Although the vast majority of New Year’s resolutions are destined to fail before the end of the second month, people continue to be optimistic and make a new one with every annual turn of the calendar. As a merchant, you can harness the power of your customers’ newfound determination to boost your own sales, while at the same time potentially increasing the chances that the one making the resolution will succeed.
What are the most common types of New Year’s resolutions?
There are several common themes when it comes to making a pledge for the new year. They include the following.
- Padding income or making more money.
- Getting healthier, losing weight, or getting into shape.
- Quitting a habit such as smoking.
- Achieving a long-term goal.
- Enhancing happiness or feelings of well-being.
As a seller, you can tap into the power of these pledges by crafting marketing and customer relationship campaigns that focus on helping buyers meet or exceed these promises.
Help users maximize the impact of their purchases and integrate them into their resolutions.
Take, for example, someone who wants to become more physically fit and healthy. You may have succeeded in selling them a long-term fitness center membership with a contract attached, but this is just the beginning of what you can do. Your payment processing for gyms software is equipped to allow for ongoing communication with this new member, making it possible to provide additional value to their original purchase. That might be in the form of time-sensitive incentives to come in and work out, discounts on protein drinks and energy bars purchased at your health center, videos on how to gain maximum benefit from various pieces of equipment, and so forth. In the end, this extra attention will simultaneously validate the initial expenditure of money that the customer has accomplished while boosting motivation.
Attract new buyers with product demos and community-enhancing content.
Running a successful business involves much more than just having a retail merchant account and offering a few products or services. If you really want to stand out from your competition, you need to build a brand that is surrounded and bolstered by a dynamic community of loyal customers.
Accomplishing this feat is no accident; it will involve a lot of hard work on your part. Creating fresh content, posting it to your customers’ preferred social media sites (as well as your own webpages), and interacting directly with shoppers and online visitors will eventually lead to a rich community that can take your brand to the next level. One of the best ways to foster this atmosphere is by linking with some of your most motivated patrons, i.e., the ones who have already demonstrated through their New Year’s resolutions that they want to live out their commitments.
Enhance your website.
You already know that your website is often the first glimpse that new customers have into your business. Additionally, it connects regular buyers to your store every time they click, cluing them in to updated products and promotions.
Since resolutions represent a time of change, let your online presence reinforce the optimistic mood and drive sales simultaneously. This can be done through resolution-specific store categories such as “achieving your money goals,” “crushing your physical fitness aspirations,” etc. Spotlight products that span a wide range of prices. Also, focus on items that have several ratings and reviews to ensure that people can read about how this merchandise has helped other buyers.
Provide product success stories.
Keeping a New Year’s resolution can start to feel like a lonely, uphill battle after just a few weeks. Providing customers with a steady stream of encouragement in the form of first-person narratives about how your product helped them to achieve their goals can go a long way toward transforming a promise into a long-term habit. If you don’t already have this customer-generated content, make an effort to solicit it from existing buyers. In the meantime, write about your own experience with the product, including what impressed you about it and inspired you to start selling it.
Use analytics to target resolution-specific messages.
Whether your business uses CBD payment processing or markets to a more conventional demographic, you already have a point of sale system that keeps track of a wide array of purchase data, including shopper preferences and past buying behaviors. These data points can do more than help you predict future sales and build campaigns months in advance. You can also use them to guess the nature of shoppers’ resolutions.
For example, try looking back at a person’s purchases from the last two months of the year. If there seems to be a common theme (fitness tracking device, workout clothes, etc.) on your site, capitalize on this demonstrated trend by sending a targeted email. It might say something like, “We see a healthy future for you. Let us help you make the most of your resolution to get fit.” Once you do, you just might see a healthy increase in your sales.
Don’t let the upcoming holiday season go by without being prepared. Mount a strategy that recognizes and harnesses the power of your customers’ resolutions to improve their lives, and you might just see a rise in your profits as well!