Key takeaways from the Retail Innovation Conference and Expo

Let’s discuss the key takeaways from sessions at #RICE23: 

1. Leverage generative artificial intelligence (AI)

One of the most intriguing and innovative concepts presented at this year’s #RICE23 was the potential and utilization of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in the retail industry. As retailers aim to deliver more personalized, efficient, and engaging customer experiences, the introduction of generative AI proves to be a game-changer in meeting these expectations.

A prime example of generative AI in action is WinstonAI. WinstonAI draws on Microsoft Azure’s generative AI technology (GPT-3.5) to offer suggestions and inspiration on how to take your campaign content to the next level. Built directly into the Dotdigital platform, WinstonAI can now easily provide you with hints, tips, and advice on how to improve your email marketing and customer experiences. 

If you want generative AI tools like WinstonAI to meet your expectations, it’s crucial to dedicate time and resources to train them. By refining these AI models with suitable data and feedback, you can unlock your full potential to develop more powerful marketing campaigns.

2. Deliver personalized customer experiences

In the era of fierce competition, driving customer loyalty and retention goes beyond offering high-quality products or services. To create meaningful connections, brands must prioritize personalization and create positive customer experiences tailored to individual preferences. By cultivating a loyal and dedicated customer base, businesses set themselves apart from the competition.

Harnessing the power of customer data is crucial to this strategy. Data guides brands in crafting unforgettable customer experiences tailored to their target audience. By gaining insights into customers’ preferences and needs, businesses can develop innovative products, launch strategies, marketing campaigns (both offline and online), custom packaging, superb in-store experiences, and user-friendly website designs that elevate their brand from the rest.

The solution lies in adopting a human-to-human (H2H) marketing approach. This paradigm shift emphasizes treating customers as humans with emotions and stories rather than mere data points. By humanizing your marketing strategy, your brand will stand out from the competition and foster stronger relationships with your target audience. This deeper connection ultimately influences their decision to choose your brand over others.

3. Embrace creativity

If you want to stand out and attract the attention of the tech-savvy Gen Z audience, creativity is key. This generation appreciates new and unique ideas, and they are more likely to try out brands that break away from the norm. Don’t hesitate to be innovative with your products, marketing strategies, or brand stories to set yourself apart from the competition. Additionally, make sure to communicate with this generation on their preferred channels and engage in meaningful conversations.

Liquid Death is a brand that has effectively used creative marketing to establish its own unique identity. While they sell canned water, their success comes from their entertainment and content-driven approach. Their marketing strategies aim to create an exciting and unconventional image that stands out among competitors and captures the attention of customers.

4. Build a community

Cultivating a sense of community within your brand is pivotal to forging lasting, personal connections with your customers. This intimate relationship fosters a sense of belonging, support, and empowerment, transforming casual customers into passionate, engaged champions who actively use your products and services.

The power of a strong brand community offers: 

• Enhanced virality: When customers feel connected to your brand, they are more inclined to share content and products within their networks. This organic sharing significantly expands your reach and fuels viral growth.
• Natural brand advocates: Members who are deeply engaged with your brand community will readily share their positive experiences, recommendations, and testimonials with their circles, establishing trust and credibility among potential customers.

5. Maintain your digital presence

It’s important to keep your digital presence up-to-date to create a positive perception of your brand. Your ecommerce site and martech stack should evolve with changing consumer expectations, as customers often form their first impression of your products and services through your digital presence.

If your website is outdated, it may harm your brand’s reputation and give potential customers the impression that you are not up-to-date with current trends. This could affect their decision-making process and lead to losing customers. Therefore, it’s important to update your website regularly.

To maintain your digital presence, you can: 

• Update your technology stack: As technology evolves, so do the expectations of tech-savvy consumers. Invest in tools and integrations to deliver a seamless user experience that meets consumer demands.
• Refresh your design: A visually appealing, modern design can significantly influence a brand’s image. Regularly update your website or email design elements, layout, and color scheme to reflect the latest design trends and maintain a fresh, contemporary appearance.
• Monitor your competition: Keep an eye on your competitors’ websites and take note of any updates or changes they make. This can help you stay informed of the latest industry trends and anticipate consumer expectations.

Summary

During #RICE23, experts in ecommerce, social media, and martech discussed valuable insights. In today’s rapidly evolving retail industry, it’s essential for brands to keep up with industry trends and consumer preferences to succeed. Thankfully, we were right there, soaking it all in for you, so you don’t miss a beat in keeping your business on top of its game! 

What are marketing automation programs?

Marketing automation programs are pre-set email marketing campaigns designed to streamline marketing efforts and personalize customer experiences by delivering relevant content based on specific triggers or customer behaviors. Automation programs save time and resources by sending personalized emails, segmenting contact lists, and nurturing leads.

Benefits of marketing automation programs

An automated marketing program offers the following benefits: 

Improved ROI

Automation programs carefully fine-tune crucial elements such as the frequency of your email sends, the relevance of your content, and the effectiveness of your lead nurturing process. By automating these aspects, you can significantly improve the overall performance and return on investment (ROI) of your email marketing strategy.

Enhanced customer experience

These campaigns deliver personalized, timely, and valuable content to your audience, creating a positive and engaging customer experience that cultivates long-term customer loyalty.

Scalability

Those days of individually crafting and sending emails to each subscriber are gone. Automation streamlines the process by automating repetitive tasks, freeing up time and resources. Your automation program does the heavy lifting for you as you can set up workflows, triggers, and segments based on your subscribers’ demographics, behaviors, or engagement levels. 

Programs based on engagement or ecommerce are two of the most common types to implement into the subscriber journey. Let’s look at both.

Engagement-based programs

In engagement-based programs, customers are actively engaged in a personalized and interactive way. These programs aim to build meaningful and long-lasting relationships with your target audience. 

Welcome

Welcome programs offer brands the chance to engage with their subscribers from the first interaction at the start of a customer journey. A compelling and well-crafted welcome program plays a pivotal role in setting the tone for your new subscribers and paves the way for strong, ongoing relationships. 

As part of your welcome program, it’s recommended to send engaging and personalized welcome emails. These emails should offer a warm welcome, introduce your brand story, and gather customer data and interests through preference centers. Welcome programs are a great opportunity to showcase your brand and establish a connection with your subscribers at the first point of contact, which will build long-lasting trust and loyalty.

Nurture or brand loyalty

To maintain good relationships with your customers, consider creating a nurture program. In your program, use your clients’ preferred channels, and offer personalized and relevant content. The more engaged you are with your customers, the higher the chances of generating sales. Implement a lead scoring model to gauge customer engagement and offer rewards such as exclusive content, vouchers, and promotional offers. This will strengthen your relationship and make your customers feel valued.

Event reminders

If you have an upcoming event, it’s recommended to set up an automated event reminder program. You should promote your event at each stage, before, during, and after the event. This will ensure your attendees are well-informed of the important details and your event schedule. An effective reminder program will build anticipation, drive registrations, and create a positive experience for all attendees. 

Customer service

A customer service program is an important program to implement into your marketing strategy. Customer experience (CX) is important to any brand. When customers have a positive experience, they are more likely to recommend your company to their friends and family. Every interaction with the customer impacts their perception of your brand, so each touchpoint must be considered. 

Adding live chat to your channels is an effective approach to improving your customer’s experience. While it might seem like a small addition, live chat can increase conversion rates by up to 20%. It will also prompt your customers to use it when they need it and reduce any barriers to making a purchase.

Ecommerce based programs

When using ecommerce automation programs, you can enhance customer experiences, build loyalty, and streamline your marketing campaigns.  With these programs, you can deliver targeted and personalized communication that drives customer engagement and revenue growth. 

Abandoned cart or browse

If a customer adds items to their online cart but doesn’t complete the checkout process, you can use an abandoned cart program to reach out to them. Additionally, you can also use an eRFM modeling tool to determine how engaged the customer is and target them. This can include offering a discount code or other incentives to re-engage them.

Sometimes customers may abandon their cart because the product is not quite perfect; we’ve all been there. With AI-powered product recommendations, you can provide relevant alternative options during abandoned cart campaigns.

It’s important not to think of abandoned cart programs as only applicable to B2C or ecommerce brands. Abandoned browse emails can be used in a very similar way. For a B2B brand or service, consider what your high intent-actions are. Whether it’s filling in a form or viewing a pricing page, you can create abandoned browse emails to capture any customers who drop off without completing an action.

Post-purchase

Today’s customers demand a seamless shopping experience from start to finish, including online browsing, purchasing, delivery, and after-sales support. It’s important to create a consistent brand experience across all channels and leverage customer data to connect with shoppers wherever they choose to engage.

One way to keep your customers engaged is to analyze their browsing behavior and identify products they are interested in. After that, you can send an email, SMS message, or push notification saying: “We’ve noticed you liked or viewed this.” Or why not send instructions on how to care for the product they’ve bought or how to use it? These simple interactions show that you’re available to the customer even after they’ve converted. 

Loyalty or birthday reward

If you have engaged champions, why not give them exclusive benefits or create a customer loyalty program? You can engage these customers by sending them personalized loyalty emails or SMS messages with relevant content, or updates on their reward points, achievements, and special offers.

This strengthens your brand and keeps your business at the forefront of their minds, increasing the likelihood of repeat purchases. Additionally, collecting subscribers’ birth dates and sending personalized birthday messages is an excellent way to show your customers that you value and appreciate them.

Win back

A win-back program aims to bring back customers who have stopped engaging with your business by offering them an incentive to take a specific action, like making a new purchase. Although it’s not necessary to start with an offer, it’s a good option, especially when customers are close to becoming inactive. Reach out and retarget past customers who have become inactive and encourage them to return and make a new purchase while fostering long-term loyalty.

Summary

These automation programs will transform your email marketing strategy. By leveraging the power of automation and personalized communication, you can stand out in the inbox, cultivate long-term customer loyalty, and achieve exceptional results in your email marketing campaigns.

What is a customer journey?

The customer journey is traditionally a step-by-step process that encompasses the experiences and interactions a person has with your brand across all touchpoints. If you need a refresher, here are the steps: 

1. Reach 
2. Acquisition
3. Conversion 
4. Retention 
5. Loyalty 

So where does your customer viewing your site fall on this list? When a customer lands on your website, they are considered in the “reach” category. They will be able to subscribe to your email marketing, which helps build a relationship with your brand.

What is a form

A form is an interactive element on a webpage specifically designed to collect information from your visitors. They can be used for various purposes in the subscriber journey, such as gathering contact details, capturing leads, conducting surveys, or simplifying customer service processes.

When creating a form in Dotdigital, typical data fields include name, email address, and phone number. However, as a brand, you can personalize your forms to collect additional, unique data fields such as asking additional unique questions, such as birthdays or favorite colors. Always think ahead when building your forms and consider what information you might need for future campaigns.

The benefits of forms

As forms are versatile and flexible, they enhance the subscriber journey. With forms, you can:

Capture valuable leads

Forms collect contact information. This enables you to nurture potential subscribers and build email lists for targeted marketing campaigns.

Enhance the user experience

Well-designed forms provide a straightforward way for visitors to engage with your website and access the information or services they need.

Boost conversions

Forms are essential for ecommerce websites, guiding your subscribers through the purchase process.

Encourage engagement

By offering valuable resources through lead capture forms, you can foster a stronger connection with your audience and encourage them to interact further.

Streamline communication

Forms centralize inquiries from visitors, making it easy to manage and respond promptly.

Simplify event registration

Registration forms guide users through signing up for events, courses, or membership programs, streamlining the process.

Pop-over and embedded forms are two key types of forms you can use to capture information and create a dynamic experience for your subscriber journey.

The pop-overs form

Pop-over forms are dynamic features that appear on your website at a specific time. It can be used during the subscriber journey to obtain consent, collect email addresses, or highlight specific information on your website.

You can use pop-overs to greet new visitors to your website and kickstart their subscriber journey. Use offers or highlight your brand’s USP to encourage viewers to subscribe to emails by filling in their details, such as first name, last name, email address, or SMS number.

It’s key to inform potential subscribers about the content and benefits they’ll receive when signing up for your emails. For instance, educational or non-profit organizations may emphasize the value of access to informational resources and event invitations. 

For retail or ecommerce businesses, your pop-over form can offer early access to upcoming products or discounts on their initial purchase. Alternatively, you could offer a special discount or complimentary gift on your subscribers’ birthday if you collect their birthday information. 

Examples of pop-over forms

Be careful not to disrupt the user’s experience. Avoid creating a spammy impression or displaying the pop-over just as they are about to buy. There are various strategies to implement forms effectively, depending on the desired outcome of your subscriber’s interactions:

Show after: Or a timed form

The user will enter your site, and after a time of your choosing (i.e., thirty seconds or one minute), the pop-over form typically appears in the middle of the page. This is one of the most popular pop-overs. 

Exit offers

This form may be triggered when a subscriber leaves your site. Essentially, it’s a last-shot attempt at converting a visitor before they leave the website. 

Banners

Although less dynamic in design, this form sits at the top of the site like an umbrella. This can be used to show off discounts or make timely announcements. 

The embed form

In some cases, a pop-over form might not be the right fit for your brand. An alternative to growing your audience is an embedded form. This type of form can be used as a standalone landing page or integrated into an existing landing page on your website to gather information from your visitors.

If a pop-over appears, then naturally, the embed form is embedded into the web page. To add the form to your site, you need to create code and paste it into your HTML.

Unlike pop-overs, embedded forms are more suitable for event registrations, and customer service requests, and a less intrusive option to subscriber acquisition. While pop-overs are typically used as your main source for subscriber acquisition, setting subscription expectations, and calling action to discounts and promotions.

When to use embedded forms

Imagine this: You’ve written an engaging blog article that connects with your target audience. This is an excellent opportunity to integrate an embedded form to that page of your site to collect contact details and grow your subscriber list. By encouraging email and SMS sign-ups using embedded forms on popular landing pages of your website, you will grow your audience, fuel conversions, and nurture valuable leads.

So, when should you use embedded forms? Here are some ideal moments to utilize their power:

Lead generation

Whether it’s event registrations, contact forms on landing pages, or service requests, embedding forms within your content can be a highly effective way to generate leads and gather valuable customer data.

Research

Embedded forms provide an excellent opportunity to gather subscriber feedback. By inviting your audience to share their thoughts and insights, you gain valuable insight into their subscriber journey. This allows you to improve your strategies.

Section logic

In cases where your form involves technical aspects or conditional content, embedding forms utilizing section logic allows you to hide or display specific sections based on the options chosen by the user. This logic-driven approach ensures a seamless and personalized user experience.

Customer service

Whether it’s a contact form on your website’s landing page or a post-purchase feedback form, embedded forms enable streamlined communication with your subscribers. It encourages them to reach out, share their experiences, and assists you in providing timely and effective customer support.

Send confirmation emails

It’s important to send a confirmation email to your subscribers after they submit a form. This triggered email lets them know that their submission has been received and provides reassurance.

If you are using a pop-over, your initial welcome program campaign should be set in the form of your first message. For event registrations using an embedded form, consider sending a confirmation email that includes the exact details of the information they provided when filling out the form.

Summary

Use Dotdigital’s EasyEditor to effortlessly add forms and pages to your website and create an engaging experience for your audience. Follow these best practices to improve your subscriber journey, increase engagement, boost conversions, and build lasting connections with your subscribers.