With hundreds of sporting and outdoor life brands vying for a bigger chunk of the digital market, marketing teams must step up their game. They can no longer depend entirely on regular SMS blasts, push notifications, and conventional email marketing.
While the above are still effective, customers want to save time and effort when they engage with brands. Inbox Commerce, a recent but tested marketing innovation, brings the ultimate customer convenience – not just in shopping but also in communication, support, and service.
Let’s take a detailed look at how Inbox Commerce can push and surpass the limits of marketing and sales success in the sporting and outdoor goods industry.
What is Inbox Commerce?
Inbox Commerce allows businesses to distinctly market products/services, innovatively engage with users, and enable shopping right inside RCS, WhatsApp, and AMP-powered emails.
This approach simplifies the customer experience and makes it most convenient for users to interact with brands. They can search, select, compare, and buy products/services. They can also access features like tracking orders, getting support, redeeming discounts, reading/leaving reviews, responding to surveys, and more. The best part? Everything happens within the message screen in Inbox Commerce. No more clicking links and getting redirected to web pages or apps.
The success of Inbox Commerce stems from three communication channels – RCS (Rich Communication Services), WhatsApp Business, and AMP for email. Together, they form the foundation of Inbox Commerce and have become the most influential tech combo for unconventional marketing and conversion.
RCS’s visually rich platform, WhatsApp’s massive reach and open rate, and the interactive features of AMP for email provide endless possibilities for brands to offer immersive, personalized customer experiences creatively.
Inbox Commerce removes the need for users to visit websites and apps, without missing out on any website/app-like function or feature. Brands can showcase their products up close, within channels that customers use in their day-to-day lives. By facilitating greater convenience, communication, and personalization, Inbox Commerce helps businesses establish valuable relationships with customers.
Here are some proven use cases of Inbox Commerce to drive results in sporting and outdoor goods marketing:
Let images do the talking via AMP for email
Images always speak better than words. Use the capabilities of AMP emails to connect to users by mentioning things they are passionate about – a home team’s greatest wins over the years or a significant milestone in adventure sports.
Storytelling is at the heart of good marketing campaigns, and AMP emails can take your stories straight to the users’ inboxes. They don’t have to look at billboards or visit your website to see and judge your brand values and product offerings. They can just open their mail.
Push personalized and seasonal products via WhatsApp
Based on their previous purchases and browsing behavior, recommend specific items to existing customers. Combine this information with seasonal choices and showcase them to the right audience segments via WhatsApp.
WhatsApp Business makes it effortless for brands to display items with high-res images and GIFs within the message. For example, if winter is approaching and you have a few customers who have been buying mountaineering gloves for the last two years, be proactive and send them links to the newest pair before they go looking elsewhere.
Celebrate your customers with perks via RCS
Whether it is Mother’s Day or International Sports Day, brands that find ways to reward and celebrate their customers also tend to retain them.
Send an exciting RCS message with a discount, gift code, or coupon relevant to the occasion or milestone. For example, how about a Mother’s Day special offer on all kids’ games and sports equipment at 30% off? Or offering a topical discount for International Sports Day with extra rewards for athletes and sportspersons?
Folks can redeem rewards and finish their purchases within the RCS message, leading to a quick and seamless user experience.
Get people hyped for team merch using AMP emails
Good timing is a much-needed marketing skill. Ride the pre-game buzz to encourage customers to support their favorite team by grabbing some official merchandise.
Show off the new merch in image carousels within AMP emails, with links to details for each. Customers would see everything in high resolution, select their size, add to a cart, enter payment details, and click ‘Buy Now’ without leaving the email. A real swift shopping experience!
Leverage brand partnerships with athletes on WhatsApp
Brand partnerships with athletes provide opportunities for a company not just to communicate values but also to create a customer connection beyond the buy-sell relationship. Most sports fans support a brand that partners with their GOATs and heroes.
Showcase partnership moments by sharing images, GIFs, and videos via WhatsApp. When a fan opens a message and sees their favorite player in team colors, you can bet they will stick around to interact with the brand some more.
Give back to local teams and let people know about it with RCS
Don’t just promote global or national sports stars. Local teams matter just as much but are often held back by inadequate financing and marketing.
Sports businesses trying to stand out can collaborate with local teams to make the point that their brand genuinely cares about a sport, and not just the bankable faces. Convey these values and share proof of support with customers using RCS.
Create dynamic messages with information about a team, the brand’s investment, and why such support is necessary. Include videos and images of the local players to add allure to the message; it will pique people’s curiosity and generate positive brand associations.
Playfully challenge customers to meet their goals via WhatsApp
Dropping some new running shoes? Why not challenge customers to use them to meet their movement goals?
Create in-message forms for users to log in and track their daily runs (steps, heartbeat, distance covered, etc.). These forms can be self-updating (another feature of Inbox Commerce) so customers can see their latest progress with a click. By the end of the challenge (perhaps a couple of weeks or months?), the customers who log the most miles or steps win.
Brands could sweeten the deal by offering a reward – free shoes, discounts, shoutouts on their social media, etc.
Walk, jog, run, cycle, swim, shoot, climb, or camp – Inbox Commerce helps sports businesses outperform competition
Using Inbox Commerce provides a distinct advantage over other existing marketing technologies, simply because Inbox Commerce is relatively new. Its efficacy still has not been capitalized on by most brands. By implementing this innovation now, sporting and outdoor life brands can put themselves ahead of the curve and achieve revenue like never before.
Inbox Commerce can simplify product understanding and selection of sport and outdoor products, FAQs, user conversion, customer support, etc. Marketers can also use this innovation to request customer reviews, offer personalized experiences, share gamified content, and a lot more – all they need is a good imagination and Inbox Commerce on their side.
Connect with us to understand how you can benefit from our expertise and experience in Inbox Commerce. Serving over 6,500 customers across 40 countries, Netcore delivers more than one billion inbox experiences every day – including 500 million emails and 700 million push notifications. Netcore’s AI is trained on 25 billion+ interactions from 1,300+ eCommerce stores, making it an invaluable asset for global brands.
