SFMC: Marketing Strategies to build brand loyalty during Holiday Season

[This post was originally published on 28th Sep 2021. It has been updated on 16th June 2022.]

Did you know that 80% of businesses still rely on email marketing to assist with maintaining their customer retention rate? That’s what a report compiled by Smallbizgenius reveals.

We know that the importance of having a loyal customer base is enormous for any business, and it is one of those things that businesses strive for. Salesforce Marketing Cloud helps email marketers create and deliver engaging email campaigns that boost curiosity, interest, and customer loyalty. 

But, before getting started with the SFMC marketing strategies to build brand loyalty this holiday season, let’s know some customer loyalty statistics.

Customer Loyalty Statistics

The same report we mentioned above includes some vital customer loyalty statistics that you should know about as a marketer, especially as an email marketer. 

According to the report:

1. There is a massive 60-70% probability of selling to an existing customer than to a new one.
2. The Pareto Principle reveals that nearly 80% of your profit comes from 20% of customers.

Most businesses focus on lead generation and customer acquisition and less on customer retention, even though-

3. 70% of consumers are likely to recommend a brand to others if it has a good loyalty program.

4. A satisfied US customer will share their positive experience with at least 11 different people. However, if it is a negative experience they have encountered with a business, American customers are even more likely to share it with 15 people. 

Now that you know some important figures and facts let’s go ahead with the holiday season statistics! 

2021 Holiday Season Statistics

2021 online holiday sales reached $211.41 billion, up 10.0% year over year. It is 54.9% higher compared to the 2019 Holiday season.

What to expect from the 2022 Holiday Season?

According to Deloitte’s annual holiday retail forecast, Holiday retail sales are likely to increase between 4% and 6% in 2022. Holiday sales will total USD 1.45 to USD 1.47 trillion during the November to January timeframe.

This means you are likely to generate more sales for your business this year, and you need to deliver better customer experiences to build the loyalty of your customers. 

If SFMC is your CRM, you’re sorted. You can use the best marketing strategies of SFMC to build customer loyalty during this holiday season. 

Top SFMC Marketing Strategies To Build Customer Loyalty

Use these SFMC Marketing Strategies to deliver compelling email campaigns that help you build brand loyalty. Let’s begin!

#1 Send Targeted Email Campaigns To Your Subscribers

With SFMC’s Email Studio, you can deliver more targeted and personalized emails to your customers this holiday season. These kinds of targeted campaigns help you get better engagement than your regular emails. Also, this way, you can deliver tailored messages to your customers based on their interests.

You can manage your subscriber data in SFMC Email Studio to quickly create customer segments and build long-term loyalty. 

This holiday season, you can segment your audience in the following categories:

Interests: Identify customers based on their previous purchase categories or sections they browsed on your website. 

Seasonal vs. Regular Shoppers: You also need to segment this particular category of shoppers that only shop in Q4. These shoppers are different from your regular and loyal customers. Take time to identify their needs so that you can customize the frequency and content of your next campaign. 

Coupon codes as savior: There’s also this special category of shoppers who only shop at discounted prices with coupons. Identify and segment this section of people to give them more of such options. Also, it would help you segment customers who can buy products at their actual price. 

#2 Deliver Personalization In Your Emails

80% of customers are likely to purchase from a brand based on the personalized experience that it has given to them. This year, make the most out of it and deliver the best personalized emails to your customers. Use SFMC’s Journey Builder to deliver simple or complex personalized emails to hundreds and millions of your customers based on their behavior and intent. 

You can boost sales and customer loyalty during the holiday season by delivering personalization based on your customers’-

• Gender
• Location
• Purchase history
• Browsing history
• Behavior
• Interests 

#3 Automate Holiday-Season Emails

By automating your emails, you are not only allowing yourself to have a successful holiday season but also building your image in the minds of the customers. You do not want to send one email and leave it there. You need to plan and deliver a successful email marketing campaign. SFMC can help you achieve that.

Allow SFMC to take care of your complete email marketing journey from start to end. This way, you’ll not feel your customers are abandoned; the right recipient will be getting your emails at the right time. 

SFMC tools that you can leverage to deliver your holiday season email marketing campaigns: 

• Email Studio- Send targeted messages by segmenting your audience. 
• Journey Builder- Deliver cross-channel personalized experiences to your customers.
• Content Builder- Create professional emails with this cross-channel content management tool in SFMC without using HTML.
• Analytics Builder- Measure the performance of your email campaigns and see what’s working and what is not.
• Interaction Studio– Predict your customer’s next move and prepare beforehand. 

#4 Be Open To Customer Feedback 

Customers feel good when they know they can give feedback or you are open to their suggestions. This also helps in keeping the communication going with your customers by allowing them to give 1-to-1 feedback/reviews. 

Using Interactive Emails in SFMC, you can easily get customer feedback within their inbox without having to take them on a different web page. This feature of SFMC allows marketers to get the relevant customer information directly from the emails. Thus, it helps you in getting the data you need to improve their experiences. Also, this way, you increase customer engagement. 

#5 Build Emotional Connections With Customers

Most brands think that building brand loyalty is giving customers offers and free products. But, this is not true in most cases. Customers are looking forward to engaging with brands and building real connections with them. According to research by Deloitte, only 3% of customers would recommend a brand based on its principles, whereas 44% would recommend it based on emotional criteria. 

Hence, you need to drive an emotional connection with your customers in your next campaign in SFMC. You can do this by adding the following kind of content in your emails:

• Add content that shows more about your brand values, such as links to some blogs using Content Builder in SFMC
• User-generated content like testimonials or photos
• Videos that involve your employees and customers 

This kind of marketing is known as value-addition, as it goes beyond simply promoting a product/service. 

Wrap Up

So, there you have it! Top SFMC marketing strategies that you can use this holiday season to increase brand loyalty. This holiday season, you can deliver engaging, relevant, and personalized email campaigns with ease using Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

Follow our blog for more such articles that will help you succeed in your business using SFMC. Also, if you need help in getting the most out of your email marketing campaigns in SFMC, then get in touch with our team of SFMC experts.