We’re tired. And so are Consumers. I call this a “Retail Hangover”; and its impact can be identified analytically by reduced traffic, lower conversion rates across most acquisition channels, and lower sales. A sure sign your consumers are fatigued? You send an email with an extra juicy offer and they are barely nibbling.
But as digital business leaders, we still have numbers to hit, still have cash flow to create, and still need to move product. It can still be done; just not with the same levers and techniques that we have been deploying over the Holiday 16 sprint.
The strategic concept to deploy is a Pattern Interrupt. SHIFT what you are communicating, how you are communicating, and what you are asking them to do. If it feels comfortable, then it’s probably not dramatic enough to actually shift the consumer’s response.
Here are some of the Strategies that I am using right now to shake-off consumers Retail Hangovers;
1. Shift the dialogue – DRAMATICALLY. If you have been pounding your email list with bargains stacked on bargains- Stop. Stop all of it. You have just trained your shoppers that you are stacking and restacking the details, and their attention is shot. Try a completely different tactic. Some of the ones that are most effective; The product creation story, What you are going to be creating, releasing, and doing in 2017. Your biggest mistake of 2016. What you learned or heard from them in 2016. What really didn’t’ work.
2. The second shift: Change the tone of the communication, though still staying in-brand. For example: if you have been taking an expert value proposition; then get cheeky and a little funny. Or if you have been just sending them pictures of items, send them facts instead. Try a different flavor of linguistics and tap into their intrigue.
3. The third shift; change your calls to action. Retailers have been pushing and pounding the sale for weeks if not months. Again- pattern interrupt. Ask for a different engagement. Try; Like Us, Share Us, Review Us. Tell us. Use this as an opportunity to build relationships that are deeper than just transactions.
In the coming weeks, the digital commerce industry will be flooded with amazing facts and figures on the huge online Holiday of 2016. But we already know, because we survived it. I know you’re tired.
Now is the time to try the different engagements that you have been secretly wanting to try, or perhaps even fly under the boss’s radar. You can try “different” because you have exhausted what you know.
An elegant benefit of these different strategic consumer approaches is it’s energizing impact on ourselves and our teams. It gets the blood pumping again, and shifts teams into a “what’s possible” mindset instead of a “ground-n-pound” vantage point.
Shift them, and you Shift yourself too.
