3 tips to increase customer app use
It’s a challenge faced by every retailer in the age of interconnected things: How can customer interaction increase?
If retailers knew more about their customers, they could create and deploy offers that would be in tune with their buying habits. But consumers are hesitant to share key information with retailers.
Many fear being deluged with unwanted offers or marketing information. Others view it as an invasion of privacy.
Retailers might have truly innovative and relevant offerings, but getting a foot in the digital door is increasingly difficult.
Recent findings from a Forester survey found only about a third of survey respondents are willing to share location data and enable push notifications in retailer apps.
The value of doing either was a concern for consumers. So retailers designing new apps must make sure the features offer clear consumer value, or they will not be enabled.
Here are three tips geared toward increasing customer engagement to remember when creating or updating an app.
Provide extra incentives for using the app. Regular users of an app can easily be rewarded with “secret sales,” better coupons or “insider perks.” And apps are not only a tool for large retailers — small ones can also benefit from marketing via smartphone.
For example, a pet store might note a particular app-enabled customer buys a certain amount of aquarium equipment each month.
If customers place, say, three orders for pickup through the app, why not offer a free in-home tank cleaning, with that third order delivered?
Not only is the customer delighted with the opportunity to leave the aquarium scrubbing to someone else that month, but it also introduces him or her to a new service offering.
Promote brand loyalty. Surveys have traditionally found that consumers will most often share personal information if they feel loyal to a brand.
But just meeting basic customer needs — in-stock inventory, convenient store hours, polite salespeople, etc. — isn’t enough.
Retailers should consider defining and then promoting their company cultures.
A company culture that connects with customers’ personal beliefs is one that engenders loyalty.
When marketers make that connection, customers are more than willing to share their data.
A brand becomes emblematic of the company’s culture and what it stands for.
When that meshes with what customers hold dear, loyalty is born.
Push location-specific offers. Just as savvy real estate agents preach that it’s all about location, the same holds true for marketing.
With more location information retailers can position campaigns to appeal to certain customer segments.
Location-based marketing uses global-positioning technology to send geographic-specific business marketing to consumers via their mobile devices.
Those customers will be more responsive because the offer is clearly relevant to them.
The key is in crafting important and meaningful messages so potential customers will sign up to receive them.
It’s worth the effort: Ads and offers that integrate time and the consumer’s location reportedly can generate two to 10 times the amount of business than a generic ad.
It’s all about making customers happy and feel appreciated.
The bottom line is that should be the focus of any retail app.
If you succeed, the digital door to customers’ information will be held wide open for you.
