If you're in business, you know that spending is usually highest between mid-August, starting with the back-to-school rush, to late February, ending with Valentine's Day. This period of higher spending is called consumer season—and there are ways you can get ahead of it as a business owner.

When consumer season starts, it’s vital that retailers, brands, and online marketplaces are ready to hit the ground running. It can be difficult to keep up with demand, that is, unless you have the help of automation. In this post, we share how automation can give you the edge at every stage of the buyer journey this consumer season and explain how Wrk can help you do it.

Gathering market data

Even though business might be more brisk during consumer season and customers are looking for products and services just like yours, this means your competition will also be experiencing an influx of business activity. Not to mention that consumer trends change daily. It's paramount to the success of your marketing efforts that you access the right types of data so that you can stand out from the competition and consumers see you as the best option.

However, collecting market data can be a time-consuming endeavour for your Marketing team. One way to help overcome this is by gathering relevant market data with our Automated Market Research Workflows, which can give you more insight about what people are looking for so you can better scale your efforts. They also allow flexibility to change tact where necessary. If you’re so focused on accessing one area of the market and realize there are other aspects you may not have considered, our Wrkflows can be altered at any time to suit your needs.

Marketing automation can help keep your team on top of consumer trends, which can change frequently. New consumer behaviours appear each year. What worked two years ago may not work to attract your desired audience today.

For example, automation can help personalize offers by utilizing deep data analysis that includes how people are engaging with your brand and from where. This not only helps with customized emails—it can also improve the experience for the client (in real-time) through behavioural segmentation based on their purchasing decisions.

These marketing and sales automation tools also free up your Marketing team to focus on other projects such as email drip or brand awareness campaigns. With more of your resources available, your team can better develop campaigns to target potential customers with your newest products and services.

Powerful targeted personalized emails

With the right sales and marketing data, you can also create an effective email marketing campaign to reach potential clients. While you might not have considered email marketing as part of your marketing mix up to now, statistics show it can be a very powerful tool in boosting your business. In fact, email can generate $42 in revenue for every dollar you spend on email marketing, an overall 4,200% return on investment.

When it comes to marketing automation, there's a major advantage: instead of mass mailing the same message to your entire customer list, automation can ensure each message is personalized to the recipient.

It's also a lot less time consuming for your Marketing team than manually tailoring each message, which is especially relevant during consumer season. This more customized email marketing strategy can boost email open rates by up to 760%! That's because a personalized email will create a more human connection, as opposed to a mass email that might appear to customers as spam.

Personalized Email Marketing Wrkflows go the extra mile to make your customers feel like you're treating them like the individual that they are. And just as importantly, they'll also receive information and offers tailored to them that they’ll be more inclined to act on.

Guide potential customers through the conversion funnel

You want your Sales team to focus on two major tasks: identifying quality leads and converting as many leads to customers as possible. However, that can be easier said than done, especially if your team doesn’t have the tools it needs to succeed. Sales automation can fill this void and help your employees handle the busy consumer season more seamlessly.

For example, automated list building and lead scoring helps save time and energy usually spent crunching numbers while helping your Sales team target potential customers that are more likely to convert to sales. Lead Nurturing Wrkflows automate the process, eliminating the need for follow-up as the lead is automatically taken through each phase of the conversion funnel.

Sales automation not only helps eliminate repetitive tasks that sap time and effort from your team. With automated list building, your team doesn’t have to routinely aggregate and parse data to maintain the database of qualified leads.

Automation can also give your team better insights into identifying potential leads by classifying the leads and researching how your products and services will benefit them.

Answering customer queries quickly

How fast you respond to a customer query might be the difference between closing a sale and losing it to a competitor with similar prices.

If you don’t respond in a reasonable amount of time, remember that a competitor is waiting eagerly to scoop up your potential lead. If you don’t believe it, consider this: research has shown that if you don’t reply to a customer within an hour, you may have already lost them for good to someone else.

It's only natural that a potential customer will want to do some homework before purchasing a product or service. They may also have some questions for you before they make the decision to buy. This is a case where automated responses and chatbots can give the client the information they need in a hurry.

Answering questions efficiently is part of the customer experience, which can be enhanced by a Customer Support Wrkflow. You'll want to be able to earn trust with a client from the start and that means responding quickly at any point during the customer journey.

After you’ve made the sale

If you've made it to this point, that's good news! Congratulations on successfully turning a lead into a sale. However, while you've achieved that goal, it doesn’t mean the work is done yet.

What you do after the transaction takes place is every bit as important as making the sale, especially if you're looking to build a long-term professional relationship with the customer.

One way to build brand trust and excel in post-sale service is by keeping customers informed of their order status. You can save time from manually checking on orders with Automated Supply Chain Tracking Wrkflows to ensure your shipments arrive on schedule, right down to the delivery time. Not to mention that if there does happen to be a delay, customers can be informed before it becomes an issue.

In the event that there is a problem with an order, it can be time-consuming for your team to sort it out. That's where Automated Ticket Resolutions and Ticket Routing & Escalation Wrkflows come into the picture. These automated tools can ensure queries are handled by the right people in a timely and efficient manner, taking some pressure off your Customer Support team.

Personalized customer service—which also includes custom offers in email marketing campaigns—is one of the most important ways to retain clients.

Automated solutions for every stage of the buyer journey throughout consumer season

Consumer season is real, and so is the need for automation to help your Sales, Marketing, and Customer Support teams manage the influx of activity.

From the initial discovery phase to tracking a customer's order, automation can help you take advantage of the busier time on the calendar—while also freeing up some staff time and resources for other important functions.

Check out Wrk's Marketing and Sales solutions to learn more!