Security Officer at 
