With the peak period just around the corner, it’s time to start focusing on delighting customers with creative messages and building hype around upcoming sales. With sale events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday being key in this period, how do you keep up the momentum and continue to build your lists? You likely have new customers’ attention and loyal customers just waiting to place an order, so it’s critical to use this time wisely and send content that will resonate with them. In this article, we’re sharing four key ways to accelerate your CRM channel this peak season, so that you hit your targets this year and continue to grow your CRM database.

1. Database Growth

Database growth relies on a range of factors, however during peak period, continually generating your owned audience growth is critical. Building a strong CRM base during peak period is your key to success during the quieter months after peak. Some ways to do this include:

• Sign-up forms: Take advantage of all that new and old traffic coming to your website through sign-up forms. Update your signup forms to be Black Friday or holiday specific, but make sure your welcome offer doesn’t interfere with your sales events. There’s nothing worse from a customer perspective than receiving a 10% off code only to find out at checkout that it won’t work with what you’ve got in your cart.  Consider who is seeing your form. Are they new or existing customers? Do you already have their email address or not? Is there any specific zero-party data you’re seeking from this audience (eg. phone number or date of birth)? Take advantage of targeting behaviours of your sign-up form and create bespoke creatives to target these specific audiences, thus making the most of all this traffic and capturing as much data as you can!
• Leverage your Brick and Mortar stores: There has been a distinct and clear shift in shopping behaviours post-Covid 19, especially for in-store - so instead of seeing this as a loss, let’s view it as a new acquisition opportunity. Consider running an in-store competition for sales assistants to collect as many customer emails as possible. Train staff in the value of your email marketing, and excite team members to sign people up. It’s little things like staying away from the word ‘database’ (no one wants to be on a database), to using language like ‘would you like me to create a profile for you?’, and pushing email receipts instead of paper ones.

2. Audience Segmentation

Are you sending targeted emails? We all know the days of blast sending are over, and smart customer segmentation develops a better connection between you and your customers. Are your key segments ready, and do you know how to communicate with them? Key segments for peak include:

1. Last year’s festive shoppers: These customers shopped with you last year during the festive season, but have not shopped again since. This indicates they are a present buyer and might be interested in repurchasing gifts this season. Target this audience with gift centred messaging, and highlight the great deal you have for the festive season.
2. Sales period window shoppers: We can’t fault someone for always looking for a deal. Identify customers who prefer to shop sales and discounts, and target them with urgency and scarcity messaging to get them across the conversion line.
3. Recently disengaged customers: Sometimes, our inbox gets the better of us and we simply don’t have the time to open every email we are sent. Give your recently disengaged customers the benefit of the doubt - they haven’t unsubscribed, so still want to hear from you. Perhaps email isn’t their preferred method of communication anymore. Sync this audience with your Google and Facebook to create custom audiences and retarget them on different platforms.
4. VIPs/high-value shoppers: El creme de la creme. Your customer royalty - treat them like it. Make sure you’re providing first access to all sales and launches to promote some exclusivity. Make sure to exclude them from repeat reminders, and be tactful with your cadence to this segment - you don’t want to lose any VIPs during the most important time of the year.

When creating your segments, make sure they are built with timeless customer data, and thus evergreen. Use every criterion in your arsenal – demographic, engagement, purchase data, add to cart data, and browse data. This will ensure the most robust segments possible to make your segmented campaigns worth your while.

3. Campaign Cadence

Have you discovered your optimal sending schedule? While blast sending is over (and we mean, really over) the truth is we have revenue targets to hit and more clicks = more traffic = more chance for conversion. Work backwards from your revenue targets and make sure you’ve got enough emails planned, and be ready to be agile if you’re not tracking against your budget for the week. Have some emails in your back pocket, ready to send if you’re chasing revenue for the week. This can be a repurposed creative with some different products, resending a strong creative to a different segment, or resending an email to non-openers.

4. Set Your Key Email Marketing Automations Live

Is at least 30% of your revenue automated? After you finish this article, it’s time to check all your key MOMENT-BASED email marketing automations are live and thriving. We’re talking:

1. Welcome series
2. Browse abandonment
3. Cart abandonment
4. Back-in-stock notification
5. Wishlist triggers
   • Wishlist waiting
   • Price drop
   • Low in-stock

Traffic is high this time of year so more triggers will be sent than usual, which is why we want to make sure they’re fit and ready to convert. When we enter the post-peak period and your campaign cadence reduces, these moment-based email marketing automations will help keep the momentum up, serving audiences the most relevant content based on their behaviour. To get a better understanding of how you can make the most of peak and post-period, contact our digital marketing team at Pattern Australia.