The season of shopping is upon us. Traffic is building up, malls are getting congested and people are pre-occupied with buying gifts.   With end of year bonuses being given out, this is the perfect time for retailers to push their wares and for credit card companies to encourage their subscribers to spend more. So, are you making the most of this opportunity and driving your customers to purchase?

Whether you’re a retail shop owner, an e-commerce start-up or an executive at a credit card company, the holiday season is usually your best time of the year. Savvy marketers are pushing the right buttons and getting people to part with their money with promises of exciting promos and savings. Think Black Friday, 11-11 and 12-12. Marketers have found ways to take advantage of people’s innate desire for retail therapy to make what used to be ordinary days (growing up, did you ever think that November 11 was special in some way?) and turn them into a must-shop day.

But aside from hyping giant sales, there are other ways to influence individuals to consider a product or drive a purchase. Experts have said that the next big thing in marketing is what we call personalized marketing.   This means making it all about the consumer – getting a feel of what they like or what they respond to and offering them something based on what it is that they really want.

Let’s take Annie, a sales manager at an IT firm as an example.   She has a loyalty card for a chain of stores that sells clothing and makeup. Since Annie swipes that loyalty card every time she purchases an item from the store, they have a record of all her purchases – the type of clothes she goes for, her preferred size, the brand of makeup she uses.   The store can utilize the data they have on Annie and send her promos and materials on items that she will most likely be excited about – new clothes in the style she likes, discounts on her brand of lipsticks and the like.  

We can even take this further. Since Annie uses her credit card frequently, the credit card company also has data on her purchases so they can make more suggestions. They can recommend items that people similar to Annie also like to buy. If she goes on holiday in Europe, they can use the data they have to also promote restaurants, hotels and shops in the location she’s in. The more they understand about her, the more enticing and relevant the offers can be.

This cannot be done without the right tools. Organizations must utilize analytics that can dissect and transform their customer data into more useful insights. Coupled with machine learning capabilities, analytics can aid marketers in coming up with an easier, more automated way of targeting their customers and matching them with the right offerings. Just Analytics offers customer analytics and artificial intelligence solutions that can help identify your most valuable customers, predict future transactions and drive recommendations to increase customer lifetime value. To learn more about these, go to www.justanalytics.com/customer-analytics