Commentary

4 tips for a successful holiday mobile app strategy

Casey Gannon, vice president of marketing at Shopgate, explains that as online shopping gets bigger than ever it's necessary for retailers to have a mobile strategy that will make sure the holiday season is the most successful one yet.

Photo by iStock.com

November 8, 2018

By Casey Gannon, vice president of marketing, Shopgate

As the holiday sales season quickly approaches, there's an opportunity for retailers to not only generate consumer interest, but to also create and build upon a holiday mobile strategy that leads to long-lasting customer loyalty and an advanced mobile customer experience. A recent study by Coupofy.com has identified that mobile commerce now accounts for 30 percent of the total e-commerce spend and mobile shopping is growing 300 percent faster than traditional eCommerce. What's more, Criteo reports that 66 percent of mobile transactions occur through an app.

These statistics highlight the importance of taking advantage of this mobile growth by having an engaging app that sets the brand apart from the competition. With online shopping being bigger than ever, it's necessary for retailers to have a mobile strategy in place that will make sure this holiday season is the most successful one yet. Here are four tips retailers can follow to ensure their mobile experience is ready for the holiday rush:

Tip No. 1: Prepare for the holidays ahead of the holidays
While Black Friday is the official start to the holiday sales season, retailers need to start building a mobile audience ahead of time. This can be achieved by promoting their app on social channels, so followers can download the app before the peak season hits. For example, retailers can offer new or exclusive items as well as holiday-featured items on their social channels that incentivize their audience to download the app. The key here is to make it easy for consumers to quickly jump from your social media ad to your app to browse products.

Once consumers have downloaded the app, retailers should also use push notifications to drive open rates and build awareness. On average, push notifications have proven to have a customer response time of 15 seconds, while emails take 6.5 hours to see an open or click. Having a solid, early push strategy will help retailers cut through the noise created when it comes through during holiday crunch time.

Remember that the holidays can be an extremely stressful time for consumers as they race to finalize their gift lists. Therefore, many find themselves running against deadlines to make their way all the way to brick-and-mortar stores to make their purchases. As such, creating the ability for consumers to actively browse through your brand's offerings on their most personal device (i.e. their smartphone) during these peak traffic hours can not only raise your brand's visibility, but also put you at the top of their radars for holiday shopping.

Tip No. 2: Deliver frictionless shopping experiences
Once consumers are tuned into your mobile app, take the shopping experience one step further by allowing them to quickly and easily make purchases. Rather than risking cart abandonment by making your consumers jump through a series of pages to checkout, seal the conversion deal by providing a frictionless one-touch checkout or payment process. Providing additional features for customers, including the ability to quickly build their wish lists and preferences on the mobile app, will help take the friction out of the holiday shopping experience.

Tip No. 3: Keep customers engaged through exclusive offers
Keep consumers engaged by delivering unique and app-exclusive offers that fit their needs and preferences. Then, alert consumers to these offers through the app's most direct communication tool: real-time segmented push notifications. Targeting segments based on age, gender, and more can inform which promotions you're sending to which customers. Use short messages to detail your latest promotions, products and updates to ensure that you are bringing relevant offers to each of your customers just “in the nick of time.”

Tip No. 4: Allow customers to connect with you directly
To further cement customers' preference for your brand through mobile, take your offering one step further by giving them the ability to directly connect with customer service through your app. For example, we all know that a heavy wave of returns and exchanges usually follows the holiday sales season. Rather than making your customers take a trip all the way to the physical store to complete an exchange or return, allow your customer to instantly connect with you directly via the app through features such as live-chat or SMS notifications to begin their customer service inquiry journey. By facilitating two-way communication, retailers can also create additional opportunities to cross-sell and upsell, further developing their engagement capabilities with consumers.

As the holidays approach, consumer attention will be heightened and their ability to discover new brands and create new loyalties will be at an all-time high. However, their time will also be constrained. By giving your consumers the ability to elevate their shopping experience on their most personal device, retailers will create a sound sales strategy that will extend well beyond the holiday season.