Insider tips for building a successful gift registry

Planning Now for a Hot Fall Registry Season

Planning Now for a Hot Fall Registry Season, a blue plate sits on a wooden table. On the blue plate is brown, folded, cloth napkin, some twigs, and a red maple leaf.

Here we are in the middle of long summer days and soaring temperatures. But before you know it, temps will drop and leaves will fall, and we want your gift registry to soar in the coming months.

And at MyRegistry, we believe these coming months will be busier than ever for gifting. Of course, the current coronavirus pandemic has disrupted normal plans—we’re all disappointed to see major events like weddings postponed, and we know many customers are feeling cautious about their spending.

But growing research suggests there are several positive trends that align well with registry activity.

  • Even as customers realize we must adapt routines, they’re eager to find some new normalcy. Retail sales reflect this, as sales have been up in recent weeks. Some customers are rethinking budgets, but the desire to shop and buy again is very real.
  • A crucial part of finding “normal” is reconnecting with family and friends. Pent-up demand has customers focusing on “good” and seeing celebrations as a wonderful way to connect and share gifts.
  • While many weddings and other big celebrations were cancelled/postponed in recent months, calendars are now filling up well into 2021. The timing has shifted, but the gifting activity will be there.

Registry use is actually more valuable than ever, as use of a registry makes gifting thoughtful, practical, and stress-free, with the added assurance that money is being well spent. And for retailers, there’s little to no risk of returns.

Now’s the time to plan for a strong fall registry season, and here are some tips to get you started, with more ideas to come next month as well.

First, take stock of all the wonderful product and marketing resources you can use. (Don’t forget, we’re always here to help you with this along the way—just ask.) In a nutshell, make a list of all the reasons to register or shop with you:

Start with your products—what’s new, fresh, and exciting, what’s worth a splurge, and what’s a solution to today’s style of living?
For example, beautiful takes on practical items customers now find integral to their lives as they spend more time at home and shift how they entertain and socialize.

Identify the features and services you offer that can make the gift-planning process smooth and easy.

  • Tips, product guides, checklists, and other content that spotlight great gifts and what makes them so (things like enduring quality, timeless style, sustainability, and “Made in the U.S.A.”).
  • Everyday shopping features like special shipping offers, product warranties, and convenient return/exchange policies (just in case).

Look for ways to weave in gifting and registry as a valuable service in all your marketing plans—even a small marketing budget can be stretched if you get creative.

  • Tweak current customer messaging to add a mention of gifting or registry.
  • Engage customers on social media to share dream gifts or “best of” gifts.
  • And remember that we can always brainstorm together on the best registry-specific marketing for you and your budget.

Challenge yourself to add more gift messaging on your website and/or in your store. Some relatively easy actions:

  • Be sure “Gift Registry” or “Gift Wish List” is clearly visible on your home page, as part of your top navigation, along with an eye-catching visual element on the page as well.
  • Call out “Registry Favorite” or “Great Gift” with a burst on product pages.
  • In store, add a registry message to signage, and include it in merchandising displays as well.
  • Design a cheerful bag stuffer, handout, or packing insert that talks up your status as a gifting destination—and be sure to point out that gift registry ensures every gift is opened with a smile.

Mine the data in your custom dashboard. Every partner has its own dashboard that tracks registry activity, and it’s a great source of information about registry users and the products they most want.

  • Use that registry sign-up information—which includes event dates, product interests, and other details—to personally connect.
  • Take note of purchaser information and consider it a great source for new customer acquisition. We’ve found that many gift givers are new to a partner’s customer database, so now you have a new customer to nurture without any incremental costs. Further, gift givers should be invited to use you as a gifting resource—and they may even turn into new registry users themselves!

Take advantage of features we offer to generate brand awareness for you and your registry among the tens of thousands of customers who visit our site every month. Our free offerings include:

  • Adding your products to our Gift Inspiration Boards.
  • Creating and posting a social media “shout out” for you with products our registrants will love hearing about.
  • Resharing select social posts from your account to our Instagram Stories and Facebook and Twitter pages.

Also consider talking to our advertising team about plans that will give you a great bang for your buck.

Finally, be sure to review some recent features we’ve added to enhance the power of your gift registry and gift registry software.
We offer tips and tricks that make all the available data even more useful, and each month we add a new feature that will be accessible right from your Partner Dashboard—check them out here.

Planning Now for a Hot Fall Registry Season, MyRegistry partner metrics page

  • Our Software Help Desk is now available when you log in to your dashboard. Navigate to the Contact Us section and click to open a ticket for any issue. The process is quick and easy.
  • Registry Rewards is our unique tracking system that lets you set parameters for registry activity such as gifts added or purchased, or monitor event dates—information you can use to offer special rewards to eligible registrants.
  • New security protocols protect your business and your customers’ data with secure log-in/lock-out and report access features. There are also add-on options to set advanced password requirements or allow a single sign-on.
  • Campaign ID Tracking will allow you to better understand—and grow—your registry business by generating custom URLs to use for your different marketing campaigns. You can then use those URLs to track registrant entries, information that will help you understand the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
  • Our Multi-Site/Multi-Currency feature makes it easy to seamlessly view multiple dashboards (if you have more than one website) with a single log-in and set different currencies for each as well.

Other releases in the past 12 months:

  • The It’s Universal button enhances the existing “Add to Registry” button on your product pages to let customers know your registry is part of a convenient Universal Gift Registry system.
  • With our App enhancements, if a customer creates a registry with you, then downloads the MyRegistry app, your store name appears on the top of the app and customers have access to only you for the first 24 hours. Ongoing, whenever a customer walks into your store, their MyRegistry Universal App automatically changes to a dedicated scanner for your store/brand.
  • Added customer communications that follow up on empty registries and redirect customers back to your site to add their first gifts.

We Love Connecting With You
It’s wonderful to connect with many of you each week to talk about the specific needs of your business and how MyRegistry can support you. Feel free to contact us at marketingguru@myregistry.com to discuss marketing ideas for your unique registry business.

You can read all our partner and marketing blogs here.

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