Not long ago, the rapid expansion of e-commerce elicited many predictions of the end of the road for brick and mortar retail. One can sympathize with those miscalculations because, after all, convenience is an integral part of customer satisfaction. As it turns out, customers also like immersive, interactive and experiential engagement of the kind that only real life can provide. However, this doesn’t mean that brick and mortar retail is outside the purview of technology. On the contrary, marketing automation – as a means to enhance human interactions – is a powerful tool for both kinds of retail.
Savvy businesses – including several start-ups in the e-commerce domain – have realized the value of the in-store experience. It is not just a conservative or old school demographic that seeks out brick and mortar retail outlets, the preference – as one significant aspect of complex purchasing behaviors – is near universal. Nevertheless, e-commerce and online shopping has indeed habituated customers to personalized experiences and emotional connection, which can be hard to provide each customer in a real-world environment. It is in this context that marketing automation can step in to reconcile the strengths of seemingly contrary worlds.
Microsoft Dynamics 365, and the Engage 365 solution built on it, dramatically enhance customer engagement for retail businesses – by delivering the combined capacities of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Social Engagement, Power BI and Azure. The ability to track, report and interpret data points within Microsoft Dynamics 365 allows for very specific marketing segmentation, all accessible through a functional and intuitive dashboard. The program’s highly integrated and personalized communication, surveys and marketing initiatives – with synchronized delivery across multiple channels – greatly enhance the ability of retail outlets to create a connection with each individual client.
5 ways marketing automation can benefit retail businesses
It’s well understood that the emotional component of a purchasing decision is usually significant and never completely negligible. Retail businesses have always vied to create a connection with their target audiences, in order to best address this. With the changes in customer behaviour, several alternative avenues to make purchases through and the 24/7 convenience of being able to transact without ever having to leave one’s home, retail businesses are faced with significant challenges. Here are five ways in which marketing automation can help optimize customer engagement.
Conclusion
Marketing automation can help create a sense of belonging and personalized experiences for a large number of clients, which would be impossible to coordinate or deliver manually. It is an invaluable tool to nurture engagement and reinforce relationships between your business and you customers. To understand how Microsoft Dynamics 365 can help your business engage with its customers better, please reach out to us at marketing@levtechconsulting.com.