In an exclusive interview with CanadianSME Small Business Magazine, Greg Zakowicz, Sr. Ecommerce Expert at Omnisend, shares his extensive insights into ecommerce marketing strategies, especially during the competitive holiday season. With nearly two decades of experience in email, SMS, and social media marketing, Greg has helped over 100 DTC companies, including top global retailers, optimize their sales and build customer loyalty.
Greg highlights key holiday shopping trends, such as the rise of self-gifting and thoughtful spending, while offering actionable strategies for small businesses to thrive in challenging economic conditions. From leveraging value-driven marketing to implementing behavior-based automations, Greg’s advice empowers businesses to build stronger connections with customers and maximize revenue.
Looking ahead to 2025, Greg emphasizes the importance of first-party marketing channels like email and SMS, sharing how small businesses can effectively compete with retail giants by fostering customer loyalty, promoting competitive differentiators, and increasing profitability through direct communication.
Greg Zakowicz is a veteran marketer and the Sr. Ecommerce Expert at Omnisend. With nearly 20 years of experience in email, mobile, and social media marketing, he’s helped over 100 DTC companies around the world, including numerous from the Internet Retailer Top 1000, maximize sales through their email marketing and SMS programs. Zakowicz is a frequent speaker at ecommerce events, has been published and quoted in top media outlets, has been retained as an industry expert witness for trial, and is a one-time award-winner and two-time ecommerce podcast host.
How does Omnisend differentiate itself from other email and SMS marketing platforms in the ecommerce space, especially during the competitive holiday season?
Many things set Omnisend apart from other companies in the market. The first is price. Omnisend gives customers all of the tools they need to be successful, such as automations, templates, popups, segmentation, SMS, reporting, and 24/7 live customer support, without making them pay for features they don’t use.
Second, its functionality is intuitive, not intimidating. Omnisend is powerful without being clunky, doesn’t have a steep learning curve, and is loved by professionals. Combined, this makes Omnisend an exceptional choice for businesses that want to sell more for less. Sixty percent more expensive doesn’t mean 60% better.
Your recent survey highlights trends in holiday shopping and gifting—can you share the key insights and their implications for ecommerce and retail businesses?
Sure thing. Two things stuck out to me. The first is the trend of self-gifting which has been increasing in popularity over the past eight or so years. With the holiday shopping season now lasting nearly three months, I think this is now a permanent behavior during the season.
Second, is the overwhelming majority of Canadian shoppers who plan on spending the same amount or less on gifts this year. While the shopping season is longer than ever, consumers are poised to be more thoughtful and intentional with what they spend.
With consumers planning to spend less on gifts this year, how can small ecommerce and retail businesses adjust their strategies to thrive in this challenging economic climate?
First, promote value-adds to build consumer confidence. With fewer dollars to go around, promoting competitive differentiators like fast and free shipping, extended return policies, exceptional product quality, and customer service can go a long way to influencing shoppers to choose one store over another.
Next, rely on email and SMS marketing to communicate directly with customers. These first-party channels are often sought out for product discovery and sale announcements. Use them to your advantage by promoting value-adds in each message but staying top of mind.
In that same vein, rely on behavior-based automated messages to keep shoppers engaged at high intent stages of their shopping journeys. Automated messages account for 41% of all email orders and only 2% of email sends. Product abandonment and cart abandonment messages are two of the best-performing messages in terms of recapturing sales.
Finally, think about creating product bundles. Bundles are a great way for consumers to get more value from a single order and for the store to increase the average order value and profit of each purchase.
Temu and Shein are becoming increasingly popular with shoppers. What lessons can small businesses learn from their success, and how can they compete effectively?
Consumers are seeking value, the best “bang for the buck”. This makes stores like Temu an enticing store to shop at. How can brands compete with this? Here are three ways.
1. Promote delivery times. Many orders from Temu or Shein take weeks to arrive. Stores should promote their shipping speed to help differentiate.
2. Promote your competitive differentiators as I mentioned above.
3. Use email and SMS to connect with customers. People like buying from brands they feel a connection to. Large marketplaces struggle with this, and it’s an advantage small businesses can exploit.
Looking ahead, what advice would you give to small and medium-sized businesses striving to build customer loyalty and drive sales through effective marketing in 2025?
As I mentioned earlier, increase reliance on first-party marketing channels, notably email and SMS. Email continues to see a consistent and healthy ROI for brands, 73:1 in 2023, and SMS continues to see explosive growth year-over-year. Both channels are excellent for directly communicating with customers and building a more loyal following.
We see more brands renewing their focus on these channels, in part, because they are looking to reign in costs. As the cost and performance of paid ads continue to fluctuate, and consumers continue to seek value with their purchases, maximizing profit is critically important for small businesses — and email and SMS are an avenue to increased profit.
