The essentials
- Build emotional connections. To gain consumer loyalty during difficult times, brands must focus on creating deep emotional connections rather than relying on promotional gimmicks.
- Transparency is a priority. Honest communication about product availability and clear expectations can help build trust and thus improve the shopping experience and customer loyalty.
- Take advantage of social engagement. Promoting and engaging with consumer-generated content on social media can strengthen the relationship between brand and consumer and inspire new customer acquisition.
Can you believe it? It’s that time of year again. It’s almost time to eat turkey until you fall asleep on the couch watching football. It’s almost time to open your home to the in-laws and distant cousins for a little holiday cheer and eggnog.
But not everyone enjoys the holidays. For most retailers, they are the busiest time of the year, especially this year.
With a less than ideal macroeconomic environment, a divisive election looming, and fluctuating consumer spending, retailers and brands must do more to win consumers’ hearts and wallets in 2024.
Doing more doesn’t necessarily mean you have to create fancy promotional tools to attract customers or offer buy one, get one free gimmicks. To really inspire customers to open their wallets, your efforts need to go deeper and appeal to customers on an emotional level. Remember, it’s NOT about getting a one-time purchase to hit your holiday sales numbers – the goal is to get a customer for life – and that can’t be achieved through special offers or gimmicks.
How anthropomorphism and strong authenticity promote the success of Christmas retail
This is done through something I have already talked about before:
- anthropomorphism: This is the concept that brands can take on human-like characteristics to achieve closeness, connection and inspiration with consumers. Is this the secret to retail sales during the holiday season? Yes, but anthropomorphism cannot be achieved without the other two A’s.
- Acute authenticity: This is the concept of delivering authentic, relevant and relatable experiences through every single channel a brand has. It goes to the core of what the brand stands for, right down to every single employee and colleague. Acute authenticity requires a brand to take risks, but when you open that window of transparency between you and your consumer, you develop the anthropomorphism needed to inspire your customers to buy during tough economic times.
Here are three areas to focus on this holiday season to build strong authenticity and increase your customers’ market share.
Related article: Retail Trends: Creating an Adventurous Shopping Experience
1. Have a real conversation with your customers
There’s nothing better than a real conversation with customers about how they’re doing and what’s important to them. Recently I visited a local clothing boutique here in Austin called As You Are, where a friend of mine works. It was an experience I’d never had before. Usually the store employees are pushy and have their own agenda, but that wasn’t the case that day, they were focused on me and my style.
The experience was different because the store associates KNEW what my style was, what I would like, and had selected some items for me before I came in. Does that sound familiar? It should, because just as I knew the associate before I entered the store, your brand knows your customers before they shop.
THAT’S key: Get close to your customers. Dive deep into channel analytics and data points to fully understand what inspires your customers, what interests them, and what they’re likely to buy. Embedding these trends into actionable conversational channels like virtual shopping agents or invitations to private sale items before they hit the mass market creates elevated experiences that make customers feel special because they feel like your band knows who they are.
Related article: No ordinary customer experience: The rise of hyper-personalized experiences
2. Be brutally honest about product inventory status
There is absolutely nothing worse than trying to shop online and a product detail page states that a product is in stock when in reality it is not – especially if this is the consumer’s first exposure to the brand.
When this happens, the customer will most likely not come back. I know what you’re saying: “We don’t want to show our inventory because we can’t deliver same or next day.” While that’s true for bulk products that can be purchased on Amazon or other marketplaces, it doesn’t matter if you’ve followed step 1 above and already had conversations with your customers.
You see, consumers won’t look elsewhere if your brand is already etched in their minds – you’ve built trust and a connection; that part of the work is done. Now it’s time to give them transparency about the products you offer so they can plan their holiday shopping accordingly.
Give them hints and clues about when they should order so they get the product before major holidays. Give them the option to spend more on shipping if they want it sooner (and they will!). Make it easy for them to return a product and exchange it for something else if needed.
Openness and honesty are always more effective than promising too much and then not being able to keep it.
3. Give consumers the opportunity to share and connect
Creating anthropomorphism not only affects the brand and the consumer, but also consumers among themselves. Sometimes it’s best to sit back and let your brand act as a mediator between cohorts of customer groups. It’s extremely important to inspire and encourage customers to share items they purchased or received during the holidays on social media.
This starts with a solid social media team and a strategy that encourages re-sharing of content posted by consumers that meets or exceeds the ideal image of your brand you want to convey. Liking a customer’s post, reposting their story, commenting on their post – all of these engagement tactics reinforce the consumer’s mindset that the brand “gets” who they are and what they care about.
Want to talk about customer retention and loyalty? When you get deep into social media and engaging with content, you not only gain a customer for life, but you also gain new customers who are inspired by how your brand interacts with people just like them.
Go for authenticity this holiday shopping season
Listen, a lot of news outlets are very “doom and gloom” this year. Overall, it’s been a pretty crazy year, with everything that’s been happening in the world, especially here in the United States.
But remember: Customers WILL spend money this holiday season, but your brand has a chance to win that share of wallet by being authentic to the core. Speak to one customer, be honest and transparent, and give all your customers reasons and channels to get in touch.
As Buddy said in Elf, “The best way to spread Christmas cheer is to sing loudly for all to hear.” Singing loudly for your brand means focusing on what makes you special – and giving customers the opportunity to see what your brand stands for and how your brand can fit into their lives in a way that inspires them to see you not just as a company they shop at, but as an entity they can connect with.
Learn how to join our contributor community.
