5 marketing predictions for 2024

According to Forrester published last December, 2024 will be highly anticipated by consumers, particularly in terms of privacy and ecological impact. They want marketers to become privacy champions with Google's enforcement of third-party cookie deletion, while offering environmentally-friendly communication and products to go hand in hand with their convictions.

In concrete terms, what CRM functionalities can help you meet customer expectations and optimize your customer experience in the new year? Discover our 5 predictions for boosting your sales this year, starting with the sales!

1. Base your CRM strategy on available customer data

What if you added the adoption of a data-driven strategy to your list of good resolutions? After all, your most powerful growth lever is your customer. According to the economist and sociologist Vilfredo Pareto, 20% of your customers generate 80% of your sales (the 80/20 principle). These are more commonly known as your loyal customers. Whether or not they are members of your loyalty program, they buy your products on a regular basis.

In the new year, starting with the sales, it's important to identify these high-potential customers. Shopping behaviors, online interactions, engagement with your campaigns, etc.: all this data needs to be properly centralized and reconciled in your Customer Data Platform (CDP).

Once the data has been collected, it needs to be combed through to enable you to activate the right person at the right time, with the right content. In fact, the unified data in your CDP will enable you to personalize your communications by highlighting special offers based on people's purchase history and preferences, and recommending products likely to interest them.

Find out all our tips for maximizing data exploitation in the era of data compliance rules in our guide.

2. Use exclusivity to engage your loyalty program members

Make members of your loyalty program that they have exclusivity is an excellent way of reinforcing their commitment to your brand and rewarding their loyalty.

By putting a few actions in place during peak selling periods (or all year round!), you'll be able to offer them a more personalized experience and give yourself every chance of generating additional sales:

• Specific benefits: offer specific benefits to members of your loyalty program. This can include additional discounts or exclusive items reserved for members.
• Early access to promotions: open the doors of your stores or website in advance to members of your loyalty program, so that they can enjoy a quiet moment before the rush of sales or at the time of your private sales. You can combine this early opening with additional benefits such as refreshments, personalized advice or small gestures.
• Involvement: ask your loyal customers for their opinion on the upcoming sales season, and encourage their participation. For example, you could organize a survey to gather their preferences and adapt your offers accordingly.

3. Use AI to detect new sales opportunities

Artificial intelligence is gradually making its way into CRM, notably via predictive CDP tools - such as Splio Predictive AI. This trend is set to continue this year, according to the brands surveyed in our barometer of AI in CRM barometer last summer. In fact, 74% of them told us they intend to start using AI by the end of 2024.

Predictive CDPs will be your allies this year in setting yourself apart from the competition! Thanks to the artificial intelligence embedded in these tools, you'll be able to offer even more personalized customer experiences than before, and thus achieve the sales targets you've set yourself.

Here are a few use cases for AI in CRM that you might find useful:

• Predictive Audience: AI can be used to assign scores to your core contacts based on a variety of criteria, such as online behavior, interactions with your content, and so on. This will enable your teams to focus their efforts on the most promising customers and prospects.
• Predictive analytics: predictive analytics algorithms use AI to assess customers' past behavior and predict their future actions. This can help your CRM teams target prospects/customers more effectively and anticipate their needs.
• Proactive opportunity management: predictive CDPs can help identify opportunities for cross-sell (suggesting an accessory to go with the product purchased, for example) or upsell (recommending products from the next range up that might interest the customer).
• Offer personalization: AI can analyze customer data to identify trends and individual preferences. Your CRM teams can then offer product recommendations to increase their chances of conversion.

4. Test new communication channels

There's THE channel not to be forgotten when it comes to customer relations in 2024: WhatsApp. With 38.7 million unique users per month in France, according to BDM, WhatsApp is the country's second most-used social platform after Facebook.

Thanks to its popularity, the app makes communication between a brand and its customers very accessible: no special installation is required, since the vast majority of customers already have the app on their phone. WhatsApp also enables real-time communication, improving the customer experience through fast, efficient assistance. Finally, as with all apps, brands can use WhatsApp to send push notifications to inform customers about current promotions or special offers.

Beyond WhatsApp, other communication channels need to be added to brands' CRM strategy this year. These include :

• SMS, which made a comeback for the Black Friday 2023,
• wallet push notifications, sent via a loyalty card or dematerialized coupon in the Mobile Wallets of the customer.

5. Limit your marketing pressure

We keep reminding you, but the right balance of marketing pressure is crucial. And all the more  during sales peaks such as winter sales. All retailers will be sending out communications on the same day to promote their current promotions. The overall marketing pressure felt by customers should therefore be quite considerable.

Beyond the finer segmentation, even intelligence thanks to AI, and personalization mentioned above, marketing pressure can also be limited via other levers:

• Calendar designed for sales (or any commercial peak): make sure you don't concentrate all your promotions on a short period of time, but rather on the whole month, to keep customers interested in your communications for the whole edition.
• Frequency of communication: reduce the frequency of your marketing campaigns during commercial chestnuts, and vary the channels of communication. This will prevent your customers from feeling overwhelmed.
• Quality content: instead of focusing your communications solely on offers and discounts, create content that adds value to the customer's experience with your brand. This can be done, for example, by highlighting your brand values.

In short, the key is to maintain a balance between promoting your offers and respecting your customers' preferences. A strategic, personalized approach will help limit marketing pressure while maximizing the effectiveness of your campaigns during the sales season.

Now you're ready to face the winter sales and start the year on the right foot! While these tips are particularly useful during the seasonal sales season, they're just as useful during the rest of the year, to deepen customer commitment to your brand and give you every chance of converting in 2024!