Editorial
The Gist
- Build emotional connections. To win consumers' loyalty during challenging times, brands must focus on creating deep emotional connections rather than relying on promotional gimmicks.
- Prioritize transparency. Honest communication about product availability and clear expectations can help build trust, enhancing the shopping experience and customer retention.
- Leverage social engagement. Encouraging and interacting with consumer-generated content on social media can strengthen brand-consumer relationships and inspire new customer acquisition.
Can you believe it? It’s that time of year — again. It’s almost time to eat turkey until you fall asleep on the couch watching football. It's almost time to open your home to the in-laws and distant cousins for some holiday cheer and eggnog.
But holiday cheer isn’t something that everyone welcomes. For most retailers, it's the most stressful part of the year, this year especially.
With a macroeconomic environment that’s less than ideal, a looming divisive election and consumer spending wavering — retailers and brands need to do more in 2024 to win the hearts and the wallets of consumers.
Doing more doesn’t necessarily mean building out fancy promotional vehicles to lure consumers, or offering buy one, get one gimmicks. To genuinely inspire customers to open their wallets, your efforts have to be more in-depth and reach consumers at their emotional core. Remember, the goal is NOT to just get a one-time purchase to meet your holiday revenue numbers — the goal is to build a customer for life — and that can’t be done through promotional pricing or gimmicks.
How Anthropomorphism and Acute Authenticity Drive Holiday Retail Success
It’s done through something I’ve talked about previously:
- Anthropomorphism: This is the concept that brands can take on human-like characteristics to achieve relatability, connection and inspiration from consumers. Is this the secret to holiday retail revenues? Yes, but anthropomorphism can’t be achieved without the other two A’s.
- Acute Authenticity: This is the concept of providing authentic, relevant, relatable experiences through every single channel that a brand has. It’s acute to the core of what the brand stands for, down to every single employee and colleague. Acute Authenticity requires a brand to take risks, but when you open that window of transparency between you and your consumer, you’ll develop the anthropomorphism needed to inspire your customers to purchase during a challenging economic time.
Here are three areas to focus on this holiday season to build Acute Authenticity, and to win wallet share with your customers.
Related Article: Retail Trends: Crafting an Adventurous Shopping Experience
1. Have a Real Conversation With Your Customers
There’s nothing quite like having a real conversation with customers about how they're doing, and what’s important to them. Recently, I visited a local clothing boutique here in Austin called As You Are where a friend of mine works. The experience was unlike any I've had before. Most times, in-store associates tend to be pushy and have their own agenda, not the case on this day, they were focused on me and my style.
The experience was different because the store associates KNEW what my style was, what things I would like and had some items picked out for me before I showed up. Sound familiar? It should, because just as I knew the associate before I entered the store, your brand knows your customer before they shop.
THIS is the key: get close to your customers. Dig deep on channel analytics and data points to fully understand what your customers are inspired by, interested in, and, more over, likely to purchase. Framing up these trends into actionable conversational channels like virtual shopping agents or invitations to private sale items before they hit the mass market provides elevated experiences where customers feel special because they feel like your band knows who they are.
Related Article: Not Your Average CX: The Rise of Hyper-Personalized Experiences
2. Be Brutally Honest About Product Inventory Status
There’s absolutely nothing worse than when you are attempting to shop online and a product detail page articulates a product is in stock, when it actually isn’t — especially if it’s the consumer's first time interacting with the brand.
More than likely if this occurs, the customer won’t come back. I know what you’re saying, “We don’t want to show our inventory because we can’t deliver same day or next day.” While that is true for commoditized products that could be purchased on Amazon or other marketplaces, it won’t matter if you’ve followed step one above and have already built conversations with your customers.
You see, consumers won’t look elsewhere when your brand is already in the forefront of their minds — you’ve built trust and connection; that part of the job is done. Now it’s time to give them transparency around the products you’re offering so they can plan their holiday shopping accordingly.
Give them prompts and call-outs that articulate when they should order to expect the product before key holiday dates. Give them options to spend more on shipping if they want it sooner (and they will!). Make it easy for them to return a product and exchange it for something else if they need to.
Being upfront and honest will always hold more weight than overpromising and not being able to deliver.
3. Give Consumers Opportunity to Share and Connect
Creating anthropomorphism is not just between brand and consumer, it’s between consumer and other consumers. Sometimes it’s best to sit back and let your brand be the conduit between cohorts of customer groups. Inspiring and encouraging customers to share items they have purchased or received during the holiday season on social media is extremely critical.
This starts with having a solidified social media team and strategy that promotes the re-sharing of content that consumers post that meets or exceeds your brands ideal image that you’re looking to portray. Like a customer's post, re-post their story, comment on their post — all of these engagement tactics re-validate the consumer's mindset that the brand “understands” who they are, and what they care about.
You want to talk about customer retention and loyalty? Lean in deep on social media and content interaction, and you’ll not only create a customer for life, but you'll gain new customers as they become inspired by how your brand interacts with people who are just like them.
Embrace Authenticity This Holiday Shopping Season
Listen, many news outlets are very "doom and gloom" this year; holistically, it’s been sort of a crazy year with everything going on in the world, especially right here in the US of A.
But remember, customers WILL spend money this holiday season, but selectively, your brand has the opportunity to win this share of wallet by being authentic to the core. Have a conversation with a customer, be honest and transparent with them and give all your customers reasons and channels to connect.
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As Buddy said in Elf, “The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear.” Singing loud for your brand means leaning in on what makes you, you — and giving customers the opportunity to see what your brand stands for, and how your brand can fit into their lives in a way that inspires them to see you as not just a company they buy from, but an entity that they can connect with.
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