Zaius Study Reveals 40% Retail Marketers are Overlooking Omnichannel This Holiday Season

86 Percent Fail To Engage Customers At Every Purchase Location

Zaius, the leading B2C CRM that delivers real-time, cross-channel marketing automation and attribution built on a single customer view, announced the release of its 2017 Holiday Marketing Report, highlighting what’s on hundreds of retail marketers’ minds as the holiday season approaches. The study helps ecommerce and retail companies understand which marketing priorities and distribution strategies to focus on during one of the busiest and potentially most lucrative times of the year. The survey pulled insights from CMOs, CEOs, founders and marketing executives from businesses across the U.S.

The report findings uncover a variety of trends, including the following:

• Omnichannel: Omnichannel is a place for improvement. Forty percent of respondents don’t have any strategy in place, 46 percent are in the process of developing one, and only 14 percent say they execute omnichannel marketing well.
• Customization: The top areas of focus for marketers are segmentation (33 percent), personalization (31 percent) and optimization (20 percent), showing they are most concerned with delivering engaging and relevant content to their audiences.
• Traditional marketing: Browser and mobile push strategies are a missed opportunity for marketers, with only 2 percent taking advantage of these channels. The majority of marketers are prioritizing investment in traditional marketing strategies, including email campaigns (43 percent), social media campaigns (22 percent), and search/ad retargeting (27 percent), showing that marketers need to be educated on how to better engage with consumers across all channels and devices.

These findings confirm the need for a better understanding of why and how customers shop, and for the ability to engage those shoppers in a more individualized way. As Forrester Research found, consumers are increasingly empowered, with 42 percent of U.S. online adults researching products via online customer reviews weekly, if not daily. In the always-on age of commerce, retail marketers must deliver engaging messages in a seamless experience, at the right time, to persuade empowered customers to buy.

“In these survey results, we hear marketers’ frustration, ambition and dedication to their brands at a critical time of year. They know they need personalized and relevant content to convert potential buyers into customers, especially during busy seasons when consumers are overwhelmed with messages from brands. This data uncovers the path to help marketers overcome their frustration by leveraging omnichannel, marketing automation and B2C CRM solutions that can put them ahead this holiday season,” said Mark Gally, CEO, Zaius.