Inspiration, Strategy

How Top Retail Marketers Took 2022’s Challenges to Create Long-Term Revenue Opportunities

By Sarah Cascone

I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t exactly feeling ‘22.

This year was tough for retail marketers. With inflation rising each and every month this year, shoppers found themselves being a little more discerning with their wallets, spending less and less on products they might not think twice about purchasing in years past. 

On top of that, shoppers were getting back out into the world after COVID-19 and spending more of their fun money on experiences like flights and travel, rather than products.

If that wasn’t enough? Retail marketers had the exact opposite problem this year than the last with inventory. Rather than waiting for shipping freights to arrive with products shoppers were antsy to get, they had too many products filling up warehouses that shoppers just weren’t buying. 

We sat down with top retail marketers from PacSun, Oriental Trading Company, Cabela’s, Simon Pearce, and REI to hear about how they got creative to drive revenue and save on the bottom line during another — unprecedented — year.

Capitalize on your loyal shoppers with data-driven strategies

Along with the rise in prices for pretty much everything, the paid media costs have risen this year, making it much more expensive to acquire new shoppers. The good news is that the revenue opportunity that lies with existing shoppers hits the tune of $798K per 100,000 shoppers for apparel and even more for other retail verticals, with the likelihood for shoppers to return getting higher and higher with each new purchase.

However, loyalty is a concept that can feel ambiguous, and it’s easier said than done. Shoppers have great expectations for the brands they love, and more than a few other brands to choose from if they don’t receive the 1:1 care and attention that they’re looking for from each touchpoint. So this year, brands tried a few different strategies to get their shoppers engaged and buying.

Sell across categories to keep shoppers coming back 

Shoppers can only buy so many pairs of jeans, or so many jars of facial cleanser, or so many fill in the blank before they fizzle out. Brands have so many amazing categories for shoppers to explore, and introducing shoppers to those new products in those different categories is critical in keeping them engaged and by increasing their cart sizes. Your marketing technology should be making connections with your retail data to predict each shopper’s next best purchase and the category they’re most likely to convert on next with precision — again and again. With those recommendations and plug-and-play audiences that you can build around different categories of your product, you can easily transition shoppers to new categories and show off all the new things your brand has to offer them.

Take your loyalty program to the next level

Loyalty programs are great  — it’s a way to keep shoppers bought-into your brand community, reward repeat purchases, and much more depending on the features of your program. But to really keep shoppers engaged in the new year, it’s going to take more than just loyalty points. By expanding your loyalty program to multiple tiers to work up to, you can maintain a high level of gamification with additional tiers for shoppers to aspire to with a suite of triggered emails designed to follow each shopper’s journey with communication along the way.

Know where your shopper wants to engage

Not all shoppers are going to want to see your Tik Toks — so don’t waste money serving ads to shoppers who just won’t convert when they see it. Knowing your shoppers and building loyalty means knowing where they’re going to spend time — and quickly. With the right marketing intelligence, you should be able to predict patterns on a 1:1 level for shoppers to determine where they are most likely to convert — and at what time. Not only does this provide them the high-quality experiences they’re looking for to keep coming back or to re-engage shoppers, but it also saves you bottom line so you aren’t spending ad dollars on shoppers who aren’t likely to convert there anyway.

Get creative (and predictive) to move inventory while saving margin

What’s worse than inventory shortages? Inventory pileups. After last year’s inventory shortage plagued the holidays, retail marketers stocked up to make sure they could fulfill orders in the new year. But when inflation hit and shoppers started spending a little more on experiences and a little less on products after COVID-19, retail marketers found themselves with inventory blocking up warehouses that they couldn’t move. 

The good news is that you don’t need to send your products straight to the sale section. With a little creative thinking, you can make that extra inventory attractive to shoppers and save some bottom line. 

Rebrand your sale section

Consider branding your overstocked products as “Ready to Ship,” especially if you’re a Home Goods brand where products may not always be as quick to ship. In the Amazon 2-day shipping era, shoppers love getting things quickly. By enticing them to buy by letting them know that shoppers will hit their doorsteps sooner, they might take the bait on that extra discount. You can also 

Help shoppers find those high-stock products

With some of your extra inventory, the problem might not be that people aren’t buying it. The problem might actually be that your shoppers can’t find it. Some brands are using predictive models to understand which products shoppers will be most likely to buy based on their proclivity for a certain category or for a certain attribute of the products that they’re looking to sell through. That way, you can surface the products that are high-stock to shoppers that might be looking for that exact product. 

Practice deal discretion

When you do start to discount products, try only giving discounts to the shoppers who really need them to make the purchase. With marketing technology that knows your shoppers likelihood to buy at full price or to buy with a discount, you can save margin by getting selective before giving away too much of a discount.

Take the cultural leap from channel to shopper

According to the rule of 7, it takes at least 7 interactions before a shopper will buy a product. And with inflation causing shoppers to tighten their purse strings, it may take even more convincing than that. Shopper behavior can be difficult to predict, especially with shoppers returning to storefronts this year and choosing to be in different locations at once. On top of it, there are so many channels beyond the traditional to explore and to reach shoppers. Knowing which one to focus on in the new year can be tricky.

One way to cut through the channel static is by breaking down barriers to create a cohesive experience between all 7 (give or take) of those interactions. This isn’t an easy process, and for retail marketers it requires a complete cultural shift – but as more and more new channels to reach shoppers emerge and with the shopper expectation for experiences to be cohesive, it’s the best way to future-proof your business. There are a few ways retail marketers have started to lay the groundwork in making the cultural shift from channel metrics to shopper metrics.

Building new data infrastructures

This year, shoppers were ready to get back out into stores — but that doesn’t mean their relationship with digital ends. In fact, we found with CITY Furniture that shoppers were using email and site as their first touchpoint before heading into stores to seal the deal — the purchase was made in-store, but likely wouldn’t have happened without that email. No matter what the nuance is with your retail vertical, it’s important to break down the data silos between store and digital to create experiences that capture each shopper’s journey to improve communications and recommendations over time. By combining that critical data from every channel that a shopper interacts with, whether IRL or URL, you can act on it quickly to reach shoppers in their preferred modality.

Measure your teams against the same yardstick

One of the best ways to align teams toward a common goal is by identifying a common set of measurements for each team to work toward together. Whether that’s identification, conversion, lifetime value, repeat purchases, or something else — taking a broader approach and aligning channels toward those common business goals is a sure way to make each team’s priority the same, keeping shoppers at the center. For example, a brand may discover that email and text are drivers of repeat purchases, while site and email have the biggest impact on identifying new shoppers and driving fast conversion triggered off of the behaviors those shoppers take on site.

Each channel has something to offer

No retail channel is created equal. To one brand, having an integrated approach means that everyone shares in the success of different channels and understands the unique business goals that are achieved by each — using email to direct shoppers towards Instagram for a giveaway activation is huge in driving awareness. Alternatively, sending emails or using text to invite shoppers to a store that’s nearby could increase conversion and encourage that cross-category buying that we touched on earlier. 

Activate your data to stay ahead in the new year

There’s a commonality here that helps shoppers pave new pathways when they’re blazing trails through unfamiliar terrain — the data. Retailers have wealths of data right at their fingertips, from their shoppers’ identities and behaviors to all of the details of your product catalog that shoppers love. With the right retail data, from store to site to cell to shopper (and the right tools to put it to action), retail marketers are poised to tackle any challenges that lay ahead. Predictive intelligence helps retail marketers stay one step ahead of their shoppers to keep things fresh, and keep things moving. No matter what the challenge.

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Sarah Cascone, VP Marketing

Sarah Cascone

A metrics-driven brand marketer with 10+ years experience, Sarah has a passion for tying the human element of marketing to revenue growth. As VP of Marketing at Bluecore, Sarah’s focus is cultivating and nurturing the strong community of innovative retail leaders behind Bluecore's mission to empower brands to discover their best customers and keep them for life.