Why digital experiences alone can’t beat the real thing
What do concerts, live theater and retailers have in common?
Digital experiences alone can’t beat the real thing
You know what’s interesting? Even though we have access to seemingly endless music libraries at our fingertips, we still go to concerts. You’d think the advances in home audio and digital experiences would have hurt tour sales – but they haven’t. Similarly, live theater is still alive and well. And even with access to many conferencing apps, people still meet face-to-face for coffee with a friend, business meetings and events when they can. Sometimes you just can’t beat the personal, live experience.
The same is true for retailers in every sector. Restaurants will always rely more on in-person service than food delivery – they know that the ambiance is part of the appeal. And despite the rise of online retail, there’s something irreplaceable about browsing in a store. Until websites can give people these tangible benefits, providing exceptional in-store experiences is crucial for any company’s reputation. More than 90% of all U.S. retail sales still take place in stores, and in-store experiences drive online sales in turn.
As a retailer, you need to be sure your physical stores are reaching their full potential. Even as you expand your focus to digital channels, your in-store channel can and should remain a powerful differentiator and revenue engine if you take the right approach. To maximize ROI on your brick-and-mortar assets, you need a solution that can incentivize visits, provide personalized offers in-store, and enable great customer service.
Drive foot traffic with incentives
Getting customers in the door is the first step. How can you drive more traffic than the competition? Get customers to think about a visit by offering them personalized deals sent via email, push notification, or mobile app. By pulling live and historic data, you can tailor offers to real-time conditions and individual preferences rather than sending a bulk email that everyone ignores. For example, you could entice a customer by notifying them that an item from their wish list dropped in price, or their favorite brand’s collection is now available in-store. Using location and weather data, you could tempt nearby shoppers with an ice cream discount on a hot day.
Tailor the in-store experience
Once a customer is in the store, how can you make the most out of their visit? With in-store IoT devices like beacons and sensors, you can trigger personalized content directed to mobile devices or adaptive digital displays. 73% of shoppers are more likely to buy in-store if they receive beacon-triggered content and offers. Increase your conversion rate by engaging customers with suggestions for relevant items – like a product they have browsed for but not yet bought, or something to complement their usual purchase.
Impress your customers with outstanding service
Finally, what can you do to make sure customers come back again? Personalizing deals for each customer is a great start – but to really delight your customers, nothing compares to outstanding in-store service. When you make it easy to reserve in-store products online or via chat bot, for example, customers can arrive on-site knowing that everything on their list is there waiting. And by empowering your employees with a cross-channel view of customer history, they can make the most appropriate recommendations.
Make it happen with Retail Personalization
To execute these three types of personalization successfully, you need to collect, converge, and analyze a huge amount of data from every sales channel in your business. 80% of retailers can’t track a purchase that was initiated on mobile and completed in-store. If you can’t easily unite data from in-store point-of-sale, social media and e-commerce sites, then you’re missing out on insights that could help you strengthen customer relationships and brand loyalty.
The Retail Personalization solution from Microsoft and Plexure helps businesses process the vast amount of customer data available and generate effective personalized experiences. The solution merges data from in-store activity and digital channels to create a complete view of each customer. It also brings in external data sources like traffic, events, and location to exploit changing conditions in real time. As an omni-channel solution, Retail Personalization shapes each personalized offer according to how the customer has previously engaged with you on any channel – mobile, web, social, or in-store. Plus, Plexure makes it easy for marketers to create and adjust promotions with a codeless workflow builder.
To bring personalization into brick-and-mortar stores, Retail Personalization connects your reserves of comprehensive data with IoT devices like beacons and sensors that prompt tailored offers while customers are shopping. One major retailer used the solution to create an intelligent network of digital displays that reminded nearby customers of things on their wish list. Customers who were nudged based on their preferences purchased suggested products at a rate 18% higher than the control group and spent an average of 25% more.
Try it yourself
Want to learn more about Retail Personalization? Try the solution for yourself at www.AppSource.com today.
