The Changing Retail Landscape and Meeting Your Customers Where They’re At
Recently, the retail industry has seen significant shifts across the board in areas like consumer shopping habits, brand loyalty, and personalized customer experiences. One of the most substantial shifts has been the rapid increase in e-commerce and online shopping. In fact, mass retailers’ online sales rose 93 percent in 2020; among apparel, fashion, and luxury retailers, online shopping rose to 26 percent from 16 percent, according to McKinsey. And while in-store shopping may be on the rise again as things return to “normal”, people are still shopping online much more than they did before the pandemic.
As a retailer, how do you keep up with this ever-changing environment, truly engage your customers, and give them an unrivaled shopping experience that will continue to grow your business? (Hint: not the traditional way many have attempted for a long time.)
Simply put, the “batch and blast” marketing approach doesn’t work anymore. Consumers are bombarded with marketing messages every day, and they are simultaneously demanding a more personalized shopping experience that speaks to them directly. We now live in an “experience economy” where about 75 percent of Americans changed their shopping habits in 2020. 40 percent of that group changed which brands they buy from — twice the rate in 2019 — and younger people were more likely to switch.
It’s important now more than ever to meet your buyers’ exact needs and expectations, and the secret to doing so is adopting a data-driven marketing strategy. This approach allows you to use your own data to identify exactly who your customers are, analyze their purchasing behavior and other identifying factors, and create uniquely personalized marketing for every customer.
We’ll demonstrate how using a data-driven marketing approach within the five-step buying process can help you improve your consumer messaging .
