Making the path to purchase circular is key to maintaining strong growth. It is well known that one loyal customer is as valuable as 12 uncommitted customers, but understanding what makes a shopper come back again is key to generating further sales. Through mobile, brands are able to find out critical data on their customers and understand the trigger that redirects shoppers back down the path to purchase.
The retail announcements coming out of Mobile World Congress this year all point towards increased connectivity between brands and shoppers. Mobile is a unique marketing channel as it is the only means by which marketers can communicate with shoppers no-matter where they are. It is therefore becoming key to customer communications, and is being used by the most on message retail marketers throughout the path to purchase to drive re-engagement, advocacy and repeat purchase.
Re-engagement
The unique aspect about retargeting is that it is likely brands will have had some level of engagement with these shoppers previously. Re-engaging and driving a customer back down the path to purchase is a challenge, however mobile provides a means by which marketers can test what works and what doesn’t by instigating a call to action. Understanding what communications triggered a shopper to carry out an action allows brands to tailor their engagements appropriately in the future. All of this data combined is key to personalising re-engagement and maximising results.
Advocacy
Brand advocacy is a vital area in the path to purchase as it drives new and future sales. To turn a buyer into an advocate is critical, and mobile is key to this. Firstly because it allows for personal and effective re-engagement, secondly as it provides a means for consumers to share, and most importantly as it tends to be free of charge. We now see brands sending offers to shoppers they already have relationships with, and who then encourage them to share these with friends. In a recent Shopitize trial, an offer advertised on Facebook was shared to 3.5x more people than the original audience, with a net result being that 25% of the original audience purchased the product. The connected shopper is not just connected to the brand, but they provide a link to other often similarly minded people, and mobile enables this. Shoppers have so many options to share content with friends, whether its social media, email or text, and now all of these channels are easily accessed through one device. By retargeting customers and encouraging advocacy, brands are able to turn one customer into many, and create a circular path to purchase.
Repeat purchase
The ultimate aim of re-engagement and advocacy is to drive repeat purchase. Any retail brand marketer will tell you that they’d rather have a good number of loyal customers than a large number of disparate disloyal buyers. Data and mobile insights are making driving repeat purchase through these marketing techniques effective. It enables brands to use advanced algorithms throughout their campaigns in order to personalise messaging to each and every individual. Our customers know that being able to track shoppers at each stage of the path to purchase through mobile, ultimately gives them a competitive advantage, and helps to drive repeat purchases.
Making your customers regular, repeat buyers through retargeting could not be more important to driving sales. According to Bain and Company, the average repeat shopper spent 67 per cent more in months 31-36 of their relationship than in months 0-6. Knowing this, there are few excuses for those brands who are choosing not to invest in or engage with their customers via mobile. Markets are becoming increasingly competitive, and a simple targeted and relevant offer or communication can be critical to standing out in a crowd.
