Strategies for Engaging Customers During Peak Times

If live commerce isn’t in your 2025 strategy, you’re already losing market share. ✨ RM 3.8mil in GMV. 34.7mil product views. 60,406 items sold, in 30 days. The previous year, I did RM1.2mil in 30 days; this Yang Riang Raya campaign was a game-changer for us. We experimented, pushed boundaries, and most importantly, delivered results. 🚀 Here’s what made it work: 🎥 Trying Something New We uploaded pre-hype videos before the event and went full cinematic drama. Filming with cameras, crafting engaging storytelling, and negotiating prices live kept audiences hooked. We also filmed the videos with Dato Sri Siti Nurhaliza and Dato Sri Meer Habib, with views > 1mil each. 🌤️ Taking the Livestream Outdoors 99.9% of live-selling is done indoors on TikTok. The whole viewing experience are different for the viewers, the average viewing duration improved by 200%. Big thank you for Perbandanan Putrajaya, and Canon's team set up. 💸 Boosting with Ads Investing in ad boosting was another key factor in our success. By strategically running ads during the live sessions, we managed to attract more targeted audiences for the products we were selling. The result? A return on spend (ROS) of 5-10 times our ad investment. ⏰ Timing Matters We discovered that the sahur period (3am - 7am) and night hours (8pm-12am) were peak times for product demand, leading to higher engagement and sales. Knowing when your audience is most active can make a huge difference. 🤝 Brand Collaboration We also found that the brands that performed the best were those that actively supported us throughout the campaign. Brands that showed up, engaged with the process, and collaborated closely saw significantly better results. ⚡ Turning Viewers into Buyers—The FOMO Formula We didn’t just sell—we made people feel the rush of securing a deal before it was gone. Here’s how: 🔥 Build Anticipation Before the Drop – Instead of instantly adding products to the stream, we hyped them up. For example, before launching the viral Beg Kuning, we got viewers to comment “1” if they were ready. Only when we hit 100 comments then we release the link — but not before a suspenseful countdown! ⏳ Limited Quantity Sells – “Only 100 units available!” When people saw the stock count drop in real-time, it triggered instant action. No one wanted to be the one who missed out. 🎯 Educate, Then Convert – We made sure people fully understood the product before dropping the link. This meant that the moment it became available, they were ready to buy—no second-guessing, just instant conversion. 📊 Understanding Market Trends We sold what people wanted. By monitoring TikTok Shop rankings, product reviews, and audience sentiment, we identified the best Raya-related products and crafted strong narratives to make them irresistible. Is live-selling your next 8 months strategy? Let me know!

If your plan this weekend is to blast 3-4 disconnected promotions in the next few days, STOP and rethink your approach. Let me explain. Here's what most brands do: Thursday: "NATIONAL DONUT DAY SALE!" Friday: "FREE SHIPPING SALE!" Sunday: "FLASH SALE!" Monday: "20% OFF PANTS!" Your customers and prospects? They're drowning in discount fatigue. Try this instead: Create a cohesive event, not random promotions: Thursday: "Announcing our Biggest Clearance Event (Early Access Tomorrow)" Friday: "The Clearance Event is LIVE" Sunday: "Clearance Event Update: Top sellers almost gone" Monday: "Final Hours: Clearance Event Ends Tonight" But the real magic isn't just in connected messaging. It's also in strategic audience narrowing - here's an example: Send 1: 120-day engaged + all purchasers (cast wide net) Send 2: 60-day engaged + clicked previous email (tighten focus) Send 3: 30-day engaged + didn't purchase yet (target the interested) Send 4: Engaged with previous emails but haven't purchased (final push) Then segment further by: First-time buyers vs. repeat customers Price-sensitive vs. premium shoppers Category preferences And layer in SMS for high-intent signals, less batch and blast. Only text people who clicked but didn't purchase Or for time sensitive messages: Final "hours left" reminder From my experience, this approach doubled the average click-through rate and revenues. Stop treating each promotion as an isolated discount. Start creating a narrative that builds anticipation and focuses on your most engaged audiences. Leverage the power of event marketing in email and sms. Real strategy will increase your revenue. What's your go to for your email and sms marketing strategy?

Holiday shoppers are like shooting stars—bright, exciting, but often fleeting. The real challenge? Turning those one-time buyers into loyal customers who stick around long after the decorations come down. Chances are you're about to get a significant influx of new customers. Here's how to keep them engaged for the long haul: 1.) Send Customized, On-Brand Post-Holiday Emails The time right after a customer makes a purchase is when their affinity for your brand is at its peak. They're excited about their decision and can't wait to get their hands on your product. So why do so many brands use dry, boring follow-up emails? This is an opportunity to send a personalized message, share tips and tutorials, or surprise and delight them with an exclusive offer. Pretty much anything other than a plain, boring "Thanks For Your Purchase!" email would be an improvement. 2.) Build And Promote A Customer Loyalty Program This may seem obvious, but having a customer loyalty program can do wonders for your repeat purchase rate. Where most brands get things wrong is they cut corners by using off-the-shelf platforms that have bland default settings. This is a time to lean into your customer research and build a meaningful loyalty program that offers customers incentives they actually want in exchange for buying products they actually need. Once you get the terms and offers dialed in, use behavior-based email marketing to keep your loyalty program top of mind and generate repeat purchases on a regular basis. 3.) Create Personalized Offers That Build A Brand Community By now, you're probably sensing a trend – using cookie cutter templates is killing your brand. Don't treat your subscribers and customers like just another transaction. Remember, there's a real person behind that screen, and they're experiencing many of the same wins, frustrations, concerns, and emotions you are. The more you can personalize your marketing messages to their unique situation, the more they'll feel like they're part of a community, not a customer base. Don't sell to them. Make them feel like they're a part of your brand journey. At the end of the day, building customer loyalty is about creating meaningful relationships through consistent communication. Here's your checklist for maximizing the long-term impact of your BFCM efforts: ✓ Make a solid first impression with a personalized post-purchase experience ✓ Create and promote a customer loyalty program that's actually appealing ✓ Treat your customers like members of a community ✓ Use hyper-relevant offers to stay top of mind Do all of this, and you'll not only improve your repeat purchase rate, you'll also recruit a large (and growing!) army of lifelong brand advocates.

December is a huge month for eCommerce, and there’s a lot you can do to keep momentum going throughout the month. Let’s talk about last-minute shoppers. These buyers are in panic mode, and they’re ready to spend. Highlight “Guaranteed Delivery by Christmas” across your site and ads. Add countdown timers to drive urgency. One brand I worked with saw 40% more conversions in those final two weeks just by focusing on speed and convenience. Now, gift cards. After mid-December, they should be your main offer. They solve the “I don’t know what to get” problem and still feel thoughtful. A brand saw a 50% boost in gift card sales by promoting them early and offering a simple bonus—like $10 extra for every $100 purchased. Then there’s the “12 Days of Christmas” approach. It’s a surefire way to get people coming back. A beauty brand saw a 30% increase in average order value by running a daily deal campaign. The secret? Keeping customers engaged with something new each day. Post-holiday shoppers are just as important. After Christmas, people are redeeming gift cards or looking for deals. That same beauty brand ran a Boxing Day sale and pulled in 20% more revenue than expected just by extending their sale through the end of the year. Finally, let’s talk cart recovery. December is chaotic, and people get distracted. One brand added free gift wrapping and fast shipping to their abandoned cart emails and recovered 25% of carts. It’s simple but works. The takeaway? December is a goldmine if you stay active. From last-minute shoppers to post-holiday deals, there’s a ton of opportunity to end the year strong.

Big sale seasons do not test your discounts. They test your ability to handle conversations at scale. When Being Human Clothing prepared for one of their largest sale windows of the year, the expectation was clear: massive traffic spikes, a surge of first-time shoppers, mounting pressure on support teams, and the risk of long wait times Most brands focus on demand generation during peak moments. Very few invest equally in demand management. Instead of waiting for support queues to overflow, Being Human chose to scale intelligence. They deployed a custom AI agent, BH Buddy, across their channels in just a few days. The assistant handled product discovery, order queries, billing, refunds, returns, and general support, all managed through a unified dashboard. During a crucial sales window, the system handled real shopper conversations in real time The outcome was not just operational stability, it was measurable impact: • 115,000 messages handled in 20 days • 2.5x surge in queries on the peak sale day • 88.6% positive customer sentiment What stands out here is not just volume. It is resilience. AI did not replace the human team. It reduced pressure, captured context, resolved routine queries, and escalated complex conversations intelligently. Peak performance today requires more than marketing firepower. It requires conversational infrastructure that can scale as confidently as your traffic does. That is the real differentiator. Farooq | Sreeraman | Ragini | Ronak | Salman | Kushan | Jigar | Sumit | Abhay| Abhishek | Faizan | Jimesh

Marketers, throw out your one-size-fits-all holiday plan. Intuit Mailchimp’s latest research, Holiday Shopping Unwrapped, shows that the holiday shopping season is a multi-month journey with distinct phases, each defined by a different shopper mindset. Think of this as a teaser for all the valuable insights in the report. The key to winning is understanding this "ebb and flow" and aligning your marketing to meet customers where they are. Let’s break down the 7 different phases and archetypal shopping behaviors within each: 1. Early Lead-Up (Oct 1 - 31): The season kicks off with Gift-Giving Lifers, the early birds motivated by preparedness. They want to get their shopping done before the frenzy. Cater to them by reframing messaging around smart, joyful planning. 2. Pre-Peak Sales (Nov 1 - mid-Nov): This phase is for Joyful Shoppers, who are more deliberate in their purchases. They are motivated by joy and nostalgia, not just savings. Win them over by highlighting emotionally resonant products that offer meaning and connection. 3. Peak Sales (Mid-Nov - Nov 30): This is for the Discount Devotees. They are driven by the pursuit of a great deal and the fear of missing out (FOMO). Appeal to their sense of reward and make them feel like they've "outsmarted the system." 4. Festive Phase (Dec 1 - mid-Dec): Meet the Curators. They're not just looking for deals; they're searching for something special with a story behind it. To capture them, shift from transactional marketing to emotional storytelling. 5. Last-Minute Sprint (Mid-Dec - Observational Days): The pressure is on for the Last-Minute Listers. They're anxious about gifts arriving on time. Brands can become problem-solvers by offering practical, low-friction solutions like express delivery or in-store pickup options. 6. Betwixtmas (Observational Days - Dec 30): This is the indulgent phase for the Self-Gifters. After weeks of giving, they're focused on rewarding themselves with the things they really wanted. Leverage this "me-first" mentality with messaging that shifts from "giving" to "gratifying.” 7. New Year (New Year's Eve - Early Jan): The focus shifts to renewal and self-improvement for the Self-Improvers. They are motivated by resolutions and a desire for a fresh start. Campaigns should emphasize savings and progress-oriented purchases to help them start fresh. My key takeaway for marketers: It’s not just a singular opportunity ahead of you. So be agile. Use data to understand your audience's emotional state. Then, tailor your email and SMS strategy to each phase. Your marketing should match the ebb and flow of the season—not just be a list of promotions. ↑ That’s your strategic roadmap. Get your free copy of the report: https://lnkd.in/eupdY9VP

Every VP of Ecommerce should study how Orolay unlocked a 13.5% purchase rate boost using AMC. (You’ll want to bookmark this!) BACKGROUND: Orolay had some clear goals: - Understand their customer journey across multiple devices and platforms. - Pinpoint how ad exposure timing impacted conversions. - Reallocate budgets to maximize ROI during peak seasons. So they leveraged AMC and Xmars to do a deep analysis and take strategic action. 3 PART AMC ANALYSIS: (1) Leveraged AMC to analyze SP and DSP campaigns, focusing on customer consideration and conversion stages across multiple devices and inventory sources. (2) Used Xmars’ proprietary modeling to identify key touchpoints, interaction sequences, and media combinations driving conversions, revealing that multiple touchpoints increased purchase likelihood by 23x. (3) Studied the timing of ad exposures, finding a significant drop in performance after 9 p.m. and correlations between exposure times and conversion rates. 4 ACTIONS TAKEN: (1) Deployed a strategy combining DSP and SP to maximize customer touchpoints and drive higher conversion rates. (2) Recalibrated the funnel to emphasize upper-funnel tactics early in the customer journey, followed by SP ads, increasing purchase rates by 4x. (3) Adjusted ad schedules to focus on peak performance times, avoiding periods of low efficiency like after 9 p.m. (4) Shifted 16% of the budget from SP to DSP during the 2022 peak season to improve media efficiency and ROI. THE RESULTS: - 13.5% boost in purchase rates - 7% increase in new-to-brand purchases - 300% better Deal of the Day cost-per-view performance compared to the previous year For anyone working on better utilizing AMC, this is a great playbook to run. Props to Orolay and the team for showing what’s possible with AMC. #Ecommerce #Amazon #AMC #Xmars

You buy a new high-end espresso machine… But it’s not just a new coffee maker… It’s a chance to know everything about a new category. Before you know it, you’re watching every tutorial, joining forums and even considering buying Arabica beans for the most premium flavor. That’s Customer Momentum Customer momentum is a powerful surge of excitement and engagement a customer feels right after making a purchase. But here’s the problem: most eCom brands completely IGNORE this. Let’s break this down: When a customer feels excited about their purchase, they’re in a prime state to engage with your brand: → They’re more likely to open your emails → Follow you on social media → Make additional purchases ($$$) But if all you’re doing is sending them DRY emails saying “thank you for your purchase…” You’re WASTING this momentum. Here’s what you should be doing instead to channel this momentum: Post-Purchase Flows: Right after the purchase, send personal text-based emails from a character inside the brand (founder, CEO, etc). Then point them to valuable content like a tutorial on how to use the product, tips for getting the best flavour or stories from other customers. Make sure everything feels personal. Exclusive offers: Show your customers how much you value them by sending them extra discounts and deals. An extra 10% off their next purchase or a discount bundle deal will get them excited to shop for your products. -> Bonus point: introduce them to adjacent, non-competing product lines for a nice LTV boost. Invite them to a community: Your customers shouldn’t be just another sale to you. They’re actual people with different values, interests, and personalities. Address that. After they purchase their product, you need to make them feel like they’re a part of something bigger than themselves. Tap into that emotional side of them that wants to feel like they belong to something. GymShark, for example, is amazing at this. They market their apparel for the "dream chasers". It’s more than just a pair of shorts. They’re the shorts you show up in daily to chase your dreams and achieve your health goals. It’s inspiring, motivating, uplifting. It’s that bigger message of belonging that’ll keep your customers coming back for more of that feeling. A customer in motion will stay in motion IF you can keep that initial excitement alive. IF you make them feel like more than a sale. That’s how you create a customer for a lifetime and keep them coming back. Customer Momentum.

I’ve been watching El Ezaby Pharmacy’s recent move with a lot of respect. It’s rare to see a major healthcare brand move that quickly and hit the perfect note between cultural relevance and brand utility. They didn't just "report" the news; they translated a government mandate into a competitive advantage. By using the viral "After 9:00 PM... don't be late" hook, they transformed a potential public inconvenience into a reminder of their 24/7 reliability. It’s a masterclass in high-agility marketing. But the real question is: What happens at 9:01 PM? To turn this viral spike into a sustainable growth engine for their e-commerce app and website, I’ve put together a few tactical recommendations from a marketing perspective: 1. Shift the Habit, Not Just the Message The goal is to migrate the "walk-in" customer to the "app-user." I’d introduce a "9:00 PM Peace of Mind" incentive—offering free delivery or loyalty points exclusively for orders placed through the app after the curfew. This turns the restriction into a reward for going digital. 2. Contextual Content People are now spending more time at home after 9:00 PM. This is the prime window to promote "Wellness at Home" categories on the website—skincare, vitamins, or baby essentials. Instead of just selling medicine, you're selling the convenience of a late-night pharmacy that fits in your pocket. 3. The "Midnight Hero" Campaign Position the app as the solution to the "I forgot" moment. • The Concept: Short video clips showing that 9:05 PM realization that you're out of diapers or headache meds. • The Resolution: A quick tap on the El Ezaby app while the rest of the street is dark. 4. Precision Retargeting Use the data. If a user engaged with the viral post but hasn't downloaded the app, retarget them with a direct link to the app store. Use the headline: "The city closed at 9. We didn’t. Get the app for 24/7 access." Virality is the spark, but tactical execution is the fuel. By aligning their e-commerce goals with the city's new rhythm, El Ezaby can move from being a "reactive" brand to a "proactive" partner in the customer's new daily routine.

How a Real Estate Brokerage Maintained Lead Follow-Up During Peak Season with a Dedicated VA Peak seasons in real estate are a double-edged sword — a surge in leads brings immense opportunity but also the risk of lead leakage when follow-ups fall through the cracks. One of our clients, a real estate brokerage, faced this exact challenge. Here’s how they leveraged a dedicated VA to keep lead follow-ups consistent without overwhelming their core team: 1. Centralized Lead Management When lead volume spikes, CRM data can get chaotic. The VA became the hub for CRM updates — logging every interaction, call, and email to keep all lead info up-to-date. Result: Sales reps had a real-time snapshot of lead status, preventing missed follow-ups. 2. Structured Follow-Up Cadence Leads can go cold quickly without timely touchpoints. The VA set up a daily follow-up cadence: Reviewing CRM entries each morning to identify overdue follow-ups Personalizing outreach templates to keep leads engaged Setting up CRM alerts for crucial follow-up stages A VA-managed follow-up schedule ensures consistent communication without overloading your sales team. 3. Delegating Routine CRM Updates Rather than piling CRM tasks onto sales reps, the VA handled: Data entry after every call, demo, or email Follow-up reminders for warm leads End-of-day reports summarizing lead activity With this, reps could focus on closing deals instead of chasing CRM updates. 4. Asynchronous Workflows When schedules get hectic, communication can break down. The VA implemented a workflow that kept follow-ups moving forward without waiting for approvals: Pre-approved follow-up templates allowed VAs to reach out independently Priority leads were flagged in CRM, ensuring urgent follow-ups got immediate attention Daily summaries kept everyone aligned without constant check-ins Scaling lead management during peak seasons doesn’t always require hiring more staff. Sometimes, it’s about reallocating routine tasks to a dedicated VA who can maintain CRM updates, standardize follow-up cadences, and keep leads warm — all while your core team focuses on closing deals. Are your lead follow-ups airtight as you head into your busiest season? Comment below and let’s talk about strategies for staying ahead