It’s all about having the right data and knowing how to use it
Fall is the time for retailers to really start thinking about the upcoming holiday season. Because so many companies depend on strong sales at the end of the year, they have to be sure their marketing campaigns are on point.
To get a glimpse of what we can expect this year, let’s take a look at some numbers from last year courtesy of the National Retail Federation:
- 174 million people in the U.S. shopped from Thanksgiving Day to Cyber Monday
- 51 million shopped exclusively in-store
- 58 million shopped exclusively online
- 64 million shopped both in-store and online
- People who shopped both in-store and online spent an average of $49 more than the in-store-only shopper and $82 more than the online-only shopper
- 63% of smartphone owners used mobile devices to make holiday decisions
- 29% of smartphone owners used their phones to make purchases
- The average amount each person spent over the 5-day period was $335.47
- The highest average amount was $419.52, which was spent by people age 25-34
Additional stats show that for Black Friday, more than 46 percent of digital revenue came via mobile devices, which was up over 18 percent compared to 2016. However, most of the shopping that day still takes place in actual stores. Multichannel Merchant reported that while 66 million people shopped online, 77 million went to stores to make a purchase.
Millions of people are shopping in the run-up to the holiday season, giving retailers a huge pool of potential customers. But how do you find the ones who actually want your goods?
Instead of just devising a marketing strategy based on predictive data and hoping it reaches your ideal customer, wouldn’t it be nice to know exactly who that person is and what and when he or she is looking to buy?
What real-time behavioral data and device-matching can do for your retail business
Your business probably utilizes data in its marketing, but it’s very possible that it just isn’t that useful. A lot of the data being sold has several inherent problems, such as being way too broad and sometimes outdated. But this is never an issue with the data BDEX offers. With more than 900 billion data points, we can help you figure out exactly who your best customers are.
The data allows you to check out the shopping behavior of someone in real time. This means that if they’re looking at a golf club online, for example, and you happen to sell golf clothes, you’ll know it and you can immediately hit them with an ad or offer. Plus, with device-matching, you can follow the same shopper across multiple devices and adjust the messaging and the vehicle accordingly.
How to find customers in the real world
While it may seem as though all shopping now takes place online, remember those stats mentioned earlier. Brick-and-mortar businesses are still important to many people, and there’s a tactic that can let you know which stores they’re visiting: geofencing.
Geofencing uses software to draw a virtual line around a specific area, followed by telling you when a mobile device enters this boundary. This is beneficial in a couple of different ways. First, you can see which stores someone goes to, including a competitor. And when this information is matched with real-time behavioral data, you can see what they’re buying or perhaps thinking about buying. Your business can then send out its own offers for competing or complementary products at the exact time a prospect is looking to make a purchase.
If you’re working on your holiday marketing plan, BDEX wants to help you have an even more profitable season. To learn more about what we offer, call us at 917-410-6616 or send an email to info@bdex.com.
