Fanatically Digital

Category: Marketing News and Information

  • Cyber Friday?

    Yes.

    Black Friday overtakes Cyber Monday for online shopping this year, based on adults in two studies.

    According to the Deloitte study

    Black Friday surpassed Cyber Monday as the most popular online shopping day during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Two-thirds (66 percent) of those shopping over the holiday weekend plan to do so online on Black Friday, compared with 52 percent on Cyber Monday

    Criteo was seeing similar increase on cyber sales during black friday, with 32% of the sales coming from mobile devices.

    What we are seeing is the normal expansion of cyber shopping under the context of holiday shopping. The periods of purchasing are expanding as is the use of mobile and tablet devices.

  • Growth Strategy Lessons From Facebook

    Sam Rosen, serial entrepreneur and founder of Desktimeapp.com, shared the article on growth strategy with lessons from Meenal Balar, who was a key part of facebooks international growth. It really struck a cord with me and I wanted to share it with you.

    This piece on First Round starts with some very basic elements of the three buckets for prospects, which is refreshing; it wasn’t full of nonsensical over elaborate descriptions of what is actually basic. The best part of the article was the very fundamental focus on sound strategies Facebook used in growing the international business.

    As facebook expanded markets, the team focused on three areas:
    Reduce friction for prospective customers. How often do you find yourself frustrated by the process of buying a product or service. Too often, companies rely on the buyer’s enthusiasm to power through the friction of purchasing, and enough buyers do so for many companies to make a go of it. But the really fast growth companies don’t rely on the enthusiasm of the buyers to push through friction, but focus on removing the friction.

    • Leverage resources / experts in the market. We see companies introduce products based on ideas from people who often don’t have to use it in the same context as the target marketing. Facebook had the resources to identify and leverage market experts.
    • Test constantly. The premise of testing constantly is actually very humbling. By committing to constant testing you admit you don’t know. This is the key focus on the testing even that which appears successful.
    • At its simplest, facebook’s international growth strategy was a classic crawl-walk-run approach. Introduce, learn, grow. Then keep learning and growing.

    The piece has more detail and is well written, worth the time.

    Hope you enjoy.
    http://firstround.com/review/heres-what-a-real-growth-strategy-looks-like-road-tested-by-facebook-and-remind/

  • Google Plus Launches Collections

    Google Plus collections

    Google+ makes content discovery easier for users through a format similar to Pinterest boards. This gives people the ability to curate content and share it with others that have similar interests.

    Making this more powerful is the ability to curate different types of content and make the overall experience more helpful with long form posts and interaction. For companies, this can become a great way to keep deep content in specific areas together, while not dominating their core profile with narrow subject areas.

    Ford can have the core G+ page and collections for each model, with images, discussions and advice / help content, etc.

    Furniture stores can similarly create Collections for rooms, decor styles, or trends.

    Hospitality or hotels chains can curate collections of key markets and tourist attractions or events along with interactions with the users.

    Some Collections I thought were kind of neat:

    Dateline #DisneyWorld

    Cities and Streets

    Social Media Academy

    Game Lounge

  • Apple watch… great for (too) easy amazon ordering

    Scott at CNET now owns an xbox. Didn’t want one, but the Apple Watch makes it so easy with the Amazon 1 click to order…well, he did.

     

  • Art & Intuition When Data Is Not There

    Analytics is a great tool for helping us make decisions and take action. As a representation of behavior, it helps us respond to customers and see the impact of our actions. However, analytics only represents “what” but not “why” people behave in the way they do.

    For some marketers this is a blind spot. Over dependence on numbers leads to paralysis or to erroneous decisions when working with a blank canvas and are absent the necessary intuition to provide the initial direction.

    While we spend much time discussing analytics and big data, the reality is that the majority of businesses do not have deep stores of data on their customers, yet have to make decisions about how to approach the markets.

    In this situation creating a starting point based on an understanding of the industry and an intuitive sense of the market, combined with tracking and analytics, is the best way to get moving. Since you are not starting with the answers, you have to implement programs in a way to derive the answers.

    One approach is the “shotgun” approach  and see what you hit. With careful tracking we can identify the segments, messages, campaigns that have the best chance of success while weeding out the elements that do not work. This approach identifies the opportunities relatively quickly but has a heavier upfront expense.

    A second approach is to trust more on the intuition and start with more focused, smaller opportunities, and roll them out over enough time to determine if they can work. If not, move to the next idea and do the same. The greater one’s understanding or intuition, the more likely the right ideas will be first on the list. This approach has lower cost implications upfront, allows for applying what was learned but may take longer to find the best opportunities.

    As we get more and more dependent on data, the art and intuition necessary to be complete in marketing is becoming rare. We have to be uncomfortable when faced with a lack of information and develop creative ways to kick off the marketing programs while gathering data along the way to better inform the next iteration of our activities.

  • eWOM : What durable goods marketers need to do about it

    WOM, word of mouth has long been a powerful force in the making (and breaking) of products and companies. As the force has moved online to become known as eWOM marketers have struggled to understand the dynamic it plays in the material affect on their sales. A culprit in perpetuating this struggle is the monolithic view of social media that serves as the proxy for eWOM among many.

    “A Meta-Analysis of Electronic Word-of-Mouth Elasticity” in The March 2015 Journal of Marketing, provides a great deal of insights into the phenomena of eWOM. As we contemplate the results, there are some things we could derive based on our experience with current customers, our sales process and our ongoing dialogue within the industry. In other words, common sense is finally backed up by analysis.

    Durability and Trialability are two key attributes for the impact of social media. As the former increases and the latter decreases, the need for deep information from credible sources becomes increasingly important. If the consumers keep the item for a long time and they don’t have the ability to try it before they buy it, they dig deep into the available resources.

    A key component of the information they want is expert in depth analysis. Reviews that say “Great Car! I loved it.” are not very helpful. The consumers are seeking information from authoritative sources, experts or consumers who express details about their experience.

    The research efforts of the consumers during the purchase process are intended to mitigate knowledge risk. The more costly the items, the more valuable the incremental knowledge becomes. Thus, consumers will spend a great deal of time researching durable goods.

    The implications for marketers extend to the pre and post purchase with eWOM.

    For durable goods, marketers need to identify authoritative third party sources and ensure they have the right / best information. They can’t be bought, but they can be educated. Providing one “authority” with access and a “trial” with the product can directly influence thousands of potential buyers. Marketers need to identify the authorities in their area, monitor them and educate them and their audiences. Of course, this assumes a quality product and service to start with.

    Post sales support needs to be strong and obvious. Reviews, publicly requested service inquiries (twitter “help line” for example) need fast and valuable responses. Private requests need equal attention to ensure they do not become public issues.

    For durable goods, marketing resources need to be prioritized to mitigate knowledge risk for potential buyers. While cute social games, contests and share-fests are fun and can build communities, this activity should be second to building the experts’ product familiarity, in depth reviews and clear post purchase support. It is not the number of mentions that count, but the value those mentions have to potential buyers.

  • Omni-channel brands start with culture

    So, you want to be an Omni-channel brand?

    Omni-channel is described as a seamless experience for the consumer regardless of their mode of interaction. In other words they and your employees have the same product, options, pricing, delivery and service options no matter where they are in your brand / purchasing ecosystem. All customer history and preferences are available online, to your operators (phone & chat) and in your brick & mortar locations. At no point does the customer have to “re-educate” your employees on their history with you, and at no point do your employees have to explain why “we’re different” in the store than online. No matter where customers and employees are, access to information and capabilities is the same.

    There are some omni-channel proponents that suggest this concept extends beyond, and even breaks down the barriers between, brands. While a bit Utopian and the comparison to social media adoption is a bit of a stretch for me, I like the concept.

    In any case, how do companies start down the omni-channel path? Broadly, there are two areas companies have to tackle. One, cultural / organizational and the other technical. Before tackling the latter, companies need to address the former.

    An Omni-channel Culture

    There are several cultural impediments to an omni-channel experience and any one of these can trip up the effort to roll it out.

    Us vs them.

    I’m not talking about your company vs the consumer (if thats an issue, you’ve got bigger problems). I am addressing departments vs departments or silos within the company. Some of these tensions are organizationally driven. Major retailers still segment their online store from the off-line stores with separate inventory for in-store vs online (which I understand, but…), and the two cannot leverage the whole; customer are turned away because they don’t have access to inventory within the company. I’ve also seen online departments that only get credit for sales through the online channel and don’t derive benefit or credit from sales to the in store channel on which they assist. Assets and benefits need to transcend groups or departments so that internal barriers do not interfere with the customer experience.

    Beyond the sales channels, there is often tension between sales and support services or accounting / billing. This tension is often a derivative of no unifying mission and results in the “its not my job” mentality, often supported by intentional technical barriers between departments. How often have our calls been transferred from sales to billing and we have to re-introduce ourselves and our issues? When this happens, I am told that “they are on a different system.” While this is a technical issue on the surface, companies need to ensure it is not the result of a policy that requires the barrier to exist.

    Margins rule

    There was a time in sales when every salesperson was directed to “get the most” out of every sale – milk it for the margin. When companies look at pricing strategies, the same perspective seems to apply. The online pricing and the in-store pricing is different. Sale prices online are not available in the store. This stems from either a disconnect between the two, or an attempt to squeeze margin from one place at the cost of a cohesive customer experience.

    There are legitimate reasons for different pricing strategies online vs in store, geographically or even time of day. As companies consider these strategies, they must consider them within the greater vision of an omni-channel experience for their customers. If the pricing strategy does not support the vision, then it should be forsaken, even at the cost of short term benefits.

    Companies need to take the long view of the customer relationship and standardize pricing in order to be ready for the omni-channel experience. Temptations to implement short term ‘fixes’ need to be avoided. For line managers, pricing adjustments (up or down) are an “easy’ tactic. Senior management must establish the culture that dissuades this behavior. Its not easy, but an omni-channel experience requires it.

    Short term value

    When we implement a new program we are often impatient about seeing results. This can have a devastating affect on omni-channel initiatives. We have two instincts to mitigate.

    First, the impact of omni-channel is not immediate. Consumers might not be aware of it right away as they tend to only notice when things go wrong. They won’t notice a lack of conflict between online and offline, or the seamless transfer of contact from one department to another. They’ll simply accept it.

    What is key is that we’ll see the attrition of customers decrease over time as we mitigate their frustrations. If we are fortunate and our competition has not successfully adopted an omni-channel approach, we can even capture some of their customers. When we implement omni-channel we must guard against our desire to see an immediate and big change.

    Second, our employees who may have been focused on ‘closing the sale now’ must accept that this is a brand’s customer and the relationship transcends the transaction. It is okay if the customer needs to take a step back or do more research. It is okay if they shop in store and buy online later or the reverse. The shopping experience is not limited to the store or the website; it covers a longer period and will likely include both. With patience we may create more sales over time while nurturing the customers wherever we are in contact..

    Starting with culture

    Like so many things, the technical challenges, though not trivial, are not the challenges we need to tackle first. Our companies, our cultures need to be ready first. No matter the technology, it is about people. Give your employees the right tools, in the right culture and you will have customers for the long haul being nurtured across all interactions.