In this modern days where most of the information about products and brands are readily available online, marketers find it challenging to offer a shopping experience before the digital era. In a recent study by Google, it is concluded that 79% of walk-ins claim smartphones have been instrumental in transforming in-store experience. The rise of technology has given birth to ‘smartphone shoppers’ who use their mobile phones to assist their shopping experience. With online stores including Amazon enriching user experience with personalized recommendations, brick-and-mortar are now forced to create a rewarding shopping time for walk-ins.
Retailers have started to understand that customers are looking for enriching experiences as opposed to product spread. The substantial change can be witnessed in the retail industry with more data-driven personalization as opposed to the older method which was intuition-based. With more data available, it is estimated that market planning will be backed by high reliable real-time data from both digital and physical customer touch points.
This switch-over by marketers to data-driven retail store presentation attributes to the imminent challenges faced by store owners. The omnipresence of product information has given birth to ‘informed customers’ who visit the store for product experience rather than product brochure read-through. The current scenario has been instrumental in posing four-key business challenges to retail outlets forcing them to increase their in-store personalization. As follows:
- Instant access to product information
- Ability to understand customer path
- Demands of information-fed consumers
- Quick response time to changing trends and demands
The emergence of technology has proven to be of vital importance to marketers who are exploring customer experience enrichment options to increase footfall and sales. Over the years, analytics and business intelligence have embarked on a journey to understand the customers by studying their preferences, buying pattern, social status, etc. As a result, brands that operate both online and offline have started to create an omnichannel purchase experience that helps customers to have a unified experience anywhere. Following a single marketing goal, brands use this object to remodel the in-store experience which in-turn results in the following benefits for marketers:
- Improved customer experience
- Presence of buying path
- Increased customer loyalty
- Shopper-to-shopper store and product recommendations
Owing to the rise of technology, the interaction between consumers and brands have evolved beyond the visits to physical stores. Customers are constantly in touch with brands through various modes of communication. As a result, brands have started to expand their marketing activities that meet the customer needs. These activities can be further divided into five major categories including:
- Mobile app
- Store personnel
- In-store marketing
- Loyalty program
- Targeted marketing campaign
For the new-age marketing activities and targets to perform and yield desirable results, marketers should understand the technological fundamentals that give personalization context and reason.
1. Identification
The key to offering personalized customer experience is through identifying customer behavior and purchase pattern. Identification of anonymous user is the fundamental step to creating a long-term relationship and understanding consumer behavior. Brands should track that one user through various modes of communication both online and offline to offer a tailor-made in-store experience. Using Wi-fi or Bluetooth, brands can collate different types of information to study and understand each user.
2. Location-based triggers
Walk-ins are another critical data point for marketers to understand product consumption. This shows the busy hours of the store, location preference, etc. To acquire such information, different indoor positioning methods can be used with low-energy Bluetooth-based location tags (beacons) or Wi-fi positioning models. This helps to adapt brand goals with customer requirements.
3. Rich customer-data integration
Using customer data to understand their needs is most important for in-store personalization. Profiling customers using different data points including CRM, in-store mobile use or even online browsing behavior can help ascertain behavior pattern better.
4. Smartphones & Apps
With smartphones and apps taking over, brands can leverage these modes of communication to understand different concepts of marketing and shopping. Using Wi-fi or Bluetooth enabled apps, marketers can study different channels including proximity marketing, product recommendations and many other online experiences that trigger shopping or brand visits.
5. Digital signage and other in-store media
By capitalizing the data acquired through various online checkpoints, brands can position the products across different avenues of web and social media to initiate a brand recall and push the customer towards purchase or website revisits.
6. Automation of personalized messaging
Using large amounts of data, in-store personalization can be used to offer personalized messaging to customers. With their interest in the brand, marketers can use this information to showcase products, offers, and other information. However, the key is to use scalable tools that help manage different locations and complicated rules.
