In a recent InternetRetailing webinar, Five key tactics to maximise success during the peak trading period, in association, we heard from Saul Lopes, head of CRM at Dixons Carphone and Craig Clayton, director, solutions architecture, at Movable Ink on five key tactics that can help make a success of the upcoming peak trading period. Here’s a bulletpoint overview of what they said.
Craig opened the webinar with an overview of Movable Ink, the company behind open-time email personalisation, and Saul followed with an overview of Dixons Carphone, owner of the Currys PC World and Carphone Warehouse retail brands, and how it is refocusing its CRM on the customer.
How consumers are feeling in 2019
- Distracted: 95% are doing something else while shopping.
- Demanding: 72% all only engage with something that’s tailored to their interests.
- Convenience seekers: 90% willing to share own data for services that make life easier.
- Visual: 80% focus on visual over what they read; and bombarded, with each person sent 281 emails a day in 2018. “That’s a crazy number: your consumers are constantly overwhelmed with communication, be that from brands, family and friends,” said Craig Clayton. “That’s all amplified over the holiday season.”
Automate with real-time product content
- Saul Lopes on how automation has helped Dixons Carphone move away on from manual checks – and 7am starts – and the impact the change has had on the team.
- How Joules used a sense of intrigue to keep customers opening their emails throughout Black Friday.
Test and optimise
- Saul Lopes on how Dixons Carphone has used testing for its peak plan. “Three months before we put forward a robust test plan to test all our initiatives before peak,” he said. This included a dry run and a test of new features.
- How Dixons Carphone used Phrasee’s AI language generation to optimise headline copy and content. “We found out that the human written headline was the worst performing one,” said Lopes.
Interactive experiences
- How interactive experiences can help messages stand out from the inbox.
- Example: How Virgin Holidays used augmented reality and social channels in their refer a friend competition.
- How Boden used live polling in their emails: shoppers voted for their favourite colour and race positions changed as each consumer clicked on a colour. “Consumers want to participate and it provides you as a brand with some insight into their preferences,” said Craig Clayton.
- How Currys PC World polled shoppers on their bank holiday plans and then followed up with personalised emails.
Behaviour-based personalisation
- How Next made its ‘looks we love’ emails more relevant to the recipient through personalising content.
- How very.co.uk used behavioural personalisation to target customers with products they had interacted with on-site and were now on offer in a Bank Holiday promotion.
UGC and social proof
- How M&Co used social proof and reviews from real customers.
- How Currys PC World explained product benefits by scraping benefits from the website and boosting customer confidence through customer reviews. Overlaid products with social proof messaging, view and purchases during fixed time period.
The webinar concluded with a Q&A session that covered areas from GDPR to approaches to personalisation. Click here to watch the webinar in full.