The following is a guest piece by Rosie Gentile, executive vice president, practice lead North America, FCB/SIX. Opinions are the author’s own.
While many brands are sending out discount codes to try to get lucky this Valentine’s Day, the most successful marketers will achieve real brand love through more traditional means: good, old-fashioned courtship.
Now, I’m not suggesting we throw out the playbook of data, tech and CRM strategies, but I am saying that today’s retail landscape and the proliferation of retail media has created untapped opportunities to get to know your customer on a deeper level – and to share more about your brand and what it has to offer.
Marketers, on Feb. 14 and beyond, reconsider your approach to customer relationships by trying these customer-focused retail strategies – you might even get a second date!
Meet your customers where they are
Refining the retail experience journey to be more personalized and more valuable to the customer is the key to deeper relationship building. This often requires shifting your strategy to engage with your customers where and how they want – like when Glossier, a DTC brand, entered Sephora because that’s where their customers wanted them to be.
Emphasize the experience
Challenge your teams to consider the marketplace and retail environment as an experience center, versus just an in-the-moment sales opportunity. Create differentiation and richer ways for the customer to discover your brand and products by adding value and entertainment beyond the coupon cliché – think of this as your very own “meet cute” with your customer, and the start of a long and meaningful relationship. Even if your brand is playing a supporting role within a retail environment, you can create a unique experience for your customers through in-store popups and activations. If they are compelling enough, they will serve as the bridge from brand to buy.
Luxury brands do this very well – from collaborations to full-scale store wraps that surprise and delight passersby to pop-ups within mixed retail environments, brands from Chanel to Moët & Chandon are offering unique and intriguing ways to experience their brands.
Dating delivers data
In this reimagined experience center, there are some immediate returns beyond the sale. For example, interactions with customers will deliver new data points on their needs and desires. Driving interest and engagement may not immediately seal the deal, but the interactions will reveal key insights into customers’ various interests and need states and help you get to know them better so that you can act when the time is right.
Know when the time is right
Orchestrating personalized content throughout the customer journey is a love language that marketers need to learn how to speak – and connect those conversations across platforms. Retail media offers the ability to deliver messages to a primed and engaged audience, creating a full-funnel engagement opportunity.
Intimacy is key
Relationship building with your customers often calls for more intimate interactions. For example, connecting with your customers on social might be more successful if you speak to smaller groups of fans and brand loyalists. Live commerce, for example, emphasizes storytelling versus selling, ultimately providing customers higher quality content and experiences.
As in real-life love, conversion in today’s landscape requires brands to stand out from the pack, offer real value and demonstrate the level of consideration and care expected in a long-term relationship. For marketers, this will demand a new level of synchronization and building deeper relationships among your internal teams as well.
