Three Big Ideas for Retail Holiday Success

Mobile marketing and commerce are primed to be huge during a holiday retail season that’s expected to total $986.77 billion this year. Consider that smartphones will influence $1.3 trillion of U.S. retail in 2018, which is more than one-third of sales across every channel.

There’s a lot at stake. And smartphone-centric marketing strategies are not just the power behind the retail industry’s so-called disrupters, but clever mobile marketing is also a key ingredient behind the resurgence of many established leaders like Target Corp. and Tiffany & Co. Additionally, mobile is why a legacy, non-retail brand such as Good Housekeeping is creating smartphone-based experiences in the Mall of America.

Yet, retail marketers sometimes underestimate mobile as just another sales channel. It’s more than that — it’s part of our moment-by-moment lives, part of our human experience. Brands need to think about mobile in a few big ways that will affect holiday sales across channels.

Build Anticipation Via Off-line and Mobile

It’s paramount for retailers to create buzz in their holiday marketing. In the U.K., holiday TV ads are akin to our Super Bowl commercials over here, generating massive amounts of online chatter that boost sales for brands with the most popular adverts. Here in the U.S., thanks largely to traditional media coverage, we get up in the wee hours of the morning, stand in long lines and even camp out overnight to take advantage of epic discounts at places like Walmart and Best Buy.

But there are easier ways of creating hype. An example is Rothy’s, an e-commerce start-up that sells women’s shoes. About every three weeks at a different time, it unveils a new shoe at its lone store in San Francisco. It breaks the news by alerting people via e-mail just a few days in advance and putting a notice in the shop’s window. Lines form around the block before doors open for the shoe drop, and Instagram posts pour in with the company’s dedicated hashtag. Rothy’s underscores how retailers can combine digital and off-line messaging and turn it into foot traffic — and how foot traffic can drive online sales thanks to social media sharing.

Bigger competitors such as Chanel, Prada and Gucci have mobile apps at their disposal. If people have gone to the trouble of downloading their apps, then they are clearly customers who should be encouraged to take advantage of phone functionalities like the camera, social sharing and mobile wallets. Shopping app The Hunt offers a glimpse into the possibilities for big brands. Users can post photos of clothing items they spot on the street, and then fellow users help find the item either on the app or elsewhere. Such features not only convert sales, but create brand advocates for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Imagine a Chanel in-store customer posting a photo of a hard-to-find handbag, with a message about how many are left at the location.

Personalize Effectively

Last holiday season, my team analyzed app data from 100 retailers during the holidays. We found that new app installs for brick-and-mortar merchants peaked on Black Friday, while online-only brands saw steady rates of installs throughout November but peaked a couple days before Thanksgiving.