How First-Party Data Enrichment Helps Retailers Prepare for the Holiday Season

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are just around the corner. In fact, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF):

• 59 percent of consumers started shopping for the 2020 holidays in early November; and
• by late November, 85 percent of consumers had already started their 2020 holiday season shopping.

Furthermore, despite the pandemic, 2020 holiday sales still grew 8.3 percent. However, due to the rising cost of goods, retailers have some other obstacles to overcome for the 2021 holiday season.

2021 Retail Holiday Landscape

According to Salesforce, retailers face an extra $223 billion in the cost of goods this holiday season due to inflation. This is a year-over-year jump in freight, manufacturing and labor costs.

Salesforce also reports in its Shopping Index that the average order value (AOV) was up 17 percent year-over-year. However, the number of items consumers purchased decreased by 1 percent — compared to a 6 percent increase over the same period last year. Essentially, consumers are spending more for less.

According to McKinsey & Company, 75 percent of U.S. consumers tried a new shopping behavior because of economic pressure, store closings, and changing priorities. This includes the acceleration of the adoption of online shopping. This is just one more thing retailers must keep in mind as they prepare holiday promotions and their omnichannel retail marketing strategy.

What Does This Mean for Retailers for the 2021 Holiday Season?

Retailers need to make an effort to meet consumers in the digital channels they’re utilizing, including email, social and SMS. Retailers must engage in omnichannel marketing and commerce this holiday season to ensure a return.

A deeper understanding of target consumer audiences is of the utmost importance for retailers vying for consumer attention and dollars. First-party data enrichment offers retailers a solution.

Understanding First-Party Data Enrichment

First-party data enrichment involves enhancing the customer and prospect data that retail marketers have collected through organic list-building practices such as e-newsletter subscriptions, content downloads, customer loyalty programs, etc., via a third-party data enhancement service.

How Retailers Can Benefit From Enriching First-Party Data

Enriching first-party data with third-party data offers retail marketers deeper insights into customer demographics, cross-channel behavior, postal addresses, interests, and more.

Armed with this information, retail marketers can improve consumer list segmentation to tailor better targeted offers to meet each consumer in their preferred channel with an offer that really resonates, maximizing conversions.

For example, Amy shopped with your company last year. You’d like to target her (and others like her) in a direct mail campaign. You have her email address, first and last name in your CRM system. First-party data enrichment with a third-party data enhancement service can give you her postal address. It can also offer more information about Amy's household income or if she has any children in her home. It’s not difficult to imagine how these few extra pieces of data about who Amy is could help retail marketers craft a message that resonates with her much more effectively.

Another example might be that you would like to reach out to the customers in your database, but you don’t have a current email address for them. If you have a first name, last name and postal address in your CRM software, a data enhancement service could identify a likely email address for you. A data enhancement service can also identify customer demographics and household income. With this additional customer insight, you could create an extremely personalized and compelling campaign. It’s important to note that you must follow any GDPR or consent to communicate guidelines for your country or state when creating email campaigns.

The Takeaway

With consumers spending more money on fewer items, retailers must leverage every piece of data they can to target consumers as effectively as possible this holiday season. First-party data enrichment with a third-party data enhancement service will allow retail marketers to do just that.

Melissa McGaughey is director of marketing at Webbula, the undisputed industry leader in email hygiene, data enhancement, and audience targeting services.