The Retailer’s Path to Lifecycle
Marketing Success
How to move from capturing attention to ensuring lifetime retention
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exacttarget.com
The Retailer’s Path to Lifecycle Marketing Success
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Your customer journey may be unique...
Your customer journey may be unique, but your objectives are the same: acquire new customers
and drive your current customers back in store or online. And by now, you know that success is
achieved through lifecycle marketing. In this guide, we’ll show you the path to lifecycle marketing
success—one stage at a time—and provide important campaign tips along the way. Ready to start
your journey to lifecycle marketing success?
Campaign Tip:
Your campaigns can’t afford to be
disjointed. Having a cross-channel
marketing platform that allows you
to create a single view of the customer
across all channels and all stages of
the customer lifecycle is a must! Invest
in a digital marketing partner like
ExactTarget who can grow with you as
you explore additional channels and
new digital marketing opportunities.
Everyone’s path to lifecycle marketing success is unique. Find yours!
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The Retailer’s Path to Lifecycle Marketing Success
exacttarget.com
exacttarget.com
The Retailer’s Path to Lifecycle Marketing Success
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Start Here:
Welcome Series
Opt-In: Online, Social, Mobile, and In-Store
Welcome messages are highly anticipated, frequently opened, and—
luckily for you—simple to automate!
Preference Center
Guided Selling
Whether registering customers for your loyalty program or building your
email subscriber list, the opt-in process should be quick and easy for
your customer. Minimize the number of fields required and consider
social and mobile opt-in opportunities. If you need more data to start
building out your customer profile, try asking for it in a subsequent
screen or follow-up interaction.
You already have your customers’ attention, so take advantage of this
opportunity to drive conversions by highlighting products, services, or
special offers. Include Facebook and Twitter icons in your welcome
emails to help subscribers connect with your brand across channels.
But most importantly, make sure this series of welcome messages are
delivered in a timely, thoughtful manner.
Encourage new subscribers or existing customers to update their
preferences regularly, and communicate the benefits they’ll experience
if they do. Remember that relevancy is driven by data, so be strategic
about what you ask, and avoid requesting information you’re not going
to use.
Using a guided selling tool, ask lifestyle or usage-based questions to
quick-start your customer’s profile. Synthesize the responses with the
customer data you already have to deliver experiences that are unique
to each shopper.
Campaign Tip
Set message frequency expectations and communicate the value of
opting into your program up front.
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The Retailer’s Path to Lifecycle Marketing Success
Campaign Tip
Remember to:
•
Confirm the subscriber’s reason for opting in.
•
Provide an incentivized offer and a call to action.
•
Communicate the value of being a subscriber.
Another great way to quickly acquire new profile data about customers
is to place a Facebook and Twitter login on your website, mobile app,
or loyalty program sign-up form.
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Campaign Tip
Know your most loyal customers and define a segment strategy that
targets them first. After all, it’s easier and cheaper to keep the customers
you have engaged than to endure the cost to find new ones.
The Retailer’s Path to Lifecycle Marketing Success
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Promotional
Birthday
Post-Purchase
Geo-Targeting
The success of your promotional email campaign hinges on two
factors: frequency and relevancy. Which is more important? Think
quality over quantity. Identify the utility of your message, and then
frame a promotion or product around it—not the other way around.
What better time to engage subscribers than in the weeks before their
birthday? Enable (and remind) customers to share wish list items with
family and friends two weeks prior, then follow up with a birthday
message and personalized offer on the actual day.
Regardless of where a purchase was made—in store, online, or via a mobile
device—strive to extend the interaction. Thank the customer for purchasing
and cross-sell by adding personalized product recommendations that may
be of interest.
Utilize geolocation data in your mobile app and send push messages or
personalized SMS messages to customers when they’re close to your
store. Include an incentive to ensure they walk in the door. Or utilize this
data to tailor your mobile app content based on a customer’s location.
Campaign Tip
Campaign Tip
Get creative with messaging, targeting, and offers. Entice customers
to buy themselves a birthday present by recommending products that
compliment recent browse or purchase behavior.
Utilize the 80/20 rule. Sure, the message may be transactional, but according to
CAN-SPAM law, up to 20% of the content in a transactional message may be
promotional in nature. Seize this opportunity and utilize this space wisely. Take it
a step further by adding content tailored to the individual based on their profile.
Campaign Tip:
Use Smart Templates to provide personalized loyalty point status in
promotional messages. Get creative about incorporating typically
newsletter-like content in with your promotions.
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The Retailer’s Path to Lifecycle Marketing Success
exacttarget.com
exacttarget.com
The Retailer’s Path to Lifecycle Marketing Success
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Abandoned Cart
Retargeting
Reengagement
Cart abandonment campaigns are a great way to remind customers to
complete their purchases. This type of campaign is easily automated and
often consists of multiple email messages sent at a strategic cadence (e.g.,
one day and three days after cart abandonment).
Retargeting campaigns explore ways to track and reengage customers.
Since profile data and shopping history can be used to personalize
and target these emails, they can outperform standard blast-based
promotional messages by up to 20x.
Reengagement campaigns send proactive messages to reinforce your
company’s value proposition, determine why subscribers lost interest,
and identify those who no longer wish to receive your messages.
Campaign Tip
Include an incentive, mention the product in the subject line, and show an
image of the product in the body of your abandoned cart email for extra
conversion rate lift. Plus, conversion rates double for campaigns sent in real
time (within 30 minutes of abandonment vs. waiting 24+ hours).
Ideas for retargeting:
Use personalized campaigns to ensure your shoppers know you’re
listening to their wants, needs, and preferences.
•
New arrivals
•
Pre-order products
•
Back in stock
Try this:
•
Review a product
• Select subscribers who haven’t opened your email in a few months.
No matter which retargeting tactics you choose, remember to integrate
the online and offline experience. If you flag top-rated products online,
do the same in store.
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The Retailer’s Path to Lifecycle Marketing Success
Campaign Tip
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• Develop a series of three messages with increasingly valuable offers.
• Send subscribers to a profile page where they can
update preferences.
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The Retailer’s Path to Lifecycle Marketing Success
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There’s marketing. And then there’s Inspired Marketing.
With billions of hyper-connected consumers on the planet, there’s never been a better time to be a digital marketer.
You have an incredible opportunity to use data and technology to drive relevant messages, to connect, to inspire.
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The Retailer’s Path to Lifecycle Marketing Success
exacttarget.com