Tag Archives: Strategic management

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 9, 2015 · 10:00 am

Batman In Half The Time

It’s Monday, and one of my little treats on Monday evenings, prior to football, is watching Gotham.  It’s a prequel to the Batman story with which most of us are familiar.  As a subscriber to the philosophy that one should always be Batman, it’s must-see TV for me.  Unfortunately, last Monday, I was engaged in a client phone call and couldn’t watch the show.  In an on-demand world, that’s really not a big deal.  In addition to the on-demand service my cable provider offers, I am a Hulu subscriber.  Catching up on the missed episode happened the next night, and while I was watching it a little light went on. I’d like to share my thought with you and see what you think.

My former colleagues in television bemoan the shift of viewing to streaming sources.  They think it has to do with convenience or maybe with some cord cutting.  That may be true, but as I was watching Gotham, this is what dawned on me:

Gotham on Fox – 60 minutes. Gotham on Hulu – 33 minutes.

We wonder why people are watching alternative sources?  Its’s the same reason people use ad blockers.  It’s a faster, less cluttered experience.  The thing that drew us to whatever we are doing is constantly being interrupted. Ads are not why we watch.  They’re our part in the attention/value exchange.  Unfortunately, that equation has become unreasonably weighted to broadcast and cable television providers, who are making excessive demands for our attention.  If I can get my Batman fix in half the time, the few bucks a month that it costs is well worth it.

Having been a publisher as well as involved in broadcast programming, I understand the pressures for monetization.  The problem now, however, is that the uniqueness of nearly every channel has been stripped away.  The content that made a channel unique is everywhere, and in general,  consumers will access that content with as few distractions as possible.  Annoyed consumers will seek out channels that are less annoying.

It’s not just TV.  If site A offers me news or scores or stats with a healthy dose of auto-start video, pop-ups, and full-screen takeovers, I can assure you that I’ll find a site that offers that content in a less-monetized environment.   If I can enjoy one of my guilty pleasures in half the time, why wouldn’t I?  Hulu and Fox both show ads, both show promotional spots, and both show the same program.  Fox, obviously, chose to show a lot more non-program material.  That may have paid their bills in the near term, but in the future, I’ll be watching on Hulu, so I guess it ultimately was a bad choice.

Why are people moving to other channels?  Do you really need to ask?

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