Category: Customer Loyalty & Rewards

The 5 Biggest Shopping Trends For 2022

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Based on the past almost two years of living through the peak and valleys of COVID, retailers have upped their game in terms of the shopper journey. Here are the top five trends that customers can expect when shopping in the new year:

Trend 1: Physical stores remain a critical force for retail shopping

While online commerce will exceed $1 trillion in 2021, the brick and mortar stores will still be very relevant for shopping with 84% of sales coming from physical stores. The stores will become more experiential and will incorporate more technology within the shopping journey. QR codes will be used for product descriptions and information, finding stock or demonstrating product usage. Mobile phones will integrate with in-store shopping for price and stock checking, as well as for checking out seamlessly. Social interaction and shopping, one of Americans’ greatest pastimes, will be even more important as the country rises out of the pandemic next year and consumers will look for more opportunities to cultivate a sense of normalcy.

While online sales exceed $1 trillion in 2022, the brick and mortar stores will still be very relevant for shopping with 84% of sales coming from physical stores.

Trend 2: Bridging the gap between online shopping and in-store experiences

Better experiences between shopping online and visiting stores will be evident as retailers have worked hard over the past two years to build up these capabilities. Shoppers have witnessed this build-up over the past year in a major way with the curbside pickup, buy-online-pick up in store and direct shipping from vendors when stock is not available in stores. Retailers will continue to work on these types of strategies.

Trend 3: Shopping goes viral on social media

The hashtag tiktokmademebuyit, which has over three billion views, has given rise to social commerce. Andrew Lipsman eMarketer principal analyst of Insider Intelligence, in a recent webinar on Retail Trends 2022, predicts that viral commerce is a key growth area. Lipsmans discussed the $45 billion social commerce business which essentially is shopping through social media. Users can expect to see more offers, a broader range of products being offered through social media and an increase in special collaborations between brands, retailers and influencers. A recent trend on TikTok users posting their latest purchases with the hashtag tiktokmademebuyit which has over three billion views. Retailers, like Amazon, are curating online assortments that come from TikTok best sellers.

Trend 4: Near real-time delivery continues as shopper demand rises for these services

A rise in third-party delivery intermediaries has been seen across all sectors of retailing. Shoppers will see more and more retailers offering same day delivery with many retailers offering services within a two-hour window. Shipt, which is widely used by and owned by Target, has continued to grow in terms of number of product offerings and in terms of number of retail partners. Instacart does over $1.6 billion per year and plans to go public in the near future. Another aspect that facilitates this type of shopping is the growing usage of micro-fulfillment centers which are mini-distribution centers in local areas near where customers live. Retailers are using these centers to help with delivering products to the customer homes. Many retailers are offering areas in the mini-distribution centers where customers can pick up their orders. In some cases, individual stores have become fulfillment centers with pickers scouring the aisles for consumer orders.
A significant technology transforming micro-fulfillment is automation. Walmart, for example, is using automated bots to retrieve goods for online orders in the smaller fulfillment centers. The last area in delivery that shoppers may expect to see is more widely used is driverless trucks to transport products to customer homes.

Trend 5: Curtailed and more curated assortments

Supply chain disruptions abound throughout the last year and a half. This year has been particularly troublesome for many retailers and brands across a wide variety to product categories. As a result, many retailers have significantly reduced the assortment of products within categories. Shoppers can expect to find less choices in terms of style, color, or features. The U.S. market has historically been overstored and over assorted with product choices, especially in the fashion goods category including clothes, accessories and shoes. Less choice and better curated assortments should translate to a positive shopping experience for customers. As we reflect back on the shopping experiences from the past year, it can be said that the overall experience and convenience of shopping has greatly improved. This overall trend will continue well into 2022.

This article was written by Shelley E. Kohan from Forbes and was legally licensed through the Industry Dive publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@industrydive.com.

The Majority of Consumers Plan to Shop Early This Year: Report

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Dive Brief: 

  • Consumers are eager to spend and save money through deals, according to ICSC. In its Annual Holiday Shopping Intentions survey, the firm predicts that holiday sales between November and December will increase by 8.9% to $923 billion compared to last year. Per the survey of 1,005 people, 78% of respondents said they plan to spend the same or more money this year than last year, and 75% said they plan to shop earlier this year. 
  • As for reasons why they’re shopping earlier, 45% said they want to make sure their desired items are available, followed by those who wanted to access early holiday deals (42%) and get their purchases on time (42%), according to the survey. Holiday shoppers are planning to spend an average of $637 on gifts and other holiday-related items.  
  • Most respondents (85%) said they would shop in brick-and-mortar stores this year, but the report predicts that omnichannel options will drive a 13% increase in e-commerce sales. More than a third (37%) respondents said they want to see products in-store, followed by 34% of people who said they want to grab their goods immediately and 30% seek inspiration for gifts, per the survey. 

Dive Insights:

Though reports predict that consumers plan to spend more during the 2021 holiday season than last year, they’re still interested in finding deals. According to the ICSC survey, 80% of shoppers said deals factor into their holiday purchases, and more than a third (38%) of respondents will plan their shopping trips around specific promotional events. 

Other research noted similar findings indicating that shoppers want to stretch their money while spending more this year. Another recent survey from JLL showed that 34.4% of shoppers said saving is their primary goal. Plus, data from Klarna and Deloitte also predict an uptick in consumer spending this year. 

In preparation for a rise in sales, retailers like Amazon and Target have launched holiday deals early. 

“Strong retail spending has driven a significant economic recovery this year despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and consumers continue to return to pre-pandemic behaviors in the face of uncertainty,” Tom McGee, president and CEO of ICSC, said in a statement. “Consumers have remained resilient throughout 2021, which I am confident will continue during and after the holiday shopping season.”

This article was written by Tatiana Walk-Morris from Retail Dive and was legally licensed through the Industry Dive publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@industrydive.com. 

3 ways COVID-19 has changed the customer experience forever

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When it comes to the customer experience and the desire of brands to strengthen their ties to consumers, the past year turned all the rules upside down. 

During the pandemic, even the best-prepared companies were caught off-guard in their ability to be agile and responsive. Issues of simple product fulfillment rose to crisis levels as manufacturing stalled and supplies dwindled. Even so, loyalty programs flourished (with one retailer enjoying a 40% lift in cart size among its program members). There also was a renaissance in creativity around brand messaging with the ascent of new digital and social media platforms. 

At the same time, historic social movements dominated the public’s attention and became a fundamental element of how brands speak to and connect with consumers. 

The result: a next-gen customer experience that seamlessly connects the physical and digital worlds across the customer journey. This, in turn, bolsters brands’ ability to maximize revenue while building lifelong relationships with consumers by communicating what they really care about and in a voice that resonates. 

Here are three key takeaways illustrating how brands successfully navigated the singular challenges of the pandemic and how marketers can apply those strategies to future campaigns.

Customer connections transformed. 

The pandemic brought about unprecedented challenges for brands and also ushered in once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to innovate through customer connections. Consider a particular seed manufacturer that had always counted on face-to-face interactions but that, because of COVID-19 restrictions, had no choice but to engage with its customers via digital platforms and vice versa. 

Marketers who for so long have fixated on Gen Z and digital natives found they had to speak to a much broader base of customers who had become, out of necessity, more technologically savvy. Necessity is the mother of invention, and we now have more than a year of this customer-experience laboratory under our belts. 

But the pandemic has not just been a lab. It’s been a wake-up call. 

For example, at the onset of the global health crisis, one large retailer took the position that it would not do commerce via mobile, opting to employ the medium for engagement only. Then the whole world shut down, everybody shifted to digital transactions, and the retailer found itself without a mechanism for carrying through the customer relationship to the point of purchase. Talk about a missed opportunity. 

Pre-pandemic, around 30% of people shopped online for groceries (and even at that level, there were cracks starting in the supply chain: grocery stores that failed to track changing customer purchase patterns led to shortages or even mass food spoilage). During the pandemic, 80% shopped online. As the pandemic subsides, we anticipate the numbers will settle out a “new normal” above what we saw pre-pandemic. 

What was a temporary stress on the customer experience is now truly the new normal. This 50/50 split also highlights the need for companies to be more diligently focused on the intersection between “offline/in-store” experiences and digital ones. 

Test-then test some more. 

One advantage of the shifting rules of commerce has been that brands can be freer about experimentation, considering many possible customer experiences and then using data and analytics to inform their decisions. Testing approaches and using data science to help ensure a clear understanding of customers and what they truly care about is the very foundation of innovation and authentic customer experiences. 

The importance of testing cannot be overemphasized. Yes, innovation is about being bold and taking risks, but it’s also about being accountable and measurable. Testing and measurement offer a framework for what success looks like and, as such, are critical components, whether in developing products and services, designing a marketing strategy or perfecting the customer experience. 

The truth is, some brands throw millions of dollars at this thing called “innovation” but have no real measurement strategy for understanding the overall efficacy of their ideas. Leading companies often tackle this challenge by measuring or implementing NPI, a new product introduction. 

Having a solid measurement framework and not being afraid to experiment constantly with innovations are essential elements of success as we emerge from the pandemic and reimagine the everyday way of doing business. 

Chatter is not noise. It’s your road map. 

Another key tool is social listening before, during and after a campaign. This has become an indispensable tool to inform everything from overall brand strategy to the social movements that resonate with customers. 

Take the social issues that have come to define our times. They are at the forefront of everything, whether in the nuclear household or a multinational corporation. Our research has found that consumers will spend more money with a brand that has social good as part of its charter than they will with brands that stay on the social sidelines. 

Being socially conscious is not just altruistic for brands today; it is key to business success, with many of today’s leading marketers having entire departments focused on brand purpose. 

There are those brands that may think aligning with cultural movements is risky. As the data bears out, however, the reality is that it’s a cornerstone of building consumer affinity and enhancing the customer experience. 

Social listening enables marketers to get down to the granular level of what customers care about, leverage innovations and take brands where they need to go. That’s true whether in creating a singular marketing campaign, redesigning the in-store shopping experience or building partnerships with other companies that have a stake in the customer relationship. 

On that point, there is another enormous opportunity to maximize the customer experience by thinking beyond just your own brand. Every company must ask itself how to build relationships with complementary partners—and sharing valuable customer data among those players—can enhance its consumer relationships. 

For example, if you’re a retailer, you may want to take a sharper look at your relationships with wholesalers—which are equally as responsible for the customer experience, after all—to help ensure they are providing as high a level of customer value as you are. 

During the transition, there’s been a change in focus from the front office to the back office. The companies that performed best are the ones that understood that shift. Brands have had to get smarter about areas like data and analytics that traditionally fell to agency partners and choose the right partners with the experience and expertise to bridge your business’ front- and back-office functions. 

From taking a stand on social movements to developing the products and services consumers desire and delivering the highest-quality customer experiences, brand marketers must work continuously to understand their customers and what they are demanding after a very trying year. Considering the velocity with which technology, brand-consumer interactions and social changes are happening, they surely cannot afford to rest. 

Views expressed in this presentation are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of Ernst & Young LLP or other members of the global EY organization.

This article was written by Josiah Johnson from Ad Age and was legally licensed through the Industry Dive publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@industrydive.com.

Shopkick is an omnichannel solution that allows brands and retailers to engage and influence shoppers throughout the entire path to purchase, in-store and online. We share key intel on ever-changing consumer shopping behaviors and trends, and provide our partners with real-time shopping data, helping them fill gaps in the customer shopping journey. To learn more about how Shopkick can help you drive awareness, incremental sales, and customer loyalty throughout the full-funnel shopping journey, contact our team. 

Over 70% of Retail Sales Will Come From Stores in the Next Few Years: Forrester

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Dive Brief:

  •  While the pandemic is widely seen as boosting e-commerce sales, it may be more accurate to say that consumers have become more “digitally savvy,” according to a new report from Forrester.  
  •  Forrester found that more than half of U.S. e-commerce shoppers “enjoy trying new brands,” for example. And 63% say they spend time comparing products before they buy.   
  •  Still, stores remain the biggest pull for shoppers, and Forrester estimates that 72% of retail sales in the U.S. will take place there into 2024. The top reasons for shopping in store, Forrester found, are to test products (47%) and being able to walk away with an item after purchasing (38%).  

Dive Insights:

Free and available vaccines in the U.S. have tamped down the worst consequences of the pandemic in many areas, but there remains an asterisk next to these improvements, as variants of the virus, including the delta strain, have introduced new levels of uncertainty. 

That includes retail and traffic to stores and malls. Still, these days more stores are opening than closing, and the pace of footfall is up. In July, shopping mall traffic exceeded pre-pandemic levels (up 1% compared to July 2019 at indoor malls and up 1.8% at outdoor malls), according to a recent report from Placer.ai. 

Those visits have fallen again since then. In August traffic compared to two years ago fell 2.5% at indoor malls and 4.7% at outdoor malls, which Placer attributed to rising COVID cases, the timing of Labor Day and the return to school. The firm blamed the pandemic’s surges for further declines in September — 6.5% at indoor malls and 5.2% at outdoor malls — compared to 2019. 

While October isn’t looking much better, the approaching holidays could send more people back to physical locations, however, especially if COVID cases once again begin to slide, the firm said. 

Stores have turned out to be an important source for marketing and customer acquisition, as many pure-play e-commerce companies have found. But according to Forrester, retailers also must ensure that their stores are worth the effort. 

“The goal of these stores should be to deliver experiences and support operations that remove customer pains that impact behavior and provide diverse capabilities for catering to different consumer preferences,” Forrester said by email.  

Consumers have come to expect more fulfillment options when shopping online, with 45% of Forrester’s respondents saying they prefer many options. Thirty-eight percent of consumers said they’re using BOPIS services more than they used to, while 32% of respondents said they plan to continue using curbside pickup after the pandemic is over, the report found. Nearly a third of consumers who used curbside pickup services did so to save time finding the products in store on their own. 

And when it comes to returns, a physical presence may be an asset to retailers, the report found. Forty-one percent of consumers said online returns are difficult and over a third of consumers said this has discouraged them from purchasing online in the first place. Over half of respondents said they prefer in-store returns.

This article was written by Caroline Jansen and Daphne Howland from Retail Dive and was legally licensed through the Industry Dive publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@industrydive.com. 

Shopkick is an omnichannel marketing solution that can help you seamlessly bridge the gap between digital and physical shopping channels. Read more success stories and contact Shopkick to learn how to become one of our partners.

Drive Incremental Sales in 2021 and Beyond

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Driving incremental sales is a crucial goal for modern businesses. For brands and retailers, a major indicator of success can be found in an increased number of leads, customers, or sales, that wouldn’t have occurred without a specific marketing campaign. In this post, we’ll discuss what it means to drive incremental sales and which strategies you can implement to get started.

What are Incremental Sales and Where Do You Start?

Simply put, incremental sales are a way to gauge the success of a marketing campaign. Specifically, the concept refers to measurable results — the increase in the number of units sold — of a marketing activity or promotion. In order to measure the incrementality of a marketing campaign, you’ll first need to identify baseline sales figures and establish key performance indicators (KPIs). 

Baseline sales figures are foundational. In order to know exactly how well your marketing campaign performs, you’ll need to know how your business performs without it. This requires research into historical sales data to find a rare period that was not supported by a marketing promotion. Once your campaign has completed, and you have both baseline sales and total sales, you can determine incrementality by calculating the difference between the two.

Although the difference between new and baseline sales is the key incremental sales KPI, there are other related KPIs you may want to track as well. For instance, you may want to know your new customer percentage to determine how much value to place in a specific strategy or partner. Perhaps it would be helpful to calculate participated revenue, the amount of revenue generated by an affiliate partner who came into contact with the customer at some point during the sales process. Or, you can track sales completed in less than five minutes with the quick conversion rate formula.

Once you’ve calculated baseline sales and determined your KPIs, you can now explore different strategies and tactics to actually drive incremental revenue including:

  • Utilizing contextually relevant offers and incentives 
  • Building trust and brand affinity to influence more frequent purchasing 
  • Expanding your target audience to reach new customers

Strategies to Drive Incremental Sales

Utilizing contextually relevant offers and incentives

Contextually relevant point-of-purchase offers can drive unplanned impulse buys by influencing consumer behavior in the crucial moment of purchase decision. For example, a personal care brand is looking to drive incremental sales across its full product portfolio. When a shopper makes their way to the shaving aisle with the intention to buy a pack of razors, a contextually relevant promotional offer at the point of sale may incentivize the shopper to not only purchase razors, but also shaving cream and aftershave lotion, resulting in a larger basket size and an unplanned, incremental sale. Aside from product bundling, consider the use of rewards at the point of purchase to avoid the use of margin-diluting coupons, discounts, or cash-back incentives.

Build trust, affinity, and loyalty

Building trust and brand affinity can drive incremental sales by influencing consumers to purchase your brand more frequently, and over competitors. One study found that 81% of customers feel the need to trust a brand before making a purchase, and while a good reputation may get consumers to try a product, 87% said they’ll soon stop buying it unless they come to trust the company behind the product. 

So, how do you generate trust? There are several avenues to consider. Today’s consumers want to support brands that align with their values, and that are authentic. Finding a way to tell your brand story and connect with consumers in a meaningful way is a key to building trust. Consumers also value consistency and respond well to seamless messaging and experiences across all channels. 

While driving incremental sales is the end goal, brands can’t lose sight of what’s important —  the customer. When today’s consumers have a negative experience, it’s crucial that brands not only listen but act on their feedback. Building this genuine level of trust and affinity will in turn lead to more frequent purchasing, increased basket size, and incremental sales.

Expanding your target audience

Another way to drive incremental sales is simply by expanding your target audience to reach a larger customer base. A third-party rewards app with a large existing user base is a great way to reach new customers. Apps like Shopkick not only help brands and retailers tap into a unique audience, but can also help them increase loyalty and incremental sales amongst existing customers. In fact, 50% of all spend driven by Shopkick is incremental, with 63% coming from new customers and 37% coming from increased loyalty of existing customers by influencing them to spend more or purchase more often.

Measure, Test, and Tweak

Once you’ve planned and executed your incremental sales campaign, you’ll need to measure and analyze the results in order to determine its effectiveness. Whether your campaign was a success or didn’t perform as you’d hoped, experiment with different variations of your campaign, and optimize your strategy based on learnings from historical successes or failures. You may decide to increase or decrease your pricing structure, test out different advertising channels or platforms, or make changes to your messaging. 

Drive Incremental Sales with Shopkick

Understanding how to drive incremental sales is fundamental for marketers, as an increase in sales represents true success in marketing efforts. By leveraging contextually relevant offers, building trust and affinity, and expanding your target audience with a third-party app like Shopkick, you can boost incremental sales while also keeping customers engaged, earning their trust, and rewarding them for their loyalty. When Kraft partnered with Shopkick to drive sales across multiple brands in the holiday season, Shopkick’s unique rewards model drove an impressive 7.6:1 ROI, and 55% of purchases were incremental.

Shopkick is an established mobile rewards shopping app that helps brands and retailers keep their stores, brands, and products top of mind throughout the entire shopper journey, driving incremental engagement and sales. We have a proven track record of helping mobile marketing spend go further by collecting real-time actionable first-party data for our partners. To learn more about how Shopkick can help your marketing strategy and build brand affinity, contact our team.

Retail Refined Podcast: Strengthening Customer Loyalty with Data

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When supply chain issues and panic buying left grocery shelves empty for weeks, shoppers had to consider alternative options when their go-to brands weren’t available. In fact, in the height of the pandemic, 85% of consumers said brand names no longer mattered, and 69% said they would purchase a different brand if their preferred brand wasn’t in-stock. 

There’s no doubt that the past year has had a major impact on consumer purchase behaviors, and many brands and retailers are reevaluating their current strategies and considering new avenues for building, and maintaining, customer loyalty. Enter: loyalty programs and rewards apps. 

“There’s a misconception that if you build a rewards program, customers will love it… but every marketer knows that’s not true. If people don’t feel like they’re getting a benefit, if it’s too limited, if it’s hard to get rewards, if it’s confusing, they can tend to fall flat. And it does impact buying behavior, customers consider the quality of loyalty programs in buying,” says Jaysen Gillespie, SVP of Data and Analytics at Shopkick. 

There’s a ton that brands and retailers can learn about loyalty from the last 12 months, room for improvement, and an abundance of data to inform decisions moving forward. In Market Scale’s Retail Refined Podcast, Gillespie joins host Melissa Gonzalez to discuss trends in consumer engagement and app usage, how the quality of reward programs determine adoption, how to use consumer buying data to cultivate stronger loyalty, and more.

Listen here: https://marketscale.com/industries/retail/strengthening-customer-loyalty-with-data/ 

Which customer loyalty marketing variables are most influential for repeat engagement?

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Customer loyalty involves an ongoing, positive relationship between a customer and a brand or retailer. Loyal customers are invaluable, especially since 80% of a company’s revenue comes from 20% of their existing customer base. They also have a higher conversion rate—the probability of selling to an existing customer is 60% to 70%, while selling to a new prospect has a 5% to 20% likelihood. Plus, having a high percentage of return customers is great for employee morale, signifying that you’ve all worked hard to create a retail space that successfully engages consumers.

Repeat engagement is a significant factor in business growth, profitability, and long-term success. Loyal customers are worth about 10x their initial purchase, and just a 5% increase in loyalty can boost a business’ profits by 95%. 

Loyalty is a worthwhile goal, but it’s easier said than done. You could have great individual products and best-in-class customer service, but can still fall flat in attracting repeat engagement. True loyalty can be thought of more as brand affinity, where people make a conscious decision to choose your brand consistently because they feel emotionally connected to your values and ideals, and trust that you can deliver what they need. A number of loyalty marketing variables can positively affect engagement and long-term business. 

5 of the Most Impactful Customer Loyalty Marketing Variables

When deciding which customer loyalty marketing variables to focus on, you should focus on these five: 

Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is one of the most important factors when creating long-lasting customer loyalty. With competition greater than ever, the experience you provide for your customers is critical. In fact, 81% of consumers are more likely to be repeat purchasers if they have a positive experience. If they have a negative experience though, 95% will stop buying from you altogether, and share their poor experience with friends and family. 

Realistically, no matter how hard you and your employees try to create a perfect customer experience each and every time, there are bound to be instances where the interaction doesn’t go as planned. This doesn’t mean you lost the customer—yet. What then becomes important is how you handle the problem. 

Perceived service quality carries as much weight as perceived product quality in the minds of consumers. Nearly half of customers will remain loyal after a bad experience. In fact, people who have had a bad experience that was resolved in a satisfactory manner are more loyal than customers who never had a problem. It all boils down to trust.  

Trust

Trust is the belief that the business is credible, experienced, and will act in the customer’s best interest. Multiple positive engagements with a business can build trust over time. Businesses can also exude trust through their online content, media public relations, online reviews, testimonials, videos, partner associations, and years in service. It is also critical for brands to deliver on their promises and uphold their policies and offers. 

Trusted brands have better relationships with their customers. One study found that three-quarters of consumers will actively recommend businesses they trust. They’ll be willing to pay premiums, try your new products first, and stick with your brand even as competitors rise in prominence and popularity. 

When trust is established, the customer perceives congruent values and is more willing to engage in future dealings.

Self-Identification With Your Brand 

Having strong values as a brand contributes to trust, transparency, and reputation, but it also matters to customers too. Self-congruence stands out as a preeminent factor in loyalty measurements. Customers form an emotional connection when their values mirror the brand’s values, image, and “personality.” In fact, 71% of consumers prefer to buy from brands that align with their values, and 64% of customers attribute these shared values to having a strong relationship with a brand. 

Lifestyle and self-image can take a number of forms and may vary greatly across a brand’s audience. For this reason, marketers often focus on campaigns geared toward specific buyer personas. 

Perceived Brand Value

Customers’ value perception is a necessary condition for developing brand loyalty, and a loyalty program is an extremely popular and effective way to increase a brand’s value. Sixty-nine percent of customers say brand/retailer choice is determined by where they can earn loyalty rewards. 

With loyalty programs, value is demonstrated by: the cash value of rewards, choice of rewards, perceived likelihood of achieving rewards, and ease of use. Luxuries are valued higher than necessities in most programs, hence why boasting VIP services and free gifts can prove particularly effective. Joining a loyalty program can promote a sociable aspect and sense of community that enhances customer satisfaction.

Commitment 

Commitment involves the willingness to expend maximum effort to maintain an ongoing relationship. Committed brands go out of their way to personalize communications and reach out with relevant promotions and information. They ensure that their customers will receive the same high-quality experience each time they interact with the brand. Commitment is fueled by ongoing benefits accrued through the relationship over time; the more favorable interactions a shopper has, the more the shopper feels trust, commitment, and loyalty. 

Build Customer Loyalty and Drive Repeat Engagement With a Third-Party App 

If you are looking to increase engagement and loyalty, partnering with a mobile app that people are already loyal to can improve your brand favorability. Shopkick is a leading mobile platform that rewards shoppers with “kicks” (rewards points) for engaging with partnering brands and retailers and completing various engagement-related activities, like: checking in at partnering stores, scanning the barcodes of select items, watching branded videos, browsing curated lookbooks, or making purchases—whether online or in-store. 

Customers can then redeem accumulated kicks for gift cards of their choosing, which boosts goodwill toward brands they’ve already interacted with. Partners can effectively increase trial engagement and purchase consideration without slashing prices or eroding brand value. Associating with a well-established platform like Shopkick can increase trust and demonstrate a brand’s commitment to meeting shoppers’ wants and needs. 

The key to repeat engagement is assuring shoppers they’ve gained a world of benefits by choosing your brand. Partnering with our interactive mobile shopping platform can help foster customer satisfaction, brand/customer alignment, and long-term loyalty. 

Begin incorporating customer loyalty marketing variables that matter through a Shopkick partnership. Read our success stories or contact us to learn how to become a partner and start driving repeat engagement.

Retail mobile app vs. responsive website: Which is better?

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How important is customer loyalty to retailers today? Consider this: While 80% of a retailer’s future revenue is dependent on 20% of its existing customers, the average American retailer loses 15% of its customer base each year. Understanding how to juggle this revolving door of customers while still maintaining your most valuable shoppers is critical to a business’ health. 

In an ideal situation, retailers would have infinite budgets to spend on their eCommerce endeavors; but for most, budgets are limited and allocation decisions must be made. Having a user-friendly website that functions properly is a necessity, but increasingly, shoppers are using mobile devices to complete their purchases and inform their shopping trips. 

Not to mention that retail mobile apps have now become a vital channel for engaging with customers and driving long-term loyalty. To help you invest your dollars wisely, we’ll compare retail mobile apps vs. responsive websites and see which channel is more valuable. 

Retail Mobile App vs. Responsive Website: Which Should You Invest in? 

When comparing retail mobile apps vs. responsive websites, consider the following:

  • Where do retail shoppers spend most of their time? You can’t build loyalty if you aren’t connecting with shoppers where they are. The number of mobile users increased by over 10% (37% to 48%) from 2019 to 2020, and more than half of all time spent online (51%) is initiated on mobile devices. In fact, 40% of people conduct all their online searches on a smartphone or tablet exclusively. Mobile commerce sales in 2021 are projected to reach $3.56 trillion and account for 73% of all eCommerce sales. Not to mention that the average smartphone user spends nearly 4 hours per day on their mobile devices, with 90% of that time spent within apps. 
  • What engages customers and makes them more likely to convert? Mobile apps have much higher rates of engagement, with 100-300% higher conversion rates on average. Even the most efficiently mobile-optimized websites can’t compete. During the holiday season, app shoppers spent 117% more time in apps than on mobile web and made 108% more orders per person in-app than on mobile web. Apps had a 14% higher conversion rate than mobile web. Plus, app users have a 4x higher return rate than mobile web or desktop users, meaning they are more likely to return to their abandoned shopping carts, add more items, and convert to purchase.
  • What makes customers more likely to stay loyal to a retailer? More than 80% of U.S. shoppers say they are more loyal to retailers and brands when they participate in dedicated rewards programs. More than 70% of shoppers say they are more likely to participate in these loyalty programs if they can easily access their membership data from their mobile phones. Apps can seamlessly replace loyalty cards with several key features and advantages that mobile-optimized websites just cannot provide. Apps can send relevant and personalized push messages when shoppers are near a retailer’s physical location or in-store looking for special offers nearby. App icons remain on the phone’s home screen as a highly visible reminder of a retailer’s presence every time the phone is checked—about 96 times per day. Plus, apps are extremely convenient, retain user data, run with minimal loading time, and allow one-click checkout. With apps, retailers can tap into unique mobile experiences using augmented reality, visual search, image recognition, and in-store navigational tools to increase loyalty using the latest technology.

While both a retail mobile app and responsive website are important to have, it’s clear that mobile app usage is on the rise and holds the potential to offer so much more to customers and their shopping experience, thereby increasing affinity and loyalty. 

Maximize Your Dollars With a Third-Party Mobile Retail App

While it’s possible to create your own in-house app, it’s quite an expensive venture that will utilize valuable time and resources. Instead, you can partner with an established third-party mobile retail app for a fraction of the cost that will provide you access to its existing user base, like Shopkick. 

Having driven over 300 million store visits in the past decade, Shopkick is widely considered one of the best mobile reward shopping apps, attracting retailers and brands looking to elevate their loyalty programs.

Here’s how it works for shoppers: Shopkickers log into the app to see which retailers and brands are offering “kicks” (reward points) in their area. They earn kicks by performing a number of engagement-related activities, like walking through a retail partner’s doors, watching branded videos, browsing curated lookbooks, engaging with products in-aisle, scanning products’ barcodes, and submitting their purchase receipts. 

Once enough kicks are accumulated, Shopkickers can redeem these rewards for a gift card of their choosing. Many shoppers end up opting for a gift card from the retailer where they earned rewards in the first place, further cementing customer loyalty and providing an incremental revenue stream. 

If you already have a loyalty program, no problem! Shopkick can complement your existing loyalty programs, allowing you to expand your reach and strengthen loyalty among both new and existing customers. 

While any comprehensive eCommerce strategy will have both a responsive website and a retail mobile app, given mobile shopping’s rise in popularity and prominence, it would be most beneficial for retailers to invest in creating a retail mobile app—or even better—partnering with an existing one. Mobile apps give retailers the chance to connect with customers where they are, and allow them to provide supplementary benefits like a convenient rewards program and an enhanced shopping experience. 

When comparing retail mobile apps vs. responsive websites, the former is the most relevant to today’s shopping trends and will provide the best opportunity to reach shoppers. Shopkick is an established mobile rewards shopping app that has a proven track record of helping retailers achieve greater awareness, foot traffic, and consumer loyalty. Read our success stories and contact us to learn how to become one of our partners.

Customer Loyalty Marketing: An Ultimate Guide for Brands in 2021

Posted on by shopkick

The coronavirus pandemic was a huge disruptor for customer loyalty programs in 2020. Whether due to restrictions, economic hardships, social distancing, or discomfort with public settings, shopping patterns and behaviors have shifted and will continue to shift well into the next year. While many are excited for a fresh start in 2021, America’s health experts are still unsure of when our country could see some normalcy again—predictions now forecast the end of 2021’s third quarter. This means that brands will need to remain vigilant into 2021 and approach their customer loyalty marketing with careful thought and strategy.

Here’s what we know about customer habits in 2020:

  • Shoppers are trying new brands. A McKinsey report found that 75% of consumers have tried new brands and retailers. Top reasons for defection include lack of product availability, as well as better prices and promotions. Brick-and-mortar retailers and brands should adopt the latest technology and strive for better synchronicity across all channels, from brick-and-mortar stores to web to wholesale.
  • Shoppers value convenience. While lack of availability was the most common disruptor, other harmful issues affecting loyalty, according to another study, are difficult returns processes and clunky apps or websites that are not user-friendly. Loyalty best practices include optimizing the customer experience with: free and simple returns policies, click-and-collect, priority pickups, multiple modes of communication, app personalization, and an above-and-beyond digital experience. Making a meaningful effort to show you care about consumers’ common pain points and are working hard to resolve them is a key pillar to creating an emotional connection that translates to deep-rooted, long-lasting loyalty.

How the Ultimate Guide to Customer Loyalty Marketing Will Look in 2021

If 2020 taught us anything, it’s that the customer experience does not always go perfectly. But mobilizing an efficient response can significantly increase brand affinity and smooth over any bumps that may have arisen. This ultimate guide to customer loyalty marketing looks at best practices to take away from 2020 and trends to look out for in 2021, including communication strategies, location-based marketing, click-and-collect, premium perks, and strategic partnerships that add value.

Timely, Relevant Communication

Fifty-eight percent of customers will remain loyal to a company that keeps them informed with timely, relevant information. Reaching out is important, but the expectation is that your marketing will be targeted to a specific individual’s past browsing and purchasing history, wishlist, demographics, location, and stated preferences.

Keeping the messaging pertinent to consumers’ present time lets consumers know that you are paying attention, listening, watching, and are invested in their happiness.

Apps have become an essential communication and data collection tool for loyalty programs, since nearly all consumers are using mobile devices on their shopping runs. Going one step further, beacon technology allows brands to connect with shoppers on-the-go in the most timely, personalized manner possible.

When a shopper passes a certain aisle, walks past a competitor’s store, or spends a certain amount of time in a particular part of the store, brands can send specific messages relevant to that activity, capturing shoppers at the most opportunistic time for conversion.

There are many ways to effectively engage with customers:

  • Send a series of onboarding welcome messages to educate and assist new customers with loyalty program features.
  • Test different promotional messages to see which drive more sustained engagement and transactional behavior.
  • Automate texts based on consumer behaviors, like signing up for an event, passing a store, or creating a wishlist.
  • Personalize offers based on past purchase history, offering greater rewards for frequent buyers and VIPs.

While email, social media, and in-store promotions have their place, focusing on mobile is more timely than ever, since 60% of U.S. loyalty program members between the ages of 18-34 use a mobile app to manage and redeem rewards.

Customer-First Focus

Earning loyalty involves a simple strategy: Put the customer first. Loyalty is an emotional state more than a rational choice. When you provide significant value and express your dedication to the customer’s best interests, the reciprocal enthusiastic devotion will follow.

Loyalty doesn’t derive from discounts, but from feeling attended to, cared for, and significant. If shoppers feel like the business doesn’t care about them, especially in this day and age where competition is abundant, they’ll take their valuable dollars elsewhere.

Expectations are ever-rising as thoughtful innovators raise the bar of customer service. As a result, companies are increasingly implementing new conveniences that attract and maintain their customer base.

Local-First Marketing

Consumers are largely dispersed due to COVID-19. Some urban workers are now spending the majority of their time in the suburbs, working from home; others who have lost their jobs are shifting into new roles and neighborhoods.

Proximity marketing tools like beacons and GPS-based apps give brands the ability to target smaller communities on a hyper-local level, rather than sending out sweeping marketing messages across mass markets.

Personalized mobile marketing on a local level involves:

  • Greeting shoppers upon entering a store to stay top-of-mind.
  • Guiding consumers to products.
  • Sending helpful, timely information.
  • Providing motivating local deals.

Given that 89% of companies who implemented location-based marketing saw an increase in sales and 84% saw higher engagement rates, it’s no surprise that this successful tactic is used to cultivate long-term loyalty.

Click-and-Collect Convenience

Buy Online Pickup In-Store (BOPIS), otherwise known as Click-and-Collect, had a big year in 2020, with nearly 70% of consumers taking advantage of this convenient new service. 

Even as widespread fears of virus contamination peaked, shoppers proved their commitment to brick-and-mortar. They may have consolidated more shopping into fewer trips, but only 1 in 4 shoppers replaced the traditional shopping experience with eCommerce. 

Modern shoppers operate in an omnichannel environment, where they interact with brands through various channels throughout a single shopping experience. BOPIS removes shipping wait times for shoppers who want their goods right away, alleviates wait-in-line bottlenecks with advance payment, and provides the sort of personal attention that drives loyalty.

Premium Perks

Traditionally, brands thought the most valuable incentive they had was a price-based offer. However, research indicates that 87% of loyalty members who are satisfied with the program’s special perks and benefits will remain faithful to the brand even if competitors are offering lower prices. Trust, convenience, and comfort can go a long way.

So what do “premium perks” look like in 2021? Free shipping is the most desirable perk cited by premium loyalty members.

Other premium perks include:

  • VIP privileges like “first to know” about new product launches, sales, and events.
  • Special savings or double-point days for the most dedicated loyalty club members
  • Status perks like premium parking spots, skip-the-line benefits, and exclusive event invitations.
  • Social media shoutouts
  • Complimentary upgrades
  • One-to-one customer support
  • Flexible returns
  • Birthday gifts

Strategic Partnerships

How can your brand offer greater value in 2021? The answer could be found in a strategic partnership. Brands have always joined forces with other equally successful companies to better serve their existing customers and reach out to new audiences.

For instance, a leading winery partnered with Shopkick, a mobile reward shopping app, to drive awareness, consideration, and trial of their products through an inventive “Spring Entertaining” campaign. Shopkick first leveraged engaging lookbook content, branded in-app videos, and promo units that emphasized the products’ ability to pair well with recipes, inspiring users with ways to use the products.

Once consumers were in-store, Shopkick incentivized them to engage with and purchase the winery’s products through “kicks” (reward points) that can be redeemed for a gift card of their choosing once enough are accumulated. To drive incremental purchases, Shopkick awarded more kicks to shoppers who made unplanned purchases of the winery’s products. 

The results were significant—there was an 83% lift in awareness; 78% of shoppers never heard of the products before; and 49% of purchases were incremental.

In 2021, Compassion and Convenience Will Go a Long Way

Now more than ever, companies need to focus on extending compassion and convenience. While offering great deals and enticing promotions cultivate goodwill with customers, they are not effective long-term strategies for increasing loyalty. Brands that consider alternate methods of rewarding their loyal shoppers with free sample surprises, reward points, gift cards, contests, and differentiating VIP services will find that brand affinity and long-term loyalty come naturally.

Thank you for reading this ultimate guide to customer loyalty marketing in 2021. Shopkick is a mobile rewards shopping app that helps cultivate long-term customer loyalty. Brand and retail partners use Shopkick to drive repeat sales and solicit market share—all while ensuring a significant ROI. Contact us to learn how you can drive greater loyalty in 2021.