An engaged shopper is one that regularly interacts with your brand. Maybe they like everything you post on social media, or they read all your newsletters.
Engaged shoppers are the ones that have an emotional connection with your brand. They’re your customers who are most likely to shop from you again, write positive reviews, and recommend your brand to friends and family.
Engaging shoppers as a means of encouraging repeat purchases is extremely valuable, considering that increasing customer retention by 5% can boost profits by as much as 95%.
In this article we’ll briefly touch on the post-purchase experience as the basis for engaging shoppers, and then outline four strategies to engage shoppers.
Delivering an amazing post-purchase experience
We’re going to assume your store already provides an amazing post-purchase experience. The reason being because a great post-purchase experience is considered standard. Real-time order and delivery updates are no longer something that’s nice to have– consumers have come to expect them. In the Ecommerce Delivery Benchmark Report, 86% of adult survey respondents considered order tracking “important” or “very important”.
Not knowing the status of an order can cause a lot of heartache for shoppers, and there’s no reason it should. A solid purchase and post-purchase experience is the foundation for the strategies presented in this article to keep shoppers engaged. If shoppers don’t have a good experience purchasing from your store, they won’t sign up for a customer loyalty program or engage with you on social media. That goes without saying.
Deliver on what you promise, provide the necessary channels for customers to request returns and exchanges, and resolve issues quickly. Do all that and you can start mapping out effective strategies to keep your shoppers engaged.
Engaging fashion e-commerce shoppers
The strategies listed here are just a few examples of how you can engage your shoppers. They’re starting points for you to develop your own strategies given your store’s unique challenges and brand. What makes sense for one brand, might not make sense for yours!
- Keep shoppers in the loop
Email marketing done wrong can overwhelm customers and come across as spam. But done correctly, email marketing can help you craft branded narratives that resonate with your shoppers. Most importantly, it serves as a way to keep customers updated about all things related to your store– new collections, sales and promotions.
And it’s a good investment. Figures like an average return of $40 for every dollar spent on email marketing, attest to the power of email marketing. But email marketing needs to be well executed to yield those kinds of results.
Make sure to highly segment your email campaigns. Segment your audience based on store data, such as, average order value, purchase history, and purchase frequency. Make sure to provide clear opt-in preferences that specify the emails and frequency that users are subscribing to.
Ask yourself what kind of updates are relevant to your different audiences and how often they should receive them. Since user preferences vary greatly, so too should your segmentation. Some users like to receive style tips and regular brand updates, others would rather limit communications to emails about sales and promotions.
It’ll take some fine tuning to discover the right formula of content and email frequency for your store’s audience, but email marketing will help you get the right messages, to the right people, at the right time.
- Build community where your customers are
Building a community around your fashion e-commerce brand is a great way to keep current and future customers engaged with your brand. Like email marketing, it’ll take some time to find the right mix of channels and content but it’ll be well worth it.
Content is like digital currency. These days, it can be nearly impossible to operate an e-commerce business without making content or having some form of presence on social media. The importance of delivering valuable content to your audience cannot be overstated when it comes to community building. Whether it’s trend reports, fashion tips, or content related to sustainability will depend on your community’s interests and needs.
Find the best channels to distribute your content. Whether that means being more active on Instagram, TikTok, or your own website, will largely depend on your audience and generational differences. Regardless of the medium or channel you use, make sure it allows for two-way communication. The ability to easily talk with your shoppers online, answer questions, reply to both positive and negative comments, and compliment users sharing your pieces. Communities are about the people in them, but your brand still needs to have a prominent voice. Community members need to feel seen and heard by your brand.
In that regard, encourage and share user-generated content (UGC). Customers organically sharing content of themselves or others wearing pieces from your online fashion store, strengthens your community. When you repost user content, users once again feel that they are seen and heard by your brand. UGC also helps position your brand as authentic and trustworthy. But don’t stop at UCG. Collaborate with creators and influencers that can showcase your products in real-life scenarios to your shoppers. Allowing your brand narrative to be told from diverse perspectives helps it reach new audiences and stay authentic.
However you build and manage your community, remember to stay true to your brand. Community needs plenty of communication, so make sure your brand communicates consistently across all touchpoints. When customers feel like they’re always engaging with the same person, they have a much clearer idea of what your brand is all about.
- Drive conversions with promo codes
Everyone loves saving money. Which is why sales, discounts, and promo codes are an effective motivating factor to encourage purchases. And there are a number of situations when offering discounts makes sense. Think of strategic moments to offer your customers discounts that’ll encourage them to make a purchase or at the very least, visit your store. Maybe a 10% off for first-time purchases, or a discount code for shoppers who haven’t purchased anything in six months. Or free shipping on purchases over $100.
Sending unengaged customers an email with a message along the lines of, “We haven’t seen you in a while, here’s $15 off”, makes them feel valued by your brand. It’s an easy way to make shoppers remember your brand, which, if you provide a great post-purchase experience, should elicit positive emotions! Enough to get them browsing your store anyway.
You can also take advantage of seasonal promotions to move old or out-of-season stock. Shoppers expect discounts and sales during the holidays and are on the lookout for good deals. Many savvy shoppers wait to do the bulk of their shopping out of season when prices are cheapest. Discounted items are a great way to attract shoppers looking to save money, and once they’ve purchased from you it’s much easier to sell to them again. You can set up campaigns to encourage these shoppers to make repeat purchases whenever you’re having a sale.
- Nurture customer loyalty with rewards programs
The best customer rewards and loyalty programs keep customers interested and committed to the program. Not only do they encourage repeat purchases, they also strengthen shoppers’ emotional ties and commitment to your brand.
But programs need to be well thought out and in line with your store and clientele. In a KPMG survey of 18,520 consumers from more than 20 countries, “96 percent of respondents agreed that customer loyalty programs can be improved and 75 percent of all consumers say they would switch brands for a better loyalty program.” This tells us two things. First, that current customer loyalty programs aren’t cutting it, and second, that creating a great program can help you attract new customers.
To create a successful customer loyalty program:
- Consider your goals: Do you want to increase repeat purchases? Boost average order value? Maybe reach new customers or simply gather data about your shoppers? Being clear about your goals will help determine how you structure your program and how customers engage with it.
- Structure your program: Again, your program needs to be in line with what you want it to achieve. Programs can be points or referrals based, offer membership perks, or even be paid membership programs. Most importantly, remember that your loyalty program needs to provide valuable rewards or incentives that make sense for your customers.
- Track and improve: Track key metrics like retention, redemption, enrolment, and the revenue generated by your program. Analyze and continuously refine your program until you’re satisfied with the results.
- Ask for feedback: Customer loyalty programs are all about the customer, so who better to ask for feedback about your program than the people using it? Routinely ask your customers for feedback to make sure they’re not in the 75% of customers that would shop at a different store for a better program!
Engaged shoppers are good for business
When you keep your shoppers engaged, they’re more likely to routinely visit your store and make repeat purchases. Shopper engagement is about turning shoppers into fans of your brand, and eventually brand advocates.
If you want to turn shoppers into brand advocates, you need solid branding. Learn more about branding in fashion e-commerce.
