Category Archives: Consulting

November 18, 2015 · 1:44 pm

Not Sexy (But Effective)

There is a big debate going on about whether advertising is dead. It may be, to a certain extent (that’s a much longer post) but I’m also certain that marketing lives on, albeit in a very different form than it was a decade ago. No matter where you come out on the aforementioned question, you’re probably in the business of reaching out to your customers or potential customers to increase sales. Today’s topic is an unsexy but highly effective way to do just that.  

I hope you or your marketing folks spend a lot of time on email, but I’m doubtful that’s true. It’s “old” technology, and I think we all sort of gravitate to more recent stuff. It’s not as much fun as video or social media nor as interesting as paid search. It just works.  This from the folks at Retention Science:

Although flashier channels like social media and mobile marketing routinely steal headlines, email is still the core of every effective digital marketing strategy…Email marketing generated the highest ROI for eCommerce in 2014, and consistently outperforms other channels in engagement and conversion. Even tech-savvy Millennials prefer to communicate with brands through email; 47 percent of respondents chose email as the preferred channel, while only 6 percent selected social media.

Integral to that statement is the notion of control.  People like that they can see what they want to see and unsubscribe if you’re not helpful (how’s THAT for good feedback!).  Email is much easier to personalize, and the offers can be fine-tuned.  Are you really going to make 100 different videos to reflect the nuances of your customers?  Probably not.

Email is one of those things in business that reminds us that the new, shiny object might not be the best use of our time or resources.  Building a mailing list is hard, and just using content (fill this out for a free whitepaper or report) won’t do it alone.  Great content combined with innovative thinking and smart socialization can help.  So can working with another brand that complements yours.  The reward, however, is well worth the effort.

A personalized ad, delivered which is requested by the customer, delivered when the customer wants it, and which is highly actionable and measurable sounds like email in a nutshell.  It also sounds like a pretty good thing to me.  You?

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November 16, 2015 · 11:33 am

Getting Personal

At the tail end of last week, I received a mailing from the folks at Total Wine.  It’s one that comes along each week and contains what Total calls my “weekend recommendations.”  It shows me some highly-rated wines that are supposed to fit my tastes.  The problem is that they don’t.  There are several bottles of white wine listed and I don’t drink white wine.  There is some expensive champagne and I prefer prosecco.  I don’t believe I’ve ever bought pinot noir in the store and yet there is a pinot recommendation as well.  

I’m not surprised. Although I shop fairly regularly at Total and love the store, there is no system in place to associate customer purchases with customers.  There is no loyalty card, as I have with a supermarket or two, to record what I’m buying, how often etc.  Without that information, recommendations can’t be personalized.  It’s the difference between me walking in the store and having them greet me by name as opposed to a generic hello.

I think we’ve all become spoiled by personalization, so much so that I think the ability to personalize the customer experience is table stakes for any retailer.  Notice I’m not limiting that to online retailers either.  My supermarket personalizes every trip as soon as I use their scanner to shop by delivering instant coupons and savings on products I buy or might like based on past buying.  We’ve all used Amazon and seen their recommendations.  In fact, their algorithm is so good that it’s worth examining what they’re using to determine your personalized selections and deleting things that you don’t want to include (maybe you bought something as a gift that should not be included, for example).  Netflix famously paid a lot of money to scientists that improved their recommendations by 8.5%.

Any business needs to think about how to incorporate personalization, even those of us that are not in B2C businesses.  Still showing generic decks to potential customers?  Still have a standard rate card that you send out when people ask for price quotes?  Still think you’re in tune with customer expectations?

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November 13, 2015 · 12:48 pm

You Do It 226 Times A Day!

It’s Foodie Friday, so let’s think about food and business.  Actually, you’ve probably thought quite a bit about food already today.  I make that statement and am supported by research.  You see, way back in 2007, Brian Wansink and Jeffery Sobal of Cornell University asked 139 participants about the number of food-related decisions they thought they made every day.  The average answer, off the top of the subjects’ heads, was 14.  However, when the participants were asked to break down a typical day and to think about how many ‘when’, ‘what’, ‘how much’, ‘where’ and ‘who with’ decisions they made for a typical meal, snack and drink,  it showed the participants made an average of 226 food decisions a day, 59 of which related to what kind of food to eat.

I doubt any of you reading the screed today are in a business that’s thought about 226 times a day by your customers.  If you are, please share how you managed to get that level of engagement and passion.  But if you’re like most of us, the challenge is to increase whatever the number of times a day we’re considered by consumers.  If you’re a food brand, apparently you have a head start on the rest of us.  But what is it about food that prompts this level of thinking?

The obvious reply is that food is necessary for our survival.  We get hungry, but as the study shows, we don’t really make mindless decisions about food despite our hunger (although I’m not sure why most of us aren’t more aware of how many food decisions we do make each day).  How to drive hunger for your brand?  It’s through many of the ways we talk about here – being responsive, building loyalty, being transparent, focusing on the customer’s problems and your solution, and, most importantly, listening.

I suppose we could try to piggyback on the 226 by running food-related ads even if we’re not a food brand.  Trying your brand at this time of year to family and food is fairly commonplace.  I think, however, that we’re better served in the long-term by fostering the brand hunger through the means I mention above, each of which we’ve discussed many times here (and we’ll continue to do so).  Great dishes excite and delight the diner – so do great brands.  Does yours?

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