Speaking to the face of new consumers

With a progressively diverse consumer set your marketing predecessors may not have catered for, how do you engage with consumer profiles that, historically, weren’t on your radar?

Episerver’s recently published B2C Retail Benchmark Report Q1 2020 unveils vital data points and trends essential to a successful customer-centric experience.

The Zero Moment of Truth begins with your digital handshake

A prospective customer entering your digital platform is the first glimpse into your value proposition, brand and offering. As traditional brick-and-mortar retailers face the brunt of changing consumer buying habits, digital has established itself as the new physical handshake.

As you navigate to attract new and existing customers, nomatter what audience demographic you’re vying for, they’ll decide within four scrolls whether they want to delve further. Creating a resonating digital ‘face’ takes milliseconds. And that’s especially true with mobile. Episerver’s B2C Retail report shows mobile traffic exceeds 60 percent during peak selling seasons, demonstrating the importance to lock mobile browsers into mobile buyers.

So how do you speak to new consumers accessing your site in a way that attracts and retains?

With numerous industry-leading, game-changing organizations from around the globe using the Episerver Customer-Centric Digital Experience Platform, we’re able to observe the best at their game.

What’s apparent is your brand should be dictated and modelled off your consumers. They should be center to influencing your brand focus.

Marketeers are blind to audiences they don’t ‘see’ often

An emotive connection with end-users needs to happen quickly and must convey a concrete message. Ask yourself; is my brand actively targeting consumers who may not have originally considered us?

If so, consider how you should get through at the right time, to the right person with the right message and the right channel. It’s about not bombarding end-users with information they don’t care about through any channel. Deploying a customer-centric approach aids this mission. Building a reflection of your customers through personalization tools such as Product Recommendations gives an advantage in building a rapport with new consumers.

Oftentimes, you’ll hear there’s a strong correlation between relevancy and personalization. You need data, you need actionable insight and you need to be relevant. It’s not as simple as it looks, given that data quality must be accurate for the best decisions to be taken.

As granular as your personalization is, humans are irrational. The best campaigns don’t necessarily come at the best time. Content, however, lives forever. If you manage to connect with your audience by humanizing digital and building a strong connection with the identity of your brand, only then do you unlock the potential and power of personalization.

Social is on the rise, but is it worth investing in?

Although social traffic has doubled to eight percent in share of website traffic from January 2018 to October 2019, it has low conversion rates and not a channel to be reliant on. Still, low click-through rates and conversions should not dissuade retailers and brands from investing in social. Most shopping journeys span multiple sessions, devices and channels.

That’s not to say social media doesn’t have an impact on your brand, sales and marketing. By allowing very precise segmentation based on demographics, location, interests and more, brands are now able to reach the right consumers through social, that they otherwise never would have.

Mobile share of traffic continues to increase

By 2020, we predict the average monthly mobile share of traffic will reach 60 percent for retailers and brands as tablets continue to fall and desktop sessions become less frequent.

It should come as no surprise that mobile is ubiquitous with our everyday lives. We take our smartphones everywhere, including out shopping with us. Comparing prices online while staring at an item in the physical store is second nature to some, therefore the look and feel of your brand identity must be consistent everywhere.

Have you created a coherent digital strategy that is sensitive of a user’s buying at all buying stages? Let’s say you’re a children’s apparel brand and have seen a sharp rise in male buyers – your new target consumer. Have you catered to these consumers being more likely to buy one-handed via mobile whilst on-the-go over sitting at a desktop PC?

Since 2017, conversion rates have increased from 1.7 percent on mobile devices to 2.1 percent as retailers and brands have invested in mobile optimization and consumers have become more comfortable completing purchases on mobile devices.

Whilst 2.1 percent conversion rates may sound somewhat unimpactful, mobile influences buying behavior and the brand we purchase from, far more than we can directly measure.

Effectively addressing the new customer

Let the diversity of your consumers influence your brand by actively seeking what your consumer’s ‘face’ looks like. By building an inclusive digital environment for their shopping journey, then and only then, will you know how to effectively address your customers.

What’s in store for retailers in 2020?

In 2020, retailers should take credit for delivering strong ecommerce sales while taking note of broader economic trends that may make earning consumer dollars more difficult in the future.

At Episerver, we’ve done a comparison of traffic sources by percentages and conversion rates for B2C ecommerce websites, including conversions by device, traffic sources, bounce rates and more.

Access the B2C Retail Benchmark Report here.