As an entrepreneur, you spend time and money on your marketing campaigns to achieve one goal: generate sales. You buy Facebook ads hoping that your customers will purchase your products or services. You hire a social media manager to manage your social media campaigns so more people know about your business. You hire a writer to write blogs and create newsletters to keep your customers interested and loyal. With all the time and money spent, you expect your efforts to pay off. But is it paying off? If your efforts aren’t driving sales, then you evidently need a new strategy.
RetailMeNot Inc., a leading digital savings destination that connects consumers with retailers, restaurants, and brands, both online and in store, analyzed over 50,000 retailers across 800,000 promotions on several platforms it owns to determine which marketing strategies generate sales. RetailMeNot found that longer promotional periods, desirable offers, and a channel mix are the three best ways to drive sales.
1. Longer Promotional Periods
If you sell products online and you use the Facebook pixel to track your web visitors’ actions, then you know how often cart abandonment occurs. You’ve seen some customers abandon the items in their cart, and you’ve seen some reappear a few days later to finalize the purchase.
More product choices and purchase paths lengthened the buying journey. In the digital age, customers can visit multiple competitors in store, on mobile, or on desktop, before making a purchase. Because the buying journey is longer, it’s imperative that your promotions also last longer. RetailMeNot found that, on average, those who run promotional campaigns for three months received more conversions.
Additionally, they found that the best strategy is comprised of a blend of promotional peaks and evergreen offers supported by an omni-channel advertising strategy that provides engagement boosts at the right times. In other words, to have a successful promotional campaign, you must
- Use social media to promote your offers
- Space out offers during the 3-month period
- Offer evergreen promotions, promotions that are always available to costumers, such as discount codes
RetailMeNot found that this strategy resulted in 27% more conversion lift. It also found that consumers were 23% more likely to return to a brand that offers evergreen discount codes.
2. Desirable Offers
What makes a desirable offer? Is it a 50% discount, a buy-one-get-one deal, or free shipping? RetailMeNot found that a code, a 10-20% discount, mass appeal, and omni-channel convenience improved conversion.
Code
Rather than offering a generic sale, a buy-one-get-one deal, or other promotional formats, offer a discount code. Most customers like online or in-store coupon codes because it gives them a sense of victory: they found a special discount they would not have otherwise received. On average, codes convert twice as much as other offer types.
10-20% Discount
During the peak periods of your campaign, offer customers a 10-20% discount. RetailMeNot data suggests that 10-20% discounts convert 64% higher than offers with lower or no discounts.
Mass Appeal
Give your customers offers for sitewide or storewide content along with your popular categories. RetailMeNot found that those who featured sitewide offers converted at the higher rate, driving a 61% order lift than other offers. It also found that category-specific evergreen content converted at the next highest level.
Omni-Channel
Customer are more likely to convert if you give them the ability to shop online or in store. Those who offered customers more avenues for purchase received 1.5 times lift in order per day.
3. Channel Mix
To get more conversions, use multiple media channels during promotional peaks to drive user demand and awareness of your offers. This may mean advertising from multiple social media networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat, advertising on Google, sending customers emails about current offers, or giving customers the ability to shop through desktop or mobile.
Because more competitors and more buying channels exist, the buying journey is longer. Your customers will dawdle as they debate whether or not to buy your products, as they surf online or browse in-store for a better deal. To push browsers to become customers, remember to have longer promotional campaigns, to give desirable offers, and to provide several avenues for purchase. If you follow those three, you’ll be generating conversions in no time.
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