Jan 3, 2012 | Branding, Customers, Marketing, Sales
We are in the middle of the post Christmas sales, an orgy of discount opportunities for consumers as retailers rush to clear stock, and take advantage of the behavior consumers exhibit every new year, “buy, buy, grab the discount”.
Whoops?
Have we trained customers to expect great deals post Xmas, do they put off spending at full price till the post Xmas period, not because the deals are great, but because they have been trained to do so?
Clearly the answer is yes, customers have been trained, just like Dr Pavlov demonstrated.
So, what else can customers be trained to do? When you think about it, the list gets pretty long.
Switch brands indiscriminately
Demand discounts
Be impatient and unforgiving
Expect free service, whilst getting a discount price
24 hour delivery
Limitless warranty
The list goes on, but to each, there is a positive side, customers can be trained to stay with the one brand, not to expect discounts and unreasonable service and warranty, not all of them, but usually enough to make the investment worthwhile, as the alternative is to go broke being the cheapest to all, rather than delivering genuine value to those who are prepared to pay for it.
What are you training your customers to expect?
Dec 22, 2011 | Communication, Social Media
The hard part about writing a blog, I have found, is not finding stuff to write about, but finding stuff that has not been written about before, or finding a new twist on an old topic, and then being sufficiently interesting to those who so generously give you their attention, that they take note.
The proliferation of sources of news and comment has sliced up the attention pie so completely, that getting and holding the attention of those who may be interested, and adding value to them in return is the real challenge.
Never has the old adage from Peter Drucker, “Communication is not saying something, communication is being heard”, been more accurate than it is now.
So, for you, one of that small group who have so generously given me their attention through this year by reading, commenting on, tweeting, and otherwise been a part of this wonderful tool of communication we now take for granted, I thank you, and wish you a safe and Merry Christmas. I look forward to continuing the relationship in 2012, and continuing to engage with you, by scratching your brain cells with interesting and useful stuff.
Dec 19, 2011 | Customers, Marketing
Ever thought about how markets happen, how the emerge, how they grow?
A new market has to have a first customer, most marketers look to the value proposition, the competitive landscape, the distribution channels, the mechanics of manufacturing, the service offering, but that is not all it is, there is another factor usually overlooked.
Somewhere, sometime, there needs to be a first customer, then a second, and with luck those will tell their friends the product is good, and the ball will start rolling.
However, for every new customer, there must be a first time, they must be persuaded to buy into a new market or product category, to overcome the barriers of habit, reluctance to take a risk, to be different, to move from something that they know is OK to something they have heard may be better.
I have not yet bought a Smartphone, but I suppose I will at some point, when the pressure is sufficient to get me to buy one, but that will be the first time I buy a Smartphone, it will be a hurdle, the second one will be much, much easier.
Getting people to buy their first is the key hurdle of any new market.
Dec 12, 2011 | Innovation, Marketing, Strategy
From bricks and mortar, to the web, and now to mobile apps. What is next for retailing?
There was a blue last week between the current and previous MD of David Jones, about who wore the blame for DJ’s being slow into e-selling, billionaire Gerry Harvey is often bitching about the unfair competition from e-tailers, and Australian post is gearing up to deliver parcels, as their snail-mail service is on its deathbed, certainly unable to support the infrastructure built for another age. Now the just released Productivity Commission report on retailing has recommended that the threshold for the application of GST on imported parcels drop from the current $1000, as soon as it is cost effective to do so.
It seems to me that there is a resurgence of alternative retail, new business models that leverage the changing environment, Harris Farm, Aussie Farmers direct, Kogan, and many others. By looking backwards to set the regulatory framework, we run the risk of compromising the emerging foundations of the future, and stamping on the wrong hat.
Dec 2, 2011 | Customers, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
How do you calculate the value of an investment in social media?
Any investment attracts the need to try to quantify the returns, both to measure the success of the investment when it is too late to do much about it apart from ensuring the same mistake is not made again, and to prioritise competing investment options against a limited pool of funds available.
Accountants love the discounted cash flow, and real options type analyses that prevail, but how do you do these on an investment in media, social or otherwise?
It makes sense to start to consider “data chains”.
Cause and effect;
Influence and action;
Believable and buy;
These are all examples of the chains of connections that are on the surface largely subjective, but lead to an outcome that can be measured. The task of measuring the return on the exposure that can accrue from a presence in Social Media, and even conventional media, is fraught with challenges, but with systemisation of the pools of data generated from your sales, customer retention, prospect identification, web analytics, and all the other data collection options now available, you can start to see the patterns emerging that can be used to calculate a return, even if there is a “fudge factor” present.
At some point you simply have to acknowledge that behavioral patterns are not easy to quantify, and even harder to predict, but by explicitly acknowledging the chains of cause and effect that exist, you can start to anticipate, if not predict, the returns
Dec 1, 2011 | Branding, Communication, Customers, Marketing, Social Media
Marketing on line is no longer the “next new thing” it was just a few short years ago, it is mainstream, a major consumer of marketing resources, and source of huge marketing value when done well. As with all new things, you get better with practice, and we are just at the beginning, learning how to use the tools now becoming available to build an experience for our customers they relate to, and can value, building the relationships they have with our businesses in the process.
In past blogs, I have noted the success of Tesco, particularly in Korea with their virtual shops, and the astonishing range of innovation that can be generated using QR codes.
In this link to what is in my view the best curator of web marketing topics, the Businessgrow blog, there is an accumulation of the best on line campaigns done to date. It avoids the usual suspects, and concentrates on those that are pushing the boundaries, and is therefore a valuable glimpse into the opportunities emerging. The web may be a free medium, but it is one where content is king.
Being different takes creativity, guts, foresight, and resources help, but are not a substitute for the other three. In the end being effective on the web is way more than just being there, because almost everyone is there now, you have to stand out, be relevant, engaging, and useful.
