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Leveraging e-mail strategies to drive in-store sales
By Nick Einstein, as published in DM News Multichannel Retail Guide 2008
Reaching consumers with highly relevant, timely e-mail offers has always been a recipe for success. But few marketers think of e-mail when tasked with driving brick-and-mortar sales. Below are some tips to help make an e-mail click-and-mortar strategy work for you.
Test sending short-term coupon offers to your house list as well as through a premium list management network
Retargeting online consumers with triggered messaging sent when they abandon a shopping cart is a common practice that can provide a healthy return on investment. If you already have abandoned cart message streams in place, and are a multichannel retailer with a substantial brick-and-mortar presence, try testing messages that feature relevant merchandise, but direct dropout consumers to their local store instead of back to the Web site.
Test sending order path dropouts to the physical location.
A "this weekend only" coupon offer tends to perform well in e-mail, and if formatted so they are easy to print, they can drive significant offline traffic. Messages should include the printable coupon as well as nearby store addresses, store hours, and links to a mapping site for directions. If you extend the program beyond your house list intelligently, the increased reach can add the necessary scale to drive meaningful incremental revenue.
Test holiday messages that direct recipients to the brick-and-mortar.
Around the holiday season, it is important for marketers to adopt alternative merchandising strategies to target gift-buyers. One e-mail strategy to test is sending messages that alert recipients to in-store events, special holiday hours, new holiday merchandise, and holiday sales. Many still prefer the offline shopping experience for buying gifts, and nurturing this experience through e-mail can prove profitable.
Test guiding consumers through the sales cycle for bigger ticket items.
Relevant messages that educate consumers about products with longer sales cycles are often welcomed additions to the inbox. Try a multi-tiered campaign that begins with messages focusing on competitive differentiators, then follow with promotional offers and store location/contact information.
Test post-purchase follow-up messages featuring relevant crosssells.
After a customer makes an offline purchase and opts to receive messages either at point-of-sale or through the warranty process, try leveraging these data points to drive personalized, life-cycle cross-sell campaigns.
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