The Path to Purchase: What Retailers Can Do to Make it Easier on Customers This Holiday Season

The journey to purchase is not always a straight path, too many retail road bumps and unexpected detours can challenge even the most loyal customers. Keeping this in mind, how can merchants prepare now to keep their target consumers straight ahead on the path to purchase this holiday season? It’s time to think about AI. More specifically, incorporating AI-generated and optimized language to improve customer relationships on a personalized level, which will boost consumer engagement, interactions, retention, and make for an easier path to purchase, so merchants can reach and exceed their holiday goals.  

You may be worried that the holidays are already full speed ahead, but there is still time to introduce AI-optimized language to support your retail business. In fact, retailers who partner with AI can look forward to these advantages: 

Personalizing Customer Experiences with Language  

Retail decision makers know that personalization matters. This isn’t new news. But far too many merchants have not yet leveraged the promise of personalized language for truly personalized customer experiences to ease the path to purchase. By building on their Customer Data Platforms (CDP) with AI Language Generation Platforms, retailers can boost their abilities to create personalized customer content at scale. These enhanced customer experiences directly lead to increased engagement and transactions, ultimately forging stronger connections with brands and retailers, even when the path to purchase is bumpy. Easing these experiences and even bringing enjoyment to them through personalization, retailers can look forward to stronger customer experiences thanks to the personalization that CDP and AI Language Generation Platforms deliver. 

Creating More Connections and Building Customer Loyalty

With 82% of companies agreeing that customer retention is cheaper than acquisition, it should be on every retailer’s holiday to-do-list to build loyalty with their consumers. Customers have a lot of options when it comes to where they spend their dollars, so how can retailers more easily connect with them… especially during the holidays? Feeling a connection to a retailer or brand motivates customers to want to spend. As retail decision makers, this should be your motivation to capture customer attention. What makes customers want to engage with your brand? What are you providing them that no other brand does? Do your customers feel like you understand them? That you’re providing them the products, services, and authenticity they can’t get with any other brand experience? When it comes to your campaign expressions, social media distribution, emails, and other touch points, are your customers experiencing mass-market messaging or personalized language? All of these details matter.  Customers are inspired to action based on the message at each touchpoint, which can make or break their engagement. It’s more important than ever to give each customer a personalized experience with these messages to earn and keep their loyalty. This year, use language that shows value to the customer, respects their time, demonstrates appreciation for their spending and consideration in their shopping experience, to create loyalty among customers–not just during the holidays, but again and again and again. And since the holidays are about giving – not just receiving – retailers should prioritize their choice of language to ensure no matter what gift a customer needs to buy or present they want to get themselves, they’ll be on their path to purchase.

A More Personalized Holiday for Your Customer 

The holidays can be emotional, eventful and let’s face it, even exhausting. But when they need to be profitable, proactively plan now to best support both your customers and business goals. Leveraging Persado’s AI content generation and decisioning platform can unlock increased revenue for data-driven enterprises that is hidden in those customer journeys. The resulting language is highly effective, allowing the enterprise to personalize their customer’s holiday experiences at scale. This personalization can separate their business from others, keeping their customers on their path to purchase despite the twists and turns that this journey can often take. Even more compelling, Persado can tell you why customers are engaging, driving those data-driven insights back to your team for more successful holiday seasons not just this year, but every year.

Nicole Leinbach Reyhle is the Founder of RetailMinded.com, a well-respected retail industry resource that has been recognized worldwide for its leading business insight since 2007. With a core concentration on the business of retail and how the various touchpoints of commerce influence modern merchants, Reyhle is a frequent guest and contributor to various media outlets that have included The Today Show, Forbes, Entreprenuer.com and countless B2B publications. Additionally, Reyhle has supported American Express’s Small Business Saturday as a Spokesperson and is the Author of the book “Retail 101: The Guide to Managing and Marketing Your Retail Business” from McGraw-Hill. Recognized within the top 10 out 100 worldwide retail thought leaders since 2015 – including having held the #1 spot – and a retail “futurist” for IBM, Reyhle is also the Co-Founder of the Independent Retailer Conference. Learn more about Reyhle at RetailMinded.com.