Social media Archives - Omnichannel Personalization SaaS Solution

25 Jan
2017

Nordstrom’s Omnichannel Success

Culture of Innovation

Innovation is risky business, but not innovating is even riskier. In a world where technologies are rapidly changing, companies must be willing to evolve in stride. Several companies are doing so by shifting to an omnichannel marketing strategy. Omnichannel approaches are synchronizing the shopping experience across mediums for retailers.

Some retailers have successfully incorporated omnichannel strategy into their marketing strategy. Over the next few weeks, we will examine a trilogy of retailers and the wins they have achieved through an omnichannel approach. Today, we are going to focus on one of the most popular luxury retailers- Nordstrom.

Part I: Nordstrom

Nordstrom worked to reinvent itself around the omnichannel shopper. According to the President of Stores, James Nordstrom, retailers need to focus more on the total experience than strategy for specific channels; “[At Nordstrom, we] don’t think the customer is loyal to channels. We don’t hear customers talk about channels very much. Customers value experiences.” Consequently, this belief is guiding Nordstrom’s omnichannel strategy towards creating a synchronized and seamless customer experience.

Rewards Program

The omnichannel focus of the Nordstrom Rewards loyalty program gives customers a chance to gain points regardless of which channel they purchase items.These loyalty members can also then track their activity from anywhere. Shoppers can use their mobile number as identification instead of memorizing a loyalty account number. An omnichannel approach to the rewards program has given Nordstrom a more open policy focus. The open policy focus allows shoppers to pay in whichever method they choose, shop whichever way suits them and still gain more loyalty points and rewards. Nordstrom shoppers are winning more, ensuring customer loyalty.

Social Media Influence

The luxury retailer is also approaching shopping from a multichannel perspective, and one of their innovative initiatives has been integrating with the mobile application, Instagram, and social media/organization platform, Pinterest. Nordstrom has made it possible to buy items from Instagram and find items based on Pinterest favorites. Instagram has been a modeling platform for retail items. However, a grievance shoppers have, is the inability to locate and buy the items presented on Nordstrom’s Instagram account. The retailer’s Instagram account now features a link which directs customers to Like2Buy, a platform that makes Instagram shopping easy. All of the items available for sale from the retailer’s feed are displayed as an elegant grid of photos. Shoppers can then scroll and “like” items, which are curated into a personal wishlist or shopping cart.

Pinterest is a social media platform which allows users to “pin” things they like or want to “boards” for later reference. It indexes all the different items, ideas, and interests we come across online. Pinterest gives Nordstrom insight of which items are popular among shoppers. Nordstrom has brought these “pinned” items to their physical stores. Stores display commonly tagged or “pinned” items from Pinterest. The luxury retailer also adopted that feature on their website. Shoppers can now see a “Top Pinned” landing page on the site. Nordstrom doesn’t limit themselves to a single channel. The retailer has effectively leveraged their social media user base to enhance the shoppers’ experience by including the favorite and trendy items on Instagram and Pinterest in their stores. Not only do customers see more products, but they are buying more at one time and are coming back for more of the items they love.

Nordstrom had experienced success by understanding that customers value an enhanced experience. Nordstrom has provided its customers with a retail experience that spans online, offline, and social media outlets. Shopping has become a synchronized and seamless experience – Customers can easily find the products they love and find them from anywhere. Tune in next week as we take a closer look at Neiman Marcus and how they are using omnichannel marketing to benefit their shoppers.

19 Dec
2016

Serving Up Omnichannel Success

Lessons Learned From Omnichannel Dynamo Chili’s

With different mediums of shopping, companies have to create a seamless shopping experience across the board. As a result, every aspect of the consumer journey, from browsing to purchasing, has to be a smooth transition, both online and offline. People demand an omnichannel experience that is social, quick, easy to use, and valuable to the consumer.

Technological creativity seems to have more of an impact than a brand name. Customers are no longer impressed by a shiny new app of their name being personalized in an email. The 21st-century customer expects brands to create an omnichannel shopping experience that encompasses all online and offline interactions.

Let’s take a look at how Chili’s is using omnichannel and a little technical creativity to create the ultimate dining experience

Wait in line….from home

Gone are the days of waiting in line at Chili’s to get a table. The casual dining restaurant has partnered with NoWait to power their new mobile waitlisting feature on the Chili’s app. Through the use of the app, Chili’s can provide an enhanced dining experience. For diners who wish to enjoy their favorite menu items during peak hours. With the waitlisting feature, diners can reserve a spot in line and check up on wait times from any location or mobile device.

The waitlisting capability has given Chili’s an advantage in restaurant-diner relations. By combining the mobile and in-restaurant experience, diners have convenience and speed at their fingertips. The wait listing feature allows Chili’s to have faster table turnover and accurate estimates for wait times. Guests can not only check up on wait times but can also go ahead and order what they would like while still “waiting in line” while in the app. With combo offers and other special menu offers, Chili’s now gives diners a way to get their food without waiting in line and with little preparation time. Chili’s use of the waitlisting feature creativity uses mobile to optimizing the in-store dining experience.

Embrace Social Media

Across social media platforms, food and beverage mentions are the most popular. The way customers review restaurants on social media fundamentally changes the way restaurants are approaching social media. According to a Netbase report , Chili’s is one of the most popular brands on social media.

So what did Chili’s do right to make them among the top 15 most popular social media brands?

Chili’s embraces the way food and beverages are consumed from a social media perspective. It is no longer enough for a restaurant to have great written reviews. Presentation and picture quality is the new buzz in food reviews. Because of this shift, Chili’s has made changes to the brick and mortar restaurant to garner positivity on the digital landscape. Even the way food is prepared is being changed to be more appealing in photos. For example, French fries are served in stainless steel bins, ribs are neatly placed on plates, and even the plates themselves have been revamped to be prettier in photos.

The goal is to make menu items look more tempting in pictures, increasing the number of mentions and shares online. This improves Chili’s online presence and visibility on high traffic platforms like Instagram.

Tabletop tablets

Smartphones and tablets have made access to information and services available at our fingertips. The demand for convenience and speed has started shaping the way restaurants are tackling food service. While online ordering and delivery have made the eating-out experience easier, customers lose the dining experience. As a result, sit down restaurants are now introducing the tabletop tablet. This system allows diners to place food and drink orders through a provided tablet. Diners now have control of their dining experience. These tablets streamline food service without replacing the personal interactions with servers. With the tap of the finger, dinner guests can now input orders and requests such as waiter service, beverage refills, and chats with the chef.

This year, Chili’s implemented over 70,000 tablets across its restaurants to provide a smooth, reliable dining experience. The smart table top option is tightly integrated with the Chili’s ordering system, ensuring that everything is up to date. The tablet displays the most relevant and updated menu items, prices, and descriptions and can even show customized consumer reviews of the items that you have ordered.

The ability to omnichannel approach to ordering and paying for food through a tablet has boosted the volume of orders. The speed with which customers can pay with the tablet has also increased table turnover. As a result, Chili’s can seat more customers than before.

Chili’s has done a fantastic job of leveraging technological creativity to create omnichannel success. Have you seen other restaurant brands using omnichannel to enhance their customer experience? Let me know in the comment section below.

28 Jun
2016

What Do Google, Netflix, Amazon, And Best Buy Have In Common?

These 4 Billion-Dollar Companies Are Leaving the Competition In the Dust…

The customer is always right, right? Well, it all depends on what kind of experience customers have with your brand. Their experience will not only dictate how often they’ll complain, but how successful your company will be. Think of some of the biggest new brands – ones like Google, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon. All started within 15-20 years, but all have seen incredible success. Want to know why? Because they spent a lot of time and money making the customer experience the best it can be.

Exclusive Bonus: Download the free cheat sheet of tactics big brands use to create a personal experience, and software to do it on a budget.

Recently, taking the customer experience to the next level is possible through personalizing the content. It’s been an important cornerstone of successful marketing for some time now.

Think back to how this got done before the web. Companies were talking to customers, giving them surveys to try and find out as much as they could about them.

These days companies have a wealth of knowledge at their fingertips, and are embracing data to make it work for them. This article will explore how four companies (Amazon, Netflix, Google, and Best Buy) adapted over the past five years to see amazing growth, largely because of personalization.

Google

This company needs no introduction, and I bet you can already start to connect the dots on how they’ve managed to leverage personalization to great success. First, we need to take a step back and understand how Google makes its money. 89% of it comes from ad revenues, so for all intents and purposes, we’re only going to focus on that. So the question is, how do they leverage personalization to see the 66-billion-dollar revenue they pulled in last year.

Personalized Search

Google works best as a profile-based service, which means that to get the most out of it, you’ll need to sign into an account. From Gmail to YouTube, Google accounts work with a lot of services that people use regularly. Sure, you can still use it without signing in, but that is where the real personalization begins. This first point is pretty obvious. Depending on what you search for, and what your browsing history is, Google will serve you different sites.

Despite this fact, most people still don’t mind using it. By knowing what you’re searching for, they can offer products they think you’ll want to see. Yes, they are skewing the data. If you want a completely unbiased web search, consider using something like duckduckgo.com. Google is banking on a complex algorithm that takes sites you’ve visited and continues to show similar ones. If they know the type of sites you enjoy, why not show you more of the same?

Personalized Ads

This takes the first point to the next level and is made obviously clear after searching for a specific topic that you wouldn’t usually search. As an interesting experiment to illustrate this, I changed up my searches for a week. I love cars and do a lot of car-related searches. Understandably, most of my ads (when ad blocker was turned off) were for car-related products. I tried searching for something completely unrelated to cars: bird watching. Google noticed and then started showing me tranquil ads for bird watching equipment. Anyone can run this experiment, and it’s interesting to see how your search affects everything around you.

Though this may come off as creepy to some, it makes sense. If I am genuinely interested in all this bird watching stuff, maybe a company is offering a sale on those killer binoculars that I was looking for; so, I’ll click an ad, Google will get paid, and I’ll have some nice binoculars. Thanks, Google!

Personalized Videos

This last example is the natural progression from search and ad personalization. Since Google owns YouTube, it’s already happening. Depending on what you usually watch, it will curate your content to show you related videos.

Exclusive Bonus: Download the free cheat sheet of tactics big brands use to create a personal experience, and software to do it on a budget.

Though most, or all, of us, hate video ads, they know it’s a numbers game. Sure, you may close an ad every time, but 1 in 100 people might click it, and 1 in 1,000 might go on to buy the product. With these ads being served to millions of people every day, there is a lot of money to be made.

Google has mastered personalization to try and give you what you’re looking for before you even look, and the numbers speak for themselves. If this approach weren’t working, they wouldn’t be doing it.

Next, let’s look at everyone’s favorite streaming site: Netflix.

Netflix

“Netflix and chill,” may be a popular saying, but they are not chill about their dedication to providing you with shows you want to watch. Unlike Google, Netflix doesn’t make their money through ads, but through subscriptions, so their main focus is retention and keeping existing customers happy. They do this by filtering through their sea of available content to give you only what you want to watch.

Let’s look at how they’ve managed to leverage personalization to create a unique experience for all of their 81.5 million subscribers.

Recommendations

The “Recommended Shows” sections of Netflix aren’t new. In fact, they were working on improving their recommendation algorithm when they were still mailing out DVDs. Way back in 2006, they announced a $1 million prize to any team who could help improve their recommendation algorithm by just 10%. It’s clear they’re serious about constantly improving recommendations, and things have only gotten better for them since they made the jump to streaming in 2007.

Compared to a DVD watch list, instantly streaming content gave them a lot more data about people’s viewing habits. While they only had a list to work with in the past, now they can see what shows you watch, how much of each show you watch, what time you watch, and a lot more. This knowledge about your viewing habits helps them keep you engaged by ensuring you always have something new to watch.

Multiple Devices

Once Netflix made the jump to streaming, it opened up a whole new platform to reach new potential users. The thing is, not everyone’s the same, and different people prefer to watch movies or TV on different media. Netflix quickly understood this dilemma and saw the potential to have their service on different platforms. Rather than just being available through their site on a PC, they opened it up to Roku, Xbox, Apple TV and many others.

Netflix has one thing down: they are available to personalize content wherever and however their customers want it. From laptops, to phones, and even gaming consoles, Netflix is available wherever you want to use it.

Breaking The 4th Wall

The last piece of personalization that helps Netflix deliver a seamless customer experience is by now bringing recommendations right to your inbox. They knew people spent a lot of time just browsing for something to new watch, so now they help out by emailing suggestions directly to you. By using all of the data from your account, if a new show or movie that they think you’ll like comes out, they’ll let you know. You can even add it to your list from your phone!

Delivering useful content and recommendations is the type of omni channel personalization that has separated Netflix from the competition. They’re able to deliver a seamless experience from start to finish.

Amazon

You may have heard of this company. They used to sell books online, but are now the largest marketplace in the world, and are a perfect e-commerce example for how personalization helped them dominate the marketplace. As an e-commerce site, they make their money by selling products, and make even more money by recommending other items.

The motivation for recommendation is getting you to purchase more items. As the web grew, and more data points became available about their users, they were able to track more and more information, and make appropriate recommendations.

Frequently Bought Together

If you’ve ever used Amazon, you’ve seen this section, and it’s an ingenious piece of personalization. These recommendations are not serendipitous or a fluke. They are cold and calculated. Fortune describes it pretty well:

The company reported a 29% sales increase to $12.83 billion during its second fiscal quarter, up from $9.9 billion during the same time last year. A lot of that growth arguably has to do with the way Amazon has integrated recommendations into nearly every part of the purchasing process from product discovery to checkout.

Not only does this work, but they have multiple areas, each offering different suggestions: frequently bought together, customers who bought this item also bought, sponsored products relating to this item, and what other items do customers buy after viewing this item.

Those are four other suggestions to upsell and get you to buy more products. It’s no wonder why Amazon is the leader in the marketplace. This alone shows their understanding and value of customer data.

Follow Up Emails

If you’re running an e-commerce business, then you know that it’s a fact that a certain percentage of people will abandon their carts before purchasing. It doesn’t mean that they hate your brand or don’t want the product; life is complicated, and lots of things are vying for our attention.

With nearly 44% of cart abandonment emails being opened, a good percentage of those result in sales. This kind of personalization and customer experience isn’t hard to achieve, and any e-commerce business should be doing it. All it takes is a simple email with the items they left in the cart to try and rekindle the relationship and emotion felt in the first place.

Amazon Dash

This last product of Amazon’s takes personalization from the digital into the real world. If you’ve been following along, then you understand that people like to interact with brands on their terms, and that repeat business is key for a successful brand.

Amazon took their one-click checkout feature and made it into a real button. They realized that certain people would buy the same staples like Tide, Gatorade, or razors, so they made it even easier for you to buy them with one touch. Going from multiple steps to one press of a button is the next step in personalization and takes the customer experience to the next level. I’m excited to see what else they have up their sleeves.

Exclusive Bonus: Download the free cheat sheet of tactics big brands use to create a personal experience, and software to do it on a budget.

Not mentioned in the title, but equally as interesting is Best Buy, and they’re the last example of how a brick-and-mortar company can also adapt to the online data revolution and go toe-to-toe with the best of them. Worldwide, they have a 22% hold in the electronics market and are trying to close the gap with Amazon. To do so, they’re implementing similar tactics as Amazon and capitalizing on the shift to personalization.

Catching Up With The Rest

If you’ve bought something at Best Buy recently, you’ll notice that they too are sending recommendation emails. If you bought an Xbox and they have your email address, you might get emails suggesting new game titles you might like.

Of course, Best Buy stores benefit from the ability to offer instant gratification, but they also separate themselves from other online retailers by offering store-exclusive content. That means if you preorder a game at Best Buy, you’ll get exclusive access to limited-edition content, not available to anyone else. With prices being pretty consistent for video games, offering the bonus of additional content is an interesting approach to helping close the gap with online retailers.

Price Match

Around 70% of Best Buy’s inventory is available cheaper elsewhere online (Amazon, eBay), so how do they still manage to compete? To combat this, they’ve implemented a pretty liberal price-match policy for brick-and-mortar as well as online retailers. This policy is a pretty bold statement and makes a strong case for those who prefer to buy all of their electronics at once to do it all at Best Buy. If online retailers can’t compete with price, then they’ll have to get creative to compete with Best Buy moving forward.

Personal Contact

Though brick-and-mortar can seem like an excessive overhead in our digital society, Best Buy uses it to leverage their “blue shirt” experts and staff, who give a real personal touch. This is something an online store just can’t do on the same level. Sure, they could have a pop-up live chat window, but it just can’t replace actual face-to-face, human contact. Their staff is well versed in what they’re selling (sometimes that’s because they are actually employees of the brands they are recommending, instead of being Best Buy employees), and can usually understand your concerns and make real-time recommendations.

Though large businesses are generally not known for their speed in implementing change, all of these companies have done a great job of using data to their advantage to keep things personal for their customers and deliver an amazing overall experience. And as far as it looks, the customers have returned the favor by staying loyal to them and purchasing time after time.

23 Mar
2015

Marketing to Millennials with Seamless Social Omnichannel

Social_Media_and_Millennials — The prevalence of social media regarding millennials. Click to enlarge.

Using social media channels to improve marketing over multiple platforms

A massive shift in the marketing power is upon us.

For decades, baby boomers held the most purchasing power in the marketplace. But, as millennials are becoming the driving force in sales, marketers are forced to adjust their strategies to accommodate the younger generation. With the growing emphasis on millennials in the marketplace, understanding how to communicate with this generation through social and mobile channels is imperative for marketing success.

One key variance that sets millennials apart from other generations is social media usage. According to a Pew Research survey, 18 to 29-year-olds are the largest demographic of social media users. Because this group now makes up the largest purchasing power in America, incorporating marketing into social media can pay off big time for companies.

The key to an effective social media campaign lies in omnichannel. Each platform – from Facebook and email to brick-and-mortars – must provide a seamless experience for consumers. Platforms with inconsistencies will frustrate the user and decrease customer traffic.

We’ve taken a look at how today’s top marketers have created an omnichannel experience when marketing to millennials via social media.

Facebook

Comments or direct messages increase the amount of communication between a company and the public. Companies like Papa John’s Pizza use this tool to quickly answer customer questions or address complaints. Oftentimes, the pizza entity was able to respond to public concerns in just ten minutes.

Noting fast responses is key. A Forrester report found that 45% of shoppers will abandon online transactions if their concerns are not addressed quickly. In contrast, a customer-friendly, quick response can boost a company’s stance in customer service.

With Facebook’s convenience, it’s no wonder that 52% of companies think it is the most effective social channel for customer service. Millennials choose to communicate via Facebook instead of a website because of it often prompts a faster response from a company. Millennials aren’t lazy – they simply prefer convenience and fast service.

In the case that a Facebook comment cannot provide an adequate response to customer concerns, Papa John’s directs its consumers to their website. Their website provides forms for consumers who wish to discuss their experience in detail with the company. The seamless connection between their Facebook social media and company website help buyers communicate with the company effectively.

Instagram

Instagram’s growing popularity among millennials and young people has attracted retail marketers to the picture-based social media platform.

Large companies have adapted their advertising towards becoming more seamlessly integrated with the Instagram experience. For example, the past year has seen a number of retailers implementing like-to-buy programs for their products.

Like-to-buy is one of the fastest ways a shopper can make a purchase. When an Instagram user sees a photo of a desired product for purchase, he or she can leave contact information via direct message or comment on the post. The retailer later invoices the Instagram user for their product, and the product is available for in-store pickup or home delivery.

Dallas boutique Movida implements their weekly "Thursday Therapy." Shoppers can easily order products before they are even sold in the store. — Movida, a Dallas boutique, implements their weekly “Thursday Therapy.” Shoppers can easily order products before they are sold in the store. Invoices are emailed and products are shipped directly to the buyer. Click image to enlarge.

Again, millennials are all about convenience. An omnichannel approach that lets shoppers purchase products with a few taps on their iPhone screen is just about as convenient as can be – especially with the option of in-store pickup or home delivery.

Snapchat

This fastest growing social media platform opens doors for memorable, creative marketing campaigns. Taco Bell has secured its status as a leader in marketing through its one-of-a-kind Snapchat campaigns.

Taco Bell uses this photography-focused channel to engage with its users. Between challenging users to doodle wars, to designing comical Valentine’s greeting cards, Taco Bell has solidified its reputation as a leader in engaging with consumers.

But Taco Bell focuses on more than an entertaining social media presence. The company’s Snaps often direct consumers to view more items on its app or in brick-and-mortars. Because customers are already engaged, they are more likely to visit Taco Bell’s other channels. Consumers develop stronger trust and loyalty with brands that engage with them, adding to a significant payoff for Taco Bell sales. For this fast-food restaurant, engagement is the glue to an omnichannel approach.

That being said…

Millennials show no signs of slowing their social media usage, so it’s up to marketers to stay relevant to the masses. Incorporating seamless social media campaigns into marketing strategies can ensure that brands are attractive and easily accessible to today’s consumers. Don’t be afraid to incorporate similar social media strategies into your own omnichannel campaign, or learn about more inspirational omnichannel marketing.

02 Feb
2015

Managing Multiple Channels with Automation

There’s no doubt regarding the effectiveness of marketing automation. Automation makes communicating with customers easy and has the potential to yield impressive results.

However, automation can be a nuisance for customers if not used appropriately. Automation fails when marketers present irrelevant, incorrect, or outdated content. At its worst, marketing automation can actually make a business lose customers.

Automation can be a little tricky, and automation across multiple channels can be tough. But a little extra effort can turn into a big payoff – a seamless, omnichannel marketing automation experience can be a marketer’s best friend.

So, what’s the point of marketing automation?

The end goal in most marketing automation campaigns is to drive traffic to the business’s website. E-commerce sales are steadily increasing, and the best way to make sales online is by increasing traffic to a website. Automated marketing provides relevant content for the right customers at the appropriate time. With automation tools, a marketer can create a personalized, 1:1 shopping experience without having to constantly attend to a customer’s needs.

Businesses who want to give shoppers an easy, convenient e-commerce experience should utilize automation via website, email, social media and call centers.

The Digital World:

Websites

Nearly every business that makes sales online uses some type of automation in their website. Website automation has a wide range of uses and may interact directly and indirectly with a customer.

Customers may experience automation through a business’s search engine, shopping cart, or user registration. Automation systems can also handle mundane, behind-the-scenes technical tasks like data backup.

Forever21's search engine predicts what you're searching for, and automatically directs you to the right product — Forever21’s search engine predicts what you’re searching for, and automatically directs you to the right product

The most important assets in website automation are leading pages. Emails, social media, and other web pages will often contain links to a site’s landing page. Landing pages are specifically designed to generate leads, as these links direct customers to a product page or collect customer data. Employing leading pages increases the likelihood for a completely seamless multi-channel automation experience.

Email

Marketers should be strong advocates for email automation. This channel has particularly high potential and a variety of different opportunities to market.

As previously mentioned, landing pages play a large role in email automation. Businesses can send customers emails with relevant products a customer may be interested in, and prompt a sale by providing a link to the products’ landing page. Businesses can also send “Happy Birthday” discounts or information about sales, with links to their site.

Banana Repulic's Embark confirmation email — Banana Repulic’s Embark confirmation email

Businesses can also connect brick-and-mortar experiences with digital. For example, Banana Republic sends emails to its newly registered members, welcoming them to their Embark program. Seconds after I registered with Embark, I received the following email from Banana:

This automated email confirmed that my membership with Embark. A few days later, I received another email from Banana’s Embark with information about in-store sales. I had officially connected with Banana in-store and online via email. And, even though I was not actually with a Banana Republic associate, I was still able to access relevant information at my leisure.

Social

Social media can be a strong asset for marketers using automation. The workout class provider ClassPass is one strong player in the social media marketing game. ClassPass provides a variety of yoga and pilates classes to members, and markets through automated social media ads.

ClassPass posts links to landing pages in their Twitter or Facebook feeds, sharing new promotions and products with their followers. Links within these posts lead ClassPass’s followers to more information about their offerings and a link to purchase workout classes.

ClassPass promotes new location — ClassPass promotes their new location via Twitter

ClassPass advertises to individuals that don’t necessarily follow them on social media, but may be potential clients using Facebook’s paid advertisement feature. Before I had heard of ClassPass, the following sponsored ad popped up on my Facebook feed.

As a pilates-loving woman living in a city with ClassPass locations, this advertisement was perfect for me. Using my gender, location and interests, Facebook and ClassPass targeted me as a possible client in the workout-class demographic. My personal information determined that I would likely be interested in ClassPass’s products.

Both types of social media advertisements are particularly effective for ClassPass, because they reach the consumer when he or she is likely not preoccupied with other tasks. As most people access social media in their free time, ClassPass’s potential customers have the time to explore the webpage and consider new purchases.

Call Center

Although phone calls are not digital, company call centers also play a role in the e-commerce experience. When a customer wants more information about a product or a shopping experience goes awry, he or she can call the customer service line.

In years past, a seamless website-call center experience was nonexistent. However, with technological advances, call centers contribute to easy, seamless shopping. Call centers have quick access to customer data from past purchases and personal information, and can pull up detailed information about a customer’s shopping experience in seconds.

If a customer has a complaint about their most recent purchase, a call center can verify purchases and help the customer with a touch of a button. If a customer is looking for more information about an out-of-stock product, the call center may be able to recommend other products based on similar shoppers’ preferences. And if a customer needs to be redirected to a different department, information can be shared with the new company rep digitally, quickly, and easily. A call center’s automated material is key in providing a personalized experience for customers.

While adjusting marketing automation strategies may require a little extra time and effort, businesses should keep eyes on the prize: an increase in customer interest, product awareness, and ROI. And, as experts believe that marketing automation will gain popularity, marketers should be quick to employ an automation strategy.

15 Dec
2014

The Message from the Digital Dallas Summit: Personalize “It”

Today we have a special guest post from Brandon Harig, the winner of our My Marketing Hero Twitter contest. Brandon is a digital marketer with a background in social media processes and policies, having worked with top automotive brands in the country as part of start-ups and agencies. More of his work and thoughts can be found at SociallyEffective.com.

Flying to the Digital Dallas Summit from Michigan, any conversation would eventually rotate as to ‘why did you come so far for this?’ Beyond the fact DDS 2014 aligned well from a “doesn’t interrupt my work too badly” timeline, Dallas Digital Summit was also a quality fit because of the lineup of great speakers. From a distance, leading into the conference, the speakers chosen covered a wide spectrum of areas in which digital marketers struggle or look to learn more. Fortunately, for attendees, this hope was a reality and made DDS a fantastic choice for those in digital marketing wanting to better understand an ever-shifting landscape.

What appeared to be the underlying theme of DDS this year was simple (and highly convenient given the nature of the work of nectarOM’s products): effectively communicating at a unique, personal level. When a company looks to “personalize it,” with ‘it’ varying based upon department and business, they must reimagine how they do business. What this meant at the Digital Dallas Summit, presented in a variety of ways in widely-varying topic areas, was that digital marketing is quickly moving to a place where broad messaging fails and personal experiences champion results. Whether in content marketing, e-blasts or user experience, sterile presentation and form execution fail to thrive in a world where audiences demand something better than a company’s “B game.”

For me, personally, this is amazing news. One topic of interest to me in the digital landscape is how customer service is evolving online. While this was merely hinted at (and will hopefully be a topic at next year’s summit), customer service via social media or digital solutions is only as effective as the connection consumers make with the process. All the bells and whistles available cannot trump a customer unwilling to follow the path prescribed or too upset to even consider a resolution, each with very real consequences for the brand.

The ability of consumers to tone out marketing pitches is parallel, or perhaps even greater, than this potential for users to dismiss digital customer service solutions. From Digital Dallas Summit’s keynote to close, attendees were presented a wide spectrum of topics (ranging in avoiding social media Armageddon to dynamic UX development) that revolved around not coding or executing based upon hunches or strengths but, instead, on the needs and desires of the audience. Everything from color spectrums to core messaging need to be analyzed; even the future of SEO is less tied to logical word pairings and, instead, on what people actually type into Google during a search.

This idea of developing based upon the wants, not just needs, of an audience was touched on quite well by Seth Dotterer of Conductor, a Web Presence Management group. While using SEO as the central concept, Dotterer highlighted the shift away from traditional and into the personalized, dynamic organic efforts that accentuate brand differentiators and quality. His most shocking statistic, that 90% of the direct paid budget goes to 6% of the traffic, highlighted the need to escape the standard and into persona-based efforts that engage on the user level. Seth’s focus on branding was the reason I chose him as my ‘marketing hero’ in nectarOM’s conference promotion and why he was the talk of the conference within attendee circles.

Perhaps the only ‘ding’ against the Digital Dallas Summit was a lack of core execution tips after raising the importance of personalized experiences for digital users. In truth, DDS operated much in the way the businesses of the attendees operate: within different rooms, concepts in extremely different fields discussed the same common goal of providing effective experiences to enable brand and customer alike. Only when attendees compared notes on different pitches could a common theme be seen, as well as potential ideas and tools to execute it. The solution for departments, regardless of the ‘room’ they may be in, remains the same and depends upon the collective ability of the group. Without executive buy-in, marketing is unable to launch dynamic campaigns; without proper testing and planning, developers are unable to launch e-blasts that truly capitalize on user interest.

The Dallas Digital Summit benefited strongly by having attendees that were extremely eager to take their operations to the next step. Performances that struggled tended to rely too heavily upon self-selling or excessively simplistic ideas while those presentations that became ‘lore’ broke down barriers between the audience and presenter. Just as presentations with too many slides went downhill, presentations that tried unique approaches (one involved constant screenshots of 90s video games) that engaged existing attendee interests soared. At the heart of success at DDS was an awareness of the value of personality and branding, two components of identity that companies that ‘get it’ are identified by. If you were unable to attend DDS but want the core take-away from a leading marketing symposium, focus on this: brands that go further to better understand their audience, and the role a product or service plays in that audience’s daily life, make richer connections that translates to business success.

01 Oct
2014

4 Marketing Personalization Mistakes to Avoid

We’ve posted quite a few articles on marketing personalization best practices and ways to increase value with personalization, but what we haven’t touched on are things to avoid when it comes to building momentum with marketing personalization and automation.

Here are four marketing personalization mistakes you absolutely have to avoid like the plague if you want a smooth ride(relatively) on your path to personalization.

1. Infringing on customer privacy and not protecting customer data

Don’t be manipulative when it comes to gather information from customers

All it takes is one screw up for a huge PR disaster and plenty of lost potential and current customers. Just don’t do it.

This applies to email opt ins on retailer websites, to mobile app permissions, to social log ins on websites. Be clear, respect your customers by letting them know exactly what you will be using information for, and you’ll earn their respect.

Since one of the first steps of true hyper-personalization is building an integrated data management system that can bring in multiple external and internal data sets, the inherent risk is quite clear. With all your data in one location, there must be significant care in protecting the customer gold harvested because one data breach can mean multiple streams of data are vulnerable.

Be honest with your customers about what you are taking from them, and once you have their trust, protect what you have. It’s that simple.

2. Relying on one set of data

To build a 360 degree view of your customers, you need to draw insights from various data sources. While one data source may constitute a large majority of your data analysis into your personalization platform, the more diversified your data collection points are, the more accurate your predictive analytics will be.

For instance, a big box retailer with may point to POS data and their eCommerce data as their main data feeds into a marketing personalization tool, but forgetting to integrate social media data for crucial life event data would be simply be a waste. There will be sources of data that will be more relevant than others, but finding out where to piece in and weigh each data channel is too important to ignore.

3. Neglecting testing

Testing is a pain. Multivariate testing can get very messy with hyper-segmentation, but always remember to test while executing. The closer you get to hyper-personalization, the more marketers will be tempted to skip various parts of the testing process.

Don’t fall into that trap. Just because the testing process will become more complicated doesn’t mean you should take your foot off the testing pedal. It will become even more important to your personalization journey that all your data sources, creative pieces, and messages are carefully tested to optimize your personalization efforts. Remember that a marketing personalization tool is exactly that…a tool that needs constant recalibration to make the high, consistent returns that you expect.

4. Thinking you’ve reached true hyper-personalization

Thinking that hyper-personalization is a place where you will someday reach and lay claim to is unreasonable and dangerous to long-term marketing personalization efforts.

Algorithms can be update and tweaked, new sources of data can be added, execution points can be refined and tested.

Knowing your customer 100% and predicting their needs exactly won’t happen without having Jedi mind reading powers, but you can always keep moving in the right direction.

Nobody said personalization was easy, which is why very few have figured out the right path towards marketing personalization. With these tips in mind, you’ll save yourself a lot of time and money while consistently moving and accelerating in the right direction.

17 Feb
2014

3 Marketing Trends of 2014

Marketing is just like any other tradition here in the United States: as time progresses it begins to change and adapt to new trends that emerge. In 2014, the marketing world has had a lot of new developments thanks to the innovations such as mobile apps, social media, big data breakthroughs, and other discoveries. As a result, there has been a noticeable shift in how marketers create their strategies to promote products and services. Today, we will discuss 3 of these new marketing trends that have emerged in 2014.

1. Don’t Just Personalize, Hyper-Personalize In 2013, personalization was the name of the marketing game. How was this accomplished exactly? By tracking spending habits and recording clicks while signed in to their website. Then the companies would take that information and use it to send personalized offers via email, text or through the website. Hyperpersonalization takes this one step further. By integrating various existing data sets such as personal information and social media data, companies are able to know more about their customers than just their spending data. For example, utilizing information from Susan’s Facebook page, a company might be able to learn that Susan is expecting a baby in a few months and to send her offers for baby clothes. Hyperpersonalization is like knowing what the customer wants before they actually want it

2. Measure Social Media ROI Accurately Measuring ROI from social media in the past has been anything but exact. Every company that has invested in social media has had a different method of measuring the effectiveness of their social media efforts with varied results. In the past, companies measured their social media success by how much revenue it directly generated for them. While this may work for other marketing avenues, it may not necessarily work for social media. In 2014, measuring social media ROI has evolved from looking at revenue generated to the buzz that is created from the efforts put in. Creating buzz around a company will increase a company’s audience and engagement by increasing word of mouth; hence the word “viral”. Understanding how to optimize content to go viral is key in the success of social media implementation.

3. Real Time Geographic Marketing Geographic marketing is not a new innovation. It has been around since the early days albeit in a more primitive fashion; for example, a large billboard perched above a building has an arrow which points down, indicating it is a restaurant to stop at while driving. Over the past few years email has been the primary source of geographic marketing by sending offers to customers within certain distances from companies. In 2014 this will be taken one step further. With the rise in mobile device usage, real-time geographic marketing will be employed by sending SMS messages or emails to customers’ mobile devices when they are certain distance from a company. So if I am in a mall looking for a gift, I might get an SMS on my phone alerting me that a clothing store in the same mall has a sale. That is the power and convenience or geographic marketing.

Marketing will always have a place in any business strategy because it is the most basic form of communicating with potential customers. The best way to look at is summed up in the expression: “The players haven’t changed, but the game has.” By staying on top of the newest developments one can expect to enjoy the benefits of being top of mind.

17 Dec
2013

Randi Zuckerberg Dallas Digital Summit Keynote Part 2

Randi Zuckerberg Emerging Tech Trends Recap

We last left off in the middle of Randi Zuckerberg, CEO and founder of Zuckerberg Media, talking about what she believes are the emerging trends of technology. She spoke mainly of the internet empowering the “everyday man” to pursue their entrepreneurial spirit, she spoke of how tech giants and social media sites are becoming the popular news sources, and she mentioned how teens of this generation are the most influential and well-connected due to their prowess with social media and other similar tools. In this blog we will conclude with her other 5 trends so without further ado here are Randi Zuckerbergs 5 more trends of technology.

WOMEN IN TECHNOLOGY= Women have been pigeonholed in the technology world as being inferior to women. To counteract this there have been movements to increase women’s proficiency and activism in the technology world. Websites such as Girls Who Code have been created to promote the spread of knowledge among women and in fact the youngest mobile app developer is actually a 7 year old girl. Women are most definitely tech savvy and they just have to overcome the stigma against them.

GAMIFICATION FOR MOTIVATION= This refers to turning daily tasks into games in order to motivate ourselves to accomplish more. One such example is an app that acts as an alarm with access to your credit card information. Each time you hit the snooze button it automatically donates money to the charity of your choice. Running, one of the most popular exercise forms has evolved with motivational apps as well such as one that simulates zombie sounds in your headphones to motivate you to run farther and faster.

PASSION PROJECTS AS A SIDEJOB= This trend is the increasing likelihood of people with passions or hobbies to turn those into sidejobs that they can earn extra income and pursue their passions. Randi spoke highly of this trend as stimulating the entrepreneurial mindset into the “common working man.”

WE ARE ADDICTED TO OUR PHONES= More of a negative trend but a very real one we face. As we become more connected in the social media world, we tend to miss out and become disconnected from the real world. We ignore friends in our immediate company to text ones who aren’t there and our FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) has caused us to believe that we lead boring lives compared to the crazy stories we read on the internet.

DISCONNECT AND BE MORE MINDFUL OF TECHNOLOGY= Randi mentioned that it was great to be connected with people far away but in order to not lose sight of those around us we must put down our devices and reconnect with friends, family, and nature. Technology is evolving to connect the opposite sides of the world even faster but we can never disconnect with what is right in front of us.

Randi touched on some very poignant and deep issues in her talk. She is encouraging us all to disconnect and reconnect with the world around us and stop and smell the roses sometimes. I believe that we should embrace the technology around us and integrate it into our lives instead of being consumed by it.

17 Dec
2013

Randi Zuckerberg Dallas Digital Summit Keynote Part 1

Randi Zuckerberg Emerging Tech Trends Recap

While attending the Dallas Digital Summit these past few days we were fortunate enough to listen to Randi Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Zuckerberg Media and sister to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Randi spoke on a very relevant topic that everyone faces today and that is the shifting trends of technology. She spoke of 10 trends and how they are changing around us every day. As a recap, here are 5 of Randi’s trends. The other 5 will be presented in next week’s blog:

BRANDED NEWSROOMS= This means that tech providers such as yahoo or large companies on twitter on facebook are now a more followed source of news than actual news stations. The rapidity that word travels on these social media sites far exceeds that of televisions and newspapers as we are now able to learn events as they occur almost real-time.

TEENS ARE THE HOLY GRAIL OF TECHNOLOGY= Randi explained this as the younger more tech-savvy generation is shaping the way information is dispersed, new things are learned and overall how the world is viewed. This always connected generation is able to effectively utilize all the information around us and break through clutter to discover new knowledge.

THE MAKER MOVEMENT= People purchasing products in the store, for example, see the inferiority in consumer goods and believe that they can create a higher-quality product. This is no new way of thinking, however, people have always been trying to build a better mouse trap but in today’s world the internet is giving these people the channels to actually distribute to consumers now.

THE RISE OF ENTREPLOYEES= This is the notion that within companies employees will see opportunities to create their own ideas and carve niches. Unfortunately, the everyday working man does not have the time nor capital to pursue their idea, but today, there are companies that will provide funds and time for their employees to create their own startups from within in exchange for equity.

LIFE-LOGGING= Life-logging is the idea of capturing your everyday life through pictures, diaries, social media, etc. So widespread has this “selfie” culture become that there are now apps reminding you to take daily “selfies” and there are even devices that you can purchase that will snap pictures of your day-to-day activities to record them for you.

For Randi’s next 5 emerging social trends stay tuned for our next blog!