Make Christmas about ME please!
Use customer data to drive your communication strategy.
By Angela Hall
Our average spend on gifts and celebrations is increasing by 5% year-on-year and over the Christmas period it’s become an annual retail scramble for who can secure most of our hard-earned cash.
Gifts for others, food, drink, celebrations, get-togethers, travel, holidays, decorations, clothes, and premium treats (food, clothing and latest tech) – many businesses fall into one of the ‘Christmas’ categories and if you know what you have that’s relevant to them and why, then tell your customers, and you’ll enjoy a slice of the multi-billion pound end of year spending spree.
Customer data can lead your customer communications
With smart use of your customer data, you don’t need to pile it high in your direct marketing. For example, customer data might show that I never buy a mince pie before December 1st, that I like to pre-order my Christmas Day food mid-November, including a few indulgent treats that I don’t buy during the rest of the year, that I never buy bread sauce and that I save all my loyalty vouchers for my last big Christmas shop. With that knowledge, a retailer could do 3 simple things:
- Remind me how many points I have earned to date and offer me bonus points in the pre-Christmas period (but not on mince pies), getting me excited about how much I will save on my big shop. Gamify my rewards – so that I’m persuaded to change my behaviour or spending because it’s got real value for me.
- Recognise my purchase timeline and talk to me about relevant products at relevant times (back to mince pies again!).
- Cut through the ‘pile it high’ temptation and be selective and targeted with your content – yummy desserts over bread sauce will get my vote.
This would turn generic, ‘hope for the best’ communications into something tailored and relevant, that shows they know me. It would build the relationship further and of course, get me to buy more of the same, try something new and perhaps, buy more often.
And how do you set this in motion?
Set aside time to write your Christmas promotional plan from a customer point of view. It’s an old adage – but step into their shoes. All too often, our clients come to us with a list of products that they need to sell over the festive period, driven by the category and buying teams.
And as consumers, our habits can be quite traditional, so trying to push a new concept is not always easy. Nor is trying to change our ‘traditional’ shopping habits.
More and more at Christmas, for example, people are buying earlier – to spread out the cost and ensure they get the products they want before they run out. So respond to it – target your early birds, well, early…!
But there are plenty of people willing to try something new, if only the once, with the right marketing to let us know it’s worth a go or matched to us. And most of us can be persuaded to do more of the same too at Christmas. Your planning needs to reflect this knowledge and be geared to enhance it. The aim is to grow your ever precious Christmas revenue but not at the expense of ROI.
When Christmas is over…
Early in the new year we sit down with our clients and review their performance over Christmas, looking at behaviour patterns – who bought what and when, and were they different to previous Christmases or other times in the year. We’ll look at who has lapsed over the period, who has joined, and so on. Together we confirm the learnings that should influence the comms plan for next Christmas, which generally starts around that time!
This knowledge helps not only the marketing teams but also the buyers and category managers, merchandisers and store managers and of course the finance team with their annual sales versus promotions budgeting.
Now’s the right time to think about ME, your customer!
Read more of our articles on customer insights:
CRM: How customer insights can build brand loyalty and strengthen relationships
Customer data is the core strength of your business – treasure waiting to be found
Customers aren’t just for Christmas