The disruption hitting social media has roots in long running trends that will impact retailers’ and … [+] brands’ ability to engage with consumers. social media

Over the past few years, social media in particular and digital marketing have had some ups and downs. Consumers and brands alike resorted to digital as a lifeline to make up for shuttered stores when the pandemic forced everything to shut down. The pandemic turned the dial all the way up even though digital channels had been slowly but surely eroding the kinds of customer engagement that take place in physical businesses for decades. Almost all of it happened online, including customer acquisition, customer service, engagement, experience, triggers, selection, and transactions.

One immediate impact was a sharp increase in the price of digital advertising. Customer acquisition costs (CAC) at the height of lockdowns were up to 10 times higher than they are now. CAC in 2022 is expected to increase by 222% from 2013, according to more recent analyses like this one from Simplicity. According to Twilio Segment, the fashion industry’s CAC in 2021 was $129 per customer, and 57% of fashion retailers said that the industry’s rising CAC threatened their ability to meet sales targets.

It is time to get back to the basics, at the risk of sounding like a VC who is knee-deep in a DTC investment. There is little use in gaining a client if you don’t know how to maintain them, and while there has been a lot of anxiety about CAC, customer retention statistics might look even worse — as many as 3 in 4 buyers are often one and done. Mattresses aren’t exactly a common purchase, making Casper the poster child for one-and-done businesses.

Loyalty programmed are becoming

more and more popular among businesses as a strategy to keep customers coming back while also giving them better insight into consumer behavior to help offset the loss of cookies and digital tracking. 2023 will see an increase in the use of “zero party data,” a play on first-party data, or information obtained directly from customers. The fact that Zero Party Data was also “volunteered”—given to a store or brand with the express purpose that they use it for mutual benefit—gives that term more weight. smm panel

Then there are the shops. Before the advent of eCommerce, all customer acquisition took place in physical stores. No other location was available for that to occur. Retailers are aware that in-store customers have a higher retention rate and lifetime value than internet customers. Hey, the conversion rate for retail is roughly 10 times higher than for eCommerce! However, merchants have forgotten how to promote their locations as a component of the customer journey’s acquisition phase. social pro

It requires a lot of work, as well as community engagement and local activities. It is not simply typing a dollar amount into a keyword bid and pressing enter; this is one of the reasons it is addictive since it requires so little work and is scalable. One store at a time, one step closer to making stores enjoyable and a stronger component of customer acquisition.