Craft Focus - February / March 2021 (Issue 83)

83 BUSINESS Find more post-pandemic marketing insights and resources from Go Inspire: www.goinspire.co.uk/think/whitepapers-guides factor as to whether customers switched from store to online. This challenged a deeply rooted assumptions about younger shoppers, demonstrating the risks of adjusting marketing strategy without thorough investigation. MEETING AND GREETING NEW CRAFTERS Similarly, we also identified three retail segments among the new customers. Each of these offers a different level of potential, with some new recruits not holding the same value as previously established customers. Marketers should therefore be careful not to flood newcomers with discounts without first distinguishing between those who are just stopping by and those who are here to stay. Passer-by shoppers may never return after taking advantage of offers, while more promising shoppers may come back for more shopping sprees in the future if properly nurtured. We first identified a new Marriage of Convenience group: the one-hit wonders who came and went during lockdown. In the crafts world, this segment represents the newcomers who may have wanted to give arts and crafts a go and impulsively purchased a stained glass window painting kit, but just as quickly found out it wasn’t their cup of tea. Perhaps they even returned and picked up a set of knitting needles and wool when the second lockdown hit. All in all, however, this group has low retention potential and cannot be relied on to make up for the loss caused by the Trial Separation segment mentioned above. Offering more potential however are the new Chance Lovers and My Usual Type segments. The first are off-chance visitors who have relatively high spend and could eventually stay on to form a new customer group. These are your pottery enthusiasts who may have splurged on their own throwing wheel and even signed up for some classes in the early days of being home-bound, but have only been sighted once or twice since. On the other hand, new customers fitting the My Usual Type mould fell into old expected pre-pandemic profiles and offer interesting prospects for the future. Still, while they may be behaving in familiar ways, it’s always best to avoid assumption and instead evaluate how this group is acting in the current circumstances. WELCOMING BACK FAMILIAR FACES Also familiar to businesses are previous customers who were reactivated by the pandemic and returned to their trusted brands once lockdown started: the Together Again group. With more time on their hands-on account of being stuck indoors, this group thought it the perfect time to pick up their old tapestry making hobby and start selling on Etsy. Regaining the attention of previous devotees is something to be celebrated, so this group should be welcomed back warmly with incremental rewards based on their spending. CONCLUSIONS The emerging segments identified in this study serve as a valuable reference for craft stores. However, in order to get their marketing strategy spot on, careful analysis of their own customer base will be needed. This will help highlight any new opportunities and where to focus efforts. Retailers may need to cater to a new type of customer journey, and adapt to changed priorities. A sound understanding of post-pandemic purchasing habits will help craft businesses thrive during this time of increased demand, while craft stores that do not carry out this type of analysis will find it hard to retain craft newbies in the long-term. With circumstances continuously evolving, marketers should review their strategies regularly to address changes in demand and respond to emerging trends.

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