Julie Bustos, SVP, Marketing Innovation, The Lacek Group
Incrementality is driven by a layered approach to marketing, fueled by increased amounts of data. Our agency curates data for action through four lenses: customer identification, customer preferences, behavioral signals, and strategic segments.
Understanding customers through these lenses allows brands to expand and tailor their engagement strategies — rather than just sending more frequent communications or repeated invitations to grow their basket size.
In a layered approach, brands spotlight their values and mission, invite customers to share in a brand purpose and brand community, ask customers to help determine where charity dollars go, invite customers to create brand-centered content, and much more.
Learn more at lacek.com
Guy Cierzan, Managing Partner, ICF Next
Deriving actionable insight from data is the single most difficult marketing exercise for retail brands today. The more data a brand gathers, the more personalized and customer-centric they can become with communication, whether it be understanding how a customer prefers to be engaged by the brand (via email, mobile, websit4e or social) or their preferred way to shop (curbside pick-up, in-store, or online).
Dealing with the ever-increasing data can be challenging, but the personalized customer experience powered by customer insight leads to positive brand experiences and builds long-term relationships and repeat customers.
When consumers are engaged and communicated to on a personal level, their resulting engagement can help inform feature or product development for better customer experiences and new sources of revenue. Utilizing data to deliver location-based marketing can also drive incrementality by catching the customer in the moment they are searching and ready to act. When a retailer meets the customer in their moment with a compelling offer tailored to them, the probability of incrementality increases exponentially.
Learn more at icf.com/next.
Jatin Gera, Director and Business Head – Americas, Capillary Technologies
Data collected over time should be used to develop propensity models that allow brands to predict behavior and “get in front of” the transaction. A consumer who has been identified with a propensity to buy can be nudged to make the sale with the right offer or recommendation. Consumers with a propensity to buy are also great candidates for increasing the average basket size through personalized recommendations. Conversely, customers who are identified as having a propensity to churn can be contacted as part of a save protocol, which can translate to incremental sales.
Additionally, many brands debate the impact the discount/reward component of a structured loyalty program has on driving incremental sales. Through our propriety research, we’ve found redemption plays a key factor in increasing customer lifetime value. Brands should consider this when putting together their incentivization strategies.
Learn more at capillarytech.com
Lucas Smith, Director of Business Development, Baesman
Really successful brands are unlocking potential with their data for higher response and redemption rates, by using new technologies. At a time when optimization, specifically related to loyalty, is becoming more crucial we’re seeing brands shift communication strategies to include personalized printed and three-dimensional touch points. This is now achievable with comparable costs, speed to market, and the same levels of personalization we see in digital marketing channels. In doing so, brands are realizing an approximate 20% uplift in response rates by including these tangible touchpoints in their marketing mix. Physical pieces like direct mail, for example, feel in essence a bit more valuable and are being redeemed in stores at a higher rate, whereas digital communication can be easier to discard in already crowded inboxes and SMS streams.
Allowing a brands data to guide the communication strategy with more options in a market that has become, in many instances, oversaturated with digital channels has become optimal. By fully personalizing customer communication with consistency across all channels with specific offers most relevant to their purchase history and/or frequency brands can drive desired incrementality, ultimately building brand loyalists.
Learn more at baesman.com
Kate Hogenson, Senior Director, Consulting, Kobie
Truly actionable data comes by leveraging transactional, emotional, and behavioral data – what Kobie considers Triple Play Data. Many brands focus on each type of data in a silo – transactional data for incentives, behavioral for content management, and emotional profiling for high level branding.
The customer can see and feel that they aren’t being recognized as a unique individual in their end-to-end experience. Do you personalize with their name and acknowledge their status with you? Do you proactively identify what they might need next without inundating them with everything you offer until they’re ready to explore? Do you monitor where they get lost or frustrated in your processes and remove barriers? This is what integrated loyalty data and insights can do when used as sources of truth across your organization.
Learn more at kobie.com