Fall Customers Bring More Winter Sales

Back-to-school (B2S) shopping season is ending. Hopefully, you leveraged Cardlytics’ 2018 Back-to-School Spend Report to understand key B2S spend trends and boost sales this season. But, now, marketers concluding B2S may be wondering, “What’s next?”After the B2S season ends, it may be tempting to hold on another big marketing push until the winter holidays. However, it’s critical to keep the momentum going during the fall to stay top-of-mind leading into the heavy winter holiday shopping season. In fact, Cardlytics’ purchase insights show that last year the majority – almost 60% – of holiday sales were from repeat customers in 2017. Additionally, customers acquired during the fall spend 7% more during the winter holidays than newly acquired customers. These purchase insights show that fall is a key timeto acquire customers who will really move the needle during the winter holidays, A.K.A THE BIGGEST SHOPPING SEASON OF THE YEAR.Below are a few tips for acquiring new customers this fall.Leverage Real Purchase BehaviorIn this new era of data abundance, it can be hard to choose the data sets that will help you identify the right customers. While other data can offer glimpses of a person’s needs and wants, the best predictor of what someone will purchase in the future is what they’ve purchased in the past. When serving advertisements, leveraging actual purchase data ensures your ads are reaching relevant audiences. After all, a 31-year-old man who is single with no children will not want the same advertising as a 31-year-old man who is married with two children.Make it Easy to Cash-in on OffersWhile consumers are more cost savvy, they do not want/have the time to cut coupons. Cash-back offers that are served digitally, like the rewards program from Cardlytics, allow consumers to select an offer easily online or on their phone. Specifically, Cardlytics’ rewards are served through a consumer’s banking channels, so no additional app or login is required. And, once the customer selects the offer, he/she can easily redeem the rewards by shopping with the brand (online or in-store) using the bank card associated with that account.Evaluate and Make ChangesBrands should deploy marketing campaigns that allow them to measure both the online and in-store impact. While online is growing year over year, 92% of sales still take place at a physical location. Because of this, it is key that marketers be able to close the loop between online advertising and in-store sales. Once fall concludes, marketers should look at how their campaigns drove actual online and in-store sales, not just eyeballs and clicks. Then, make the necessary adjustments for a fruitful winter shopping season.The key to acquiring fall customers is deploying marketing strategies that marry both quantity and quality. Instead of throwing spaghetti at a wall to see what sticks, marketers should aim to reach actual likely buyers, at scale – meaning a large quantity of the right consumers. Keeping the sales momentum from B2S into the fall will make for a more abundant winter holiday sales season and an overall better return for the year.