Welcome To The 5 Step Strategy to Squaring Away Success for the Holiday Rush
Doing well during the holidays can seem impossible, especially if your store is just starting out. Luckily, we gathered some of the most knowledgeable experts to share their advice on the best things you can do to square away success for this holiday rush and all the holiday seasons to come. Four great speakers, five great sessions, what’s not to love?
The Five Step Strategy to Squaring Away Success for the Holiday Rush
A panel discussion with each of our speakers.
Overview: Join each of our speakers as they discuss their predictions and tips for this year’s holiday season, including advice on what to do with discounts, automation, and much more.
Summary: With so many Ecommerce experts in one place, it’s a wonder that we didn’t share even more tips during this information-packed panel discussion. These are just a few of the biggest takeaways WE had that we wanted to share with you.
- Make it clear that deliveries may be delayed. There’s a good chance that many merchants will experience shipping delays. If you’re one of them, make sure you tell your customers in as many locations as possible. Put the warning on your website and in all communications with customers, and be sure to give a timeline of what those delays might be.
- If your service is good, people will come back to you. Discounts can be a great way to bring in new customers, but they aren’t required to keep customers and motivate them to buy from you during the holidays.
- Automate any component of your business that allows for it. Doing this will empower your team to provide even better service for your customers.
- Don’t be too aggressive with discounting, but don’t be afraid to offer some. At the end of the day, the biggest thing is to make sure that you’re still making a profit. Either go all in on customers or all-in on profit margins -- doing both is impossible and leads to a lot of headaches.
Mobile Messaging Tips and Tricks to get the most out of Black Friday
A talk by Nick Romaya, Head of Partnerships, Recart
Overview: You heard about the benefits of automation during our panel session, now let’s get into the nitty gritty of how to make those automations work for you with FB messenger and mobile messaging. Nick from Recart shares his tips in the first individual session of the day.
Summary: There are multiple ways to message your customers, and each one can help your business significantly. Before you can start messaging your customers, though, you need them to opt-in. So how can you do that? Here are a few tips:
- Welcome pop-ups, sticky discount boxes, and post-purchase checkout opt-ins are great ways to collect your customers’ contact information.
- Reach out to customers where they’re most active, rather than where they rarely interact with your brand.
- Enable timely, as well as contextual, engagement of subscribers as they progress through your brand’s journey.
Increase Conversions & Retention Through Personalised Customer Experiences for BFCM
A talk by Michael Potters, Enterprise Partner Manager, Gorgias
Overview: Automation is great, but there can also be too much of it in your interactions with customers. That’s where personalization comes into play. Customers don’t want to feel like just another number to the brands they buy from -- they want to feel like everything they do matters to the company, regardless of how much they spend. Michael from Gorgias explains how to foster those feelings through personalized customer experiences.
Summary: 79% of customers would take their business to a competitor within a week of experiencing poor customer service, and more often than not, poor experiences actually cause those customers to do so. Oftentimes, the reason for this is a lack of effort on the brand’s part to make their customers feel like they care. Some great ways to create a personalized, intimate experience for your customers include:
- Automate answers to repetitive questions, especially during busy times like the holiday season. Doing this will ensure all customers are helped in a timely manner.
- Be empathetic. Empathy is the key to customer retention. Without it, drop-off rates tend to increase while retention rates drop.
- Create more WOW moments for your customers. Doing this helps create a unified, omni-channel experience and enables you to add more personal data points to all your communications.
Get more from your store: Practical guidelines for improving the mobile shopping experience
A talk by Nirit Ayal, Co-Founder and CMO, Poloriz
Overview: Even now in 2021, where mobile use is widespread and a mobile-first mindset is imperative, desktop sales convert better. But just having a website that looks good in both mediums isn’t enough. First impressions count, and you MUST stand out if you want to experience a successful holiday season this year and for years to come. Nirit from Poloriz shares how to stand out and improve your shopping experience in our second-to-last session of the day.
Summary: More than 95% of shoppers choose to leave websites without completing their purchase, and there are a multitude of reasons why. Even now in 2021, simply being responsive isn’t enough. Customers are looking for a personalized experience in every interaction they have with a brand. They expect you to focus on the following:
- Engagement - what impresses each user the most
- Loyalty - a happy customer is a returning customer
- Discovery - the brick and mortar experience
- Integration and operation - smart data analysis
Get Your Reviews Ready to Work For You During the Holiday Rush and Benefit You For the Months After
A talk by Tomasz Sadowski, CEO, Opinew
Overview: Reviews are the bane and boom of every Ecommerce brand’s existence. More often than not, new site visitors look at reviews to determine whether or not they want to purchase from you. Without reviews, the likelihood of those visitors converting into paying customers is slim to none. But how can you get customers to leave reviews, and how can you showcase those reviews for the highest possible uplift in conversions and reduction in returns? Opinew’s CEO Tomasz Sadowski explains.
Summary: Reviews help customers make buying decisions quicker and more easily, but what happens when a customer visits your website and can’t find any reviews for your store or for the products they’re looking to purchase? It’s the same result for most visitors: they choose not to buy. If you showcase all the reviews you’ve already received, though (even if they’re from Amazon and eBay), those visitors will be significantly more likely to make a purchase. If you don’t yet have any reviews, though, don’t worry. There are still some tactics you can use to incentivize your customers to leave reviews for you.
- Optimize selling products to customers that they’ll be happy with.
- Configure your email timing settings for reviews based on the estimated delivery time.
- Personalize subject lines and preview texts with coupon information, their names, etc.
