With COVID-19 impacting this year’s back-to-school season in unprecedented ways, ecommerce businesses need to think outside the box to get their offers in front of online shoppers. Web push notifications can help grow your marketable database and get your products and specials in front of back-to-school shoppers. Here are 3 web push notification tips to help improve your back to school (B2S) strategy:
1) Understanding Your Shoppers’ Buying Habits
Everyone’s worlds have been flipped upside down due to COVID, and this is especially true for parents trying to balance working from home and looking after their children. With back-to-school purchases being made mostly online this year (and for many students, their coursework as well) shoppers are having to consider things like shipping costs and needing to buy different products (such as computer accessories and various electronic devices) that they may typically not have previously required for their children’s classwork.
According to a recent Deloitte survey, price will be the most critical consideration for back-to-school purchases in 2020. Since shoppers will be looking for the best deals (rather than staying loyal to just one store or brand), it’s more important than ever to convert your online traffic into an engaged buyer. And to do that you need to get your store’s promos in front of as many customers as possible. Ecommerce marketers can leverage Pushnami’s web-based push notifications to deliver their message to an engaged audience with features like flash sales, shipping updates, and much more.
2) Traditional Marketing Channels Are No Longer Enough
Marketing channels like email and social media may not be enough to get shoppers interested in your product. Battling to reach inbox zero is becoming more and more futile as parents are having to split their time between work, parental duties, and everything else going on in the world these days.
One of the great benefits that web push marketing has over traditional marketing channels is that push notifications live in the here-and-now. Once opted-in to receive push notifications, your message will appear on your subscribers’ desktops and mobile devices regardless of the website they’re currently on or the application they have open.
Push also offers a level of personalization that traditional marketing can’t achieve. However, push is not here to replace your successful email campaigns, but is instead is a great complement to your traditional marketing efforts. Many Pushnami clients have found success with pairing their web push and email strategies together, and it is absolutely something that ecommerce marketers should consider when building their back-to-school promotional campaigns.
3) Learn Which Retargeting Strategies Work Best for Back-to-School
All ecommerce merchants are familiar with how much of an impact abandoned carts can have on their businesses. In fact, an average of 70% of all online carts are abandoned. This is potential revenue left on the table and prevents you from gaining potential repeat customers and ultimately lessens your customer LTV.
Since parents are expected to spend more of their back-to-school budget online this year, consider adding web push notifications to your retargeting campaigns to help capture the maximum amount of revenue for your store. After enabling Pushnami’s abandoned cart automation, your shoppers that abandon their carts before checkout will receive a push notification reminding them about their cart at the cadence of your choosing.
We optimize for 1 hour after abandonment, then 24 hours later, then 72 hours later. It’s always helpful to offer a small incentive when sending an abandoned cart reminder such as free shipping or a 10% discount code, but this is entirely up to you and is something you should test over time to optimize for your shoppers.
For a more in-depth look at abandoned cart push notification campaigns and other ecommerce features from Pushnami, view our latest on-demand webinar, “Web Push Marketing for Ecommerce”. Here’s a brief clip from the webinar:
If you’re interested in implementing web push notifications for your back-to-school campaigns, new Pushnami clients can take advantage of a 90-day free trial when you install via our new Pushnami Shopify app. Contact us today to learn more.
