Yotpo + LoyaltyLion Together Yotpo and LoyaltyLion allow retailers to offer rewards for customer reviews, thereby increasing conversions, boosting SEO and marketing success, while gaining customer loyalty in the long run.
Forecasts show that this year’s holiday shopping season will be record-breaking. This year’s online sales alone are expected to surpass $100B, making Cyber Monday 2017 the largest shopping day in history. Most retailers earn almost half their annual revenue during this time of year. And while you may see a spike during these big shopping days, it’s common to see a deep dip immediately after — we call this the Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) Hangover.
One of the best ways to combat this dip is think of BFCM as the start of a long-term relationship with a customer, instead of a one-time transaction. For 64% of businesses, shoppers acquired during the holiday season had a lower Lifetime Value (LTV) than shoppers acquired throughout the year. This lower LTV can be attributed to the fact that holiday shoppers are more likely to be one time buyers searching for gifts, who never return to the same store again.
The holiday season actually presents an extraordinary opportunity for retailers to increase their customer base by converting holiday shoppers into loyal repeat customers. Break that one-time buyer cycle and beat the BFCM hangover using the tips below.
Asking for reviews is important all year round, but plays a particularly meaningful role after BFCM. When you ask a customer for a review, you’re taking the first step in building a long-term and loyal relationship. Review requests can start a great relationship with shoppers because they are often the first non-transactional email you send a new customer. This shows them that your brand doesn’t only reach out to sell or promote products, but also because you genuinely care about your customers.
Furthermore, since you’re selling a lot during the holidays, this is also a time that you can collect a huge amount of reviews. Since shoppers that see reviews convert at a 166% higher rate, rolling into 2018 with hundreds of new reviews of your service and products will guarantee a strong start to the new year.
Loyal customers equal increased revenue.
A recent Yotpo study found that returning customers not only spend three times more than one-time shoppers, but they’re also responsible for ⅓ of money spent on online shopping.
A study done on holiday shoppers showed that 39% of returning customers made their second purchase from a store within the same holiday season. Merchants can encourage holiday customers to come back in the same season by sending segmented, personalised emails that are focused on strengthening the relationship. For example, a store can automatically trigger emails that encourage customers to sign up to their newsletter, send limited-time offers, invite them to join the business’s loyalty program, or encourage them to leave post purchase reviews.
Sending these emails plays an important role in engaging the customer from the start of their eCommerce customer journey and in building loyalty. They deliver value and relevance, boost engagement and are highly effective at increasing retention and upsell.
A customer retention strategy is crucial to giving retailers a competitive edge after BFCM. Research shows that increasing customer retention by 5% can result in a 25% to 95% increase in profits. It’s not just that loyal customers keep buying from you, they also become brand advocates and start referring their friends. This provides another strong source of revenue for retailers.
Implementing a loyalty program is a great way to reward customer engagement, make customers feel valued and retain them in the long-run. Offering customers rewards for activities like making purchases, referring friends or leaving reviews incentivises them to stay loyal to the brand. These loyal shoppers will buy more frequently and in larger volumes.
But simply rewarding behaviour is just the beginning; successful loyalty programs are data driven. Your loyalty program should automatically segment customers based on their activities. Segments can include loyal customers, customers you’re at risk of losing and ones you need to win back. A good loyalty tool will provide features that not only let you track these insights, but act on them.
In the competitive eCommerce market, delivering personalised experiences has become integral to driving engagement and increasing sales — and this can be a big win post-BFCM.
According to a report released by Qubit, eCommerce businesses can add up to 6% to their revenues by implementing programmatic and personalisation techniques. For example, revenue per visitor increased by up to 3% when businesses simply highlighted scarcity by marking items as “low in stock”.
Personalisation is about leveraging profile data, purchase history and interests to target customers with relevant products and recommendations. The data-driven techniques used to personalise the customer journey have been proven to increase conversions and customer satisfaction by delivering a rich and more relevant experience.
One great way to keep customers loyal is to engage them with your brand by encouraging them to create user-generated content (UGC). To beat the dip after BFCM, get your customers involved in a hashtag campaign where they post pictures of the products they bought from you on Instagram. Executing this can be as simple as putting a small request (“Get in the holiday spirit by posting a pic of your purchase on Instagram with the hashtag #GiftsFromX”) in a post-purchase email.
These photos will help the BFCM hangover by bringing new shoppers to your store: 30% of people purchase products they discovered on Instagram, and 72% say that seeing product photos on Instagram increases their chances of buying. If you want to get really creative, you can collect the best photos from this campaign and use them on your website.
LoyaltyLion is a customer loyalty and engagement platform for fast- growth eCommerce stores. Merchants use LoyaltyLion when they want a fully customised loyalty program that is proven to increase customer engagement, retention and spend. Merchants using LoyaltyLion see fantastic returns of over 800%.
Increase engagement
Engage your customers by awarding points for any activity performed on your site, e.g. reviews via Yotpo, signups, referrals, social engagement and more.
Drive repeat purchases
Engage your customer with emails they will want to receive. Notify your customers when a reward becomes available, encouraging a return visit and reward redemption. Stores see a 15-20% increase in repeat purchases using LoyaltyLion.
Retain loyal customers
Gain customer insights with detailed analytics into your most loyal customers, the ones at risk and the ones that need winning back. Use this valuable data to inform your customer retention strategy.
Acquire new customers
Increase new customer acquisitions with LoyaltyLion’s complete integrated referral program. Customers can share your brand and refer friends on social media platforms or directly via email.
Yotpo helps brands collect and leverage reviews and photos throughout the buyer journey to increase trust, social proof, and sales.
