The past holiday season has likely been a blur for many marketers, apps and E-commerce brand leaders. You carried through a robust merchandising strategy, delivered without shipping delays, optimized your engagement and marketing budget, rolled out creative and inspiring campaigns, acquired new holiday shoppers as customers, and engaged with otherwise inactive customers.

Now that the holiday rush is over, it can be tempting to bet on discounts to maintain momentum and attract new customers to keep the sales rolling in. However, acquiring new customers can be expensive, and relying on discounts can eat into your profit margins and hinder your ability to meet future revenue goals.

This post was first published on moengage.com.

Lucky for you, there is an immense opportunity to capitalize on post-holiday sales and stretch your success. And it doesn’t require you to bet on discounts, nor does it need you to spend time guessing how to attract new customers. Sounds implausible? We know. But there is a proven approach you can use to generate more sales and beat your competition without reducing the price of your merchandise. The answer lies in how you engage with your current customers.

Customers want to hear from you even after the busy holiday season

Despite the busy shopping season being over, customers still want to hear from businesses like yours on an ongoing basis. According to a consumer study by MoEngage, 39% of consumers in North America and Europe prefer to receive weekly communications from brands. Therefore, there is a substantial opportunity to engage with your customers post-holidays to nurture relationships that drive them to buy more.

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Source: MoEngage

When it comes to those engagements, personalization matters. And consumers can tell the difference between emails or push notifications containing their first name versus something more thoughtful like product recommendations that are provided on their preferred channel based on previous interactions or past purchases. In fact, 26% of the same consumers surveyed expect brands to personalize communications based on previous purchase history and 21% by interest.

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Source: MoEngage

4 Tips for long-term success

  • Maintain your momentum post-holidays and tap into your existing customer base to capture more sales.
  • Identify new post-holiday behaviors (repeat purchases, increased spend) and target customers with personalized messaging.
  • Don’t rely on discounts by default. Increase your ROI by implementing innovative retention strategies.
  • Use machine learning and real-time customer data to guide post-holiday promotional strategies.

Top brands’ strategies to adopt

MoEngage’s new post-holiday guide is meant to inspire you to get started by showcasing examples from brands that have unlocked the secret to maximizing post-holiday sales. It all comes down to intelligent segmentation and personalization:

  • Find out how Whole Foods switched one-time buyers to repeat buyers with relevant content.
  • Discover how Avon created an emotional response by rewarding a small segment of loyal customers with freebies.
  • Check how Expedia gains the trust of new customers by making a great first impression during onboarding.

In all, it’s important to remember that generating revenue after the holidays is not about how much you can discount – it’s all about how to deliver value to your customers and build strong, lasting relationships with them.

Download your post-holiday guide here to get all the answers you need.