Consumer Writes…
Filed under: Customer Relationship Management, Marketing Strategy, Uncategorized
It was 60 years ago that Bill Haley & ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ music created a generation gap between young people and their parents. Today, the use of digital media is creating a new generation gap – the digital “divide” – not just in accessibility but in how the generations use those technologies. The willingness to connect, and share, and ‘like’ enables brands to connect with consumers like never before – engaging in a true conversation. In this new world , there are very few physical or psychological barriers to trying new ways to do things, the Digital Generation epitomize the new mindset of the decade: digital media means everything is interconnected, anything goes, everything is available, and little is private. They are savvy, skilled shoppers, who place a high level of importance on individualism and personal involvement in the creation process. Helpfully, they are willing to share information and Brands must respond by providing members of the Digital Generation with the tools they need create or re-create content & products to suit themselves.
As the world continues to globalise and technology continues to evolve, the world for consumers will become more convenient than ever before in the history of retail. Technology will advance rapidly, customer service will be more convenient than instant coffee, personalisation will be instantaneous, and mobile marketing & commerce will find consumers wherever and whenever they desire. With social media marketing platforms marketers will capitalize on public information sprawled across Facebook, Twitter, other, as yet unknown platforms; brands will take consumer psychographics to the next level, knowing what we “like”, who our friends are, what we are thinking about, who we follow, where we go, and our daily consuming patterns. Utilising new tricks and combining it with traditional marketing promotion tactics such as: added value, cross sale, all inclusive promotions, ‘green’, health and lifestyle, convenience shopping, and now mobile location based services. Consumers no longer shop for products; brands will go shopping for consumers.
A great web experience begins with YOU!
Filed under: Agency, Customer Engagement, Customer Relationship Management, Design/Creative, Marketing Strategy
For most organisations – the question is no longer ‘Do you have a website?’ but ‘What kind of website do you have?’. The quality of an organisations online presence is now the defining business metric – where a small, agile organisation can outperform the largest brands through well considered, cleverly constructed campaigns which drive potential customers to specific content within their well designed, user-centric websites.
An organisation that underestimates the importance of its online brand value is one that risks its entire future.
A well designed website has the ability to transform any business or organisation
So where does great web design start? Great web design is more than great graphics, it’s more than sharp design, it’s more than interactivity. It’s the entire recipe that creates the succulent, moist cake that we call a great user experience.
No matter how good the design, a website may fail if it doesn’t deliver a great user experience. The process we follow is to get inside the mind of your consumer(s).
- How do they know your brand or organisation? Customer? Prospective Customer? Or just unknown to you?
- How are they finding you - search engine? Online advertising? E-marketing? Social media recommendations?
- What do they want from you? Product Information? Corporate information? Or simply where they can buy?
- What do we know about them ? Browser, search term, screen resolution, mobile device, IP address, time of search.
All this can be used to understand and define the likely user requirements and therefore the way in which we present information to them – through design, through interactivity, through engagement – and ultimately through a successful sale.
The three best tips for success?
1. Be your End User
Understand the requirements of your end users – regardless of what you sell. Undertake internal research, external focus groups & market research. Create user personas and use them to map the user journey.
2. Be your Competitor
Analyse your competitors activity – learn from their mistakes and benefit from their successes
3. Differentiate through Usability
Different users have different goals from your website. Present different but relevant information to users according to their browser, access method ( mobile or static) and search terminology.
The Importance of Being Earnest (with Data)
- ‘Rumpole of the Bailey’ DVD box set
- ‘The Beatles’ Rock Band PS3
- ‘Zulu’ on Blu-ray
- Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
- Tomy Octopals Bath Toy
What is this? I’ll tell you, it’s a list of the last five things I bought from Amazon!
- Sirloin steak
- Mixed salad
- Kellogg’s Bran flakes
- The Times
- Nurofen
What is it? The contents of my shopping basket and I’m on my way to the checkout. It’s a simple process, I just hand over my Amex card, my reward card and the job is done. And just before I came in, I used the same cards to pay for my petrol.
So where’s the rub? Well, if we fast forward a month or so, I will get ‘recommendations’ from Amazon – based, not only on what I’ve previously bought, not only what I’ve ‘viewed’ but also based on what other people who bought what I bought, have then gone on to buy!! Clever isn’t it? And then the lovely supermarket sends me some money-off vouchers for – wait for it – Fillet steak, own label Bran Flakes and Australian red wine (well something must have caused the headaches!).
In the data world, there is no emotion, no judgements, simply a set of binary transactions that it needs humans to write business rules and interpretations around. Of course it’s a bit more than just knowing I’m a closet Barrister, how I probably vote or what my likely household income is. In both cases the Retailer has built up a profile of me through the choices I make (and don’t make). My newspaper may hint at who I’m likely to vote for in an election and what kind of social demographic I fall into. My nightly purchases may indicate I’m single and the lack of nappies and baby food means it’s a safe bet I’ve no children under four. But hold on a minute – you bought the ‘Tomy Octopals Bath Toy’?? True – but it was for my nephew (age two) and simply a ‘rogue or unusual’ transaction as far as data trending is concerned.
Great lessons in how to use customer data, gathered through transactions, and then used to generate relevant, compelling offers. It’s an example of data mining and it’s used by more and more companies across the world. I’ll bet your supermarket/garage/High Street retailer does it, and it’s something you’ve probably bought into. But how do I, as a small B2B organisation, apply these strategies to my business?
In marketing, data mining’s used for quite a few purposes. Amongst other things, it can help companies identify their best prospects and segment their markets to personalise communications between themselves and the prospect. It can produce timely, relevant campaigns – reminding you that we’ve got a new version of the product you bought/lease finance you needed/coffee beans you use. It can also increase their cross-selling opportunities among existing customers, and help retain them. And it really is as easy as that – you hold all the data within your organisation – in spreadsheets, in Accounting systems, in CRM platforms, in website databases. So you know what customers have previously bought, what prospects and customers have viewed on your website, you know what they’ve clicked in your emarketing campaigns. You just need to access that information, pull it together, then use the information to create dynamic, relevant communication strategies for all your customers, both existing and potential. Simple in reality and in practice – it just needs an organisation to fully appreciate the value that can be generated by using data to properly profile and communicate with audiences.
Dirty, dirty Data – necessary evil or the Fountain of Eternal Marketing youth?
Data seems to be coming to the fore again. In every context data forms the central part of every direct marketing campaign- be it off or online. In the ‘old days’ you had a very good reason to keep data clean and current – at the very least you saved the postage and production cost of your direct mail piece! With the advent of digital technology, have we as marketeers got lazy in our data hygience? It’s tempting to say yes, as many Organisations see online marketing as cheap, inpersonal and simply a cheap media choice. Yet those Companies that keep data clean, update email & postal addresses, capture interests, integrate with transactional knowledge ( who bought what & when) open the door to ‘Holy Grail’ marketing – the ability to create dynamic, personal and RELEVANT campaigns to every customer & prospect, every time. Little surprise that we see such high response and conversion rates for Clients where data is clean and the commuication is personally relevant. A check list of what you can do to keep data clean :
- Remove ‘unsubscribes’ from your data ( if you are one of our Clients this happens automatically)
- Download ’soft’ bounces and get them checked
- Capture all referrals and add them to your CRM data ( we frequently profile Organisations using this technique – it is amazingly powerful)
- Run an annual ‘cleansing’ – de-duplication, merging and updating data for incomplete,incorrect or missing fields, PAF files and against SIC code. This is a cheap service we provide but it repays the investment many times over.
- Integrate your web analytics with your CRM
New Business Generation – Has Digital & E-marketing had its day?
With marketing budgets getting tighter ( is that even possible?), unsurprisingly Marketeers must validate and account for every £ or $ they spend. The need to create, qualify and groom new business leads for Sales is the ‘de-facto’ measure for the performance of every marketeer. The Finance Directors challenge of ‘Prove your value to me’ is heard in Boardrooms throughout the land. So as Marketing Management, how do we decide to allocate our budget across the myriad of choices? Clearly the logical place to start is by using those media choices that deliver the most tangible, qualified results. Now no-one ever claimed that solus TV can create sales – more reasonably it can launch and support sales activity, even moving market share points through concerted effort. What TV can never achieve is a 2 way, on-going communication with a Customer, much less a prospect. Anyone remember Radion Automatic?? Launched in a blaze of TV and POS glory, the brand quickly died once TV and retail support was reduced to maintenance levels. When it comes to e-marketing, it’s hard to benchmark your own campaigns against industry norms. It’s even harder to then turn that into real metrics for evaluation of absolute value.
Sometimes the product, offering, target market or even price isn’t right. What is important is that the Client (through Purestone) can see this, react to it, craft different messages & strategies and respond to the results immediately. What other media choice allows you to change and tweak your creative, or copy, or call to action as the campaign goes out? I genuinely believe that e-marketing can make a difference to the business generation capabilities of any organisation. Those that treat e-marketing as a truly strategic media choice through which they make highly personalised, 1 to 1 campaigns can expect to achieve great results. Those that treat e-marketing as ‘blast, forget and hope something sticks’ – well, they still form an unenlightened majority of marketers. Treat your prospects as people, personalise your messaging to distinct groups and, surprise surprise, your results will rapidly improve.