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Comparing customer loyalty programs: Which marketing strategy is right for your brand?

Posted on by shopkick

Customer loyalty does more than signify the groundwork of a fruitful, long-term relationship between brand and customer; it provides a multitude of strategic benefits that improve the health and success of a brand. Continue reading “Comparing customer loyalty programs: Which marketing strategy is right for your brand?”

How to Get into the Holiday Spirit in 2020

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For many of us, 2020 has felt long as we have navigated a year unlike anything many of us have ever experienced. As a result, much like the many months before it, the holidays feel different. For some, there’s a big desire to really dive into all things festive and happy – something known to tackle in a joyful way. For others, there’s a hesitancy to celebrate the season and a lack of excitement where a bountiful spirit typically resides. If you fall into the second camp, know you are definitely not alone. 

We have heard plenty of people remark they’re feeling more “bah humbug” than usual, so we thought we would piece together 10 easy ways you can still inject December with joy even during a holiday season that feels vastly different from any other. Keep reading for fun holiday ideas you can do alone or with family or friends, and a big bonus: they won’t break the bank!

1. See the Holiday Lights: 

Many cities and towns have drive-through light shows, and a quick search will likely cause a few to pop up in your area. Pick a date, and visit one! Most displays include themed lights that are larger than life, and the majority of shows also suggest tuning into a radio station that’s playing a soundtrack of holiday music.

If your area doesn’t have a light show, you can always go for an evening walk through your neighborhood to take in the lights where you live! Grab a flashlight for your stroll, and don’t forget to whip up mugs of hot chocolate to go to stay warm.

2. Do a Holiday DIY:

There are plenty of crafts you can tackle by yourself or with your kids! Purchase a gingerbread house kit and start building; make your own ornaments; create a garland. The options are endless, but here is a great place to start for kids!

3. Watch a Holiday Movie:

Whether you tune into a cable channel or scroll through your go-to streaming services, there are plenty of holiday movies to enjoy. Plan to watch your seasonal favorites, as well as a few new-to-you flicks this season. If you’re looking for a list of classic holiday movies, this article will help to point you in a direction!   

4. Volunteer:

Think about contacting organizations in your area to see if any are looking for volunteers, purchase toys for kids who might not receive presents, contact a local nursing home to see if their residents would like to receive cards, or make a donation to a charity you admire. Helping others is a great way to connect and brighten your spirits and theirs.

5. Take in a Holiday Performance:

Due to Covid-19, many performances are now happening virtually online in order to keep guests and performers safe. The great bonus of this is you can enjoy performances from other cities in addition to your own. City ballets, including the New York City Ballet, are going to air performances of “The Nutcracker”, and musicians from Carnegie Hall are also streaming to virtual crowds. 

6. Bake a Holiday Recipe:

The holidays don’t feel quite like the holidays without time spent in the kitchen! Last week, we shared 10 holiday cookie recipes that are all delicious. Choose one, source your ingredients, pick a time, and get baking! 

7. Listen to Holiday Music:

It’s officially Mariah Carey season, and we are welcoming “All I Want for Christmas is You” every time it plays. Whether you’re working from home, spending time in the kitchen, or simply relaxing, tune into a holiday music station. There are plenty of options from jazz to classics and pop to kids’ (and everything in between). Hearing a few festive songs might help to brighten your spirits!

8. Read a Holiday Book:

There are books for every season, and there are a number of books set during the holiday season! They always feel particularly cozy to enjoy during December (and even January), and we think you will agree. “One Night in December” by Josie Silver is a great read, and Oprah Magazine found 34 other holiday themed books. If you’re looking for holiday books for kids, Studio DIY has a great roundup! 

9. Send Holiday Snail Mail:

This year, a trip to the mailbox has felt like an event. So, keep the snail mail coming for your family and friends! Think about picking up a box of holiday cards and writing a note in each one to your recipient. You can even DIY your own cards for an extra holiday project!

10. Remember: This Year is Different:

Though it may seem odd to end on this note, it’s important to point out that this year is different. We’ve navigated a lot, and there’s still more to come. So, give yourself some grace. If you don’t tick off as many holiday to-dos as you have in the past, that’s okay! Enjoy what you do decide to do, and remember less can definitely be more.

How are you getting into the holiday spirit this year? Join us and share on Facebook!

Top 3 retail app trends that will drive sales in 2021

Posted on by shopkick

Top 3 retail app trends that will drive sales in 2021

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With the start of 2021 just around the corner, now is the perfect time to assess retail app trends. App downloads are important to retailers because consumers who spend a lot of time in-app are more likely to spend money. Furthermore, omnichannel shoppers in general spend more money than single-channel shoppers. Implementing the following best practices will help to keep up with consumer expectations, increase sales, and ensure you’re on the cutting edge of your industry.

Personalization Across Channels

Shopping across multiple channels is now common practice, with 85% of shoppers starting a purchase on one device and finishing on another. Consumers also now expect a personalized experience when shopping, with 80% more likely to buy from a retailer providing a personalized experience.

As a result, retailers must find a way to unify and personalize the customer experience across all channels. To help guide this strategy, retailers track activity across their web, mobile, and brick-and-mortar stores.

Cross-channel connection arms retailers with information about what individual shoppers are browsing, wish-listing, liking, buying, and reviewing online, whether via mobile or in-person. Retailers can then use this data to develop their strategy and create relevant messages, tailored offers, and curated content to keep shoppers engaged.

For instance, Sephora’s Beauty Insider Program saves information on hair and skin type as the basis of their tailored product recommendations. They change landing pages based on recent browsing history and send out “replenish” discounts for items shoppers purchased in the past.

Personalization can even lower acquisition costs up to 50%, lift revenues by 5–15%, and improve spending efficiency by 10–30%.

Personalizing push notifications is an extremely effective way to re-engage mobile users and increase conversions. The most successful notifications use images, animated GIFs, videos, emojis, quizzes, coupons, and fun copy to engage shoppers. Push campaigns can be based on past purchases, designed for hyperlocal sales, or centered on favorite categories. Triggers for notifications may include location, days since last login, recent purchase activity, or even shopping at a competitor’s location.

There are several ways to encourage shoppers to keep push notifications activated. You can develop a homescreen widget that appears every few weeks, reminding users of the benefits of enabling push, or you can utilize abandoned shopping cart notifications, which can increase app revenue by up to 15%.

Beacons are tools retailers can utilize in their effort to personalize the shopper experience. Beacons allow retailers to gather actionable consumer data and take personalization strategies offline and into the real world. The shopper preferences and behavioral insights collected from beacons can then be used to inspire events, products, or new services.

In-Store Mobile Experiences

In-store mobile experiences are increasingly becoming integrated into retail shopping apps to create strong and meaningful customer connections, which ultimately lead to sales.

What defines an in-store mobile experience varies, but ensuring your app addresses common pain points shoppers are faced with in-stores provides a solid foundation for building that dual-facing mobile/brick-and-mortar shopping experience.

Offline shoppers often turn to mobile in-stores to retrieve information that store displays and packaging may be lacking. Given this, successful shopping apps typically include: in-depth product information, reviews, pairing suggestions, and how-to videos. Aiding consumer research increases the likelihood of making the sale.

Shoppers also turn to mobile when they can’t find what they need on the shelves. Walmart’s mobile app comes with a barcode scanner for price and inventory checks. It can also be used to save items to order online later. Mobile coupons can help prevent showrooming—which is the practice of browsing items in-store, only to buy online or with a competitor.

Of course, there are many FUN ways to engage mobile in-store shoppers using gamification strategies, which create a more immersive shopping experience. Shopkick is a popular mobile shopping rewards app that specializes in enhancing the shopping experience through unique engagement tactics. One such way is through in-store “treasure hunts” that drive consumers through the purchase funnel. This gamification strategy influences purchase behavior in three main steps: product awareness, at-shelf engagement, and rewards.

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Product Awareness

To drive consideration and trial, Shopkick sends users on an in-store treasure hunt for promoted products to find when they enter the store.

This helps cut through the clutter of the immense competition partnering brands and retailers are facing in-store, and also encourages shoppers to physically engage with the product now that it’s directly in front of them.

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At-Shelf Engagement

Once Shopkickers find each promotional item, they scan its barcode to earn “kicks” (reward points).

Bonus kicks are received if they purchase the product and upload their receipt.

Scanning items’ barcodes provides shoppers with additional product information, trigger informative videos, and more.

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Rewards

Once they’ve accumulated enough kicks, Shopkickers can redeem them for gift cards of their choosing.

Often, Shopkickers choose the retailer where they earned their kicks from as their preferred gift card, providing an incremental revenue stream for retail partners.

Regardless of where Shopkickers choose to redeem their kicks, you will have created a memorable experience that will foster a positive customer relationship and create long-term loyalty.

To see this concept in-action, you can look to Kraft’s campaign with Shopkick. Kraft wanted to drive trial, consideration, and sales across multiple brands during the holiday baking season. We first built pre-shop consideration by sharing in-app recipe content that used three of the main products Kraft wanted to promote. Once in-store, Shopkickers were sent to find these products in-aisle and were encouraged to physically engage with the products via barcode scans in exchange for kicks. Extra kicks were offered if all three products were bought, increasing the likelihood of purchase. Over 9 million Shopkickers physically engaged with the products at-shelf, with 27% converting to purchase for a 7.6x return on investment (ROI).

Advanced mCommerce Capabilities

Most apps now allow users to shop directly through them. Ideally, a mobile app should automatically sync with the user’s digital website login credentials, that way activity on one channel can easily and quickly be picked up on another.

Modern retail apps are also offering more convenient ways for consumers to pay for their items, enabling payment methods like Apple Pay, Google Wallet, and Venmo, as well as the ability to store a credit card. This flexibility can reduce cart abandonment by 8%.

To create the best mobile app experience possible, it’s important for retailers to perform incremental A/B testing in order to optimize their current strategy. Retailers will gather actionable insights, allowing them to create more helpful and engaging visual prompts to increase the number of completed transactions. For instance, many retailers use progress bars and guest checkout options to ease impatience.

Ensure You’re Incorporating 2021 Retail App Trends With the Help of Shopkick

Shopkick incorporates the latest and greatest in retail app trends, successfully boosting brand awareness, shopper engagement, and revenue. Mobile shoppers can interact with the Shopkick app from home, on-the-go, or in-store, enabling partnering retailers and brands to engage with shoppers wherever they are. Consumers can make purchases with their favorite retailers online through the Shopkick app, or at their brick-and-mortar store, increasing the chances of capturing a sale.

By focusing on rewards instead of discounts, there’s no profit margin dilution. And while no purchase is necessary to earn rewards, our strategic method of rewarding shoppers for their engagement builds brand affinity and loyalty, often leading many Shopkickers to purchase (with the added bonus of extra kicks awarded!).

Want to start the new year off on the right foot? Ensure you’re incorporating the latest retail app trends through a lucrative partnership with Shopkick. Our partners have found great success, and we’re sure you can too! Learn more about becoming a Shopkick partner or contact us directly.

10 Tried & True Holiday Cookie Recipes

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The holiday season is officially underway, and the month of December always makes us want to spend even more time in the kitchen. Even though we might not be gathering this year, we still plan to honor holiday traditions. And, it wouldn’t feel like the holidays without cookies!

We’ve done the hard work for you and scoured the web for what we think are some of the best holiday cookie recipes. They’re all what we’re calling tried and true favorites, and we’re sharing the details for 10 of the top recipes we’ve found below. Plan to spend a festive night baking on your own, or spend a Saturday or Sunday whipping up cookies with your kids as a fun holiday activity. 

No matter what you decide to make, we hope you discover a recipe you will make year after year!

Snickerdoodle Cookies:

You can’t go wrong with a melt-in-your-mouth cinnamon sugar cookie! Snickerdoodles are a great option to make with kids because you can form the dough, and your kids can add the cinnamon sugar coating. As a note, the yield is typically high for Snickerdoodles, and this recipe will leave you with four dozen cookies!

Chocolate Chip Cookies:

Chocolate chip cookies are not necessarily seasonal, but we do always find ourselves baking a batch (or many!) during the holidays. We have yet to uncover a recipe that’s better than the one from Nestle Toll House, so we’re sticking with it. A key for great chocolate chip cookies that aren’t flat is to make sure to add the dash of extra flour the recipe suggests!

Old Fashioned Sugar Cookies:

Sugar cookies are another classic all-year-long recipe, but just like chocolate chip cookies, they’re always a welcome treat during the holidays! We all love sugar cookies for their taste, plus they’re perfect for kids to decorate. Add a few cookie cutters to your cart, and don’t forget the sprinkles and icing! This Old Fashioned Sugar Cookie recipe is excellent, and there’s also step-by-step instructions in case you want to make your own icing.

Raspberry Jam Thumbprint Cookies: 

Please be warned: these cookies are delicious! Raspberry Jam Thumbprint Cookies feature a cookie that’s dipped in crushed pecans or walnuts. Once the cookies are out of the oven, you will flatten the center and add your jam. Raspberry jam tastes wonderful, but any fruit jam will do!

Gingerbread Cookies:

It wouldn’t be a holiday cookie recipe roundup without Gingerbread Cookies! The fun of Gingerbread Cookies is they are perfect to cut out and decorate, particularly with royal icing. Keep in mind, similar to bread, the dough needs rise for 2-8 hours, so this is a recipe you will likely work on in shifts. 

Chocolate Candy Cane Cookies:

We love the fresh taste of mint during the holidays, and candy canes are a must-have treat! This cookie recipe calls for both chocolate and candy canes. The cookies are chocolate, and the outer surround is where you will taste the candy cane pieces. Because the pieces are crushed, mints work too! 

Peanut Butter Blossom Cookies: 

Few combinations are tastier than peanut butter and chocolate, and Peanut Butter Blossom cookies feature both! The cookie is where you will find the peanut butter, and the chocolate is added in when you place a Hershey Kiss on top. These are another simple and easy recipe to make with kids because they can easily add the chocolate!

Ginger Eggnog Sandwich Cookies:

Two of the most classic holiday flavors are ginger and eggnog, and this recipe combines both! The cookies are where you will find the ginger flavor, and the taste of eggnog is incorporated into the icing that will be sandwiched in the middle. The recipe yields 16 sandwich cookies, and they sound perfect to enjoy while watching a holiday movie! 

Spritz Cookies:

Spritz Cookies are known for their shapes and buttery taste, so we had to make sure to add them to our list! The dough is simple to make, and they’re also easy to decorate with sprinkles. The step that can sometimes prove tricky is working a press. Yes, these cookies require a specific tool – a cookie dough press – that forms them into their holiday shapes. 

Dark Chocolate Orange Slice & Bake Cookies:

If you have ever watched “The Great British Baking Show”, you know how much the bakers love to combine chocolate and orange. We’re here to add our stamp of approval! Sally’s Baking Addiction shares some of the best cookie recipes (and general baking recipes), and this one for Dark Chocolate Orange Slice & Bake Cookies is a winner. If you’re looking for another chocolate and orange cookie recipe, this one also gets an honorable mention!

Which holiday cookie recipes will you be baking this year? Share your favorites with us on Facebook!

Wishing you a happy & healthy Thanksgiving

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2020 has changed life as we know it, and has undoubtedly been a challenging year for brands, retailers, and consumers alike. While some businesses have stayed afloat or even thrived amid the chaos, others have been forced into triage mode. And what was once a quick trip to the store has now become a matter of safety vs. necessity for many Americans.  Continue reading “Wishing you a happy & healthy Thanksgiving”

BOPIS eCommerce is the next wave in omnichannel marketing

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Buy online pickup in-store, also known as BOPIS, is an omnichannel eCommerce strategy whose name is pretty self-explanatory—consumers buy products online, and then pick up their purchased items in-store, offering previously unavailable speed and convenience. Continue reading “BOPIS eCommerce is the next wave in omnichannel marketing”