Beyond Double-Digit Days: Sophisticated Customer Engagement Pays Off All Year Long

While there are many things to leave behind in 2020, there are also lessons worth carrying forward. The retail shopping festival season, for example, shows no sign of losing momentum. Singles Day, the anchor of that season, set records yet again, with Chinese tech giant Alibaba posting US$40 billion in sales in the first half hour alone. Here at Braze, we saw similar record-setting volume: Over 3x more messages sent on 11/11 in 2020 as compared to 2019. We saw 46% more buyers year over year, and they made 58% more purchases than last year.

Customer retention really pays off, as existing users spent more and purchased 59% more per user during the 11/11 period, when compared to newly acquired users. Interestingly, users who joined during the 2020 Singles Day season were more than twice as likely to be retained after 30 days as users acquired outside of the shopping festival.

These spikes in activity make sense, as retail festivals represent an important time for the practice of “courageous innovation,” as I discussed with Steven Moy, Global CEO of Barbarian, at last fall’s Forge 2020 conference. Consider experimenting with new channels and fresh creative tactics during this period of increased consumer attention—that way, you will develop an invaluable base of data that can be leveraged to improve customer engagement all year long.

Taking a test-and-learn approach to the challenge of growing customer engagement matters more now, both during shopping festival season and beyond. Innovative experimentation can tackle the questions of how to stand out in the crowded arena of big marketplaces like Alibaba, and how to continue smooth operations while navigating peaks and surges in traffic. Thoughtful marketers are looking to translate successful shopping festival learnings (whether from their own brand campaigns or others’) into year-round strategies to boost customer retention while driving increased lifetime value and brand advocacy.

Other sectors besides retail are looking to the 2020 shopping festival season to inspire their own “courageous innovation” strategies for customer engagement. When we published our Singles Day Marketing Guide with Barbarian, we took note of the interest it received from industries such as beauty and consumer electronics (both big sellers during the festivals) as well as media, entertainment, and even business services. The cross-pollination works both ways, as ecommerce marketers can enhance their retail campaigns with best practices from leaders in other fields.

In working through your own plans for 2021, you might find it useful to review the guidance we presented in the Singles Day Marketing Guide. Fostering a year-long cycle of continuous improvement and innovation begins with thoughtful questions to shape objectives and identify measurable key results. Consider the following thought-starters:

• Are there ways to rethink team structure to better support sophisticated customer engagement practices?
• How is budget being allocated to modernize technology and data infrastructure to improve customer experience and business insights?
• What opportunities exist for “courageous innovation” and test-and-learn experimentation in campaigns, channels, and tactics?
• Can rethinking success metrics point to learnings that will better inform a cycle of continuous improvement of customer engagement?

While much about the year to come is still in flux, one thing is all but certain—the double-digit shopping festivals will represent important revenue milestones for many businesses. And whether you are in retail or not, the successful playbooks from festival promotions can be leveraged to strengthen customer relationships and deepen customer engagement for all brands. Consider the Singles Day Marketing Guide as the starting point of your own “courageous innovation” journey.