Happy Post-Holidays to Marketers: Focus Areas and How to Make it Count

Product Recommendations
For brand loyalists: Recommend products based on what customers purchased for the holidays and add incentives. They may use the discount themselves or pass it on to the person they bought the item for — e.g., video game offers for someone who purchased a gaming system. Identify and promote complementary products and accessories for big-ticket items, whether they bought it themselves or received as a gift.

For bargain hunters: This group is often looking for big-ticket items they wanted but didn't receive, as well as accessories and complementary products to the big-ticket items they did receive. They may also be looking for deals on the items which were considered hot items. They expect to see lower prices as a reward for their patience.

For gifters/retuners/exchangers: Product recommendations should be logical bundles and groupings for the product in question. Gift card recipients often spend above the gift card's value. Product bundles are a way to capture incremental sales.

Analytics are the key to understanding the “why” behind purchases. They enable targeted emails, focused messaging on your website, appealing post-holiday mailers and better in-store promotions. Using external data will help you get a better handle on the types of consumers coming to your site or store for the first time.

Conduct a quick test to determine which products, messages and offers should be promoted. Post-holiday follow-ups have a short window, so adjusting your campaign content will yield dividends. A good approach is to test online because it's quicker, then feed the learnings into other channels and campaigns.

Testing
With brand loyalists: Quickly test what messages are resonating with your brand loyalists. New Year's resolutions may or may not be a hit. Valentine's Day is coming up; do your customers want to buy the perfect gift?