What has always been the most important thing when communicating with customers?
The answer is relevance.
A promotional message that is given in “the right place at the right time” is relevant to the customer, is of benefit and will deliver a sale – the customer will shake your hand. Equally a promotional message which is irrelevant will confuse and annoy, will certainly not generate a sale and the customer is more likely to “wring your neck than shake your hand” should they ever venture into your store again.
The omni-channel relationship with your customer takes the “concept” of promotional relevance to a new level, not just in the relevance of time, or the relevance of place but to the emotional relevance of each individual customer in the form of personalisation.
Today, the brand must be wherever and whenever the customer wants it to be…“a physical coming together and a virtual coming together”
In the omni-channel world of promotional activity there are no “lunch-breaks” no “Sunday opening hours” and increasingly not even seasons, or months and weeks and days. The relationship is constant. The same customer, and different customers, are ever-present.
They visit physical stores for convenience between home and work in mornings and evenings, they frequent the city centres and high streets of the towns where they live in the middle of the day and they shop for leisure in shopping centres in the downtime peace of the evenings. They wake with your brand in the mornings on their mobiles, they take you to the laptops and corporate PCs of their daytime schedules, they access you by tablet in the downtime of evening leisure, finally taking you to bed once more in their twilight mobile meanderings.
Retailers need to promote their brands and their propositions in both a public and a personal way working with the opportunities and restrictions of both the physical, online and mobile channels.
Seamless consistency between channels is paramount in building on the relevance of time for each customer from blanket brand bombing to sophisticated and subtle serenades.
- Permanent commodity promotions for all-year essentials
- Annual assortments for familiar inspiration
- Seasonal events for timely stimulation
- Dedicated events for impulse opportunities
- National, regional and local events for ongoing loyalty
- Lifestyle events for constant and specific relevance to like-minded groups
- Personal events for perpetual inspiration
The final push into personalisation is not just an email or a mobile experience but must be seamlessly related to in-store promotional activity and customer service where online delivers vouches and offers, whilst empowering store personnel to engage in a real life personal and product relevant conversation.
“Profit from Personal” with omni-channel integration across both retailer and customer focused communication channels to promote with relevance in both time and retail space.
The retail experience is evolving from a selling space into an intellectual space, where physical square metres and virtual pixels are both optimised into building a close and lasting relationship between brand and customer to generate sales across coordinated channels.
Is your promotional communication coordinated across channels?
What elements of your brand have the potential to create an emotional link with the customer?