Shoppers want multiple ways to contact brands for customer support, whether it’s through direct message or comment response via social media, IM chat on a website, email, phone, or in-store returns counter. They want rewards programs and special offers to be available on physical cards, mobile apps, and web portal logins—freeing them to shop whichever channel they desire. 

Customers not only expect a frictionless omnichannel focus upfront, but they expect it in your back-end processes, as well. Advances in technology have made it easier for brands and retailers to keep items in stock, fulfill orders efficiently, and checkout orders quickly. Bridging the gap between online and offline channels alleviates bottlenecks that would otherwise jeopardize the overall user experience.

Modern shoppers expect exclusive deals on the products they like or would like, quick resolution of issues, timely back-in-stock alerts, personalized recommendations, as well as the ability to find what they need faster and easier. While many of these shoppers are comfortable with sharing data, they also expect full transparency. They want to know what data is being collected about them, how it will be used, and who it will be shared with—as well as a way to opt-out of data tracking. 

Brands can incorporate hyper-personalization into social, mobile, and in-store marketing—which also creates an omnichannel experience—to cater to consumers’ desires. 

Social

Four out of five consumers believe society is more divided than ever—and 78% are looking to leading brands to bridge the divide, using social media as a platform. Brand behaviors that connect with audiences include:

• liking or responding to a fan
• showcasing brand personality
• supporting a cause
• inviting user-generated content
• promoting offline events

Consumers want brands to focus on people, not just products. They look to brands to connect disparate groups of people across platforms. Why does social connection matter? Three-quarters of those surveyed said they would buy from a brand they feel connected to over a competitor. When they don’t feel a connection, 70% are less likely to shop there and 61% spend less when they do.

Mobile

Existing mobile architecture makes it easy for brands to connect with busy, on-the-go, smartphone-enabled shoppers. Brands can partner with a third-party mobile shopping rewards app, like Shopkick to reach an already-loyal base of consumers. Shopkick allows consumers to begin their purchase journey by browsing engaging in-app content from several brands and retailers, whether they’re at home or on the go. For partners, this content helps build pre-shop awareness and consideration and puts products at the top of shoppers’ minds. Users can check the Shopkick app to see which brands or retailers offer “kicks,” or rewards points, which incentivize shoppers to visit a store or browse online. Eventually, Shopkick users redeem their kicks for free gift cards, which builds a positive affinity and loyalty for the brands that awarded them. 

In-store

The personalized retail customer experience has overtaken product and price in terms of competitive advantage, with 86% of shoppers willing to pay more for better UX. Brands can leverage Shopkick in-store to offer consumers an engaging and interactive, rewarding experience. In-store, Shopkick utilizes an engaging gamification strategy that drives shoppers to products at-shelf and encourages physical product interaction in exchange for kicks. This allows brands to boost product awareness when it truly matters most—in-aisle, with the product in hand. By offering users an additional kick incentive for making a purchase, Shopkick closes the loop and drives sales. When consumers receive rewards via Shopkick, they attribute them to the partnering brands—also building positive affinity and loyalty.

Ultimately, consumers want to feel seen, valued, and appreciated. They want to feel an emotional connection with the brands they choose to bestow with their business. After all, it’s a competitive market out there and if you won’t cater to the individual, the consumer knows there are plenty of other brands that will. Tools and technologies make it possible to see each shopper as a unique individual and tailor the experience on a micro level. By taking care to create a personalized, omnichannel, rewards-packed experience, you show consumers you understand what they value and what matters most in their lives.

The Amazon Prime program began with the offer of free two-day shipping, but it has expanded to include a wide assortment of other rewards, such as discounts on streaming services and grocery deliveries, Prime Day special offers, and surprise perks. There is also a special version of Amazon Prime tailored to students. Loyalty program members are typical among a retailer’s best customers, but Amazon Prime members distinguish themselves by spending twice as much as other Amazon shoppers. Other retailers are beginning to follow Amazon’s lead. As of 2019, 76% of loyalty programs did not charge a fee, but more than half of the companies surveyed reported that they are considering implementing fee-based, premium loyalty programs. 

Premium loyalty programs encourage spending with attractive offers and the opportunity for customers to recoup their money. This paradigm is similar to the one used by wholesale clubs like Costco, but we often see it in retailers who offer a very specialized product to customers and who already have a high level of loyalty. Gamestop, GNC, and Lululemon are among the retailers with premium loyalty programs because of their niche product offerings. 

Omnichannel

The Nordstrom loyalty program relaunch modernized it and emphasized omnichannel sales. Social media channels were leveraged to help create a sense of community, similar to in-store events. The retailer also introduced an app for its loyalty program. The Nordy Club also encourages online purchasing and BOPIS, with curbside pickup. In stores, space is set aside for events, a café, and makeover areas.

Multitier

The Nordy Club has four tiers based on annual spending. Benefits at the beginning level include exclusive “First to Shop” launches, basic alterations and workshops, in addition to points for purchases. Points are easier to earn and other benefits improve as the customer rises through the ranks. Benefits include a visit from a home stylist at the highest level.

A Key Part of the Brand

“Our loyalty program is a key part of our brand,” Nordstrom’s co-president and director Erik Nordstrom said, speaking to investors in 2019. “And it’s something that’s been vital to us for quite some time. Five years ago, 35% of our business was done through our loyalty program. It is now at 55% and growing rapidly.”

The REI Co-op membership provides customers rewards for spending and an all-encompassing community experience. In many places, they offer dozens of classes and events to attend at a discount, creating communities of highly focused, like-minded individuals similar to how Nike offers sponsored fitness classes. But that’s not the limit of its community building. REI has a strong stance on environmentalism that it incorporates into its own operations and in the contributions it has made to nonprofit organizations. Identification with these causes leads to strong brand affinity by consumers. This loyalty strategy has been used by other organizations, such as The Body Shop and Target. Does environmentally committed outdoor sportsmen sound like a narrow target audience to you? Definitely not; REI has over 18 million co-op members. 

Easy to Use

Users can check the Shopkick app to see which brands or retailers offer “kicks,” or rewards points, which incentivize shoppers to visit a store or browse online. In-store, Shopkick utilizes an engaging gamification strategy that drives shoppers to products at-shelf and encourages physical product interaction in exchange for kicks. This allows brands to boost product awareness when it truly matters most—in aisle, with the product in hand. By offering users an additional kick incentive for making a purchase, Shopkick closes the loop and drives sales. Eventually, Shopkick users redeem their kicks for free gift cards, which builds a positive affinity and loyalty for the brands and retailers that awarded them.

Combats Loyalty Fatigue

Shopkick partners won’t become the forgotten victims of loyalty fatigue because Shopkick is enjoyable and undemanding. Consumers don’t have to download so many different loyalty apps when using Shopkick to earn rewards for shopping with their favorite brands and retailers. Shopkick allows consumers access to earn rewards with multiple brands and retailers, as it doesn’t confine them to one specific loyalty program. In many cases, Shopkick can be used in conjunction with other customer loyalty programs; shoppers can earn kicks with Shopkick and rewards through their favorite brand or retailer’s program.

Advantages for Partners

Shopkick is one of the leading apps of its type. It attracts a broad audience that may be hard to reach otherwise. Like an in-house loyalty program, Shopkick both influences buying behavior and tracks it, providing valuable analytics. Consider how Shopkick helped drive incremental purchases for Georgia-Pacific. When the brand launched its Dixie Ultra Deep Dish Plates, they partnered with Shopkick to build awareness and drive trial and consideration for the new product. The campaign received over 16M impressions and was highly successful in educating consumers before their trip to the store, boasting a 99% branded video completion rate. Nearly 50% of purchasers were not initially planning to buy Dixie products before their visit to the store.

Customers expect loyalty programs to meet their wants and needs. They want their rewards to come fast (45%), easy (34%), and personalized. That’s a tall order in a crowded environment where it’s hard to distinguish oneself. Shopkick provides an opportunity to bring those rewards to consumers in a way that is convenient and beneficial—for brands and retailers, too. 

Why You Should Be Driving Incremental Sales

Incremental sales matter because they increase your revenue, allowing you to surpass goals, invest more back into the business, and enjoy bigger profits. Incremental sales are a matter of basic efficiency and capturing market share before others do.

You’ve likely worked hard to gain customers’ attention. If you’re a retailer, you’ve invested in selecting merchandise, training your staff, constructing displays, arranging layouts, and creating targeted promotions. If you’re a brand, you’ve invested in attracting top talent, product development, packaging, and creating engaging campaigns. All you need to do is encourage shoppers to spend now, and as much as possible, and incremental sales are your proof—shoppers are spending more than you expected.

Turn Browsers Into Buyers

Half the battle is getting your product in the consumer’s hands. Once shoppers can touch, feel, and explore your product in-person, the conversion is not such a far leap from there. In-store sampling, guerilla marketing promotions, and demos are traditional methods of putting your products on center stage. These methods have a more dramatic and sustained impact than mere aisle displays. On average, a demo provides a 150% boost in same-day sales and a 90% boost over the following three months. It’s evident that meaningful engagement turns browsers into buyers.

Increase Transaction Value

Performing better-than-expected on a campaign is not just about increasing the number of sales, but about increasing the amount of money people spend on their transactions, too. Bundle your products in new ways. Take products that complement each other, but are typically sold separately, and try offering the complete package for a single fixed price to create irresistible value. Offer added value at the point of purchase, when buyers are most receptive. Upselling a newer model or cross-selling a complementary product or service at the point-of-purchase can entice 30% to 50% of shoppers to spend more.

Create More Demand

Shoppers don’t necessarily have to need a product to justify their desire for it. There are many ways brands can create demand. Releasing engaging new products is one way to keep a fresh stream of demand lining up around the block. Consider how Apple does this each time the tech giant releases a new iPhone. Building meaningful and personal relationships with shoppers will make them more likely to buy from you even if they weren’t originally planning to do so. Thoughtful data collection and routinely reaching out (via mobile, email, and social media channels) also lets consumers know what they want or need even before they are aware of the void.

Provide Multiple Touchpoints

It takes anywhere from five to seven touchpoints to make a sale. Ideally, you want to connect with a shopper at multiple touchpoints along the journey to purchase. In the early stages of awareness, you might advertise online to get mobile users into your store. During the engagement phase, you might advertise a sale or hand out informative flyers to let shoppers know what you have to offer. Once shoppers are in the store and considering your offers, nurture these leads by greeting them with highly trained sales professionals who serve as the friendly face of your retail establishment and helpfully answer questions as customers peruse the aisles.

Attract Mobile Foot Traffic

Increasingly within the last five years, retailers have had to adapt their marketing methods to reach consumers wherever and whenever they are planning their shopping trips. Mobile devices are the next frontier for marketing messages. Retailers can use SMS push notifications, mobile-optimized websites, scan codes on packaging, online advertising, retailer-specific apps, and third-party shopping platforms to reach consumers surfing for deals on the couch or planning their trips to the store. Once they’re in the store, shoppers are accessing mobile to learn more about products, compare prices, and snag deals; retailers can capitalize on this.

Reward Loyal Shoppers

High-value offers combined with low purchase requirements are highly effective in driving trial among first-time shoppers. Going one step further, a rewards program is a powerful motivator in encouraging larger purchases and sustained business. Customers are willing to invest more when the perceived value they get in return is higher. They might earn points toward desirable gifts or automatically receive a percentage off a future purchase. Increasingly, top retailers are including partner offers, in addition to offering VIP services and members-only invitations, to enhance the exclusivity of their programs. You can develop your own in-house rewards program or partner up with a rewards platform shoppers already use. 

Brands and retailers can be confident in a partnership with Shopkick, which boasts a proven track record of increasing incremental sales. For example, after a two-month Shopkick campaign, 68% of Bomb Pop popsicle purchasers over a busy Fourth of July run-up bought the product spontaneously. Nearly half of shoppers (44%) first became aware of the product through the Shopkick app.

When Shopkick’s retail partners wanted to know of the sales, transactions, and customers that Shopkick was driving—how many would not have occurred without the Shopkick program—they conducted research to measure program incrementality. The findings were that Shopkick is a highly incremental program for Shopkick retail partners as a whole and these results stood true across different retail verticals. 

• Fifty-seven percent of all sales driven by Shopkick were incremental. That incremental spend was driven by new customer acquisition as well as increased loyalty of existing customers. 
• Fifty-five percent of department store sales were incremental, 49% of electronics/big box store sales were incremental and 67% of specialty store sales driven by Shopkick were incremental.

Increased incremental sales represent true success in your latest marketing efforts. Shopkick offers you yet another platform for advertising, metrics, consumer engagement, and personalization. Whether you have an existing loyalty program or not, you can add value to your brand by partnering with one of the most popular mobile shopping apps at a time when mobile marketing is on the rise.

How is brand recall achieved?

• A Visual Presence: Colors, songs, logos, mascots—there is a reason these ingredients are part of every sports franchise. The same rings true for the most memorable brands today. Neuroscience tells us that visuals light up the emotional response centers in the brain, which in turn leads to more vivid memory processing. Visual learning, pattern recognition, and decision-making are all closely intertwined.
• A Meaningful Ideology: Shoppers gravitate to brands with unique selling propositions and meaningful messages that match their core values. They want to know your mission statement and what you stand for before they turn over their hard-earned dollars. Establishing your brand’s ideology and offerings can bridge the gap between unaware audiences and what you stand for, thus reinforcing your brand’s importance.
• Direct Engagement: Your marketing efforts should focus on ways to transform passive audiences into engaged prospects. For instance, a person is more likely to remember your brand name if they are writing with a branded pen that has your logo on it every day, as opposed to someone who simply walks past a branded sign. High attendance at your brand-sponsored events, newsletter subscriptions, social shares, and loyalty program app downloads are all signs that you’re actively engaging consumers and positioning yourself for better brand recall. 
• A Consistent Effort: Awareness is not something you can set and forget. Establishing reliable, long-term communication channels to facilitate continued awareness is crucial in becoming someone’s go-to brand. The most successful brands are omnichannel sellers that take their business from social media and online marketplaces to mobile devices and brick-and-mortars. While your brand may evolve in purpose and imagery over time, you want to keep your marketing generally consistent across channels over time to form a cohesive picture in consumers’ minds.

Content

It’s no secret that consumers flock to the internet in search of content that is tailored to their personal interests. Increasingly, they’re searching for local content. You’ll need to invest in regular publishing of professionally-generated content that contains both industry- and location-based keywords designed to attract the right crowd. There are plenty of places to peddle content these days—your homepage, blog, email newsletters, social media sites, third-party niche sites, and video platforms. 

Performance Tracking

Powerful data collection will form the cornerstone of your branding strategy, as this information offers a window into the minds of your prospects. Who are you targeting? What are their pain points? What do your buyers have in common? CRM software can help you track a person’s engagement with your enterprise across all channels so you can move from short-lived single-serving interactions to sustainable relationship building. In physical stores, you can install beacons or in-store sensors to understand how shoppers are experiencing your brand.

Collaboration

Data analytics, keyword research, social listening, and customer relationship management will likely lead you to discover potential partnerships for your brand. You may find organizations that share the same goals as you, though they may not be direct competitors. Sports teams, charities, community groups, service providers, retailers, or tech providers can all make valuable partners. With newfound partners, you can get your brand out in front of new crowds, launch mutually-beneficial campaigns, and take advantage of your partners’ existing marketing infrastructures.

Technology like beacons, QR codes, video, virtual reality, and mobile apps represent the new frontier of marketing. What better way to stay fresh in the mind of shoppers than to make your appeal while shoppers are in-store and ready to buy? Unaided brand recall is not enough in this environment, as nearly a third of shoppers will change their mind on a purchase based on information from a mobile device in-store.

Shopkick is one of America’s top mobile shopping rewards platforms. The app has a highly engaged, highly loyal user base who shop on a regular basis. Here’s how the rewards platform works: Shopkickers begin their purchase journey by browsing engaging in-app content from several brands and retailers, whether they’re at home or on-the-go. This content includes curated lookbooks, informative video ads, and more. For partners, this content helps build pre-shop awareness and consideration and cements your brand in shoppers’ minds. Users can check the Shopkick app to see which brands or retailers offer “kicks,” or rewards points, which incentivize shoppers to visit a store or browse online. In-store, Shopkick utilizes an engaging gamification strategy that drives shoppers to products at-shelf and encourages physical product interaction in exchange for kicks. This allows brands to boost product awareness when it truly matters most—in-aisle, with the product in hand. By offering users an additional kick incentive for making a purchase, Shopkick closes the loop and drives sales. Eventually, Shopkick users redeem their kicks for free gift cards, which builds a positive affinity and loyalty for the brands and retailers that awarded them, aiding in the ability for consumers to recall those brands.