Posted by Gordon Plutsky on Thu, Apr 05, 2012
The trend of people consuming content and interacting on mobile platforms (smartphones and tablets) is undeniable and some have called it the beginning of the post-PC era. Content producers and marketers are faced with integrating a mobile strategy into their customer engagement plans – and quickly. The question many companies are wrestling with is do we develop a native app for iOS and Android or do we create a mobile website or both. The answer is not cut and dried and like most things in life – the answer depends on who you are, whom you are talking to and about what.
Both approaches have pros and cons. Here is a quick review from EConsultancy.com:
Native apps are programmed using Objective C on the iPhone or using Java on Android devices.
• Native apps make use of all the phone’s features, such as the mobile phone camera, geolocation, and the user’s address book.
• Native apps do not need to be connected to the Internet to be used.
• A native app is specific to the mobile handset it is run on, since it uses the features of that specific handset.
• Native apps can be distributed on the phone’s marketplace (e.g. Apple Store for iPhone or Ovi store for Nokia handsets).
Web apps run in the phone’s browser.
• This means the app works across all devices, and ensures cross-platform compatibility.
• The same base code can be used to support all devices, including iPhone and Android.
• However, web apps do not make use of the phone’s other features, such as the camera or geolocation.
• Web apps cannot be deployed to the phone’s marketplace.
Hybrid mobile apps are a mix between these two types of mobile applications.
• Using a development framework, companies can develop cross-platform applications that use web technologies (such as HTML, JavaScript and CSS), while still accessing the phone’s features.
• A hybrid app is a native app with embedded HTML.
• Selected portions of the app are written using web technologies.
• The web portions can be downloaded from the web, or packaged within the app.
• This option allows companies to reap all the benefits of native apps while ensuring longevity associated with well-established web technologies.
• The Facebook app is an example of a hybrid app; it is downloaded from the app store and has all the features of a native app, but requires updates from the web to function.
(source: EConsultancy.com)
Questions for a marketer to answer while deciding which mobile road to take.
1. Who is your primary audience/customer? What is their preference and how do they like to interact with brands/companies?
2. What type of content are you distributing – do you have video/audio?
3. Do you sell your products online?
4. How much are you willing to invest? Marketing decisions often come down to a question of budget.
This research from eMarketer shows how and why consumers use mobile sites vs. native apps.
If you are selling online and need a tie in to back end systems you may be better off with a mobile optimized site. Or, if you are distributing content in ordinary forms such as a blog, a mobile site may also be more than adequate.
The main advantage to apps is two fold – it takes advantage of the phone properties (phone, camera, geo-location) and works well with social media/text/email ties in for sharing. The other advantage is marketing – you are promoted in the App Store, you appear on the face of the customer’s phone and there is something cool and sexy about having an App. Having a mobile enabled site may be all you need, but it won’t get anyone excited.
There is value to being on the face of a customer’s phone, a device that is with them all day and in all places. It is not an overstatement to say that people develop an emotional connection with their phone so being on the phone face helps build a relationship. With a mobile site, you can hope to be bookmarked or perhaps the user knows how to place an icon shortcut to your site on their phone from their browser. It is easy to do, but many people don’t know about it or don’t bother to do it.
On the flip side, creating a native app can be expensive, time consuming and needs updating. Before creating a native app you need to ask yourself if it is going to bring real value and utility to your audience or are you just going for the cool factor. For many companies, a well-done mobile site using HTML5 and/or responsive web design may be the ticket to mobile success. The bottom line is if the utility is there and you have the budget, creating both could cover all your bases. Overall, the most important factor to remember is that need to be everywhere your customers go to consume and interact with information.
Posted by Gordon Plutsky on Wed, Mar 28, 2012
Professional sports teams have been an enthusiastic user of new media and social channels, but the Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins have just taken that up a notch by integrating all of their media channels and content into an integrated program with an analytics package behind it.
From the Boston Globe:
“The Boston Bruins are launching an ambitious effort Monday to bundle all of their digital, mobile, and social online assets under one umbrella brand, so the team and its fans will more easily tweet, friend, and pin each other.The new Bruins Digital Entertainment Network will include more than a dozen properties, including the team’s Facebook and Pinterest pages, Twitter accounts, a mobile app, and a YouTube video channel. The team is also planning to use the network to better understand the digital habits of its younger fans, who are heavy users of the Internet and mobile devices, and to develop new marketing and sponsorship initiatives.”This strategy accomplishes two goals in the search for revenue growth. It allows the Bruins to build a tighter relationship with customers a.k.a. ticket buyers, especially those in younger generations. Building long term customer relationships are critical when you are selling season ticket packages that can run as high as $5-6K per seat. Expensive seats can be easier to sell when you are winning, but more of challenge when not riding high. By building a stronger community, the Bruins are going to recognize a higher lifetime value from their fans.
The media channel strategy allows the Bruins to offer integrated packages to sponsors for a true multi channel, integrated program that delivers real ROI. In the past most non-ticket revenue was raised from merchandise sales and arena signage. There is a cap of how much signage they can sell due to space limitation and it does not provide real return for the buyer. It was always more of an ego/buddy buy than a savvy marketing purchase. Now, the Bruins can offer sponsors a true marketing channel to engage with fans.
“This is a recognition that the Bruins are really a media company,’’ said Amy Latimer, senior vice president of sales and marketing. “We generate so much original content, on so many channels, that it makes sense to pull it all together.’’Latimer said the goal of the network, in planning for nearly a year, will be “to get our content to our fans, in whatever way they want to get it.’’It is a matter of time before all pro teams across move in this direction and become media brands. They have valuable content and a built-in audience, now all they need to add are the channels and the integration. It is also important to point out; the Bruins are also monitoring the analytics of their media channel, as this is critical to monitoring the success of the content. Over time the Bruins will lessen their need to depend on paid advertising as they develop their own media channels. And, hopefully insulate ticket sales from losing seasons. The Bruins deserve a lot of credit for innovation and investment at a time when they are selling out every game and their brand is riding high.
Posted by Gordon Plutsky on Tue, Mar 20, 2012
Mad Men returns this week for a fifth season after a 17-month hiatus. Like many marketers I love watching Don Draper in action on the job. On the surface the type of broad based advertising he produces seems very old school – the kind of stuff that filled magazines and TV shows. If you look a little deeper, you see Don instinctively understands what makes content marketing successful. His work always contains elements of storytelling to build an emotional connection with the customer. He tells stories through the one-dimensional ads to get into the hearts and minds of the prospect. Don puts himself in the customer’s shoes and thinks about their desires, motivation and even fears. What drives them, what do they want? What makes Don so successful is that he realizes the client also wants to be told a story about their brand. They want to feel the love, not be pitched.
This all comes together in the quintessential scene when the clients from Kodak ask him to help them sell a seeming mundane piece of equipment – a wheel to show your slides. Don turns a feature – the wheel – into a benefit and renames it the Carousel and ties it to memories and emotion. His dramatic pitch to the client (click here to see, YouTube disabled embedding) is the stuff of advertising and television legend.
Watching this scene you can imagine how easily Don would have seen the future and embraced content marketing and storytelling. For Don, the ads were just the vehicle to get inside the soul of the customer. He would have found great success creating bonds over the interactive platforms we have today. Don sees the same storytelling ability in Peggy, which is why he has taken her under his wing. She has the same innate ability to understand that people don’t really buy products; they buy what it says about them or how it makes them feel. I like to think that somewhere the 70-something Peggy is on Facebook and Twitter and pinning like mad on Pinterest – on her iPad, of course.
Posted by Gordon Plutsky on Fri, Feb 03, 2012
Everyone is talking about social sharing site Pinterest – The New New Thing. It is a very fast growing site with over 11 million visits in December, a 40X increase in six months. You get the feeling it’s starting to hit critical mass and will go mainstream and big time in 2012. The demos of the site skew heavily to women 25-54 and have a higher concentration in the Midwest, where the site has roots. Pinterest is a layer on top of the existing web and social graph as it links easily with Facebook and Twitter in addition to any website.
Pinterest provides a visual medium to display items of interest and more importantly for purchase. This new data is going to open a lot of eyes: Pinterest now drives more referral traffic than Google Plus, LinkedIn and YouTube combined. That is staggering for a relatively new site.
From a commerce standpoint, Pinterest falls in line with the idea that every platform can be a storefront for a retailer. The advent of social media and tablets has opened up new avenues to engage customers and sell products. Several retailers (Nordstrom, Lands End, Etsy) have taken notice and begun to open up shops on the site
In some respects, Pinterest could be more powerful than Facebook for commerce for the following reasons:
Facebook is built around personal profiles while Pinterest is built around common interests. The true utility of Facebook is social networking; and while many people follow brands it is estimated that only 1% of people interacts with brands on FB. On the other hand, Pinterest boards are built around common interest i.e. home décor, fashion, gardening, parenting, etc.
When potential customers are looking at boards they are in the mode of being interested in that category of product vs. scanning Facebook for a variety of social reasons. Pinterest may build more of a permission based relationship with brands than Facebook or Twitter (which is not visual) or Google Plus. And, sharing is easier and more encouraged on Pinterest. For any retailer targeting women it makes sense to begin to build boards of product images and begin to encourage sharing. This can fit in nicely with an integrated campaign that incorporates the web, mobile and social platforms. As always, you need to be where you customers are spending time to immerse them in your brand. Based on the new referral numbers, the interest and sharing on Pinterest is translating into action.
More Information:
http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/social-networks/pinterest-demographic-data/ Demographic Information
http://mashable.com/2012/01/29/pinterest-retail-infographic/ How retailers are using it
http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/story/293314/how-do-people-use-pinterest/1 How people are using it
Posted by Gordon Plutsky on Wed, Jan 04, 2012
I recently finished the Steve Jobs biography and have had some time to reflect on what marketers can learn from his time at Apple. He took over a company on the verge of irrelevance and built it into the most valuable brand in the world according to a recent study. Here are some key lessons from his time as CEO:
1. Don’t set up artificial divisions and multiple P&Ls because it creates walls and competing agendas. Apple smoked Sony in the music business because Sony could not get their entertainment business to work with their consumer electronics division. Internal walls stifle creativity and synergy while generating conflict.
2. Keep decision making groups small and nimble and never manage by committee. There is a reason no one ever built a monument to a committee. Empower people to make decisions swiftly and keep debate and consensus building to a minimum. Key product feature decision for the iPod and iPhone were made by a small group who trusted their instincts.
3. Encourage smart risk taking, nothing great ever came from putting off a decision. It is ok to fail on occasion. Failure builds character and you’ll learn something valuable in the process. Unless you work in public safety or healthcare a mistake will not be fatal, so go for it.
4. View everything from your customer’s point of view. It’s about them, not you. At the same time, don’t over rely on market research; it is only a data point. Research tells you more about the past than the future.
5. Keep it simple, and once you have, simplify some more. This is especially true for designing a user experience. Work towards the least amount of screens, menu items, buttons, switches etc. If something is overly complex it usually means it was not well thought out.
6. You don’t have to be first, just be the best. Apple did not invent the PC, portable music player, Smartphone or tablet. They made each one better by making them easy to use and accessible
7. Challenge the status quo by pushing for new solutions. There is a great anecdote in the book about how Jobs pushed Corning to compress the production schedule for “Gorilla Glass” for the iPhone. He never took no for an answer and if a solution didn’t exist, he’d make one happen by sheer force of personality.
8. Build a team of A players, and work with best partners possible. This seems obvious, but how many companies and/or marketing departments are stocked with B and C players? If you want to accomplish great things, you need great people. While Steve Jobs get much of the glory, he surrounded himself with brilliant people from every discipline – design, software development, marketing, manufacturing, sourcing etc. Good thing happen when talented people work together as a team.
9. Keep PowerPoint use at a minimum. Jobs hated when people brought out a slide deck in a meeting, he felt it was a sign that they didn’t have mastery of the topic. The format makes people think in bullet points and headlines and stifles creativity. Powerpoint can be a great tool for presenting to a large group, but is a snoozer in an internal meeting.
10. Design matters to consumers and can be a powerful differentiator. Even the packaging from Apple feels cool and sexy. How many other companies put that kind of effort into a box? Every detail of the consumer experience is an opportunity to impress and build a relationship. Consumers don’t stand outside a retail store all night for the latest Motorola or Samsung phone, but they do for the iPhone.
In the spirit of keeping it simple I can describe the secret of his success to one thing – Think Different.
Posted by Gordon Plutsky on Wed, Dec 21, 2011
Here is our annual take on the year ahead:
Mobile (Smartphone and Tablets) will become main stream and the primary way many consumers interact with brands. Morgan Stanley is projecting that Apple will sell 190 million iPhones and 81 million iPads in 2012. Companies must have a specific mobile strategy with content optimized for the format and integrated with your broader marketing initiatives. Mobile can no longer be treated as an isolated channel or a “nice to have”; it will become a primary way to speak to customers and prospects.
Email marketing will lessen in effectiveness over time as spam and list overuse begins to wear on consumers who have inbox fatigue. Because it can be cheap to deploy, email is often a marketer’s main tool to get out their sales messages. However, many of the messages contain little relevant value for customers.
Consumers’ attention span for content is getting shorter and shorter. This has broad implications for anyone producing online video, webcasts, blog posts and white papers. Content needs to be of high quality and quickly get to the point where it delivers value to the viewer or reader.
Social media content will come under greater scrutiny from companies looking for a tangible financial return. Much effort has been expended distributing content over Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, Linked In etc. Companies will be taking a harder look at the payback from these efforts. Managing social media content and engagement will become a more formalized job in many organizations; and social media analytic tools will become more valuable.
Apple will release a TV before the 2012 holidays that will incorporate iTunes and AirPort WiFi and be controlled through your iPhone or iPad. It will be the first step towards reinventing the device. They will need to work with existing cable/satellite providers as they do with the record companies/studios to offer programming.
The war between Google, Apple and Facebook to control the web/mobile experience will heat up even more in 2012. Google will release a Droid version of Siri, and both platforms will not work as well as advertised.
Facebook will start to struggle after their monster IPO as it becomes clear they are a one trick pony in terms of revenue. After much fanfare Google + will become a niche service used by social media “experts” who will use to tell each other how much they love Google +.
So called “new media stocks” will continue to struggle, especially Groupon. The daily deal model will look much less lucrative by the end of 2012. Vendors will grow weary of offing deals and consumers will turn off from offers that are not relevant to them.
Celebrity culture and reality TV shows will only get stronger in 2012 as scripted shows struggle to gain a wide audience. NBC will continue to struggle with the exception of America’s Got Talent. The addition of Howard Stern as a judge will make it a consistent top ten show.
The economy will improve steadily throughout the year with the Dow hitting 13,500 by September, though unemployment will stay above 8%. By mid summer the Occupy movement will be long forgotten though occasional protests may pop up at the national political conventions. The Tea Party will run out of steam and have much less influence in the 2012 elections.
Mitt Romney will win the GOP nomination and beat Pres Obama in a very close election. The Republicans will also win the Senate and hold the House completing a reversal of the 2008 election. After all the bluster about social media, the election will be mostly played out on TV with a barrage of negative and misleading ads from both sides and interest groups. Romney will attack Obama’s record and some of the claims may actually be true, though not many. Obama will blame all ills on the Republican House, rich people (not including those in Hollywood), George Bush and Fox News ignoring the fact he has been President for four years. The final results will closely mirror the 2004 election.
The San Francisco 49ers will win the 2012 Super Bowl in February. They are one of the few teams that still plays defense and that will carry them to an unlikely championship.
Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Posted by Gordon Plutsky on Thu, Dec 15, 2011
A brand-new Wegmans Food Market supermarket opened up in Northborough, Mass., in October and the Northeast regional grocer has plans to open six or seven more across New England. Whole Foods Market, another high-end grocer, has a strong and growing presence, as do local CSAs. What’s their secret to success?
High-end grocers like Wegmans and Whole Foods have created strong relationships with customers by turning shopping into an experience for customers, while also offering those customers quality products. On the other end of the spectrum are low-price providers, such as Demoulas Market Basket in Massachusetts, whose value proposition is being the lowest price in town. The vast majority of chain stores fall in the middle and are in danger of being squeezed out because they have neither market position nor identity.
These mid-market chains keep promoting themselves in the same old way with tired TV spots and print circulars. How many different ways can they show us a “mom on the go” making dinner for her family with the supermarket logo and jingle in the background? In many ways, these marketing efforts have remained unchanged since the 1970s.
Mid-market supermarkets can change the nature of the conversation by creating original content for customers to help them plan meals, improve family health and enjoy holidays -- and distribute that content across multiple platforms. The content needs to be where the customers are: online, print, mobile and social.
Today’s shopper has an infinite number of media and information choices at her fingertips. Ultimately, media content is self-selecting, as consumers seek out and gravitate to the information that best suits their needs. Creating content-rich, permission-based relationships is the goal for any supermarket focused on establishing an emotional customer connection. This connection leads to a long-term relationship built on affinity, trust and action.
To connect with their customers, supermarkets need to move beyond the price-promotion relationship to a deeper relationship based on innovation and trust, by surrounding their customers with inspiring content. This content should motivate customers to sample new products, ingredients and recipes while establishing an underlying emotional connection over time. The content should also address the interests, time demands and budgets of all segments of consumers to create a brand proposition that’s not exclusively dependent on price and promotions.
It’s important to use all available media platforms to distribute this content. This strategy takes advantage of the built-in audiences and influential customers who can evangelize the brand experience through social media. It’s imperative to have all platforms working together to ultimately drive customer engagement and action -- more frequent visits to stores, sampling new product categories and increasing average cart size. Here are some suggestions for supermarkets looking to connect with content marketing:
Print Magazine: Print builds an emotional reader connection, and is a vehicle that drives brand purchase decisions. In an age of e-mail overload, print gets attention and has staying power in the household. Wegmans and Whole Foods produce sleek, ad-supported magazines that bolster and extend each brand.
Web Content: The store site should be the repository of all content, and be updated on a weekly basis with fresh content. The site should give customers the ability to:
* Sign up for text or e-mail alerts for deals and specials
* Opt into e-mail newsletters
In addition, the site should also have:
* Regular bloggers and subject matter experts: This would include an active comments section for users
* Video content: Not advertising, but real vignettes that introduce humor and honesty -- elements likely to be forwarded within women’s groups
* The site would be heavily “socialized” with easy-to-use share features to social media sites, the integration of Facebook’s “like” button, and Twitter feeds of subject matter experts and bloggers.
* A crowd-sourcing function to allow customers to submit their own tips, ideas, opinions and recipes to allow customers to interact and share
All of this valuable content should be shared via the supermarket’s social and mobile channels. The addition of good, original content adds vibrancy to your social efforts and gives customers a real reason to follow you and share your content.
Consumers and the media environment are undergoing rapid change. Now is the time for supermarkets to start helping customers long-term rather than selling them the deal of the day.
Posted by Gordon Plutsky on Mon, Dec 05, 2011
The new Apple 4GS iPhone is one of the fastest-selling devices of all time—they’re simply flying off the shelves at Apple Stores and other retailers. While it doesn’t look much different than the iPhone 4, the new iPhone has some significant differences that may make it a game changer for Boomers and the marketers who love them.
According to the Pew Research Center, 35% of American adults own a smartphone, but the ages are not distributed evenly. Over half (52%) of Americans between 18 and 29 own them, while only 24% of people between the ages of 50 and 64 and 11% of people 65 and over have made the leap. There are a few reasons this new phone could start to move Boomers into the ranks of Apple iPhone devotees:
- iCloud and over-the-air updates makes them easier to use. No longer do you have to store vast amounts of music and video on your computer or be connected to iTunes to update. Also, the 4GS is available on multiple carriers and considered a “world phone.”
- The dual core process makes the 4GS as fast as web browsers at a time when more companies are creating mobile web sites to take advantage of the speed.
- An improved point-and-click camera – users can now combine the following devices into one: music/video player, phone, email, text, web browsing/content reader, GPS, camera and gaming device.
The biggest leap forward, however, is Siri, the voice-activated, artificial intelligence assistance that comes with the phone. Officially still in beta, there are still many kinks to work out but the potential is vast.
I have been testing it over the past few weeks, and it’s hit and miss when making commands and asking questions unrelated to your phone. It often defaults to a Google search, but because it doesn’t work as well as Google’s own native voice search app, those who are in it for the voice-driven searches are better off using Google’s app than Siri.
That being said, Siri works great when working with the iPhone’s functions. It was nearly flawless at sending emails and texts, calling contacts and creating and recalling calendar items. These tools are key when you’re in the car, or for those who have trouble typing and seeing on the relatively small screen. So, despite its flaws, it’s clear that it will improve over time and become a major component of the mobile user interface.
The addition of the upgraded camera, faster Internet access and Siri pushed my young Boomer wife over the edge to becoming a smartphone owner. And it’s only a matter of time before mobile commerce is within her sights. This is not to say that just because my wife made the switch, millions of others will, too. Hardly. That assumption can easily be made based on the clear trends emerging in the marketplace.
The updated iPhone is taking beyond its fair share of the overall smartphone market share. This means that carriers are aggressively selling Android phones and almost giving away the iPhone 3GS, which eliminates cost limitations that once existed. My prediction is that many Boomers will be upgrading from their feature phones over the next 12-15 months. And, the long-awaited iPhone 5 will likely be released during that general time period.
Of all implications for marketers, the most important is going to be the elimination of the excuse: “My audience isn’t on mobile.” Consider this your official warning. It’s time to brush up on mobile best practices for the iPhone and beyond.
As for Siri-specific implications? The most obvious are going to be search-related. Siri inevitably links into established databases like Yelp and Google. Basically, if your business isn’t there, you’ll be left out. Since this makes CPC ads and search ads less effective, you may consider reorganizing your search budget to parallel mobile usage by your audience. Additionally, marketers will really need to rethink their keyword and content strategies to make sure they appear high in Siri’s results. Users may go a few pages deep on a large desktop/notebook screen, but not so much on their phones.
Companies targeting Boomers need to jump into the mobile game now. Get a head start—you’ve got a year or so to get good at it. Consider both apps and mobile sites. Make sure they’re optimized and that they speak to your customers. And then address your search results and online listings. Be everywhere that Siri wants you to be. She will rule the mobile world very soon.
Boomers may be lagging a bit, but they are about to start catching up.
Posted by Gordon Plutsky on Tue, Nov 29, 2011
By Kimberly Jackson, Editorial Strategist, King Fish Media
I’m a big shopper—the type most marketers would like to count among their market share because not only am I buying, I’m influencing others along the way. I shop often, which makes me to go-to source among my friends for recommendations on everything from kids’ stuff to vacation and ideas, restaurants to handbags, and so on. Knowing that my mom friends are looking for these types of recommendations, it’s obvious to me that there’s quite a bit of opportunity for marketers to intercept them and present them with a good recommendation before they come to me.
One segment, in particular, stands out to me as the perfect candidate: daily deal sites. They’ve got the technology and formula down for the masses, but now it’s time for them to home in on the Mom market (and, I’m sure, other specific groups).
Don’t be so transparent. Yeah, yeah, I know—for the last few years, “transparency” has been a big buzzword. But there are two types of transparency: the kind that reveals that you have nothing to hide (good) and the kind that reveals that you’re manipulative and don’t care about your customer (bad). Let’s discuss the latter.
In addition to the regularly scheduled daily deal emails we all receive from sites like Gilt, Groupon, ideali, Rue La La and others, we’ve also come to expect regular “flash sale” updates. Each of these panic-inducing, limited-time email events has its own brand of call-to-action—attention-grabbing lines of copy meant not only to lure you in, but to guide you along the buying process and into the shopping cart. There’s the classic and gentle “buy now,” the urgent “ONLY one left” and the competitive, “This product is now in another shopper’s basket.” But my favorite has got to be the desperate, demoralizing and false-demand creating, “Sold out…but click here if you still want it?”
These kinds of tactics are transparent in a bad way; they reveal motives based on trickery, distrust and disrespect for the customer. They insult our intelligence and put us on the defensive. Don’t get me wrong, this kind of transparency serves the customer well—it simply tips us off to where we don’t want to shop. After all, none of these sites are selling something anything unique that we can’t find elsewhere. This being the case, they need to sell a unique experience. One that is not insulting.
Create a loyalty program. All women may be created equal but all shoppers are not! Can those of us who shop frequently and spend a lot get some preferential treatment, please? Hotels, airlines and even coffee shops have figured out how to reward loyalty (well, kind of), so there’s no need to reinvent the wheel here. Show us that you care. Show us that you value our business. Show us that you don’t want to lose us to your competitors. (See above re: “you aren’t selling anything unique, so give us a reason to buy it from you.”) Offer us incentives, upgrades and other excuses to aspire to loyalty status with you. Lock us in. We are very loyal once we’ve decided to be.
Help us make better and more informed decisions. This is easily accomplished through good and thoughtful content. I’m not talking about super witty, snarky or cool copy on every page—in fact, that’s just icing on the cake. I’m talking about some real-world advice; the type we expect from the good girlfriend who tells us that the dress isn’t flattering or the honest personal shopper who will lead us away from a bad decision and toward a good one. (Haven’t you noticed that we always shop in pairs? Now you know why.) Here are some examples: “These boots run big.” “The model is wearing a size 4 but she normally wears a 2.” “Order one size smaller/larger.” Basically, give us a hint—some indication about the special nuances that characterize the product we’re buying.
Not only will it stop us from returning every purchase we make through your site, it will instill trust and promote loyalty. We notice and appreciate these things. We also notice the lack of these things, and quickly stop trusting your site.
Improve your geo-targeting. You have our locations; why not put them to good use? I have to review every offer that comes to me to make sure it’s geographically applicable. I don’t care about an upper lip wax 38 miles from me. Groupon just sent me an offer for 54% off a massage 90 minutes from my home. There’s nothing relaxing about that. With even just a couple mistargeted offers, you train customers to expect a lack of relevance from you. We start deleting, and then we start noticing the fact that we’re deleting, so we simply unsubscribe.
An example of good geo-targeting, on the other hand, is restaurant.com. This site uses my zip code to target my offers. Very simple. And for the record, their deals really are deals! Keep ‘em coming.
Smart retailers who put themselves in the shoes of their shoppers are likely to be rewarded. Rewards come in the form of market share and positive reviews—online and off. We act on really good deals and then we tell our friends about our experience, good or bad. Empathy is a powerful emotion and Moms appreciate when companies understand and recognize our power to choose and be part of your community—or not.
Posted by Gordon Plutsky on Thu, Nov 17, 2011
As marketers, the information we deliver to a prospect is much different than what we provide to an existing customer, or a dormant customer that we’re trying to re-activate. To that point, we are releasing a free downloadable Ebook to help content marketers maximize their return on content investment.
A prospect researching a product category seeks information that is distinct from the content needs of someone who’s about to make a purchase. A lapsed customer may need different types of content to reactivate them and get them buying again. The challenge for marketers, then, is how to deliver the right content, at the right time, through the right channel to generate real returns. This eBook examines content-based integrated programs from a purchase cycle perspective, as well as the role that analytics play in helping marketing teams to identify and target the right segments with the right content.
This ebook will cover:
- The right content for each phase of the buying process
- How to identify the content needs of your customers
- How to match the medium to the message
- A discussion of content marketing analytics
Click here to download the free King Fish Media Ebook