How to stand out and create a lasting impact during the back-to-school period? The challenges are numerous: limited window of opportunity, highly varied customer needs, omnipresent budgetary pressure, the need to offer a seamless omnichannel experience… Faced with these challenges, Retail marketers must rethink their approaches to transform this intense period into real commercial success.
Discover 8 original strategies to transform this occasional chestnut tree into real lasting commercial success :
1. Create personalized shopping experiences
Turn the chore of back-to-school shopping into a special and memorable moment. Organize exclusive events “Back to School” for your most loyal customers, offering early access to new collections or personalized advice. The challenge is to successfully thwart the gloomy “back from vacation” effect by replacing it with the euphoria of a “new start.”
A great example of this approach is the Decathlon brand, which organizes Vitalsport every year at the start of the school year. This free event, open to all, is held in many of the brand’s stores and allows families to discover and try out a variety of sports, supervised by qualified instructors. By creating a dynamic atmosphere geared towards a new sporting start, the event inspires families to make the start of the school year a time to get back into sport. Of course, this is not just a pleasant experience: Vitalsport encourages a massive influx of visitors to the store, boosting sales while strengthening the links between the brand, local clubs and practitioners. These types of events create real commercial momentum, transforming the start of the school year into a season of engagement and growth.
By combining discovery, entertainment and utility, this approach not only captures the public’s attention, but also strengthens customer loyalty, boosting sales during this strategic period.
2. Segment your audience according to family profiles
Every family has unique back-to-school needs. Use your customer data to create specific segments based on children’s ages, grade levels, and shopping habits. This segmentation finein particular RFM segmentation, allows you to adapt your offers and your communication in an ultra-targeted manner.
Consider the strategy implemented by the FNAC-Darty group for the back-to-school period, which successfully consolidated its position as a leader during this key commercial period. Their segmentation approach proved particularly effective:
Student profiles: The group targets students with products tailored to their specific needs, such as textbooks for high school students, or laptops and software for university students. Numerous guides on the “best choices” to make for each object (diary, calculator) have also allowed the group to position itself as arbiters of the best options.
- Parent targeting: FNAC-Darty also adapts its offers according to parents’ purchases and the budget allocated. The “back-to-school” period is a key time for the group’s targeted promotions.
- Purchasing habits: By analyzing the purchasing behavior of previous years for its Fnac+ members, the brand can personalize its offers and anticipate the important stages of the customer’s return to school (transition to secondary school, etc.).
This fine segmentation strategy allowed FNAC-Darty to significantly increase customer engagement. Students viewed 1.6 times more pages on FNAC.com during the operation compared to the rest of the year, while purchasing managers visited 1.7 times more pages on Darty.com. This targeted approach, combined with an effective omnichannel presence, not only boosted online sales by 2% in 2021, but also improved the overall in-store conversion rate by 3 points.
These results highlight the importance of a strategy that takes into account different customer segments and their specific purchasing behaviors during the back-to-school period. A well-executed omnichannel approach, with an effective presence across all sales channels, appears to be a key success factor for Back to School campaigns.
3. Automate your campaigns for maximum responsiveness
Marketing automation is essential for back-to-school. Set up scenarios based on user behavior, such as cart abandonment, using a marketing platform. Marketing Automation. Use dynamic content in your emails to personalize your messages.
Automated retargeting is crucial to re-engage undecided visitors. Continuously optimize your campaigns with automated A/B testing. Set up alerts to effectively manage demand spikes and inventory.
This automated approach not only improves the effectiveness of your campaigns, but also provides a more responsive and personalized customer experience. You will create a memorable back-to-school experience, boosting your sales and strengthening long-term customer loyalty.
4. Optimize your multichannel strategy
The multichannel approach is no longer limited to having a presence on different platforms. It is now about creating a consistent and fluid experience across all customer touchpoints thanks to customer data. This implies:
– Real-time inventory synchronization between online and offline channels.
– Flexible delivery options like click & collect or in-store delivery.
– The use of augmented reality to virtually “try on” products before purchasing online.
– A harmonized return policy allowing purchases made online to be returned to stores.
The goal is to blur the boundaries between digital and physical, giving customers the flexibility to start their purchasing journey on one channel and end it on another, without friction.
5. Personalize your campaigns with product recommendation
Product recommendation is an advanced feature of customization allowing marketers to add products that interest customers and prospects to their emails. Integrated into the platform Marketing Automationit helps increase click-through and conversion rates for campaigns and proves to be a real asset for increasing CRM performance.
The use of artificial intelligence to personalize product recommendations is also an asset for retailers. This approach goes beyond simple suggestion based on previous purchases. It integrates behavioral data, style preferences, and even contextual factors like weather or local trends.
For regions where temperatures drop early, for example, an algorithm linked to a CDP might suggest warm, waterproof clothing for weekends. In coastal areas where summer is prolonged, the emphasis might be on lightweight clothing and beach accessories for the last outings before the end of the good weather.
This advanced personalization can be demonstrated through several channels: targeted emails, dynamic home pages (based on history), mobile applications, interactive terminals in stores, back-to-school brochures, etc.
The goal is to create a tailored shopping experience that not only facilitates the purchasing decision for all types of customers – whether students, young professionals or families – but also increases the average basket value and customer satisfaction. By anticipating the specific needs related to the start of the school year in different contexts (study, work, leisure), you can offer a more relevant and engaging shopping experience.
6. Reactivate dormant customers with targeted offers
Reactivating inactive customers requires a strategic and personalized approach. Here are some effective tactics:
– Analyze historical data to understand why these customers became inactive.
– Segment your inactive customers based on their past value and future potential.
– Create specific offers that address the likely reasons for their inactivity (e.g. discounts on categories they frequently purchased).
– Use a mix of channels to reach them: email, SMS, personalized postal mail.
– Offer progressive incentives: start with a modest offer, then increase the value if necessary.
– Set up an automated “win-back” program that extends over several weeks.
The goal is to rekindle the interest of these customers by reminding them of the value that your brand can bring to them, especially during the crucial back-to-school period.
7. Use SMS for flash communications
SMS remains one of your most powerful allies for last-minute back-to-school communications. Its effectiveness lies in its ability to quickly reach your customers with concise and impactful messages.
To maximize the impact of your SMS campaigns, focus on these key aspects: Precisely segment your database for highly targeted messages. Create a sense of urgency with time-limited offers. Personalize your messages by including the customer’s first name and references to their previous purchases. Integrate short links to mobile-optimized landing pages to facilitate conversion. Optimize your sending times and respect a reasonable frequency to avoid saturation.
The effectiveness of SMS marketing is demonstrated by concrete figures. According to a study conducted by ARCEP, the opening rate of commercial SMS in France reaches 95%, with an average click rate of 7%. These figures are significantly higher than those observed for email marketing.
These impressive statistics highlight the potential of SMS as a direct marketing tool for your back-to-school campaigns. By integrating it wisely into your strategy, you can generate fast and measurable results, boosting both your online sales and in-store traffic.
8. Engage your audience on social media
Social media is an ideal platform to create engagement around back-to-school. To maximize their impact, tailor your content to each platform: focus on short videos on TikTok, ephemeral Stories on Instagram, and live on Facebook. Launch back-to-school challenges or contests to encourage user content creation and increase your organic visibility.
Partnering with micro-influencers in the education or parenting space can give you targeted and authentic reach. Leverage in-platform shopping features to facilitate impulse purchases, reducing friction in the purchasing journey.
Host live Q&A sessions to help your audience navigate their back-to-school choices, reinforcing your expert position. Creating custom AR filters tied to your brand or back-to-school theme can drive fun and viral engagement.
The back-to-school period is not limited to the start date itself and represents a unique opportunity for retailers to stand out and build customer loyalty. By combining advanced personalization, seamless omnichannel experiences, and targeted engagement on social networks, you will transform this intense period into a real commercial springboard thanks to the management of your pression marketing. Automation and data-driven analytics are your best allies for orchestrating responsive and impactful campaigns. Remember: the key to success lies in your ability to create a memorable back-to-school experience that not only boosts your sales in the short term, but also strengthens your customers’ loyalty in the long term. Get ready now to make a lasting impression on your consumers with a new approach “Back to School“!
Source: www.e-marketing.fr
