All Things Being Equal, Holiday Shopping Trends Show Loyalty is Up for Grabs

 

Equality is generally a wonderful word, but not so much when it comes to branding and marketing. Because is all things are essentially equal when it comes to your brand and those of competitors, shoppers have no reason except price to choose to do business with you.

E•qual | eekwel

• being the same in quantity, size, degree, or value
• a person or thing considered to be the same as another in status or quality

Eek-wel is right, emphasis on the eek. The last thing you want is for holiday shoppers to view your brand, products or services as equivalent to others, especially if any of those other options are more convenient or come at a lower price.  Holiday shoppers are on a mission. Their time and money is at a premium.  If you can’t pinpoint some reasons holiday shoppers should choose to do business with you, then why would you expect holiday shoppers to discover them?

You might also like my article on the Kabbage.com blog with The 2015 Holiday Shopping Trends According to Google or you can get a quick view of the trends with the infographic below.

2015 Holiday Shopping Trends: 4 Keys to Customer Loyalty

Meet Holiday Shoppers Where They Are

Are you ready to reach holiday shoppers where they are this year?  They’ll be doing more research than ever before online (and buying more online, too).  You might have to find ways to get their attention when they’re shopping in their jammies before getting ready to work, hitting up holiday ecommerce sites and local retailers on their lunch hours, or while they are skimming through emails, social media feeds, texts and online shopping sites while catching up on their favorite shows in the evening.

Deliver What Holiday Shoppers Want Most – and a Little Bit More

Equality is about meeting expectations, not exceeding them, but many retailers seem to expect customers to leave positive reviews online and make personal recommendations for being equal to the customer’s expectation.  It’s not going to happen. Consumers have heard too many stories about brands that went the extra mile and delivered an experience that was truly buzz-worthy. If you want loyalty from holiday shoppers, you’re going to have to do more than meet their expectations, too.

Connect With Your Customers, or Risk Defection

It’s a mistake to assume that even long-time customers will stay loyal during the holidays. If you don’t connect with your own customers throughout the holiday season, you could lose them if they buy from another business that meets them where they are or has what they are looking for.

Per the Google infographic on 2015 holiday shopper trends, more than half of holiday shoppers said they were open to buying from new retailers and 41% purchased from a business they had never shopped with before. I like to remind retailers of all types that their customers might hold them in high affection but that doesn’t mean that they truly “love” them. Even affectionate customers might be ripe for the picking if a competitor hits them with the right offer at the right time. And any customer who feels like you let them down will be even more likely to defect.

Realize Opportunities to Bring New Holiday Shoppers Into the Fold

What’s your plan for turning one-time holiday shoppers into repeat buyers and loyal customers?  For most retailers, the holidays will be their biggest chance to get payoffs in brand awareness and sales since shoppers will be out in force, looking for something new, wonderful and gift-worthy.

Your competitors might be too busy to cater to customers or deliver an experience that exceeds customer expectations. This is an opportunity for you to win over new prospects and build brand awareness, contact lists and social follower numbers to fill the pipeline for future sales.

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Will holiday shoppers be able to find your website this year? 

Request a quote for optimizing your whole website or those pages and products you want to help you attract holiday shoppers and we’ll help you write page titles, web page copy and meta tags that will deliver more qualified traffic to your site and help holiday shoppers find you when they’re ready to buy.

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