Now is the time for retail marketers to plan, and once again adapt their strategies for long-term success in what is becoming a highly competitive digital market. Let’s explore how to reach that success.
Planning for data collection & customer engagement
Consumer shopping behaviors have rapidly changed, ushering in a new form of digital shopping and marketing strategy. Consumers are not only requesting a more omnichannel experience but also demanding an increase in transparency from brands in terms of collection and usage of their personal data. It is clear that the power is in the hands of the consumer, and retail brands will need to learn how to adapt to stay afloat.
Using the data: audience segmentation
The past year saw D2C and retail brand marketing teams pivot strategy to fully embrace digital and become hyper-focused on customer engagement. Now, as we approach the upcoming holiday shopping season — and chatter begins to circulate pointing to the start of an endemic era — it has become pivotal for retail brands to understand, anticipate, and adapt to shifting consumer buying behaviors.
Now is the time for retail marketers to plan, and once again adapt their strategies for long-term success in what is becoming a highly competitive digital market. Let’s explore how to reach that success.
Audience segmentation is not a new concept to marketers. Evolutions in audience segmentation have been paving the way in terms of customization and engagement for years. As retail brands have grown and developed an increased understanding of marketing cloud systems and capabilities, data collection practices have evolved to a more exact science, creating very specific and niche outcomes to individuals and groups alike.
This is exactly why the need for change and transparency in data collection has come to fruition. Consumers started to feel too targeted, the outcomes becoming too successful and felt well, invasive. To those consumers who were unfamiliar or even vaguely familiar with how their data was collected, the depth of targeted messaging coming from brands created a sense of unease, provoking questions and concerns around how their data was being utilized.
As a result, consumers began to educate themselves. They learned that personalization within marketing efforts and ‘accepting all cookies’ meant geo-targeting, personalized user content, push notifications that reminded consumers that prompted customers to return to their abandoned carts, messaging encouraging them to “keep browsing?” and more. With a better understanding of these marketing practices, consumers began to call for more transparency when it came to the collection and utilization of their data.
Customization with transparency, the safe way to collect data without ‘stepping over the line’
Looking ahead to 2022, the execution
D2C marketing teams and retail brands have been pushed to the limit with the amount of changes endured in the past two years. Although consumers have (and always had) the right to transparency and fair collection of data, the need for change and new strategies in the future is no longer an option for marketing teams.
Although many of the terms, technologies and standards mentioned in this article are not new to marketers, the way that they will be implemented will be like never before. Change is on the horizon, and it is up to marketers to adapt or get left behind.
