Category: Marketing Automation

How does email automation help in sales? The answer is quite simple. Email automation can help turn your leads into customers, and customers into advocates. By automating your email communications, you can free up time to focus on other aspects of your business, while still maintaining regular contact with your leads and customers. Additionally, automated emails can be customized to target specific segments of your audience, increasing the likelihood that they will convert into paying customers. Email automation can help you build relationships with your leads and customers, while also freeing up time to focus on other aspects of your business. If you’re not using email automation in your sales process, you’re missing out on a major opportunity to improve your conversion rates and grow your business. Tips on how to maximize your sales with email automation: Here are a few tips on how to maximize your sales with email automation: Use lead scoring to segment your leads and customers, and send targeted automated emails accordingly. Set up triggered emails based on specific actions or events (e.g. a customer’s first purchase, anniversaries, etc.), and send relevant messages at just the right time. Use A/B testing to optimize your automated email campaigns for maximum conversion rates. By following these tips, you can start using email automation to improve your sales process and grow your business. So what are you waiting for? Get started today! submitted by /u/Talking_Shadow123 [link] [comments]

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It’s finally here. Yesterday, after two years of waiting, Instagram unveiled its Reels API to all social media management platforms.We were so excited we started building immediately and now …Today, drafting, scheduling, and auto-publishing Instagram Reels are now available in Buffer. Want to try it out? Connect your Instagram account to Buffer, for free. It works like any other post in Buffer. You can create drafts, publish immediately, or add them to your queue and they’ll be sent out when you need. At the moment, Reels scheduling is available on our web app. We’re adding it to our mobile apps very soon!10 reasons to start scheduling ReelsWe can’t lie, we’re pretty excited to start scheduling Reels. There’s heaps of evidence out there that says Reels dramatically boost your engagement, reach, and following. But is all of it true? Well, we decided to do our own analysis. We looked back at all of the Instagram posts we’ve published this year to determine how important video content really is. And we scoured the web for reliable evidence. Here’s what we found. 👇1) Reels generate 22% more engagement than regular Instagram posts (source)Instagram actively promotes Reels across the app. They pop up all over Instagram (more on that later) to capture the attention of users. It’s no wonder they gain so much engagement. 2) 68% of marketers plan on increasing video activity on Instagram (source)Marketing Charts asked 2,897 marketers (most of whom work for small businesses) if they plan to increase the number of videos they’ll publish. For Instagram, a whopping 68 percent said they would increase the number of videos they’d publish (compared to a 43 percent increase on TikTok and just eight percent on Snapchat). Only two percent of marketers said they would decrease the amount of Instagram videos they’d publish.3) Reels get more engagement than traditional Instagram videos (source)Conviva analyzed the Instagram accounts of professional clubs in the NFL league and found that Instagram Reels get 67 percent more engagement than traditional IG videos.  Despite that, one in five NFL clubs still doesn’t publish Reels on the platform. 4) Reels are the most discoverable content on InstagramThe main reason why Reels get so much engagement, impressions, and reach, is because they appear all over Instagram. You’ll find Reels in the Explore tab, after doing a Hashtag Search, in the Reels feed, and via an audio search (when you click on any piece of music).5) Instagram prioritizes videos over photos (source)Back in 2021, the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, came out and said that Instagram “is no longer a photo-sharing app.” Instagram, instead, sees itself as a short-form video platform and will prioritize those videos ahead of images. To figure out if what Adam said came true, we decided to analyze the performance of videos posted on our Buffer Instagram account over the past year. 👇6) Videos generated 5.63% more comments than regular posts (source)We’ve found that our audience is far more likely to join in the conversation if we post video content. Reels get our followers chatting and boosted comments by 5.63 percent in 2022. 7) Reels are 25% more likely to get saved (source)This is one we weren’t expecting. Sure Reels drive more engagement, but we didn’t expect users to save them for later. But perhaps we shouldn’t be shocked. With video content generating far more impressions, it’s not surprising that those posts get more saves. But how many more eyeballs do Reels attract? That’s what we looked at next.8) Buffer’s video content drew in 83% more impressions (source)That’s right, we almost doubled our impressions after posting a video. This clearly validates what Adam Mosseri said about Instagram becoming a video-first platform. The algorithm prefers video content and will look to showcase it to fans ahead of any regular posts. Want to boost your visibility, start sharing Reels. But what about likes? 9) Videos get 2.1x as many likes as regular posts (source)On average, videos we published on our Instagram account drew in 209 likes per post. Meanwhile, regular image posts garnered just 101 likes.10) You can always schedule up to 10 Reels with Buffer (for free)It’s fast to get started with Buffer, and with a free account, you can schedule 10 Reels at any one time. Why wait? Grow your reach, boost your engagement, drive more likes, all without spending a cent on ads (or on Buffer). Try Reels in Buffer today!

In the business world, professionals are obsessed with tactics because they can help them meet their short-term goals. But if all you do is focus on the short-term, you won’t spend enough time or energy figuring out how you can succeed in the long-term.

Fortunately, building a strategy can help you achieve both your short-term and long-term goals. Strategy focuses on principles, which help you think, instead of tactics, which help you execute, so it allows you to concentrate on why your business does certain activities, not just how you do them or what you do. Read on to learn exactly what a business strategy is and how you can build an effective one today.

Your business strategy should be based on your overall vision for the company. For some brands it will be global market expansion. For others it may be more important to double down investing in existing markets they are already successful in. Regardless of your end goals, creating an effective business strategy will require thorough research beforehand.

1. Identify your business’ aspirations and values.
In business, traditional goal setting lets you measure what you do, but it doesn’t lend itself to gauging how you do it or why. And if you only focus on the results, it can sometimes incentivize you to take a course of action that prioritizes your organization’s needs over your customers’ needs.
To help you focus more on your purpose and process instead of just your results, consider setting and anchoring to an aspiration, or your vision for your business in the future when building your business strategy — it’ll inspire you to do work that better serves your customers. Once you set an anchor to an aspiration, you can add your goal to the equation, which will help you simultaneously produce customer-centric work and hit your numbers.

2. Conduct a self-assessment.
Once you’ve figured out your business aspirations and values, it’s time to conduct a self assessment to help you evaluate the best avenues for business growth and success.
You can do this by conducting a SWOT analysis to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to your business. What do you do well and how can you capitalize on that? What can be improved and how?
3. Pinpoint which segments of your market you want to capture.
Your product or service most likely isn’t the best fit for your entire market, so it’s crucial to pinpoint the segment or segments of your market that benefit the most from your product or service.
Customers who genuinely need and want your product or service are also the customers who retain the longest and are least likely to churn, boosting your customer lifetime value and lowering your customer acquisition costs.
4. Determine how you’ll beat your competition.
Ricky Bobby’s legendary saying that “If you ain’t first, you’re last” doesn’t necessarily apply to the business world, but it does have some bearing on it. Your customers won’t buy two of the same products or services, so if you want to capture as much of your segment of the market as possible, you need to place first in the majority of your target customers’ minds.
Some of the best ways to stay top-of-mind are crafting a creatively refreshing brand, differentiating your product or service from the rest of the crowd, and pricing your product relative to its perceived value.
5. Set clear goals.
Now that you’ve completed your research and established a vision for your business, it’s time to set some goals.
Think about what you want to accomplish and work backward to figure out the steps to get there. Setting business goals will help inform your strategy and how each department collaborates to achieve your objective. To start, you can come up with:

Business goals: These are high level objectives you’d like the organization as a whole to accomplish.
Department or team goals: These are key objectives delegated at the department level to help the organization achieve their overall goals.
Employee-specific goals: Using departmental goals, establish goals for individual employees to contribute to reaching business goals.

These cascading goals will make sure that all stakeholders involved in executing your business strategy are on the same page and properly aligned.
6. Make a plan.
With your business goals defined, it’s time to make a plan to accomplish them. This plan should include actionable tasks your team can take and should outline the steps needed to achieve your mission or objective.
This plan can be rolled out as either a short-term or long-term plan or a combination of the two. Additionally you’ll want to check in with your plan often to make sure everything is still on track, and make adjustments as the business requires them.
7. Figure out which competencies are needed to beat your competition and sustain your business’ success.
Unfortunately, passion isn’t enough to beat your competition and rocket to the top of your industry. Talent and skill are just as crucial. Depending on your aspirations, goals, and market, you need to figure out which types of teams and employees you need to develop and recruit to not only beat your competition, but to also sustain your success.
For example you may need to recruit more engineering staff or hire a data science team with experience in your niche to achieve your goals.
8. Decide which management systems are needed to hone these competencies.
If your business is a team, then your managers are the coaches. They’re responsible for developing, supporting, and inspiring your employees to do their best work possible.
Establish check-ins with your team to ensure both employees and managers have what they need to succeed. Invest in technology that enables your team to work together more efficiently and propels your business goals forward. Because no matter how much raw talent your employees have,they’ll never reach their potential and, in turn, help the business reach its potential if they don’t refine the skills and discipline necessary to compete and succeed.
9. Measure your results.
It’s not enough to simply set goals and hope things work out. You’ll need to actively monitor your progress if you want to achieve greatness. As mentioned previously, you should be checking your plan monthly to make sure things are running as they should.
Evaluate your metrics to ensure your team is meeting key performance indicators (KPIs). If they are not meeting them, find out why and come up with a solution to get things back on track.
10. Be flexible and willing to adapt.
Along with measuring your results, it’s also a good to examine where your strategy is falling short and make changes.
Are their changes in the industry or external factors that impact your current strategy? This may be an opportunity for you to adjust your approach. Your plan is your roadmap, but it should also be flexible enough to pivot along with your business.
11. Consider hiring a business strategy consultant.
If all of the steps above seem overwhelming and you have the resources, consider hiring outside help. Business consultants can provide guidance and training to help you achieve your business goals.
Pros

Expertise: Consultants often have a narrow area of focus — meaning when you hire one, you’re getting an expert in your selected field. They can help you build a framework or structure that aligns with your goals. They can also add a different perspective to tackling issues your team has tried and failed to resolve on their own.
Unbiased: Since a consultant is not an employee of your company, they are not hindered by existing viewpoints or tradition and can look at your company with fresh eyes. This makes it easier for them to hone in on your goals and the best strategy to achieve them.

Cons

Expensive: Hiring a consultant is definitely an added expense and will most likely cost more than paying an existing employee.
No guarantees: Although consultants are experts, they don’t come with guarantees of success. Their is no guarantee of reaching a certain performance metric or number of sales. However, you can always vet consultants by asking for recommendations, looking at references and examining their work history.

Hiring a business strategy consultant is a great option if your team has been struggling with the steps above without success. A third party may pick up on business insights you may have missed. 
Principles Over Tactics
We live in a day and age where the internet is overloaded with advice. You have access to countless amounts of tips and tricks that could potentially help you build a successful business. But without the ability to think critically about whether these tips and tricks actually apply to your specific situation, you’ll never reach long-term success.
That’s why strategy is so important. It grounds your business in principles that can apply to almost any situation and, in turn, help your business achieve both its short-term and long-term goals.
This article was originally published in May 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

If you have a promising idea for an online ecommerce business, it’s important to create an ecommerce business plan to ensure your vision has enough stock to be profitable.
Having a business plan for your online store will help you define your target market, establish your monthly and quarterly sales goals, and increase the likelihood of long-term ecommerce success.
In this post, we’ll go over what an online store business plan is and how you can create one for your ecommerce startup. Let’s get started.

Whether a company operates as a startup or has years of operations and growth under its belt, an ecommerce business plan is essential for evaluating a business and determining areas of improvement.
An ecommerce business plan is especially important, with an increasing number of shoppers conducting business online. It’s estimated this number has reached over 2 billion. Having an ecommerce business plan keeps you organized and is useful when seeking investors who need to understand your company.
So, let’s dive into some examples of ecommerce business plans and what goes into writing one using our free template.
Ecommerce Business Plan Template

Download Your Free Template Here
HubSpot’s template provides clear steps to structuring one for your ecommerce business. Throughout this section, I’ll use the example of a photography company specializing in online photo editing.
1. Give an executive summary.
An executive summary is a one-to-two page overview of your business. The purpose of an executive summary is to let stakeholders know what the business plan will contain. HubSpot’s free template offers some tips on how to write one, as I’ve done below:

Download This Template

It’s important to provide an executive summary so that an investor or executive, who doesn’t have the time to read your full plan, can quickly see the most important highlights of your business.
2. List and describe your business.
This is the section that needs the most detail because it highlights what you’re selling. To begin, provide an overview of your product or service. For instance, a photography company would probably list their photo packages arranged by price and services, as I did below:

Download This Template

HubSpot’s template also provides direction on how to describe your company’s purpose and break down values. It also advises businesses to include team structure, if applicable. Below that, you should go into detail about your product and service lines.
3. Detail your products and services.
Once you have described your business and its purpose, you’re ready to dive deeper into your plan. What products and services do you or will you offer? This is an opportunity to list each item and its purpose, allowing you to answer the question ‘why?’ Why are you choosing to offer these specific products and services?
After detailing your products and services, outline your pricing model. What is the cost associated with each service? Determining price, especially as a startup, can be challenging. However, sales pricing calculators help determine the best pricing strategy.

Download This Template
4. Conduct a market analysis.
For the market analysis, provide the operational climate of the industry you’re in. To illustrate, at this step, the photography company would need to analyze its position in a world of rival companies like Adobe or online services like Canva. Below, I’ve done a quick competitor analysis, available in the template:

Download This Template
Using directions in the template as a guide, I was able to come up with more selling points of the company and how it stands out from competitors.
Filling out the market analysis section of the business plan assists with providing the framework for future campaigns. You’re able to define your target market and ideal customer. Refer to my example below for how to structure this analysis in your ecommerce plan.

Download This Template
Good market analysis includes your target audience, projections of your company’s goals, and a breakdown of the competition’s goals and weaknesses. This is a counterpoint of how your business improves upon those weaknesses.
For a complete guide on how to create a market analysis, we have one here.
5. Strategize your marketing plan.
For any business, the marketing plan is crucial. It serves as a roadmap for how your company will build brand awareness, reach your target audience, and boost sales and revenue. As seen in this template, your marketing plan will focus on positioning strategy, acquisition channels, and tools and technology.
Positioning strategy fixates on how you will position yourself to your audience. How will you address their challenges and goals? How will you use the tools at your disposal to accomplish this?
The marketing plan will also require you to focus on where your customers come from. Are they finding your business through search engine marketing? Do they discover your business from your blog or social media accounts? Identifying your acquisition channels allows you to identify which ones to prioritize.
Lastly, your marketing plan should lay out the tools and technology your marketing team will need and use. Will you use a content management system (CMS) like CMS Hub? List all the software and programs your company will use to execute its marketing plan.

Download This Template
6. Create a sales plan.
When creating your sales plan, describe your methodology, organization structure, sales channels, and tools and technology. For example, when discussing methodology, will you focus on an inbound strategy where you attract customers to your business through your content or an outbound strategy where you initiate contact with your prospects? This part of your ecommerce business plan will also require you to outline the people in charge of selling your products and services, as well as what channels they’ll use to sell your products.
Similar to creating your marketing plan, the sales plan will also require a brief on what tools you plan to use. While your marketing plan might need a CMS, your sales plan might need a customer retention management (CRM) software like HubSpot to manage your relationships with current and potential customers.

Download This Template
7. Outline legal notes and financial considerations.
In the following two sections of your business plan, describe the legal and financial structures. The photography company should provide detail on the legal considerations like online safety rules, ecommerce regulations, and the company’s costs.

Download This Template

Listing legality and every cost needed to start ecommerce is crucial information for investors and stakeholders. In this section, it’s important to be honest and thorough to give partners a realistic idea of how to contribute.
Ecommerce Business Plan Examples
1. Maple Ecommerce Plan
This sample plan, provided on LinkedIn, is for a fictional company called Maple, an online store that sells exclusive Apple products. Maple’s sample plan is great because it provides easy-to-follow charts and graphics while highlighting the most important information. For example, their market analysis included a SWOT plan for the business.

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Outlining the strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities of Maple in this format is easy for potential investors to follow. Notating each value with a letter keeps the format consistent, which is carried throughout the plan. For businesses that find their information is best presented in graphics, Maple is a good plan to follow.
2. Nature’s Candy Ecommerce Plan
Nature’s Candy is an online retailer that provides nutritional supplements. Its business plan is available online and is helpful in seeing how businesses go from planning to execution. Below is a preview of its plan in the financial forecasting section.

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This example shows who will be on payroll yearly, giving investors an idea of how their investment will work in the long term. Planning ahead also shows stakeholders’ dedication to starting up your business.
3. NoHassleReturn Ecommerce Plan
Fictional company NoHassleReturn’s sample ecommerce plan is an expansive, detailed version of how ecommerce would translate to a completely online store. The company itself is structured to offer a way to make returning items bought from an online store a simple process, and the steps to take are featured below.

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Having a sequence of processes like this is useful if your company is a niche idea. Investors and stakeholders need to know how your business will be new and unique for the market.
Even though writing out a business plan seems like a painstaking process, we have a step-by-step guide to help. This will keep you organized and keep you on track when structuring your business.
4. OGS Capital Ecommerce Plan
This sample ecommerce business plan comes from OGS Capital, where they created a test business plan for Botswana’s first private psychiatric hospital focused on inpatient and outpatient clinical health care. It features detailed sections for the business model, marketing plan, financial projects, and more. This level of detail is demonstrated below in their executive summary section.

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While some ecommerce business plans will explain the executive summary through a series of paragraphs, the layout in this sample makes the information more digestible. The project is separated into sections that detail the business idea, as well as its goals and strengths. The business idea includes price projects, geographical focus, and target customers. Goals for this project are created for 10 years with specific, individual goals built at one-, five-, and seven-year time markers. Lastly, this executive summary highlights the strengths of this business plan to solidify this project and its importance.
5. Egrocery Ecommerce Plan
For centuries, people have left their homes to buy groceries from stores, supermarkets, farmer’s markets, and more. At-home grocery delivery has grown in popularity and is reflected in this sample ecommerce plan for a fictional business named eGrocery. This sample plan establishes the company as an online grocery retail business with plans for connecting customers to distributors for fast, convenient at-home deliveries.

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In its business model section, eGrocery outlines how it will implement both a business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) model to get products from distributors, retailers, and wholesalers to its household customers. This section provides an effective demonstration of the company’s overall function.
6. Shannon & Shavonne Inc. Ecommerce Plan
Shannon & Shavonne Inc. is a fictional United States-based online retailer that offers its customers an abundance of products in fashion, home appliances, electronics, and more. The depth seen in this plan is particularly helpful, especially with the detail seen in outlining the business structure and each job’s roles and responsibilities.

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The plan first lists all the necessary roles, from the chief executive officer (CEO) to a call center agent. It then describes the responsibilities of each role. As displayed in the image above, an information technologist (IT) would be tasked with managing the organization’s website, updating the online store, and ensuring the security of the company’s payment platform. The clear distinction of roles helps manage employee expectations and accountability.
7. Firstcry.com Ecommerce Plan
In this sample, we have Firstcry.com — a fictional ecommerce site that creates eco-friendly baby and feminine hygiene products. Because the company is looking for funding to launch the business, its plan focuses on its financial highlights and projections, which is crucial information for investors.

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While disclosing what the startup funds will be used for, this plan also estimates its top-line projections over the next five years. As seen in the chart above, they include revenue, expenses, interest, and net income. The plan even breaks down how many customers per day and annual orders will be needed to reach this goal.
When it comes to building an ecommerce business plan, you’ll likely find that the more detail you include, the better.
Planning is the first step.
When starting a business, planning is always a crucial first step. If you find that you’ve launched a company without a concrete plan, it’s never too late. Successful businesses require strategy, and that’s what an ecommerce business plan gives you. It allows you to strategize what your business does, how it operates, and why it’s essential. Not only does it help you pinpoint who the key players of your company are, but it helps you identify who your target audience should be.
With the steps listed in this article and the examples to take inspiration from, you’re one step closer to building an ecommerce business plan for success.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in November 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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In the previous article, we observed that Lean Marketing requires intelligent, highly efficient small steps instead of great marketing plans. In this article, we will show you 5 practical ways to make such steps so you can find your ideal customers among the existing ones and build true Customer Intimacy with them.

 

Enhancing the elements of a lean strategy

 

As we also pointed out in a previous article, certain elements of Lean Marketing strategy require actions to support, and the modern Customer Engagement Platform (CEP) seems more than capable of accomplishing this task.

In fact, leveraging the CEP to promote Lean Marketing practices leads to effects that surpass the requirements in a few key areas, turn personalization into hyper-personalization, and transform personas into real-life, high-resolution pictures of your actual customers!

 

Buyer Personas – ideal or real?

 

Shopify’s definition of the buyer persona is as follows: “A buyer persona is a fictionalized characterization of your best customer(s) based on information about them and how they use your product or service. These descriptions mirror your various market segments, with names to match the type of buyer.

You might have Stylish Sally and Practical Polly and Discount Daphne as personas in your clothing business, for example, all representing different categories of buyers with similar backgrounds and habits. In this case, Sally might be primarily concerned with looking snazzy at any cost, while Polly is focused on finding more functional, long-lasting outfits, and Daphne really only buys when you have a great sale, but is great for clearing out last season’s merchandise.”

Most companies, not only eCommerce platforms, use more than one persona; they usually establish 1–5. These personas define the patterns of various customers’ behaviors and enable companies to carry out strategies that fit these patterns.

Personas offer pictures of the ideal customer, and contemporary eCommerce, equipped with a CEP, that makes use of 360°customer profiles has plenty of data to derive detailed and comprehensive patterns to establish a persona. Buyer Personas are hidden in your data; they are your actual customers.

 

Hyper Segmentation Center goes beyond traditional segmentation with real-time high propensity & churning customers identification and one click availability across all execution channels

 

Better than personalization

 

The first steps on a lean way require actions identical to those used in classic marketing activities. It is necessary to segment the market and define the target group for your product. Traditionally, eCommerce segments customers according to psychographic, behavioral, social, budget, and geographic characteristics. This results in the creation of segments.

According to Investopedia, “The term market segment refers to people who are grouped together for marketing purposes. Market segments are part of a larger market, often lumping individuals together based on one or more similar characteristics. Corporations and their marketing teams use various criteria to develop a target market for their products and services. Marketing professionals approach each segment differently, but only after they fully understand the needs, lifestyles, demographics, and personality of the target consumer.”

Hyper-segmentation goes much further than this. According to Capgemini, hyper-segmentation is the “advanced and real-time customization of offerings, content, and customer experiences on an individual level.” It is not about creating just a few segments capacious enough to contain relatively large groups of people so everyone can fit somewhere. Hyper-segmentation means creating as many segments as possible, sometimes only for a moment or even only for a single customer, to deliver an extremely personalized experience. 

 

Conditional content is a personalization option that allows you to create different variants of one message. Each variant can be freely personalized by dragging the appropriate widgets into its field. 

 

5 examples of personas and the hyper-personalization of their experience

 

A new shopper

 

Target group: A new customer has just created an account and bought first, single product: a car lamp cleaner. The customer did not decide to subscribe to the newsletter.

Your sources of data:

Behavioral dataSegmentation rules

A reason to create such a persona:This is the perfect opportunity to get to know new customers better and to start creating a bond to ultimately reach the ideal Customer Intimacy level. 

What actions can be undertaken?Using the Customer Preference Center, you can collect information about the car/cars brand and model/models. You may ask detailed questions about car equipment and materials, as well as in what circumstances or weather conditions they are most frequently used. By inviting such customers to subscribe to the newsletter, you can begin the process of a lead nurturing or educating new customers about care processes, such as maintaining car seats based on their materials or cleaning wooden finish. Knowing the kind of car, its purpose, and the details of its utilization (for example, luxury cars are sometimes only driven occasionally, family daily car, and some own a car fleet of trucks), you can easily recommend whole sets of products at the right time of year.

Cross-selling Progressive profilingLead nurturingWebsite personalizationHyper-personalized recommendations in SMS/email/Web Push

 

Dynamic Segments are advanced tools allowing you to create and update in the real-time, the groups of contacts, meeting has given set of criteria including CRM data, behavioral and transactional data, at the given moment.

 

High-value shopper

 

Target group: Woman, living in a large city like London who spend at least 400 Euros regularly in your shop. 

Your sources of data:

Declarative data Dynamic segments (transactional data)

A reason to create such a persona:Targeting groups with a high probability of making valuable purchases is the essential purpose of hyper-segmentation and creating buyer personas. Gender recognition provides an additional opportunity to promote gender-specific products. 

What actions can be undertaken?Using Customer Preference Center and transactional data, you can broaden your knowledge about this valuable customer’s needs and preferences. Inviting customer to subscribe to the newsletter allows her to stay informed about how other products are related to the ones they have already purchased. This will provide lead nurturing and lay the foundation for cross-selling. Considerable average cart values and encouraging the customer to take advantage of the Wishlist in their Personal Shopping Inbox could provide useful information not only for recommendations but also for upselling. Actions you can engage in using relevant data are as follows:

Cross-sellingUpsellingProgressive profiling (needs and desires)Lead nurturingWebsite personalizationHyper-personalized recommendations in SMS/email/Web Push 

 

 

Shopper you are losing

 

Target group: Customer who have made purchases irregularly with mediocre cart values from the House and Garden category. Now, the frequency of purchases has begun to drop. They don’t browse through the offers and instead use the search bar.

Your sources of data:

RFMSegmentation rulesBehavioral data

 

Our shopper is in the casual category

 

There are 75 contacts in his segment

 

By monetary, he is medium

 

Medium segment contains 100 users RFM Marketing Automation is a perfect solution for eCommerce and will help you to successfully implement the customer value approach.

 

A reason to create such a persona:People who make purchases irregularly and for average amounts can still be your loyal customers—a garden is something that requires care for years. This segment includes people who do not bother to browse the entirety of the product selection anymore because they know about your offers and have gotten used to seeing certain products, which will be clear from their carts. Since they type the names of the products, these particular ones, or some of them, may not be in stock anymore. Such customers may feel this is where they part ways with the shop.

What actions can be undertaken?An obligatory win-back campaign should be supported by data gathered via the Customer Preference Center. It is important to get to know what the customer’s garden looks like, what plants grow there, and what the small architecture is. Another thing to know is the reason for certain product preferences. Knowing this, you can really hyper-personalize a new, even better set of offers for your loyal customer—after establishing a preferred channel of communication, since this particular person does not like to browse. Additionally, lead nurturing via newsletters can provide the customer with useful information on how to care for the garden using the latest products that are possibly better than those not in stock anymore. 

Win-back campaignsInactivity alertsProgressive profiling (garden and products)Lead nurturingHyper-personalized recommendations in SMS/email/Web Push 

 

Shopper who suddenly vanished

 

Target group: Logged-in customer highly active on the website, browses offers, has subscribed to the newsletter, and is a regular reader. However, they have never bought anything online. Instead, they have made regular purchases of medium-to-high value at the stationery shop. The purchases suddenly ended 3 months ago, but the customer remains active on the website and opens newsletters.

Your sources of data:

Declarative dataSegmentation rulesBehavioral dataRFM

A reason to create such a persona:If someone suddenly stopped making purchases in your stationary shop but apparently did not lose interest in your offers, this may mean that such a person simply moved! Your network probably does not have a stationary shop in this new area. The customer is apparently attached to your shop and probably treats you like an authority figure in this area, given that they read your newsletters. You are also probably a benchmark for the competition since the customer still browses your offers, though this activity begins to fade. Loyal, attached customers who do not buy items online but have no problem with online communication probably simply do not trust online shopping. Alternatively, they simply prefer to see the products in person and communicate with any available salespeople who then offer further information about the product. This indicates that such a person does not believe that online shopping will provide her with enough care and consulting from the shop’s side. It is worth proving her otherwise.

What actions can be undertaken?Encouraging such a customer to share more about her needs and preferences via the Customer Preference Center using a series of questions about her attitude toward online shopping could change her mind about your shop’s attitude toward online shoppers. By knowing her fears and sources of distrust, you can mitigate them. Establishing product preferences and sending hyper-personalized recommendations would prove that she is an important customer, regardless of whether she makes purchases online or in person. Encouraging her to download and use the app could open a new, exciting way of shopping for her, and personalizing the content of the website would make her feel at home.

Win-back campaignsInactivity alerts Progressive profiling (attitude toward online shopping)Hyper-personalized recommendations in SMS/email/Web Push Website personalizationMobile marketing Win-back campaigns

 

A Contact Card in CDP contains all the information you need to evaluate the contact and diagnose the possible reasons for disappearance both declarative …

 

… and behavioral

 

Wrapping up

 

In other words, we showed you few ways you can describe:

customers you can start building the relationship with, based on Customers Intimacycustomers especially worthy of nurturingloyal customers that you are losing for no particular reason, besides they needed your attention in a pivotal moment of your relationship.

These are probably the simplest, yet very promising groups of people. We showed you just four examples, but there are many personas you can construct to find them as real people in your own database – with no additional costs, just with little creativity, the lean way.

 

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