Tips on how this lockdown holiday can be used as a great opportunity to market your services your customers through their mobiles- Part 4

TIPS ON HOW THIS LOCKDOWN HOLIDAY CAN BE USED AS A GREAT OPPORTUNITY TO MARKET YOUR SERVICES YOUR CUSTOMERS THROUGH THEIR MOBILES- PART 4

16. Plan where mobile fits into the customer holiday journey.

Customers interact with a single brand, regardless of the channel they’re on. It makes sense, then, that making sure mobile isn’t operating in a silo will help improve the customer experience. When planning holiday campaigns, build journey maps and decide where mobile best fits in. Could a strategically delivered push notification or SMS drive more engagement than your current tactics?

Remember – mobile isn’t always about when a customer is “out and about.” Sometimes it’s just the most convenient device at home or at work. By tapping the power of mobile to enhance the customer journey from first touch to post-purchase, you’ll likely drive more loyalty and holiday revenue.

17. Connect your mobile channels to everything else.

There are fewer things more annoying than being over-messaged, and given that most retailers increase communication cadence during the holidays, you want to be smart about your frequency approach to avoid drastically increasing opt-outs and complaints.

To that end, make sure your marketing system is integrated so it “knows” how your email, SMS and app platforms are communicating and can be adjusted to avoid bombarding your customers with too many messages. Don’t ignore this one — a clever campaign can be overshadowed by disjointed execution!

18. Make your mobile offers sharable.

If you have an inventive holiday campaign, let customers easily share your messages with their social networks. Add a share button to your mobile offer landing pages or rich notifications so others can take advantage of it too. Consider creating a compound promotion in which the more shares one offer code gets, the more of a discount your customer receives.

19. Take shipping notifications up a notch.

Tracking packages during the holidays can be a hassle. So, offer an easy way for customers to be notified of when packages have been shipped, are in transit and arrive. For SMS, consider building a shipping status landing page that imports data from a delivery service. For push notifications, use rich notifications to show a map of where a package is at the time of update.

20. Offer a mobile-first return process.

One of the biggest pain points of online shopping is returns. If the gift or the size of that outfit isn’t quite right, there’s usually a frustrating, multi-step process to return something. Need to tape up that box? Packing tape isn’t always in the kitchen drawer. Print that shipping label? Printers aren’t the essential household item they used to be. Make sure your return labels are already adhesive, include return packing tape, and if your customers need to schedule a pickup, let them do it from your mobile website or app.

Strategically incorporating some of these mobile tips will help you better engage holiday shoppers, but don’t stop there. Based on your unique business and customer base, consider other mobile tools you might leverage, and then fine-tune your tactics based on your results. Continue to shift your mobile approach to match your customers’ evolving shopping preferences, and you’ll help ensure a happy holiday season for your business and customers alike.