Category Archives: Helpful Hints

January 9, 2014 · 11:50 am

Mom and Pops

Before we get too far into the new year I wanted to write about something I saw over the holiday.  We have several very good local news sites here and there was a piece on one of them about local merchants and how they’re having difficulty competing both the online retailers and the national chains.  What was interesting to me was how almost every one of the merchants quoted focused almost entirely on price competition.  Many also mentioned “showrooming” – looking at goods in a store but buying the online where they’re usually less expensive.

The same day I read a report on a paper issued by Silverpop.  As MediaPost wrote:

Apple, Lexus and Amazon.com have transcended prices and features to create compelling and fulfilling customer experiences, says the report. They’ve embraced the customer revolution and are raising customer expectations for every other business.  A recent study reported that 83% of consumers are willing to spend more on a product or service if they feel a personal connection to the company. And one fifth said they would pay 50% more if they felt the company put the customer first, points out the study.

The paper talks a lot about how retailers can integrate data with the in-store experience and how that can then move across from the real world into the digital world.  You can read the specific suggestions in the piece.  For example, I wonder how many of the local guys quoted routinely gather email addresses in store and communicate in a way that helps them understand and reflect the customer’s needs and preferences?  I’ve had retailers ask for my email (and physical) address but inevitably they end up sending me a catalog, not something tailored to my buying interests.

The end of the MediaPost article states it nicely:

In 2014, marketers will have two choices, says the report they can keep running marketing for marketers, delivering generic promotional messages when the company has an offer it wants to push out, and focusing solely on driving customer transactions. Or, they can start running marketing for customers, delivering content uniquely tailored to each individual’s needs and expectations.

That’s how marketing has evolved over the last decade.  The big guys are learning it and the Mom and Pop retailers must if they are to survive.  It must be for customers, not for marketers.  Do you agree?

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January 8, 2014 · 10:29 am

The Dishonor Unroll

If you are a typical email user your box probably gets a fair amount of mail each day that’s not exactly spam but also not of huge interest to you.

Image representing unroll.me as depicted in Cr...

Image via CrunchBase

That mail may come from companies or services to which you’ve subscribed (probably when you signed up and didn’t uncheck the “send me news” box) but for which you don’t have any great need of immediate news. If you’re a power email user you’ve probably figured out how to set up filters in your email client to dump those mails into a folder you can check later. For the rest of us there’s Unroll.me.

Unroll.me is a service that does just that. As they put it, you can unsubscribe from unwanted email subscriptions, discover new ones and organize them all in one place. From that they create what they call a Rollup:

The Rollup is a digest that gives you an overview of all the subscriptions you receive each day. The Rollup will keep your inbox clean by organizing the subscriptions you receive into a daily digestible email.

The screed today isn’t a love note to the service although I do use it and find it useful.  As you might imagine, the company collects an awful lot of information about who is subscribed to what since it is granted permission to look at your email stream.  It also knows what percentage of people who subscribe to something either unsubscribe or send the mail to the Rollup and not to the inbox.  They stopped over 1 billion emails from reaching their users’ inboxes in 2013.  And from whom do those emails come?

Funny you should ask.  Unroll.me just published lists of the companies who get dumped and who get aggregated.  These are the companies from which users unsubscribe:

  1. 1800 Flowers — 52.50% unsubscribe rate
  2. Ticketweb — 47.50% unsubscribe rate
  3. Pro Flowers — 45.10% unsubscribe rate
  4. Expedia — 45.00% unsubscribe rate
  5. Active.com — 44.70% unsubscribe rate
  6. Eventful — 44.20% unsubscribe rate
  7. Oriental Trading — 43.60% unsubscribe rate
  8. Shopittome.com — 42.10% unsubscribe rate
  9. 1800 Contacts — 42.00% unsubscribe rate
  10. Party City — 41.60% unsubscribe rate

I’ve only listed the top 10 – the link will show you more.  Now if I’m on the above list I’d be asking myself why.  I can answer the question:  you’re not providing anything of value.  My guess is the mails tend to be about you and not about your customers.  Perhaps you’re opting people in for your mail as a default instead of allowing them to make the choice.  Compare that list with the Top 10 most rolled up companies:

  1. Hulu — 61.60% Rollup rate
  2. AmazonLocal Deals — 46.00% Rollup rate
  3. GoDaddy — 44.40% Rollup rate
  4. Codecademy — 40.50% Rollup rate
  5. Google Offers — 39.00% Rollup rate
  6. Evernote — 36.40% Rollup rate
  7. Microsoft — 34.90% Rollup rate
  8. About.me — 34.40% Rollup rate
  9. Groupon — 32.80% Rollup rate
  10. LivingSocial Deals — 32.40% Rollup rate

These guys are offering value although not enough so that users feel the need to see their news immediately.  Not awful, but if you’re in a time-based offer business like GroupOn or LivingSocial, this could be a problem.

If your business uses email for communication, think about what, how, and how often you’re using that list to communicate.  Time is a precious commodity and all of us have less of it than we’d like.  To get customers to give your mail some of that time you need to provide value – a return on that time investment.  Otherwise, unsubscribes result and you’re on the list next year.  Not a place I’d like to be.  You?

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January 2, 2014 · 10:46 am

Most Read Posts Of 2013 – Part 5

For our final installment of last year’s most read posts, I present one that was published way back in January.  This was the most read post I wrote last year which I find surprising. Given that it was originally called “The Most Effective Marketing Words” (link bait alert!), maybe not.  As I read it again today I realize that it’s a good basic overview of a few of the marketing tenets I hold near and dear.  Let’s see if they resonate with you.

Since I seem to be emptying my “possible posts” research folder this week, here is something recent that comes to us from the good folks at Weber Shandwick.

It’s a study called “Buy It, Try It, Rate It” and you can read the study here.  While this may fall into the “duh” category of research, the study found that consumer reviewers trump professional reviewers as the key purchase influencers and further shows that 65 percent of potential consumer electronics purchasers are inspired by a consumer review to select a brand that had not been in their original consideration set.  It turns out that the average buyer consults 11 consumer reviews as they get ready to purchase.   A few other key findings:

  • Consumers report that they pay more attention to consumer reviews (77 percent) than professional critic reviews (23 percent). The gap between consumer and professional reviews closes noticeably, but not entirely, for more advanced technologies like tablets and computers.
  • The most influential reviews include certain elements. In consumer reviews, the most helpful ones are those that seem fair and reasonable (32 percent), are well-written (27 percent) and contain statistics, specifications and technical data (25 percent).
  • Shoppers trust consumer reviews on Amazon.com (84 percent) and BestBuy.com (75 percent) the most, topping Consumer Reports (72 percent). Consumers show no apparent discomfort in getting their research from a seller of the products they’re considering.

This gets to the notion of authenticity.  I’ve remarked to some people that the next review I find in a golf magazine which gives a bad review to a piece of equipment will be the first.  It’s pretty obvious that without golf manufacturers advertising in the books most of the publications would be in deep financial trouble.  Professionally generated content about electronics, cars, and other goods can have the same skew, or at least raise the issue in consumers‘ minds as the study shows.  What can you do as a brand?

First, be transparent.  This means, among other things, don’t do everything you can to have negative reviews pulled down and certainly don’t censor them on your own site.  Second, as the study suggests,

companies need dedicated resources to manage social network communities for purposes that go beyond branded content. An online community manager should be encouraging customers to review products, disseminating positive customer and professional reviews through social channels, and working in tandem with customer service to respond to customer feedback or issues quickly.

Third, be authentic.  Don’t use marketing speak – write as if you are a consumer.  Finally, don’t be afraid to engage on other sites – Amazon, for example – which have become so influential in the process.  Do so openly though.

The most effective marketing words are those coming out of consumers’  mouths.  While we as marketers can’t put them there, we can listen carefully and respond honestly   That can help make sure those words are positive.  You agree?

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