Recently, when I had to buy a pair of spectacles, I checked frames of a leading brand on its website, and then went to their physical store to reconfirm if they are fit for me. I finalised the frame in the store, but placed the order online because I was offered a 10% discount for online purchase. Many of us do that now. Don’t we?
Retail industry is not limited to brick and mortar store anymore. Retailers are going online at a fast rate. And the ones that provide a seamless and rich customer experience, are succeeding in winning the loyalty of the customers.
Although e-commerce is a tough competition to online retail, the greatest advantage that the retailers have is that they are present offline as well as online. While the traditional offline marketing strategies are already there in their kit, they have a whole new set of MarTech tools to generate leads, convert them to customers, engage and nurture them, and boost their brand image online. So, they have the best of both worlds!
There is a multitude of channels (email, SMS, voice calls, etc.) that are at the disposal of online retail marketers, the one channel that serves the purpose absolutely perfectly is Browser Push Notifications (BPNs). In a plethora of choices, BPN is an effective and instant communication tool between the website and the customer.
BPNs are least intrusive, have a broad reach, can be sent to identified as well as anonymous contacts in real time, easier to implement, and have one of the highest CTR. While all these benefits are there and industries like BFSI, e-commerce, and travel, are already reaping the benefits, retail industry must adopt BPN for specific reasons mentioned here:
- Location based notifications: Imagine, you are in a shopping mall, browsing the internet to find a good dining place, and there you see a BPN from your favourite brand saying, “Happiness Sale in your nearest store today!” Wouldn’t you be excited to visit the store in the mall? Almost 50% of shoppers are likely to engage better when they are given location based updates. From all the customer behaviour data gathered in your marketing application, it is possible to segment users based on their interest and location, which in turn makes it possible to push personalised and hyper local notifications. Contextual targeting is the first step in ensuring that your communication is relevant.
- Means to bring contacts to online as well offline store – The unique beauty of BPN is that is the only means using which you can direct your customers to your online as well as offline store. If the BPN is sent in real time based on the current location of the customer, it is quite likely that the contact might walk into your store right away. The same BPN can also entice the customer to visit the website. Two birds with one stone!
- Instant Notification: Offering personalized and context-based user engagements based on the online user-behaviour requires smart segmentation based on location, searches, time spent on-page, or demographic. However, the communication can garner desired results only if viewed and acted-upon instantly. For example, a cart abandonment BPN would get faster result when compared to a cart abandonment email. BPN is the way to go! Trust us!
- Seamless Experience: Combining everything said above, to provide a consistent and seamless online and offline experience to the customers, it is needed to be with the customer all the time. And as mentioned already, BPNs are delivered right there when the contact is active on the web.
Powered with the unified view of the contact, retailers can leverage the best of marketing technology and tap the unlimited potential they have. Get started with BPNs today!
