Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) are fast approaching, presenting an excellent opportunity for retailers to boost sales and promote brand presence. In 2023, consumers spent a record-breaking $9.8 billion online during Black Friday alone. While e-commerce channels are seeing strong growth in revenue generation, physical stores remain a significant sales channel during BFCM. 49% of shoppers prefer a mix of online and in-store shopping.
Retailers must seamlessly connect the online and physical experience to capitalise on this hybrid shopping trend. Modern shoppers value an omnichannel experience. By leveraging digital touchpoints and retail media, retailers can release the full potential of physical stores as a sales channel and use them to strengthen customer loyalty, drive engagement, and gather valuable consumer behaviour insights.
How can retailers achieve these goals? The digital receipt.
A digital receipt is more than just a digital version of a paper slip. It is a powerful marketing tool that can help retailers engage with their customers throughout their BFCM journey.
Here are 3 Ways Digital Receipts Can Help Physical Stores During BFCM.
1. Expand CRM with BFCM Promotions
A decisive part of the success of a retailer is successful on BFCM is if their promotion reaches their customer base. While marketers are going full force into the digital space, how about the customers who interact with the brand offline?
Physical stores can leverage digital receipts as an effective way to promote Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) deals ahead of time. By encouraging shoppers to subscribe to updates via channels like newsletters, WhatsApp, or branded apps during the checkout process, stores can build anticipation for upcoming promotions.
For example, Sonix’s BFCM discounts campaign in 2023 launched the Tuesday before BFCM, giving email subscribers exclusive access to the sales event.
Another great idea is to send customers constant reminders and updates, which is especially practical for price-sensitive customers. For example, Bed Threads included a countdown timer in its Black Friday promotion email. It creates a sense of urgency and encourages customers to take action now.
A bonus point that comes along is that retailers can expand their CRM databases simultaneously. Retailers can offer exclusive discounts or exclusive access to the sales event on certain channels. In this way, they can successfully gather contact information to expand their CRM.
2. Track Offline Conversions From Online Ads
The importance of data is on the rise in the retail space. More and more retailers are setting clear KPIs to measure the effectiveness of their BFCM marketing campaigns, tracking key metrics across different channels to understand what worked, what didn’t, and the reasons behind it to guide their future strategies.
While retailers are already proficient in tracking the key metrics of online ads for the BFCM campaign, they do not have the insight of offline purchases. Therefore, they miss out on data related to measuring conversion rate, ROI, and ROAS. Without the missing piece of in-store purchases, they do not have a holistic understanding of the effectiveness of the online campaigns, resulting in inaccurate allocation of budget and resources for future campaigns.
Retailers can use digital receipts to address this blind spot. Digital receipts, for example, provided by refive, enable retailers to connect offline purchases with online ads. The core functionality automatically notifies the retailer’s online ad platform when a conversion occurs in the physical store. The process involves issuing digital receipts to customers, which activate tracking pixels from online ad platforms when accessed and capture the data. This streamlined approach reduces friction at the point of sale and eliminates the need for customers to provide additional details. Through API integration, the system links specific purchase details, including items and costs directly to the ad platform. This ensures precise tracking of online-to-offline marketing ROI and creates a clearer picture of campaign performance for the marketer.
3. Foster Loyalty Via Personalised Offers
BFCM is not only a great opportunity to acquire new customers, but also to strengthen relationships with them post-BFCM. If the retailer does post-purchase follow-up correctly, they can eventually turn these one-time shoppers into loyal customers.
By leveraging digital receipts, retailers can gather valuable customer information during the BFCM when the shopper makes a purchase in-store. By analysing purchased items and purchase behaviour, retailers can identify price-sensitive customers and engage with them via personalised campaigns, offering them discounts, loyalty rewards, or exclusive offers, incentivising them to make multiple purchases and transform them into loyal customers.
This approach not only strengthens customer relationships but also maximises the long-term value of BFCM shoppers by keeping them engaged through relevant, data-driven marketing efforts.
Retail should not only see BFCM as a one-time sales-boosting event, but also leverage retail technology like digital receipts to gather customer insights, cultivate relationships, and foster loyalty and retention throughout the entire customer journey.
To learn more about how refive can help you with your BFCM campaigns, book a demo today.
