Re-commerce: The age of the circular economy

Posted on by Colleen Vaughan
BORN Views
Re-commerce: The age of the circular economy

By Alex Stickelberger | VP BORN

We are all familiar with the linear economy: Natural resources are turned into products, which are sold, consumed, and then thrown away without regard to reuse or recycling. However, the linear economy is clearly less and less viable in today’s world when waste and the other byproducts of production and consumption pose an existential threat to our world.

Today’s enterprises focus more on sustainability in the broad sense, and one way to pursue sustainability is by embracing the circular economy. Instead of the take, make, waste dynamic of the linear economy, the circular economy encourages recycling, reuse, and repurposing in an effort to minimize waste through the entire value chain of a product. In a circular economy, all stakeholders benefit: companies and consumers as well as society as a whole through the obvious benefit of greater sustainability.

The term “circular economy” may not yet have the widespread currency of “sustainability,” but examples are all around us. More and more companies support re-commerce, a new-ish term for the age-old practice of buying and selling used products. Online platforms have amplified and magnified this business tremendously for every imaginable good (think Poshmark for clothes and Amazon and eBay for virtually every category).

Another example of the circular economy is the growing trend of “product as a service.” Aircraft engines, to cite just one example, are often sold as a service: Instead of buying a jet engine outright, an airline can essentially rent one on a per-hour basis. With this model, manufacturers take on the responsibility for product maintenance and recycling, and sometimes even outcomes; users of the service save in terms of capital expense and ongoing maintenance. Product as a service is becoming more common with the renewed interest in the circular economy, but it also has old roots. For decades, printers and copiers have been leased and contracted on a usage model instead of being purchased outright.

Contemporary enterprises engaged in the circular economy rely heavily on digital platforms. This is obvious for online marketplaces in which trading and marketplace platforms do the heavy lifting of onboarding, listing, discovery, transactions, and fulfillment logistics. Digital platforms also enable physical stores to manage similar functionalities with more efficiency. And in B2B marketplaces, digital platforms enable companies to trade or sell unused resources, such as raw materials or equipment, fostering greater efficiency in terms of production and distribution.

One of the key benefits of a circular economic approach is efficiency. But trade-in programs, automated and seamless recycling, and an intelligent customer experience can create a more sustainable consumption model and deepen customer engagement.

We believe it’s clear that the transition from a linear economy to a circular economy is accelerating. Here are some opportunities for rethinking business models and finding new opportunities to make your enterprise more sustainable, create new revenue streams, and deliver more value to your customers:

  • Offer to lease: Consider building a platform that enables users to rent or lease products instead of selling them outright.
  • Embrace re-commerce: Create an aftermarket platform where people can buy, sell, and trade products. This is a powerful way to deliver value to customers and improve sustainability. A good example here is Poshmark for clothes.
  • Make recycling a seamless component of the customer experience: Design a value chain that makes recycling of products and components as straightforward as buying or using them. Apple makes this easy to do with any Apple product and will even accept non-Apple products.
  • Facilitate efficient returns: Customer returns are inevitable and typically costly, so you can greatly improve sustainability and embrace the circular economy with a platform solution that makes returns as efficient as possible (which may involve working hard to avoid the necessity of returns).  

Broadly speaking, you have two possible routes for platform design and development in pursuing circular economy business models: platform-agnostic or using SAP, which has a pre-built re-commerce solution and includes other functionalities that can improve sustainability. We work with clients to help them take the best route by evaluating their current landscape and technology stacks, by creating customized business cases (including ROI), and designing a proof of concept. Each approach has a different set of pros and cons, of course, but either should help you lean into the circular economy.

Finally, when you do embrace the circular economy with these kinds of initiatives, make sure your customers understand the what and the why of your strategies. Showcase the fact that you’re eco-friendly, committed to sustainability, and willing to try new things or change strategies. Promote your initiatives for reuse, recycling, and upcycling. Encourage your suppliers and competitors to join you on the journey. You could, for example, create your own “Green Report Card” and display it prominently on your digital channels.

Sustainability and the circular economy represent one of the best examples of a “win-win” strategy. Creating or adopting new business models that reflect this evolving approach can reduce your overall environmental impact, improve business performance, and deepen customer engagement and trust.

Valentine’s Day Is Coming. Is Your Business Ready for the World’s Most Romantic Holiday?

Posted on by Colleen Vaughan
BORN Views
Valentine’s Day is coming. Is your business ready for the world’s most romantic holiday?

It’s not surprising that Valentine’s Day is a revenue opportunity. But it may be surprising that Valentine’s Day is such an enormous revenue opportunity. Last year, Valentine’s Day spending grew by about 8% and reached $26 billion, and we’re expecting similar growth in 2024. About 38% of last year’s Valentine’s Day sales were online, and that fraction will probably go up.

People are ready to spend during this first retail season of the year. The typical Valentine’s Day categories are clearly defined (though, as with any kind of seasonal merchandising, there is room for new offerings). Chocolates, candy, and other consumables represent about 30% of the total holiday spend, while flowers and jewelry account for about 16% each. Gift cards, clothing, and electronics are also popular Valentine’s Day gifts.

The consumers and the demand are out there. Smart retailers should be ready with a go-to-market strategy to elevate sales and take advantage of this powerful opportunity. As with any seasonal marketing and selling strategies, advance planning and strategy can pay off substantially.

As you gear up for this year’s romantic holiday, consider these key prerequisites for success:

  • Schedule campaigns intelligently: Initiate campaigns early to take advantage of the predictable surge in seasonal searches. Think about keywords and SEO in your planning.
  • Created targeted popup messages: Engage potential customers through targeted popups seamlessly integrated with a dedicated landing page. Your messaging should reflect some strategic realities. For example, men generally outspend women on Valentine’s Day, so targeting these buyers with appropriate messaging can be a great investment.
  • Invest in graphics and copy: Make sure your visual presentation is on-trend for the holiday and for the customers you serve – and make your content pop with engaging copy.
  • Leverage social media: Of course, buyers are going to be looking at social media for ideas and offers, so plan your social media strategy early.
  • Be aggressive with sales and promotions: A lot of Valentine’s Day spending is on predictable products and categories, so sales and promotions – cleverly tied to the holiday, of course – are great ways to stand out in a competitive market. Limited-time offers and perks like free shipping can also turn a browser into a buyer. (Just stay on-brand with all promotions!)
  • Be crystal-clear about ordering deadlines and delivery dates: You know that a lot of Valentine’s Day purchases are last-minute, so you can instill confidence by being absolutely forthright about delivery timelines. Consider ramping up urgency tactfully; for example, dynamic countdown timers can catalyze buying decisions and save your buyers from disappointments.
  • Make meaningful suggestions: Valentine’s Day is the kind of holiday where people want guidance in finding the perfect present. You do a service to buyers (and your revenue figures) by providing personalized recommendations and curated gift guides. You may find opportunities for cross-selling too.
  • Help last-minute shoppers: What can you offer to people who put off their Valentine’s Day shopping until the last days or hours before the holiday? They may represent a substantial portion of your customer base, so be prepared.
  • Optimize your website: Make sure your website is ready to handle increased traffic and transactions during the Valentine’s Day rush.
  • Minimize cart abandonment: A customer who fails to complete a transaction is always bad news, especially during the holiday season. Design cart abandonment reminders that will get them to act now; standard email reminders are generally ineffective in time-sensitive situations.
  • Partner with other businesses or influencers: Explore cross-promotions and other forms of partnership with complementary businesses or influencers to amplify your reach to new customers and segments.

Finally, remember that Valentine’s Day may be an opportunity for you even if you don’t sell “traditional” romantic gifts. Many gift-givers are looking for alternatives to flowers, jewelry, and chocolate, which means you may have an opportunity to create non-traditional offerings for people who want to celebrate their relationships in the context of the holiday season. You may need to develop a new narrative to make your products mesh with Valentine’s Day – which also requires forethought and planning – but this can unlock new possibilities for your brand and business.

Regardless of your approach, don’t forget to celebrate the people you love and care about. Happy Valentine’s Day!

To learn more about BORN Group’s services, please contact us.

Better Personalization – Better Customer Retention: A Strategy for Telecoms

Posted on by Colleen Vaughan
BORN Views
Better Personalization – Better Customer Retention: A Strategy for Telecoms

By Harshvardhan Kabra | Global Practice Head, BORN Group

It wasn’t that long ago that we got our mobile phone services from wireless providers (Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), and we got our cable television from cable companies. But now the landscape is a lot more muddled as the traditional boundaries are being erased: Wireless companies are leveraging their broadband networks by adding video and data services to their voice offerings, while cable companies are adding voice and data to their video offerings.

Consumers generally benefit in situations where competition increases, but competition means providers have to step up as they fight it out in the real world. Telecom companies that want to win this battle must increase their effort along every vector of the customer journey with two objectives in mind: attract new customers and deepen their relationship with existing ones.

We refer to this challenge as ARENA:  Acquire & Retain, Nurture & Amplify. We believe that a strategy driven by personalization – real-time, individualized, and contextualized customer experiences – can lead to much greater differentiation and all the benefits it generates: greater retention and deeper customer relationships.

These 1:1 on-point personalized experiences cut across all customer touchpoints and services, from acquisition marketing to onboarding and activation to ongoing customer support and lifecycle marketing. Doing this well requires recognizing the contextual intricacies of each interaction and understanding customer needs, desires, and situations to be able to deliver the right message at the right time on the right channel.

If you can do this at scale, the rewards are immense. You will provide excellent customer experiences – satisfying in form and content, keeping customers happy, and positioning you well for building deeper, more profitable relationships.

The Foundation for 1:1 On-point Personalization

Most telecoms companies understand that personalization is a powerful strategic tool, but surprisingly few do personalization at scale well. At a foundational level, the first step is to change your focus. Think less about quick tactical wins; think more (much more) about a long-term strategic plan where on-point personalization is the centerpiece.

What does this mean in real-world terms? Identify use cases before you acquire and build a highly sophisticated MarTech stack. Here at the BORN Group, we use a four-tier approach to deliver 1:1 on-point personalization at scale to significant effect in many industries, including telecoms:

Step 1: Create a Personalization Center of Excellence

For large-scale enterprises like telecoms, personalization is important enough that it deserves its own center of excellence (CoE) covering the entire enterprise with a mission to define and articulate your personalization-at-scale strategy, including prioritized use cases and to develop an enterprise-wide solution for implementation.

A personalization CoE focuses on enterprise-wide elements like reusability, a holistic approach, and scalability – ensuring optimized and efficient tools – and ensures that more tactical personalization efforts are on-brand, effective, and privacy-compliant. Telecoms companies deal with a lot of personally identifiable information (PII), and are already careful and vigilant about how customer data is captured, stored, processed, and leveraged to comply with Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and other mandates. Navigating the need for privacy and using personalization to compete effectively can be challenging – but it’s easier when you have a personalization CoE that has already thought through this balancing act.

Step 2: Identify and articulate data-driven challenges

Next, look at all your data to understand friction points, business problems, and existing challenges. You’ll want to analyze your data from real-time customer interactions, CRM and POS systems, and your contact center (including demographic and geo-specific data), plus second and third-party data from benchmarking your competitors and market research.

Here are some examples of how data can inform strategy and tactics:

  • Looking at your web analytics, you realize you’re experiencing a high bounce rate. This suggests you’re successfully attracting customers but not effectively converting them into customers. Build a hypothesis around the possible causes of the bounce rate, then use personalization use cases to validate your findings and overcome them.
  • You’re suffering from churn. The “Propensity to Churn” model, which most telecom companies already track, estimates the likelihood of losing individual consumers. The next step is to dive deep into this data and turn insights into personalized actions to help you retain “at-risk” customers.
  • Another helpful data point is the average revenue per user (ARPU). If it’s flat or declining, you can create tailored plans and offers to build loyalty and deliver a better customer experience through personal interactions across relevant touchpoints and channels. A better CX generally has a higher ARPU and can significantly improve the lifetime value of each customer.

Step 3: Define & Prioritize

By now you’ve identified challenges and friction points that your company is facing. There’s a strong temptation to try to solve everything at once, but a better approach is to convert your challenges into well-defined use cases and prioritize them, like short-, medium-, and long-term goals and objectives.

In a recent engagement with a top-tier mobile service provider, we conducted a series of workshops with different groups within the organization as part of Define and Prioritize process. While there was some overlap, each of them had different challenges and different priorities. But by looking at the business holistically, we were able to help them create a comprehensive personalization roadmap that reflected overall business goals and addressed many of the more granular needs. Together, we developed three high-level use cases that aligned to run, crawl, and walk phases for implementation of a short-, medium-, and long-term view of the roadmap. 

Step 4: Build Capabilities

By the time you’ve reached this fourth step, you’re really in a great position to design your marketing stack from a vantage point of strategic insights and prioritized goals. So what do you need in terms of people, processes, and technology to enable your business to begin delivering personalization at scale?

Take the example mentioned above of a telecom company whose ARPU was flat. The provider articulated the strategic goal this way:

“To increase ARPU, we will deliver personalized offers to our customer using an omnichannel strategy focused on cross-selling and upselling.”

To deliver on this strategic goal requires a mix of people, process, and technology:

  • People – the individuals and teams with the skills to deliver: In this case, that meant expertise with the customer data platform, probability modeling, email marketing, web personalization, and offer management.
  • Process – the flows that turn strategy and expertise into execution: Using personalization to increase ARPU, for example, required creating an entire content supply chain to engage customers with helpful content and generate demand for ancillary products and services.
  • Technology – the actual martech stack to enable the process: Sticking with our ARPU example, the tech stack involved a customer data platform with a decisioning engine that could identify the next “best offer” for a unique end-user in real-time. Note that personalization technologies must be scalable.

The Building Blocks for Delivering Successful Personalization

Regardless of where your company finds itself on your personalization journey, a foundational framework can make a huge difference in execution. At the BORN Group, we use a framework called STRIDE, a closed loop approach with four key components:

  • Systematic Tracking: You must think of your entire customer journey, and diligently track data and interactions from all touchpoints and channels during the journey from prospect to customer to customer for life – while being diligent about privacy and compliance!
  • Resolution of Identity: Remember the big goal: personalization. The key component of that word is person – the individual you’re trying to reach, the person who wants useful content and a great experience as a prospect and as a customer. To deliver on this necessity requires that you understand the identity of that person using a unified customer profile and obtaining a 360° view of that customer. Resolution of identity often uses probabilistic and deterministic matching as well as lookalike models.
  • Informed Decision Science: When you have assembled the data and identified the customer profile, you create actionable insights. Then use informed decision science to design the best combination of content, offer, and channel.
  • Effective Activation: Now you’re ready to activate your insights and execute your personalization strategy. Obviously, what you learn from effective activation flows back into the STRIDE framework – an ongoing closed-loop optimization effort.

Given the enormous progress of generative AI in the last year, you’ll want to consider AI in your personalization efforts – it can add value throughout the process. Marketers are already using generative AI to create new personalized content – text, images, and video – at scale, significantly improving time-to-market. But quality and uniqueness depend on user guidance, and there’s a real need for the ability to vet content for copyright issues, privacy concerns, and compliance with branding guidelines before content is deployed.

Generative AI is also playing an important role in gleaning insights from data and helping with decision-making. A good example is sentiment analysis, turning disparate data points into a valid perspective on customer satisfaction. AI and machine learning can also play key roles in determining the “next best experience” (NBX) at scale.

For telecom companies, and companies in many other sectors, the decision to use personalization is a matter of when – not if. The possibility of using data, analytics, and technology to deliver extremely granular and highly customized experiences to your clients and prospects may be the key source of competitive advantage in today’s marketing.

To learn more about how the BORN Group approaches personalization, contact us.

See-Click-Buy: Leveraging Content to Sell Merch

Posted on by Colleen Vaughan
BORN Views
See-Click-Buy: Leveraging Content to Sell Merch

By: Pradeep Singh | Delivery Head, Middle East, BORN Group

In June of this year, football great Lionel Messi joined Inter Miami and Major League Soccer, America’s top league, giving American soccer a much-needed boost in terms of visibility and expanding Messi’s global fan base even further. And Messi’s sponsor, Adidas, was ecstatic. According to the New York Times: “Within a couple of days of Messi’s announcement, the company had received almost 500,000 requests from stores and suppliers for jerseys in Miami’s soft, electric pink.”

Messi was already world-famous, of course, but his example demonstrates how quickly demand for a product can explode – and the story of Messi’s jersey represents an opportunity for all kinds of online content providers. People see something – Messi’s jersey, one of Barbie’s outfits, or a piece of jewelry on a major movie star – and they want it. And if the opportunity is there, they will buy it.

The question becomes: How do you give them that opportunity?

Embedded Commerce for Selling Merch

One answer is embedded commerce. Note that I’m not talking here about social media marketing or social commerce, where you’re creating content designed explicitly to sell a product immediately or down the line. Instead, in embedded commerce, the product is part of the story but not the story itself or even the centerpiece of the story.

For example, many James Bond movies feature the titular character wearing an Omega Seamaster watch. It’s essential for Bond’s character to have a luxury watch, but the film isn’t about the watch. However, that watch becomes a powerful embedded commerce opportunity. Fans see it, think it’s cool, and some will want to buy it. Why not give them that opportunity then and there? (Product placement, where companies are willing to pay content creators to use their products as part of the story’s background, is the precursor to embedded commerce.)

Of course, an engaged potential consumer may pause the video, Google the product, and start the research and buying process. But why not make it easy for them?

It might work like this: The consumer sees the product and pauses the video by clicking directly on the watch on the screen. This could let the user save the video image to a personal directory for later shopping. Or, an embedded commerce system could include a back-end plug-in to automatically route that expression of interest to the watch company, a licensed dealer, or a marketplace of licensed dealers and take the viewer directly to a product detail page with an opportunity to buy. Embedded commerce offers new revenue opportunities to multiple value chain links, including the content creator, the streaming or online service provider, and, of course, the manufacturer and its intermediaries.

The possibilities are truly immense. You could use direct links to specific products, like the Omega Seamaster. Or you could offer similar products at a range of price points to target a broader range of potential customers.

Naturally, some content creators won’t want to dilute the power of their content offerings with advertising or e-commerce, and some brands may not eagerly embrace this kind of sales channel. But just as product placement is a well-accepted reality for all kinds of content, turning content into shoppable content may come to be equally acceptable for everything from the obvious – like impulse purchases for clothing, cosmetics, and accessories – to more substantial sales possibilities. I don’t think it’s unrealistic to think that embedded commerce could generate leads for big-ticket items like cars or vacation destinations.

Turning content into shoppable content requires a lot of upfront brand-related thinking and experience design. You’ll want to ensure that an embedded commerce strategy is appropriate to your brand experience as well as your go-to-market strategy. Embedded commerce also requires a lot of back-end technology, such as “you only look once” real-time object detection system, for example, with artificial intelligence-driven video analytics to address matching and mapping. Intelligent e-commerce/referral systems will be required to route requests to the proper jurisdiction or preferred suppliers.

When Messi joined Inter Miami, demand skyrocketed for his jersey. Imagine just how many jerseys Adidas might sell if they embraced an embedded commerce strategy in every match that streams online.

AI & Product Design: Tools to Jumpstart Creativity

Posted on by Colleen Vaughan
BORN Views
AI & Product Design: Tools to Jumpstart Creativity

By: Caitlyn Shanahan | Sr. Visual Designer, BORN Group

Since ChatGPT was introduced in 2022, generative artificial intelligence (AI) has dominated the tech landscape and mainstream media with a mixture of hype (“AI will make everything better!”) and doom (“AI will take over the world and destroy society!”). As a designer, I’m particularly interested in the impact of AI on my livelihood. I’ve read a slew of articles, some claiming that AI will be the end of the designer and others assuring us that AI is just a passing trend. One article I found particularly compelling is Jasmine Oh’s “Yes, AI Will Replace Designers” piece that asserts “while AI will replace designers, it will replace the designers of today, not the designers of tomorrow.”

I want to be one of “the designers of tomorrow,” and I’m convinced that AI-powered design tools will help me get there. After looking into the possibilities of AI for product designers – and all kinds of creative work in all kinds of sectors – I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s time to embrace the burgeoning power of this technological revolution.

In other words: Don’t be afraid of AI – put it to work! Take advantage of AI’s ability to synthesize data and ideas and allow you to focus on the value you add as a creative, strategic thinker.

I’m sure we’ll see plenty more use cases for generative AI in the near future, but here are four ways I’m using AI now to streamline the product/visual design process:

  1. Workshop Facilitation & Synthesis
  2. User Research &  Persona Generation
  3. Image Editing & Generation
  4. Automated Content Creation

Accelerate the Workshop Process

How do we start the design process? With workshops that bring stakeholders together to define the problem, create a shared vision, and generate ideas for solutions. Whiteboarding tools such as Miro are often used to help facilitate workshops and brainstorming sessions. Miro recently launched the new AI-powered Miro Assist tool that makes workshop preparation, facilitation, and synthesis a whole lot easier. During a workshop, you can use Miro Assist to easily generate mind maps to help kick-start the brainstorming process. After the workshop, you can highlight groups of sticky notes, and Miro Assist will automatically summarize all the ideas and present them as text, images, and even presentations. These AI-powered tools can even help you prepare for follow-up workshops by analyzing previous workshop notes, activities, and outcomes to automatically populate new workshop templates with suggested agendas, user flows, storyboards, and even information architecture.

Digest User Research & Build Personas Much Faster

Understanding users is, of course, a key component of any product or experience design challenge. AI-powered tools like Dovetail are making it easier, and much, much faster, to transform unstructured and qualitative data – such as open-ended survey responses, user reviews, and support tickets – into actionable insights and comprehensive user personas. 

Dovetail uses natural language processing to automatically analyze unstructured data for sentiment analysis (are users satisfied? Or frustrated?). The tool applies topic modeling and clustering to detect common themes and trends in qualitative user feedback, enabling designers to generate insights and identify key pain points and opportunities. It can automatically segment users based on AI-driven insights into behaviors, attitudes, or demographics. Dovetail features an intelligent recommendation engine that aggregates user data and feedback to generate prioritized suggestions on product improvements and features. The solution also automatically generates interactive dashboards and charts to visualize synthesized user insights and metrics, making it easy for designers to spot trends and patterns.

Leveraging tools like Dovetail can significantly cut down the time it takes for designers to parse through data and derive accurate user personas, pain points, and goals. This robust AI-powered data analysis helps designers gain a deeper understanding of their user base, which leads to more informed product decisions, and ultimately better user experiences.

Automate Image Editing & Generation

Most designers are using, or at least exploring, AI-powered tools for photo editing. Adobe’s Firefly, for example, can significantly accelerate image generation, manipulation and refinement, which is a huge boost to designer productivity. My team uses Adobe’s Generative AI feature regularly to edit out unsightly elements, resize images to conform to existing templates, and create variations of images for review and approval. Edits that used to take our team an entire afternoon (and, sometimes, even days) can now be completed in less than an hour.

Adobe’s entire suite of AI tools (Firefly, Generative AI, and Sensei) can do far more than just photo editing. For example, using only simple text prompts, you can easily generate new color palettes, font treatments, icons, and illustrations. Leveraging these AI tools can help kick-start the creative process and provide designers with a jumping-off point instead of having to start from scratch each time. I am excited to continue my exploration of these tools and am confident that in the near future I will be able to leverage them to generate entire wireframes and page layouts.

Jumpstart the Writing Process

Designers often have to take on the role of copywriters, particularly in the early stages of a project. While ChatGPT is probably the most well-known natural language generation tool, I’ve been using Claude to help me create solid draft copy for wireframes and prototypes in my current project. By expediting the initial copywriting process, Claude lets me focus my efforts on more pressing design challenges.

Two examples demonstrate how useful Claude can be. I’ll ask the tool: “Give me 10 different ways to say ‘X’ in 100 characters or fewer.” Or I’ll paste a sentence in Claude and ask the chatbot to “give me 10 different ways to say ‘X’ without using the word ‘Y.’” While the Claude-generated copy will undoubtedly be edited, refined, and polished by a copywriter before the project goes to market, it saves me a lot of time and effort in the early stages of a project.

I’m also eager to explore a couple of more powerful options, including copy.ai and Jasper. Both leverage natural language generation to create new copy that conforms to style and brand guidelines and is SEO-friendly. These tools can also suggest new content for writers to revise and approve, automatically generate translations for global markets, and can build product-specific follow-up email sequences for marketing efforts.

So…will AI mean the end of the designer? I don’t think so, but I do believe that what we’ve seen to date in terms of AI and digital design is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. I plan to embrace these emerging AI-powered design tools today,

 because I want to be one of the designers of tomorrow. I relish the fact that I am already spending less time on some of the less creative aspects of my work (I’m thinking of you, workshop prep!). Because of AI, I have more time and creative energy to focus on what our clients need as we work to create truly human-centered brand experiences.

For more information about design at BORN Group, please get in touch with us.

Cyber Monday—
6 Steps to Captivate Consumers

Posted on by Colleen Vaughan
BORN Views
Cyber Monday—

6 Steps to Captivate Consumers

In the 1980s, people started referring to the day after Thanksgiving as “Black Friday” – for consumers, it’s the unofficial start of the Christmas and holiday shopping season; for brick-and-mortar retailers, it’s the beginning of their busiest and most profitable time of the year. Big indeed: Last year, retailers rang up more than $9 billion in sales on Black Friday. But that’s not the biggest shopping day of the year: Cyber Monday, the Monday after Black Friday, accounted for more than $11 billion in e-commerce sales last year.

In terms of overall consumer spending, e-commerce sales volumes still trail sales in the physical world, but it will surprise no one that e-commerce is continuing to grow. Online shopping is convenient (no traffic, no crowds), easy (all it takes is a smartphone), and increasingly the norm for consumers. Of course, the pandemic significantly transformed e-tailing into the default shopping experience for many. Forged by the reality of social distancing, shopping online shows no signs of slowing down.

E-tailers must be ready to elevate their offerings and value propositions before November 27 along six vectors:

Prepare your Cyber Monday strategy.

Your Cyber Monday strategy demands comprehensive planning and coordination of your go-to-market strategy. Email marketing, advertising, and social media initiatives must be tailored to and focused squarely on the most prominent e-commerce day of the year. Now is also the time to review and stress-test your website. Make sure every link works, your system can handle a much more substantial user load, and triple-check that your checkout process is robust and fast.

Optimize for search.

While some shoppers will come directly to your site, many (perhaps most) will find you through search engines, so you must be sure that your website ranks prominently for keywords relating to Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and holiday shopping. When your site secures a top position in search results, you win big.

Improve responsiveness.

The reality is that users shop from multiple devices – computers, tablets, smartphones – and a seamless omnichannel experience will help you convert browsers to buyers. Make sure you are offering a cohesive user experience across devices and platforms. Test and optimize, particularly for mobile performance.

Manage inventory.

Double down on your efforts to predict volumes and avoid stockouts. The loss of a sale because your inventory is depleted, is bad enough, but disappointed consumers can mean the loss of future sales and an ongoing relationship. (They might also vent on social media!)

Create meaningful perks.

It’s a competitive world out there, and one great way to differentiate yourself is by offering tangible benefits to your customers. For e-commerce businesses, these benefits might include free shipping (increasingly necessary in today’s environment), hassle-free returns, or flexible shipping arrangements (e.g., buy online and pick-up in a physical location). The challenge lies in execution, obviously, but also in how you integrate perks into your brand’s value proposition. Your goal should always be to create offerings that enhance the shopping and brand experience. That’s how you build customers for life.

Leverage social media on Cyber Monday and beyond.

Social media has become one of the most powerful tools to build awareness and drive sales for e-commerce companies. But Instagram and other platforms require a different marketing approach: Your focus should be on broadening awareness and engaging customers with meaningful content. In other words, your social media efforts should not look like advertising. Think of social media as an opportunity to attract customers rather than push products out. Done well, social media can drive sales.

While all these ideas are important to every e-commerce retailer at all times of the year, they become essential in the weeks leading up to Cyber Monday. While implementation requires technology, of course, the best solutions are the ones that deeply embrace and further your brand and customer experiences.

The BORN Group can help apply technology to empower your brand.