Ecommerce’s greatest challenge is also, as far as customers are concerned, it’s greatest asset. The breadth of choice available to consumers buying online means that loyalty is low, and buyers spend a lot of time researching, looking for the best deal.

According to research conducted by RapidCampaign for the ‘Brands we love vs brands we buy’ report, a third of consumers follow retailers on social channels to get their latest deals and offers. Slightly more than a third (34%) said they would like to find them on retailer websites, and three quarters (76%) say they want to know about retailer offers and promotions via email.

This means that your potential customers are both passively waiting for a deal to come to them, via their inbox or social news feed, and actively looking for a deal when they visit your website. At the same time we also found that 50% of customers will only buy online when some kind of promotion is involved, affirming the importance of a smart promotions strategy.

So how do you serve these would be shoppers with promotions that that they’ll love, and perhaps more importantly, buy?

Know your audience, but don’t assume one size fits all

Any retailer understands that you have to know what your customers want, but when it comes to promotions there is no guarantee that what one will go for, another will too. Our research shows that there are general trends in what kinds of promotions different demographics and audiences look for, but they are just generalisations. Audience understanding is key, but try to diversify the types of promotions you’re offering to appeal to all your customers and offer a more personalised experience.

Optimise for mobile

This might sound obvious, but we know that many retailers are still failing at this despite the great opportunity mobile offers for delivering promotions to customers. Mobile commerce is huge, and mobile shoppers may be particularly susceptible to the kinds of impulse buys that promotions initiate.

Mix it up on social media

We’ve mentioned how a third of consumers follow retailers on social channels in order to get their offers and promotions, but that isn’t all they are looking for. Nearly as many consumers (29%) told us they follow retailers for updates that are ‘interesting or funny’. This means that while you are likely missing out on crucial sales if you’re not posting your promotions to Facebook and Twitter, if your feeds are a constant stream of offers you’re likely to be switching potential customers off. A balance has to be achieved, which will also include a variety of types of promotion, as per our first point.

Promotions as a conversion tool

While promotions can help drive marketing opt-ins and even spur your email database of social followers to buy, they are also a powerful sales tool further down the purchase funnel. As we know, over a third of consumers want to see promotions on a retailer website; these are potential customers, actively searching for a deal and they are on your site. If you’re like most retailers, you spend a huge sum on marketing, PPC, SEO and display, to drive this traffic to your site, but see a tiny conversion to purchase ratio. A smart promotion can give these visitors the impetus to buy, improving this ratio and subsequently your sales volume.

Don’t fret about average purchase value

The concern some online retailers might have is what a higher percentage of promotion led sales will do to their average purchase value. This is where the power of the promotion gets really interesting; 28% of consumers admit that they actually spend more on a purchase when a promotion is involved. What we can learn from this, is that even among the purchases that may have been made regardless of a promotion, many will be higher value. Meanwhile you are naturally driving more sales by engaging and converting new customers, and by engaging more potential customers with promotions you will inevitably drive more in sales and revenue.

 

By Marko Luhtala, CEO of RapidCampaign.


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