Customer Reactivation Will Be on the Rise This Holiday Season: Experian

Retailers should expect two key themes for the holiday season: timing and targeting.

That’s the assessment of the annual holiday benchmark report from Experian Marketing Services, which contains trend information, predictive benchmark data and analytical insight from across the marketing landscape, giving marketers a more accurate and complete understanding of how consumers respond to holiday offers and when they begin thinking about their holiday shopping.

Channels such as e-mail, mobile, search, direct mail and social media are analyzed in the report, which also provides insight on the multichannel attitudes and behaviors of consumers in the United States and across the globe.

“Companies must make every dollar count this holiday season,” said Bill Tancer, general manager of global research at Costa Mesa, Calif.-based Experian. “Campaigns need to be affordable, executable, measurable and effective. Segmentation systems will be key to sorting and making sense of the myriad of consumer data needed to understand buyers and their behaviors. By leveraging the data and best practices in the holiday marketer report, marketers can better align offers to their customers and engage them more effectively.”

These key findings are included in the report:

--Twenty-six percent (the majority of American consumers) use the Internet to find bargains and discounts. America’s wealthiest consumers are one of the highest segments behind these searches
--While the number of U.S. adults who have ordered from a catalog has remained relatively stable over the past few years, 61 percent of catalog orders are placed online, compared with 50 percent in 2006
--The promotion of gift cards in holiday e-mail marketing messages more than tripled transaction rates for multichannel retailers last year
--Twenty-four percent of online consumers (with or without Web-enabled phones) say they expect to be comparing prices, and 22 percent expect to be purchasing items from their mobile phones in the next 12 months
--Customers are more likely to open e-mails that promote in-store-only offers, illustrating the powerful impact that online communications can have on offline sales
--The term “gift card” was extremely popular during the 2009 holidays, while searches for “discounted gift cards” experienced the highest increase, compared with 2008

To download Experian Marketing Services’ 2010 holiday trend report, visit http://www.experian.com/marketing-services/register-2010-holiday-marketer.html.