Nowadays, engaging the customer at every possible touch point is only half the battle for retail organizations and other businesses. At VTEX, we see it as vitally important to optimize every single interaction with the consumer so that there is not only the resulting conversion, but there is also an enhanced brand sympathy generated with the customer. This ultimately leads to brand loyalty. Of course, this is easier said than done. So what are some ways to optimize those interactions, build customer loyalty and increase conversions at every touch?
Personalize your Product
The intersection of big data and personalized advertising can provide a critical starting point for driving your company’s profitability and keeping the customer engaged. Customized landing pages and/or storefronts can appeal to specific sub-groups of your targeted clientele, helping them to identify with your company on a visceral level. At VTEX, we used A/B testing on landing pages what included personalized greetings and mention of a visitor’s hometown. This proved to be very impactful.
At physical store locations, employees who can identify a customer’s specific need and are successful at upselling, should be highly valued. Training programs should include processes that encourage such optimization of these face to face interaction points with the customer.
Emphasize your Values
At each touch point with the customer, make it a point to integrate some aspect of your company’s values, mission, or purpose. Advertisements that feature reminders of your company’s efforts to be socially responsible are wonderful drivers of customer conversion, as these articulated values will strike a chord with certain subsets of your target audience and help them more closely identify your company as an organization aligned with their own values. For instance, emphasize your organization’s environmental awareness as you feature products made from recycled materials.
Besides such explicit declarations of your values, craft your advertisements and interactions in a way that implicitly reinforce your values to the customer. For example, retail store employees should ideally be dressed in a way that not only reflects respect for their customers but also appeals to customer sensibilities. Online design themes can also enhance customer sympathy and even loyalty with details that subtly appeal to the values and preferences of the target audience.
Feature your Advantages
This goes without saying, but it is critically important that at every customer touch point with your organization highlights the advantages of doing business with you as opposed to your competitors. Congruently, any disadvantages should remain unmentioned or in rare cases, directly addressed and downplayed.
The advantages of working with your company, whether purely financial, service-oriented, or otherwise, should ideally be prominently featured in an integrated marketing campaign on an organization-wide level. If your prices are truly the most reasonable, that fact should be featured in online ads, physical signage and posters. They should also be repeated during face to face interactions, at the point of sale, and be mentioned in follow-up marketing initiatives. If your company boasts the best customer service in the market, that should be the point of discussion. If your organization is aligned to put the “best foot forward” in all customer-facing interactions, it will go a long way to generating conversion and brand loyalty.
A Unified Strategy
The three principles mentioned above will work best for your company if a unified ecommerce strategy is implemented throughout the organization. This should be well-planned, aligned with your company’s mission statement and values, and be universally applicable. The details based on location and interaction type should all follow from that overarching strategy. VTEX offers much more information and tools for creating ways to build customer loyalty and conversions at every touch. To learn more, visit our website to contact us.
