Social Media Explained

Twitter  – I’m eating a donut

Facebook — I like donuts

Foursquare — This is where I eat donuts

Instagram — Here’s a photo of my vintage donut

YouTube — Here I am eating a donut

LinkedIn — My skills include donut eating

Pinterest — Here’s a donut recipe

LastFM — Now I’m listening to “Donuts”

Google+ — I’m a Google employee who eats donuts

– extracted from photo posted by Douglas Wray on Instagram, 2012-02-06

I thought this was a pretty insightful analysis, and potentially very helpful.

Filed under: Ideas, Opinion, digital assets, digital marketing, e-marketing, social media

Are you using Social Media for Customer Relationships

If you’re not, you probably should be.  When your customers mention you in Twitter, on Facebook, or in any other social media, they are giving you feedback — good or bad — and it’s your chance to interact with them.

Don’t let these opportunities go by.  And don’t let social media only be the domain of the marketing staff.  Because social media are not just for distributing promotion codes or advertising messages.  Social media are for venting.  For praising.  For bashing.  For ….

Social media are your chance to demonstrate you are listening, paying attention, and willing to do something.

New tools are coming out regularly … they are very affordable for most companies.  You should monitor the social media with the same discipline and focus as you give your phone calls and emails.  Well, maybe more focus, because a lot of companies try to avoid answering the phone and take forever to answer emails!

Filed under: Ideas, Opinion, advertising, crm, Customer Care, Direct Commerce, email, Phone, social media

E-Commerce and Retail

Kevin Hillstrom: MineThatData: Multichannel Wednesday: E-Commerce and Retail.

The link above takes you to an outstanding set of observations about how multi-channel customers behave in the various channels, and how you should adjust your marketing communications based upon the acquisition channel.

Great insights that are worth your attention

Filed under: Direct Commerce, Ideas, Opinion, acquisition, Direct Commerce, direct marketing, Kevin Hillstrom, multi-channel, retention

Kevin Hillstrom: MineThatData – A/B Testing: Here’s An Example

Kevin Hillstrom: MineThatData – A/B Testing: Here’s An Example.

In the article linked above, Kevin makes a great point — some sales happen without marketing.

Do you know what that percentage is for your business?  Kevin outlines a testing strategy to find out.

It’s worth looking into.

Filed under: Direct Commerce, Ideas, Direct Commerce, email marketing, Hillstrom, sales

Who will be first to publish their catalog for iPad?

Think about a catalog as a book.  Apple allows purchases from within their apps.  So it makes sense that someone will publish their catalog as an app for iPhone and iPad.

Automatic updates via Apple’s book store.

Actually, there are a couple of apps in Apple’s App Store already:  IKEA (UK), Pottery Barn (actually, they have two different ones), SkyMall … and several others which are not recognizable brands.

I wonder how their doing?

Filed under: Direct Commerce, Ideas, e-marketing, electronic catalogs, iPad, iPhone

e-marketing verses p-marketing?

That’s short for electronic marketing verses paper marketing.

I’m raising the question of what is the balance between electronic marketing (in the form of email, etc) and paper-based marketing (in the form of direct mail or catalogs.

As a rule of thumb, I sense a general agreement that response rates from electronic marketing is about 10 percent of similar paper-based marketing efforts.  Obviously some do better; some worse.  Comparisons are difficult.  Because the market segmentation is less strictly enforced for e-marketing efforts — since cost is so minimal, compared to the cost of p-marketing.  Therein lies one of the more significant issues.

When the focus is on acquisition, any new customer is valuable.  So the low cost and similarly low response rates seem to be a non-issue.  However, when attrition rates are considered, part of your strategy must be to maintain and grow the size of the current customer file.  Can you rely on e-marketing efforts alone to meet your customer acquisition goals?  It’s certainly more difficult.

When the focus is on customer files, finding this balance becomes very important, because customer marketing is generally the source for the most profitable sales revenue.  And if response rates for e-marketing are 10 percent of p-marketing, profitability of e-marketing efforts must be about 10 times higher than p-marketing, to maintain profit goals — as sales revenue declines.

How likely is that?

Certainly possible — but not always a likely outcome.

In my view, this calls for more of a balance between these two marketing strategies that I generally see in the marketplace.

Personal anecdote — when I get a paper catalog, I routinely drop it on the reading table where I watch TV.  Then often, while watching/listening to the news (or some other equally mind-numbing program), I flip thru the catalogs.  I never know when something will catch my eye — something I can no longer live without.

I can’t do the same thing with e-marketing — at least not yet.  Maybe when I get an iPad, that will change.  But Apple has only sold a couple of million iPads, so market penetration of iPads is still small.

Several years ago, we heard catalogers talk about the “shelf life” of their catalogs.  That is, how long did a customer let the catalog sit around before they trashed it.  A few days ago I noticed one blogger write about the “half-life” of a marketing promotion.  Both terms get after the same point.

Back to business:

e-marketing seems to require a bulls-eye shot to produce revenue.  While a paper catalog or other p-marketing efforts have the potential for a much longer shelf-life.

We need more balance.  I think it will produce more loyal customers, more revenue, more profits.

Filed under: Direct Commerce, Ideas, Opinion, acquisition, Customer Care, Direct Commerce, Direct Mail, e-marketing, email marketing, p-marketing

Developing a uniform Brand experience across multi-channel

There are two sides to this question — and most see it as a marketing issue.  And certainly it has serious marketing implications.  But the Brand experience is not built entirely upon how merchandise is presented or described.  A huge portion of the Brand experience is based upon customer interactions.

Almost intuitively, we know that we must provide appropriate value to the customer (the combination of price and quality).  However, in addition, we need to treat customers in a way that matches their expectations of the Brand.

And there is a problem with customer interactions across different channels.  After all, it makes somewhat obvious sense that it’s difficult to interact with a customer the same way in a face-to-face scenario, compared to a call center scenario, compared to an ecommerce scenario.

But a truly uniform Brand experience in a multi-channel environment seems to demand more similarity than differences in the nature of those diverse interactions.

So, how do you do it>

I can only suggest a strategy:  deploy a single order management system across all channels.

Boy, that seems simple.  Conceptually, of course, it is pretty simple.  But it’s also deceptively simple and, in reality, very difficult.  And the difficulty is not in the technology, but rather in the management.  It’s likely you will also want a single warehouse management system, as well.  But that’s not as essential, because it’s possible to move inventory & product data between multiple systems and a single OMS.

But the central obstacle to accomplishing this goal is willingness of different internal departments collaborating on a single solution.

In a sense, this is another form of channel conflict — but it’s at the operational level, rather than at the sales level.

To execute this solution, retail operations, customer contact center operations and ecommerce operations must agree on a single OMS to capture sales orders and manage customer transactions at all points of sale — regardless of channel.

Then all these units must collaborate to develop uniform training for staff, based upon uniform company policies.

It’s Change Management 101 — something that almost always gets short shrift.  And, although I don’t mean it personally, it is often the fault of marketing / sales, because they are too anxious to build sales rather than build an enduringly satisfied customer.

Often, only the CEO can solve this, with the patient understanding of the board and shareholders.

Not so simple after all, is it.

Filed under: Direct Commerce, Ideas, Opinion, Customer Care, customers, Direct Commerce, marketing integration, multi-channel, OMS, Web

Are electronic catalogs an alternative to paper catalogs?

Well, frankly, I don’t know the answer to that.  But as an avid direct marketing buyer, I know I’d rather get an electronic catalog than the collection of paper catalogs I get.  And it’s not because I’m trying to save the trees.  The trees (in reality) don’t need saving.  There are more trees in North America today than there were in 1776.

Web sites are for buying.

Catalogs are for shopping.

I’ve migrated from paper trade magazines to almost all digital trade magazines.  Why not catalogs as well?

Add functionality that let’s me click on any item in the e-catalog to add it to the order form.  Or, add it to my wish list.  Or add it to my gift list.

Like most Lands End buyers, for a long time, I got a catalog every week.  Now, I get an email every day and a catalog only once per quarter or so.  I don’t think I’ve bought as much from Lands End as I used to.  I like to browse thru catalogs — I find things I had not previously thought of buying.  Sure when I need a new pair of jeans, I go to Lands End and buy them.  But there is more that I might buy, if I ran across them in a catalog.

Do you ever wonder if the staff at the largest direct marketing companies are direct marketing buyers?  I kind of doubt it because I feel like they miss what it’s like to be a customer.  And that’s why we don’t have very many electronic catalogs yet.

Maybe soon.

Filed under: Direct Commerce, Ideas, Opinion, buying, electronic catalogs, email marketing, paper catalogs, shopping