Aparna Gray – Dotdigital https://dotdigital.com Thu, 19 Oct 2023 08:16:48 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.3.2 https://mkr1en1mksitesap.blob.core.windows.net/staging/2021/11/favicon-61950c71180a3.png Aparna Gray – Dotdigital https://dotdigital.com 32 32 How retailers can effectively use customer data https://dotdigital.com/blog/how-retailers-can-effectively-use-customer-data/ Thu, 16 Mar 2023 22:00:00 +0000 https://dotdigital.com/?p=52074 According to a 2018 PwC report, customer experience has become the holy grail for retailers. The good news is that today’s buyers are willing to pay up to 16% more for a customized shopping experience. The bad news? Around 17% of them will dump a brand after just one negative experience and 59% won’t return if you disappoint them more than once. Ouch.

Customers expect a seamless, personalized retail experience and a hassle-free shopping journey, which is a tough task for retailers when customer needs and preferences are so individual. As a retailer, how do you know your customers and make them feel seen, heard, and loved? How do you use what you know about them to create personalized shopping experiences (online and instore), that make them love you back and keep buying?

The answers lie in your customer data and how effectively you use it.

The value of customer data

You might already be collecting data about customers and their purchasing decisions, preferences, behaviors, demographics, and experiences. Perhaps you’re tracking website visits and clicks, analyzing social media interactions, monitoring customer reviews, or recording purchase history. Your email campaigns and the way customers respond to them are a virtual treasure trove of information about the styles, promotions, language, or content that make customers come back to your stores (or your website) to browse and buy.

But if that data is fragmented, inaccurate, incomplete, or siloed across channels and systems, it won’t be of much value. A Customer Data and Experience Platform (CDXP) can help reveal the secrets, enabling you to improve customer engagement and drive sales.

How to identify your best customers

You’ve probably heard of the Pareto principle, otherwise known as the 80:20 rule. At Lexer, we often see brands surprised to learn their top 20% of customers drive 70-80% of sales. Focusing on customer loyalty is incredibly important for the long-term success of your brand.

If you’re unable to get a complete and clear picture of who your customers are, you might be spreading yourself thin wooing all your shoppers, when you could be really delighting the most lucrative ones. You may end up spending valuable time, money and resources trying to attract and keep low-value shoppers and miss opportunities to show your ‘big spenders’ some love.

By thinking beyond the demographics of your overall customer base and, instead, optimizing your marketing efforts to focus on only acquiring customers like the top 20%, you can not only reduce acquisition costs, but also gain more valuable customers with longer-term potential for your business.

Here are 4 key steps to help customer acquisition using data analytics.

1. Identify your hero products for customer acquisition.

Some products are better than others for attracting new, long-term customers. By identifying the products that your customers most frequently purchase first, you can gain a better understanding of what attracts your ideal first-time buyers.

2. Select your highest value customer audiences for each hero product.

Now you know the product categories that most commonly acquire high-value customers. You also know that a small number of customers make up a large amount of your revenue. The next step is to analyze the customers who’ve purchased your targeted acquisition products and build lookalike audiences around their profiles. First, build a segmented list of all purchasers of a target category. Then, layer on additional variables to improve the audience’s quality and value.

3. Build high-value lookalike audiences from your high-value customer segments.

Building multiple lookalike audiences at increasing sizes (e.g. 1%, 1-2% and 2-5%) can provide valuable insight into the size of your addressable market and how efficiently you can acquire market share.

4. Target each high-value lookalike audience with ad creative for the product they were built around.

Keep each audience in separate ad sets so you can evaluate each one’s relative performance. Be sure to experiment with different placements and ad units by creating a separate ad set for each variant and audience combination in the campaign. Including multiple ads under each ad set can also provide you with valuable insights.

Closing the gap between data and customer experiences

When fashion retailer THE ICONIC needed a better understanding of its customers, the company turned to Lexer and its partnership with Amazon Redshift. Connecting CRM and ecommerce data from Amazon Redshift to Lexer’s CDXP enabled continuous real-time updates to millions of customer identities in the platform. This data, further enriched with valuable demographic information, quickly generated meaningful and usable customer insights for the retailer.

THE ICONIC’s then Chief Marketing Officer, Alexander Meyer, said the partnership has been a win for customer satisfaction and understanding. “Our customers are at the heart of everything we do and having a more holistic understanding on how, why and when they are shopping with us enables us to not only better serve their needs but increase our customer satisfaction as a whole.”

Similarly, TGV Cinemas, the cinema destination of choice in Malaysia, desired a CDXP solution that utilized enriched, segmented customer insights while enabling the team to quickly and accurately make decisions for furthering their goals, based on their high-volume, fast-paced business model.

The TGV team implemented Lexer, met a three-month live deadline and accomplished key business goals:
● Customer data was housed in one simple, accessible interface for all teams, helping remove the IT bottleneck. Data was enriched with relevant attributes about customers, including days between cinema visits, preferred cinema location, and the language of the last film seen.
● There was increased transparency regarding customer motivations to join member programs and sequential experiences, helping drive visitation for various segments.
● Personalized and automated marketing campaigns were executed within 30 minutes, down from 2-4 days.
● Business strategies enabled by KPIs were built around accessible data points and quality insights, rather than assumptions.

The importance of a single customer view

A single customer view—or unified, cleansed, and standardized customer profiles—are created by aggregating multiple sources of data and reorganizing that data to paint a comprehensive picture of each individual customer within a CDXP. In other words, it acts as a “single source of truth” for all the customer information to which your business has access to, including:

● Demographic information
● Purchase history in all offline and online channels
● Customer service interactions
● Web and mobile browsing activities
● Email engagement

Unlike traditional, channel-focused data management systems, a CDXP reorganizes data to support a customer-centric business model, provides every team with the ability to self-serve customer insights based on that data, and improves the quality of existing data as well as data collection methods for the future.

This information is sourced from direct integrations with ecommerce systems, point-of-sale systems, email marketing and marketing automation platforms, like Dotdigital or other retail systems, and through batch file uploads and flexible APIs.

For example, when leading Australian men’s footwear brand, Aquila needed to determine how paid social ads were impacting in-store purchases, they enlisted the help of Lexer and digital performance agency, DataSauce. By utilizing their enriched single customer view from Lexer’s CDXP and a Facebook Offline Conversions API, Aquila was able to see exactly how and which online social ads were driving purchasing decisions in stores. Armed with these insights the Aquila team was able to confidently double down on their social media marketing strategy.

Final thoughts

At Lexer we believe great brands are built on great customer experiences. It’s important for retailers to be able to utilize customer data and work with technologies that help ensure it is available to every team across the organization. Not only will this help inform customer insight and engagement but will also drive incremental sales. Lexer is the leading CDXP for retail tech stacks and a strategic Dotdigital partner. Reach out to see how Lexer can help you utilize your customer data effectively across your organization.

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Retail Fest Australia wrap-up https://dotdigital.com/blog/retail-fest-australia-wrap-up/ Wed, 20 Apr 2022 23:01:21 +0000 https://dotdigital.com/?p=34279

Retail Fest Australia wrap up

People celebrating with trophy

Retail Fest 2022, which took place last week in Broadbeach in sunny Queensland, was no less than any Hollywood star-studded event, if not more. It was a perfect occasion for attendees to doll up, let their hair down and network with the best of the Australian retail industry.

It was an incredible week and team APAC attended the event in all its pomp and glory with Winston (the Dotdigital data watchdog) stealing the spotlight on the show floor. (It’s hard not to love Winston). Never have I seen such excitement for a picture with an oversized, British bulldog! Winston also shared a picture (and a Last Man Standing beer) with the one and only Steven Bradbury OAM, four-time Olympian, and Olympic gold medal champion.

 

Dotdigital team members with mascot Wilson


Dotdigital, in for the win!

The event kicked off with Dotdigital winning the VIP Challenge Award at the 2022 Australian Vendors in Partnership (VIP) awards. The VIP awards acknowledge service to the retail industry, recognizing and celebrating companies willing to transform from within to create deep and perceptive partnerships, and great solutions. This year’s theme for the The VIP Challenge Award was vendors showcasing innovative adaptability and agility to address clients’ needs from the pandemic’s disruption to the industry.

 

Team with award


Hitting the Mark 2022

Day three at the event saw Rohan Lock, General Manager, APAC, Dotdigital launch ‘Hitting the Mark 2022,’ Dotdigital’s global ecommerce benchmark report. Safe to say that he smashed it. Speaking about automation hacks for 2022, he emphasized how retailers need to synergize different channels to engage their audience at scale to achieve their cross-channel marketing goals. Read the full Hitting the Mark 2022 report here.


Secret networking drinks

The day only got better at our top-secret networking event, ‘For your eyes only’ which was a huge success. A big thank you to our co-sponsors and partners – BigCommerce, Gorgias, Yotpo, ShipStation, Auctane, and Klarna for making it possible. With a packed floor, it was a great opportunity for our secret agents to network over bubbles and cold beers.


An extreme black-tie gala dinner

The event concluded with a Gala Dinner at Movie World, with a chance for the retail industry to give back to the community through the Charity Gala Auction, and where Phil Leahy was honored by industry stalwarts, including our very own Tink Taylor. And not to mention the adrenaline rush that got everyone’s heart thumping, riding the roller coasters in ball gowns and black ties. It was the perfect way to end the four-day event.


A big thank you

Thanks to everyone who stopped by the Dotdigital booth – it was so good to meet everyone, live and in-person again! Thanks to the amazing team at Retail Global for another great event. You rock it every year and do it without drama!

It was fantastic to watch our incredible team on the ground, work every opportunity to its fullest – be it at the booth, at networking drinks, or while screaming through a 62-meter roller coaster drop. Well done Rohan Lock, Ian Tilson, Sam Richards, Kayla Wilks, and Aarushi Sawhney who was our rock star back in the office! I am looking forward to next year already.



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Retail Fest Australia wrap-up | Dotdigital nonadult
Key takeaways for businesses from our cross-channel marketing report https://dotdigital.com/blog/key-takeaways-for-businesses-from-our-cross-channel-marketing-report/ Sun, 06 Mar 2022 22:00:12 +0000 https://dotdigital.com/?p=30903

Key takeaways for businesses from our cross-channel marketing report

APAC report blog

Have you checked out our latest report out of Australia – The future of cross-channel marketing? If not, you are missing out on some serious insights on changing consumer behavior and their expectations from retailers.

The report covers trends and insights across four main areas: consumer psychology, brand awareness, the decision buying process, and customer loyalty. It details how the adoption of different marketing channels and tools has changed over time, reveals the gap between consumer expectations and experiences, and provides essential strategies to help retailers’ future-proof their businesses – all whilst navigating the unpredictable COVID-19 landscape.

That’s not all, the report also highlights critical data points relating to the Australian shopper’s customer journey, including:

• Preferred marketing channels for communications
• Factors contributing to unsubscribe rates and cart abandonment
• Expectations around personalization in marketing communications vs. reality
• Importance of brand values
• The significance of loyalty and how shoppers like to be rewarded for it


Email is still the O.G.

Today, marketers have various choices with an increasing option of channels and tools at their disposal. However, email largely remains the most influential marketing channel (69%) to cater to tailor-made experiences.

While email is shaping customers’ purchase decisions, results also show that 70% of people surveyed note they are likely to unsubscribe if they get too many emails. Brands need to understand exactly how their audiences wants to be marketed to. The importance of email should be taken seriously, but brands should still consider alternative channels to reach more consumers.


Why consumers abandon cart

The cost of shipping is the highest contributor to cart abandonment. When asked about the top reason that leads consumers to abandon an online shopping cart, 57% listed higher shipping costs that were not visible from the outset.

Retailers need to ensure that not only is their cost of shipping reasonable, but also that it is clearly visible. Communication and transparency are key. Check out our exclusive abandon cart report for a deep dive.


Get personal with your customers

Australian shoppers feel brands have a long way to go when it comes to personalization, and there is room for improvement. According to the report, more than half the people surveyed say that their marketing communications are somewhat personalized, while one-third think their emails are not personalized at all.

We constantly emphasize the need for effective segmentation and personalization while creating campaigns, to ensure our clients strike the right note with customers through tailored messaging.


Live chat is important for conversion

Shoppers would like to see more in-person assistance via live chat options on retailer websites. The majority (56%) use it to ask for advice. It is therefore an important tool in the purchase and conversion process, and something retailers need to consider.


Be clear on brand values

Brand values play a crucial role for customers during a purchasing decision. Interestingly, more than two-thirds of Australian shoppers think brands are not doing enough to showcase what they stand for. Thirty percent of consumers surveyed take a brand’s stance on sustainability into consideration when making a purchase decision.

Sustainability is more than just a buzzword and shoppers increasingly make purchase decisions based on the positive social, economic, and environmental impact of a brand. This shift in consumer behavior should drive marketers to look at the sustainability of their own practices.

At Dotdigital, we take our sustainability efforts very seriously and are proud to be the first carbon-neutral, ISO 14001 certified marketing automation platform in the world.


Loyalty for a price

A loyalty program is undoubtedly an excellent way for brands to build stronger and lifelong brand advocates. But, do customers receive expected perks? Results show that almost all shoppers (94%) want rewards/discounts for their loyalty.

It’s evident that a reciprocal relationship is valued, and brands should keep that in consideration when launching a loyalty program. Check out how Cellar One redefined its customer engagement with automated loyalty campaigns.


A little help from our friends

An overwhelming 72% of consumers say that reviews are key to the decision-making process when purchasing products or engaging with brands. Word-of-mouth was the second most important factor in the decision to purchase, with 79% of those surveyed likely to recommend a preferred brand to others.

A positive customer experience is not only about a single customer journey. It’s about the ripple effect of customers telling their friends, family, and co-workers. Furthermore, if brands do not encourage product or service reviews, now is the time to rethink that strategy and incorporate product reviews into the marketing mix.


Get your copy

We’ve produced this report to get our finger on the pulse of Australian consumer purchasing habits, to ensure we are helping our clients deliver the ultimate customer experience – delivering the right message through the right channel, at the right time, to the right person.

If you’ve read far, I know you are keen to learn more. Download the full report now for detailed insights into key trends. Happy reading!


Methodology

Data in this report has been sourced and collected by Power Retail in August 2021 by surveys conducted with 5,000 Australian online shoppers.



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dotties APAC awards 2021: winners revealed https://dotdigital.com/blog/dotties-apac-awards-2021-winners-revealed/ Tue, 14 Dec 2021 17:53:25 +0000 https://dotdigital.com/?p=27618

dotties APAC awards 2021: winners revealed

APAC dotties awards

On December 9, Dotdigital hosted the long-awaited Summer Shindig. The virtual event helped us reconnect and thank our customers and partners who’ve supported us throughout the years, and gave us the opportunity to announce the winners of the inaugural dotties APAC awards.

Partner Power Hour packs a punch

The glittering event kicked off with the Partner Power Hour, exclusive to our partner network, featuring fantastic presentations from Dotdigital Founder & President, Tink Taylor, Head of Partnerships in APAC, Ian Tilson, and Alex Bullock, Global VP of Partnerships. Alex took the opportunity to announce the winner of this year’s APAC Partner of the Year award.  Overdose won the coveted award. Congratulations, very well deserved!

The Power Hour also featured last year’s APAC Partner of the Year award recipient – Jumpstart Commerce. They were joined by Singapore-based client, Sasha’s Fine Foods, for an insightful fireside chat, moderated by Emily Stannard, Senior Customer Success Manager.

Fireside chat

A jam-packed Summer Shindig agenda

The Summer Shindig was officially kicked off by celebrated Australian stand-up comedian, television, and radio presenter, Dave Hughes who had us in splits throughout the awards ceremony with his comedic genius. Dave co-hosted the ceremony with myself, Graham Bell, Regional Sales Manager – ANZ, Ian Tilson, Head of Partnerships, APAC, and Rohan Lock, Regional Director, APAC.

The dot-trivia hosted by yours truly, had the audience test their knowledge and compete to win some exciting prizes! Congratulations to Pierre Picavet from WOOP for winning dot-trivia! Prue Krook from Signet was a worthy runner up!

The jam-packed afternoon featured fantastic presentations from Dotdigital thought-leaders across the globe – Milan Patel, CEO, Steve Shaw, Chief Technology Officer, Rohan Lock, Regional Director APAC, Murdo Wallace, Director of Operations APAC, Beatrice Ellefsen, Head of Customer Success APAC, and Matthew McClelland, Head of Growth SE Asia.

APAC dotties team

The awards

There were 12 client awards up for grabs. Our panel of distinguished judges cast their votes for customers exhibiting a whole host of marketing tactics, in a range of categories: from best use of data, to responsible marketing and not-for-profit campaigns, as well as B2C and B2B accolades. Judges had a hard time deciding on winners, because of the quality of all the entries.

We were looking for:

  • Clearly defined marketing problem and goals
  • Elements of creativity and imagination in the campaigns
  • Innovative solution, with demonstrable results

After much deliberation, I’m happy to reveal the winners of the inaugural dotties APAC awards! Congratulations to all the finalists and winners for your amazing work.

Feature awards

Inspiring Responsible Marketing

Winner: Lyre’s Spirit Co., for running their Dry for July campaign.

We were impressed with Lyre’s Dry for July campaign which showcased the company’s stance on important social causes, and how seamlessly it can be included in one’s marketing strategy.

Lyre's Booze free month

Best use of data

Winner: Atomic Group, for its data-driven triggered email campaigns.

Atomic Group’s data-driven automated campaigns such as welcome series, win-back, birthdays, and abandon cart, are only some of the amazing examples of campaigns backed by strong utilization of data.

Homyped email

Most advanced automation

Winner: Woop, for its ‘What makes Woop better’ campaign.

The ‘What makes Woop better’ campaign, informed by user behavior and constantly optimized via A/B testing, is a perfect example of advanced automation. The campaign builder made us dizzy, showcasing great complexity in the automation! See screengrab!

We loved that they pulled in data to retarget on Facebook and Google. Their email design was sleek and branded consistently, and we particularly liked the “Have you seen what others are saying on Facebook?” section.

Woop automation

Campaign awards

Favorite omnichannel campaign

Winners: Kissed Earth AND Kenwood Appliances, for driving customer engagement across channels.

We were so overwhelmed with the quality of submissions for this category, that we couldn’t decide on one winner, so we have two. The complexity of campaigns submitted by both the brands just wowed at every level. They moved beyond email and used a variety of channels in a single campaign to drive engagement. The results were impressive.

kissed earth email

Outstanding email creative

Winner: Lyre’s Spirit Co., for its virtual sampling email creative campaigns.

The virtual sampling email campaign was successful due to the consistency of brand messaging and creativity. Lyre’s created bespoke mixed media content to support each step of the journey from social ads, landing pages, emails, and video. Each element was crafted and considered for the customer, at each step of the journey.

Lyre’s strived to drive maximum engagement with their customers through uncluttered content, clarity in their messaging, and by defining expectations and outcomes. User experience was a consideration, the experience was mobile optimized and thumb-friendly, with clear CTAs, to drive action and follow through.

Lyre's virtual sampling email

Leading B2B campaign

Winner: Signet, for its ‘Mystery Discounts’ campaign.

We just loved Signet’s concept of promoting a ‘Mystery Discount,’ asking their audience to ‘reveal’ their special offer. They brought this concept to life through a pokie machine. The audience clicked through to a landing page where they ‘spun’ the pokie machine to reveal the winning offer. The campaign was clear in its objective and showcased a unique way of engaging with B2B audiences, utilizing B2C tactics.

Signet mystery discount

Leading B2C campaign

Winner: Stone & Wood, for its amazing beer club campaign.

Stone & Wood’s beer club campaign showcased excellent creativity. The content was engaging and informative. The brand was able to clearly communicate the benefits of becoming their beer club member which made them a winner!

Stone & Wood reiterated that dotdigital allowed them to be ready for the increase in online shopping, when COVID lockdowns first hit, by helping the team target audiences through personalized content, enticing offers, and exploring some great ways to connect with customers.

Stone and Wood B2C campaign

Most impressive ecommerce campaign

Winner: Woop, for its Christmas box campaign.

The Christmas box campaign by Woop was brilliantly executed and showcased how one can stay ahead of the competition during the busiest time of the year.

Woop Christmas Box Campaign

Inspiring not-for-profit campaign

Winner: Wittner, for its “In her shoes” campaign.

The “In her shoes” campaign, gave Wittner the rare opportunity to briefly step into the lives of inspirational women, to discover the strength, courage, and ingenuity that has got them to where they are today. The intent was clear, and the campaign delivery was fantastic. They were able to inspire, motivate, and lift their customers, instead of merely featuring products in their weekly BAU marketing emails.

Wittner campaign

Team awards

Rising Star

Winner: Emma Roach, Accolade Wines, for her brilliant work that showcased the use of Dotdigital to its maximum potential.

With no previous experience using Dotdigital, and with some excellent guidance and support from the customer success team, Emma developed her skill set quickly. She adapted to the platform and learned quickly to develop an end-to-end customer journey for Cellar One, which included 14 programs and 3 content blocks in just 4 months! Well done!

Team of the year

Winner: Vet Shop Australia, for its amazing teamwork and collaborative
efforts that contributed to the overall brand success.

This was a great testament to teamwork, and to just rolling up your sleeves to get it done, with the rest of the business following suit!

Best use of Dotdigital in APAC

Winner: Lyre’s Spirit Co., for its amazing ‘Booze-free Month’ campaign and overall excellence in the utilization of the Dotdigital platform, to its fullest potential!

Lyre’s campaigns have impressed us greatly and we were amazed to see how the team is making the best use of Dotdigital. The brand truly showcased the power of the platform. The booze-free month campaign in particular had the perfect balance of SEM, programmatic, paid social (using current customer base data via Dotdigital) organic posts, and influencer partnerships. Well done Lyre’s for winning the top prize!

Lyre's booze free campaign

That’s a wrap

We’ve all had an amazing time and plenty of laughs (as we guaranteed) and we hope to see you all again next year – in person, we hope!

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Summer Shindig - dotties APAC awards nonadult
How to maximize sales during the world’s largest shopping event – Singles’ Day https://dotdigital.com/blog/how-to-maximize-sales-during-the-worlds-largest-shopping-event-singles-day/ Mon, 04 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://dot.tiltedchair.co/how-to-maximize-sales-during-the-worlds-largest-shopping-event-singles-day/ Started by Alibaba in 2009, Singles’ Day was aimed at young singles in China to treat themselves to gifts. However, this annual event has now gained a multibillion shopping status, tempting brands from across the world to make the most of this day.

In 2020, Chinese ecommerce giants Alibaba and JD.com racked up around $115 billion in sales across their platforms during Singles’ Day, both setting new records. With 250,000 brands of which 31,000 were from overseas and 5 million online retailers participating with 16 million products on offer, holiday shoppers had a lot to choose from last year!

Singles' Day - ecommerce marketing

With its growing popularity, Singles’ Day is increasingly gaining attention from global brands, making it one of the most anticipated sale days. So how do you leverage the event to acquire new customers and drive sales? Here are a few essential tips to help you grab the customer’s attention as well as maximize your revenue this Singles’ Day.

Segmentation and personalization

We all know relevancy and personalization drive customer loyalty. Modern shoppers want to feel special and look out for tailored experiences. Segmentation allows you to deliver targeted messages to specific audience groups.  Cross-tracking and using insights from your transaction data flow across your retail channels, allows you to build granular segments to deliver relevant and personalized email marketing throughout.

Customer modeling tools such as Recency, Frequency, Monetary (RFM), and lead scoring will be invaluable during this period and can help you group your audience based on their spending behavior and how they interact with your brand. eRFM and lead scoring also consider online engagement. Email opens and high-intent page hits, provide insights into who’s engaging with your brand. You can then enroll them into relevant automation programs and devise tailored campaigns catering to customer sentiments to drive future purchases.

For example, Caruso’s Natural Health utilized its RFM segments to push its Singles’ Day campaign to specific personas, giving early access discounts to their loyal customers. The brand saw a 72% increase in conversion rates from the RFM segmented audiences, which accounted for 25% of the total revenue generated from the email campaigns.

Creating eye-catching emails

The success of your email campaign is underpinned by great design. Because when design is poor or shoddy, engagement rates go down – and that’s not good for business, especially around key sales days.

Select the best words to convey your message, communicating your intended ideas and concepts. The success of your emails also hinges on brand recognition – people need to identify who you are, and quickly. Ensure your logo is clearly visible above the fold, and don’t forget to use the friendly from name as a recognition prompt for subscribers.

Use your brand’s creative assets to style your emails, helping recipients recognize who you are. The language you use should indicate what the action is or the resource/information you’re linking to. With buttons, you can test which words or phrases work better.

Cath Kidston 11.11 Mega Sale email captures the attention of readers, engaging them with their content while enticing them with several offers – whether it is the 20%-30% discount, or the free gift wrap for $30 and over purchases, or the clever 1 for 1 deal on luggage and accessories. The well-designed email stays true to their brand and the images strike a good balance with white space.

Cath Kidston Singles' Day email

Winning subject line

As key holiday shopping days inch closer, customer inboxes are flooded with deals, and the one that grabs attention wins instantly. The inbox is a noisy place at best times, but during shopping events like Singles’ Day, the sound is deafening. Cutting through the din of sale announcements and discount-driven messages is crucial, and a stand-out subject line puts your campaign in with the best chance of securing an open.

Use your subject line to shout about the value of your proposition – whether that be special holiday editions of content, access to interactive media, or time-limited offers. Make sure your subject line acknowledges where a customer is on their journey with your brand; this drives relevancy and fulfills the one-to-one communication experience. A fantastic example here from Pupsik’s 9.9 sales offer. It includes first name personalization, the sale day and discount offer, as well as specific brands that are on special:

Hi Aparna, 9.9 Sale – 20% off Baa Sheepz, Baby Bjorn, Skip Hop, Oxo, Ergo, Bravado

Segment customers by pathway actions, like date of signup or most recent purchase, and devise subject lines that speak directly to the customer’s experience. The other thing you might want to consider is adding an emoji to help your subject line stand out in customers’ inboxes. A great example here, from Cath Kidston:

✨ THE 11.11 MEGA SALE IS NOW ON! ✨

Remarketing and retargeting

To make the most of Singles’ Day, remarketing and retargeting are the best ways to reduce lost sales. As remarketing re-engages with customers through email marketing, retargeting attempts to recover sales through online and display ads. Both methods attempt to reach out to website visitors who have already shown an interest in products or services but then left the website without completing their purchase.

Thankfully, this allows marketers to persuade interested customers to make a purchase. By leveraging savvy trigger-based emails, as well as personalization, you can make sure you’re targeting browsers with correct info at the right time. If you have a good strategy, you will convert shoppers into customers.

Identify the most successful conversion method – email, socials ads, SMS, Messaging apps and accordingly create promotions prior to the Singles’ Day that taps into your customer’s sentiments, and they will love you.

Beyond just a single day…

Starting early September there are numerous online shopping events that offer a massive opportunity beyond Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Mark these important dates on your marketing sales calendar, but be sure to ascertain which of these dates will resonate with your brand and audience. For instance, in numerous countries, Remembrance Day/Veterans Day is observed on November 11 to recall the end of the First World War and to honor military veterans – keep that in mind as you schedule your Singles’ Day campaigns across various demographics. You don’t want to miss these key sales events but be sure not to spread yourself too thin.

  • September 9: 9.9 Super Shopping Day
  • October 10: 10.10 Perfect Sale
  • October 31: Halloween
  • November 11: 11.11 Singles’ Day
  • December 12: 12.12 Sale
  • December 26: Boxing Day
Singles' Day Pupsik ecommerce email

Singles’ Day is a great opportunity to get ahead of the competition by running your own promotions and I hope you’ve found these essential tips helpful, as you plan for the upcoming holiday season!

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How Miss Amara used its abandoned cart program to drive revenue https://dotdigital.com/blog/how-miss-amara-used-its-abandoned-cart-program-to-drive-revenue/ Wed, 13 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://dot.tiltedchair.co/how-miss-amara-used-its-abandoned-cart-program-to-drive-revenue/ Dedicated to delivering a speedy, efficient, and convenient experience to its customers, Miss Amara has come leaps and bounds with its customer-centric ecommerce business model. As the business continued to grow, one of the challenges that Miss Amara faced was increased cart abandonment rates. The absence of automated retargeted programs meant the brand was missing out on revenue with an impact on customer acquisition. Therefore, the team wanted to get these cart abandoners back on track towards conversion. Considering this, Miss Amara partnered with dotdigital in January 2019 as its omnichannel marketing automation provider.

Setting up marketing automations

The company started its marketing automation journey by implementing automated campaigns such as welcome series, abandoned cart, and abandoned checkout as primary revenue-driving programs. We sat down with Jacob Dryer, Digital Marketing Manager at Miss Amara to discuss the company’s journey with dotdigital. According to Jacob, “With dotdigital automated programs, we’ve been able to understand, acknowledge, and effectively address our customer’s pain points. The partnership has allowed us to segment our customers and approach them with tailored campaigns, showcasing our relevant product ranges, catering to their interests. These include pet-friendly and eco-friendly rugs, as well as various collections like Scandi.”
Miss Amara email example
In addition to retargeting and capitalizing on lapsed customers, the team also integrated creative thinking into the messaging and styling of the triggered emails. The highly personalized emails praise the taste of the customer in the subject line as an encouragement to open and warms them up with a pun.
Miss Amara email example Get the look

Adapting to a changing situation

As the COVID-19 pandemic was unfolding, Miss Amara was quick to assess the situation and revisit its business strategy. The team ramped up its digital and social efforts and extended customer service online hours to ensure they were in constant contact with customers. The user-generated content (UGC) allowed the team to improve the process and deliver consistent support, as well as provide a seamless purchase experience to customers through these unprecedented times. “The COVID-19 crisis led to a surge of online shopping, introducing ‘first-time’ online shoppers to already existing lists. As a result, we doubled the efforts towards marketing campaigns to deliver exceptional customer experience by focusing on our campaigns and messaging. Thanks to dotdigital for the constant support through this troubled phase. The regular strategy discussions and mock-up journeys enabled us to surface key customer data, capitalize on lapsed customers, easily onboard new customers as well as analyze and segment customers on basis of their interests, and their most preferred channel to shop,” added Jacob.

A results-driven approach pays off

Miss Amara saw a whopping 190% increase in email revenue from April to June 2020, when compared to the previous quarter. Its newly introduced automation programs have performed exceptionally with outstanding results. The brand saw a massive 51.6% conversion with their abandoned carts and abandon checkout campaigns.
Example of Miss Amara's abandoned cart email
Additionally, the welcome series program remains by far the best customer journey, contributing a 183% increase in revenue in the fourth quarter, compared to the previous quarter. Overall, the brand witnessed a staggering 445% increase in overall revenue for 2020 as compared to 2019. Check out some of our other fantastic client results by visiting our customer success story page.]]>
How to prepare for APAC’s holiday season https://dotdigital.com/blog/power-prepare-apacs-holiday-season/ Thu, 12 Oct 2017 23:00:00 +0000 https://dot.tiltedchair.co/power-prepare-apacs-holiday-season/ It’s that time of year when our customers in Asia Pacific are prepping to bag holiday sales for their own answer to Black Friday and Cyber Monday: Click Frenzy in Australia, and Singles’ Day in China (the world’s biggest online shopping day of the year!).[1] The former, modeled on the US’ Cyber Monday bonanza, centralizes hundreds of online deals on one website built to withstand enormous concurrent traffic volumes. Many Australian vendors have jumped on the trend, holding sales on their own sites around the Click Frenzy Period. Singles’ Day started as an ‘anti-Valentine’s’ celebration back in the 1990s and was snapped up by e-commerce giant Alibaba in 2009.

  • Singles’ Day – Saturday, November 11, 2017
  • Click Frenzy – Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Last year, Singles’ Day racked up almost US$18 billion in sales in 24 hours on  Alibaba, [2] while Click Frenzy day saw a 100% increase in emails sent from dotdigital compared to 2015.

With so many retailers looking to benefit from these, it’s crucial that your marketing strategy is well-planned and fine-tuned ahead of time. Email deliver

s £30 for every £1 spent, making it the obvious choice for bringing in ROI from your holiday efforts.[3] Here are some tips for making the most of Click Frenzy and Singles’ Day 2017:

  • Get noticed with a winning subject line

Your customer’s inbox is a noisy place at the best of times, but during retail holidays the sound is deafening. Cutting through the din of sale announcements and discount-driven messages is crucial, and a stand-out subject line puts your campaign in with the best chance of securing an open.

There are three key ingredients to whipping up a winning subject line, and the first is to ensure you’re promoting something of value. If you’re running a dedicated Click Frenzy or Singles’ Day email program, use your subject line to shout about the value of your proposition – whether that be special holiday editions of content, access to interactive media, or time-limited offers.

Make sure your subject line acknowledges where a customer is on their journey with your brand; this drives relevancy and fulfills the one-to-one communication experience. Segment customers by pathway actions, like date of signup or most recent purchase, and devise subject lines that speak directly to the customer’s experience.

Finally, with 54 percent of consumers now opening their emails on their phones, it’s crucial that your subject lines (and emails for that matter) are designed with mobile in mind.[4] 20-30 characters provides a general rule of thumb for subject line length, but thorough testing is always recommended.

  • Warm customers over time

Getting deals on beloved brands is truly exciting for your customers, so make sure you leverage this in your warm-up strategy. Tantalize customers with teaser campaigns that hint at what’s to come in the run up to the big day; make sure that you fully utilize all your channels to build the hype. Think too about incorporating rich media like video to provide customers with valuable and engaging content they won’t get elsewhere.

This 2016 Christmas shopping campaign from Australian fashion footwear brand, Spend-Less Shoes, uses an advent structure to nurture recipients to conversion. Each campaign is bolstered with an Instagram competition that adds value to the proposition and gives customers even more ways to connect and celebrate.

  • Close sales like a pro

Nurturing customers and building loyalty is all very well, but to smash sales targets for the holidays you need to rack up customer conversions. The relevance of your email marketing strategy will be the deciding factor in the revenue race this year, so bake it into your strategy early and become the anticipated highlight of the inbox. The data your ESP collects on your contact list provides the key to highly relevant email marketing. You can easily personalize your emails and landing pages with all kinds of information you already hold on your customers, from gender to geographical location. Make use of dynamic content blocks to automatically display pertinent product images based on each customer’s web behavior, and include images, titles and descriptions of previously purchased products to prompt reviews that’ll help other customers convert.

  • Rescue lapsed sales

In a similar way to the stateside stretching of Black Friday to incorporate the days pre- and post- Friday, the boundaries of Click Frenzy and Singles’ Day are ever-blurring, giving you extra time to drive wayward customers to complete last-minute purchases.

Follow up with customers who showed buying intent; you might want to extend your offer for a limited period, or offer new incentives like free delivery or extra loyalty points. Your abandoned cart strategy could provide the perfect vehicle for this rescue mission. Here are three ways to deck your program out for the big event:

  • Pull in a live countdown timer to maximize on customers’ fear of missing out (FOMO).
  • Include dynamic content from your ecommerce store, like product images and stock availability.
  • Bring some relevant user-generated content (UGC) into the mix to boost brand trust.

Still got a list of lapsed conversions after the holidays? Send a personalized feedback email asking for details on why customers didn’t feel like they were able to purchase, and collect valuable data to further refine your strategy.

The more customers you have in your database, the more opportunity you’ve got to bag serious revenue. Check out our free resource: 6 ways to grow your list this season.

[1] http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170616-the-worlds-biggest-online-shopping-day

[2] CNBC, Alibaba’s Singles Day is Amazon’s Prime Day — on steroids., 2017.

[3] UK DMA, Consumer email tracker report 2016.

[4] Litmus, 2017 State of email.

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