Behavioural Marketing Made Easier

Understanding how customers interact with the brand across multiple channels is increasingly the norm. But how do we create Behavioural Profiles and combine with Marketing Automation

I recently wrote a post on believing what customers do rather than what they say ( All Customers are Liars).
And our customer are 'doing' things or engaging with our brands in a variety of ways across a variety of channels.

This video from Silverpop highlights some of the data that can be collected and acted upon using their platform. Of course there are other platforms that can also help..but this is a great little intro into understanding individual's behaviour rather than general trends, allowing you to segment the individual or score the lead, and take action.




Now, if we can combine behaviour with customer mind set or intent at that moment we are onto something.

And as the presenter says, ..'Pretty cool huh?!'

The Power of Words

You have a few moments to grab my attention so using the right words is vital

The other day I wrote on a post on my favourite email subject line last week. Of course we know how important using the right words is, especially when we only have a couple of seconds to make an impact ( An A to Z of eCRM G is for Gladwell ). In fact the slight problem I highlighted with Kiehl's yesterday proved my point.

This is of course true in email subject lines and within the email, how we use copy in our Google Ads, the copy on the landing page we direct our prospects to.

I recently listened to a great session from Bryan Eisenberg on using Google and PPC to improve conversion rates and understanding your audience and using the right words was central to his message . Presentation below courtesy of Fusion Marketing Experience and J-P De Clerck

How to Use Google to Lift Your Conversion Rate

View more presentations from Fusion Marketing Experience / J-P De Clerck


But I think nothing sums it up more than this great video created by Purple Feather



Enough said/written

Free Shipping or Not Free Shipping. That is the question. INRS

I love Kiehl's as a brand and of course the products they sell. But surely it's just lazy marketing on their part in not converting Free Shipping, which is very much a US term, to something I'm more accustomed to, ie Free Delivery or Free Postage and Packaging.

Or am I being naive and they've tested Free Shipping against Free Delivery and we are more American than we think?

And then you confuse me by adding a Free Shipping with orders over £40 !

So which is it ? Free Shipping or Not Free Shipping. That is the question

Or is the question until when is the offer valid to? Wednesday 6th June or 31.05.12? Check out the landing page.

Talk about not making easy for me the customer!

If anyone knows anyone at Kiehl's..let them know...

Marketing Automation and Moments of Truth

If marketing has one goal, it’s to reach consumers at the moments that most influence their decisions

A quote taken from this McKinsey article.

But how often as marketers do we really understand when those moments of truth are?

Of course as we buy our morning latte it would seem like almost the perfect opportunity to be offered a pastry with that in the local Costa or Starbucks. And it would seem that whatever you buying in WH Smith these days its always the right time to be offered a Cadbury's bar at a special price.( Although that would seem too random for my liking..and yet it seems to work)

And talking of chocolate, I came across this perfect photo opportunity in a Superdrug store recently where product placement was very much to the fore with a real moment of truth opportunity to cross sell

Of course there are times when the customer is begging for you to make the sale - for example when I earlier this evening added the words 'Arne Jacobsen station desk clock ' into my Google search bar. No guessing what I was in the market for.

But sometimes it's not that obvious and you have to put the pieces together - as did Harry Caul in The Conversation ( An A to Z of eCRM - H is for Harry ).


Luckily these days much of this 'grunt' work is achieved with Marketing Automation platforms that can help score the right moment to approach a potential customer with the right message.


Seem a little old fashioned and sounds like old school marketing? I'm not so sure.


With so many marketing automation platforms these days incorporating Social as part of that lead process it makes it much more palatable to those of you who think Social is the answer, now what's the question?


Of course this only works if the programme has a real time element to it and doesn't work on traditional batch and blast mechanics.


But imagine a scenario where I read my emails in the morning with news of the new trainers I've been looking at online are available at my favourite Nike store. As I walk past the store, I receive a message on my location aware mobile  inviting me in to try them on for size - they have my size 9's in stock as they remember my last online order. And because they know how many miles I've run since then they think I deserve a new pair (using data to second guess that need)


I've got time so I go in and obviously check in - at which point I'm offered a free pair of socks to go with the trainers if I buy there and then.


Of course I buy, and receive a thank you message on my Nike App, encouraging me to take a photo of them on and share with my favourite community..Pinterest this week.


And so the journey continues.....not in my dreams but in real life


Anyway must quickly run down to WH Smith to buy some chocolate

Favourite Subject Line of the Week

According to Edelman, 25% of consumers trust advertising, while more than 90% trust peer reviews

So this subject line from Mankind makes sense as I'm intrigued by what these top rated products are and of course the limited time element instills a sense of urgency

Of course the let down happens when I actually see the products highlighted

Because they aren't brands or products that I  buy.

Now imagine how clever it would be if the ratings were actually related to the brands and types of products I normally buy from Mankind.

We've Made Shopping Easier

Burton recently made some improvements to the customer experience when shopping on line with them.

1 - Chances are you've come to the Burton site to do some shopping, so why would the brand want to make it difficult for you to do the thing you want to do?

Some of the ugliest sites on the web are actually the best at what they do. Think Amazon, Google, Facebook.

As Gerry McGovern stated at the Fusion Marketing Experience event I attended last year, 


Ease of use is a tsunami ripping across the world. It is no longer a nice phrase, a nice to have. It is a vital necessity. If you don’t make it fast and easy you lose customers. Fact. The easier you make it the more customers you win. Fact. 

2 and 3 - yes we live in a digital world, but that doesn't mean we can ignore the physical world either. I often combine the digital and physical in my shopping experience to the extent that I order on line and pick up in store as that's convenient for me. In some instances I've even used the delivery locks used by both Amazon and Figleaves ByBox.

4 - Mobile is everywhere and if I am in desperate need of a pair of Burton carrot jeans then  giving me a simple , easy to use mobile site is key. According to this infographic from HighTable, 1/3 of consumers now cite mobile as their preferred shopping channel.


 

5 - With most of taking more notice of our peers than brands, ''25% of consumers trust advertising, while more than 90% trust peer reviews'' (Edelman) and the e-tailing group stating that  ''Customers Reviews, Q&A, and Community Forums were the top 3 social tactics, respectively,that consumers say have the greatest impact on purchase decisions'' ,it make sense to add this functionality to the site. One of the real factors in Amazons success is the way they have used Ratings and Reviews to really help the consumer in their purchase.


I for one welcome all this good work by Burton, although I'm not sure I'm not going to be tempted by those shorts.

All Customers Are Liars....Sort Of.

Some research by Daniel Read a few years ago highlighted the difference between what people say they want and what they actually choose.

Customers were asked to choose what films they wanted to watch from a list of highbrow films eg The Piano and lowbrow films eg My Cousin Vinny. When asked which film they wanted to see in a few days time they picked the high brow film. But when asked what they wanted to watch right now, they preferred a lowbrow option.

People will often put themselves into segments they think they should be in rather than the segment they are actually in. Or maybe even they pit themselves into an aspirational segment. So I imagine I am an art house film lover when actually I like belly laugh.

Of course, what they don't like either is the brand deciding which bucket they will be put in if you tell them the truth. If Esquire or GQ magazines ask me my salary level I might actually out myself up a band, after all I'd rather get offers about Hermes fragrances rather than the GAP eau de whatever.

Of course it's much more difficult to mask my behaviour. Brands can track my purchase and viewing behaviour so it's a much more effective way of promoting to me.

And of course it has other spins offs. I remember working with a fashion retailer who didn't segment their emails by male and female because they had never collected that information. But email behaviour gave us some clues. It was pretty simple to go back over 6 months of data and see who on the email lists had clicked on male, female or kids content. And yes it didn't tell us exactly their gender but it was a good way of finding what they were interested in.

Sometimes its better to not believe what they say...But believe what they do!

Daniel Read's research paper can be found here

http://neuroeconomics-summerschool.stanford.edu/pdf/LAIBSON_ReadLoewensteinKalyanaraman.pdf

Re-Defining 'Conversation'

I came across this interesting if old piece from the Ogilvy Blog and what conversation means these days .

To me it's interesting because it still promotes the idea of conversation as really being the constant throughout the evolution of marketing. The conversation may alter or take on a different emphasis depending on where and when it is taking place, but it still exists.

The conversation might be taking place via a social media site where peers are exchanging thoughts on a product, or it may between the brand and the consumer via feedback programs or a series of emails.

What's key is that we as marketers understand what the conversation content needs to be at that particular moment, and uses technology, where appropriate, to optimise this content and uses technology to make the conversation easier to take place.

The future is not about combining the conversation that is marketing with technology

It's about doing that now!

Cicero and Customer Centricity

Roman scholar Cicero and being customer centric 2000 years ago

"if you wish to persuade me, you must think my thoughts, feel my feelings and speak my words"

Customer Experience -The New Conversation

Every customer experience or touchpoint is an Ask, Listen and Learn Opportunity

The Wikipedia entry defines customer experience as
'the sum of all experiences a customer has with a supplier of goods or services, over the duration of their relationship with that supplier. From awareness, discovery, attraction, interaction, purchase, use, cultivation and advocacy. It can also be used to mean an individual experience over one transaction; the distinction is usually clear in context.'


And to be honest I'm not going to argue with that. That seems to cover all the aspects of actually communicating with the company, the buying experience, using the product, service across all channels both off and on line.


Where I slightly disagree with the article is that it seems to suggest that Customer Experience (CX), seems to be at odds with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) which is defined as


'a widely implemented strategy for managing a company’s interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales activities, but also those for marketing, customer service and technical support. The overall goals are to find, attract, and win new clients, nurture and retain those the company already has, entice former clients back into the fold, and reduce the costs of marketing and client service.Customer relationship management describes a company-wide business strategy including customer-interface departments as well as other departments.Measuring and valuing customer relationships is critical to implementing this strategy'


Phew! Quite a mouthful.


This contrasts with the definition I have been using recently with my clients. that CRM is


'CRM is a business philosophy to strengthen the connection between the brand and the consumer. The relationship has to be mutually beneficial and consumers shape how they want to engage.


This to me is closer to the truth. In particular the area around being 'mutually beneficial'. And combining this with the definition of CX we start to get back to basics. This is all about Marketing.


In the Good? Bad ? old days we used to look at Marketing as being all about the 4 P's ( I know sometimes it's 6 or 7)


Price Promotion Product Place


These consist of the following:

• Product - A product is seen as an item that satisfies what a consumer needs or wants. It is a tangible good or an intangible service. and we want to sell it

• Price – The price is the amount a customer pays for the product and we are willing to sell at.

• Promotion - represents all of the methods of communication that a marketer may use to provide information to different parties about the product. 

• Place - refers to providing the product at a place which is convenient for consumers to access. 

The 4 P's are still with us, it's just that they are a little more complicated in today's interactive, socially charged, real time world.

• Product - Is now more often than not more than the tangible product itself but the whole customer experience around it

• Price – The price is less of a constant than it used to be. With consumers today being able to in most cases get it cheaper elsewhere what differentiates a brand is the customer experience

• Promotion -It's not longer just brand to consumer messaging but also consumer to consumer and even manufacturer to consumer

• Place - Well that can now mean anytime anyplace anytime anyhow

CRM and Customer Experience run hand in hand with each other to deliver the 4 P's today


Whats important to us as Marketers hoping to influence the 4 P's ( we do want to do that don't we), is that actually every customer touch-point and experience is an opportunity to Ask, Listen and Learn, with a view to improving the customer experience


Of course I don't mean actually ask, but everything we present to a customer - email, price, shelf layout - is actually a question ' do you like what you see?'


Which obviously means that every reaction from the customer should be listened too and observed, with a view to learning what works and what doesn't.


It really isn't more complicated than understanding that conversation

Crowdsourcing 300 Years On!

60 years ago one of Madonna's favourite drinks was named via Crowd Sourcing

As I sat and enjoyed lunch on Saturday to celebrate my father's birthday, I stumbled across the local paper, the Keighley News. Keighley is my hometown, but I hadn't read the paper in a few years so I had a quick flick through

I came across an article about the local brewery, Timothy Taylor and their Jubilee Beer ( to mark Queen Elizabeth II 60th year on the throne) 'Raise a Glass to a Diamond Ale
The article talks about how their famous Competition Ale, Landlord, gained it's name this way;

“The new ale was based on Taylor’s BB, a beer occasionally brewed in the 1930s to a superior bitter recipe, and was launched onto the market as ‘Competition Ale’.

“The competition was for drinkers to come up with a suitable name for the new beer. It was won by the steward of the Drill Hall Club in Keighley, who won £500 – £10,000 in today’s money – for naming it Landlord. Little did anyone realise that Taylor’s had given birth to a beer that was later to achieve virtual cult status and even become a favourite for celebrities, including Madonna.”

In fact this year the brewer is running a similar competition . 

So of course that got me thinking about the true history of Crowdsourcing - after all it didn't come into existence purely as a result of the excellent book,  The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few.

So as fast as you can say, The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few, I came across this infographic

And there's many of the digital natives thinking they had invented it.

There are free chapters of the book available at www.resultsfromcrowds.com 

And this reminded of me of a post I wrote last year on Crowdsourcing from which there is a useful link to crowdsourcing.org where there are some very useful lists of crowdsourcing projects and infographics

I have nothing to say this morning

Even if you have nothing to write, write and say so.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

eCRM Muppets 2

Kermit arrives courtesy of Cravendale, Disney and about 40 litres of milk ! !

For those of you who read my post on eCRM Muppets and the Cravendale campaign here is my Kermit back pack that arrived this week

Cute...but not as cute as some of the Facebook photos

And here is the card that came with it.

Shame about the lack of personalisation on the piece I say

Removing the Blinkers in Channel Selection

Today's individuals communicate in a variety of ways, phone, email, text, social networks and even physical mail sometimes - honest!

So why would we only engage with them in one way?

I spent some time with an on-line grocery retailer yesterday talking about their email marketing programmes, and in particular about that very important second and fifth order and reactivating lapsed customers. (The second starts to get them into the habit, but the fifth means they are hooked..unless the retailer really messes it up)

It came as a real shock to them when I suggested direct mail as a way of reactivating customers who hadn't shopped with them for a while.

Now of course ideally, as a lot of the ongoing communication between e-tailer and customer takes place via email, this would seem the natural method to re-engage a lapsed customer. Not always true. It may very well be that the initial purchase was itself brought about by a piece of direct mail, so why not use this method again in particular if they are a high value customer. It's at least worth a test after trying possibly cheaper methods.

And lets not forget the actual physical delivery itself. I took delivery this morning of some groceries from Ocado. And in that was a catalogue for Boden, a brochure for Sheila's wheel and another for The Times . In terms of their targeting ..spot on! But where was the offer for my next Ocado delivery? Anyway, at least they recognised the 'free' opportunity that the delivery provides.

ps - did you see my Peapod post ?

Commuter Shopping with Peapod

Peapod the leading Internet grocer in the US Pilots Virtual Rail Program; Commuters Shop, Scan and Book Grocery Deliveries From Their Smartphones

We all lead busy lives and none more so than the commuters in the Chicago area. “Chicagoans spend, on average, more than an hour commuting to and from work each day.  That’s well over 200 hours a year in transit time alone,” said Elana Margolis, Peapod's Director of Corporate Communications

To help and make sure they don't run out of groceries, Peapod have set up larger than life virtual store shelves in a couple of busy locations.

The shelves are stocked with popular products from Coca-Cola, Barilla and Procter & Gamble that can be scanned and ordered via a smartphone.

Commuters are able to start shopping, amend lists and book deliveries

The App is available on both Apple and Android phones.

And the pilot runs off the back of a trial they ran in Philadelphia, described in the video below, working with Giant and Titan . There, commuters bought a wider selection of products and a with a bigger average basket size. 90% of commuters who scanned returned




Now of course not all organisations can help their customers in this way. It doesn't need to be on big scale with lots of budget.

As I wandered through my city centre last week, I came across this Estate Agent's window who made sure that just because they were closed you weren't able to view properties.

It doesn't have to be more sophisticated than that but Peapod's work ( very similar to the Tesco Korean example below ) is a great example of where physical meets digital to make lives easier

Double Points at Participating Stores!. Great!! - INRS4

Costa Coffee Club eCRM Programme invites me to Double Points

As a regular coffee drinker, my Costa Coffee Club Card quite often gets let out of my back pocket. So I was very happy to get my Double Points offer in the latest email from Costa


I of course duly clicked on the link to be taken to the activation page, which can be seen below

On the plus side, I didn't have to do anything further to activate my card, it recognised me from the email. Lovely
.
Question is...how do I recognise a 'participating store' ?  I'm assuming its a store that takes the card..or do some stores that take the card not participate in the programme?

There isn't a list on the website ( yes I can go to the Store Search and look for Coffee Club stores..but really?)

The FAQ's tell me I cant use the card everywhere

No, in participating stores only in England, Scotland and Wales. You will not be able to use the card in some of our corporate stores, for example ESSO and Odeon. We are working on this, so please look out for updated communications in these stores.


I still don't get if all non corporate stores accept the card. So I have to look out for posters or cards in store

Participating stores will display various posters inside and/or outside the store, such as on the external door, menu board and at the till points. If you're unsure, please ask a member of the in store team.


And... my bonus points don't show up on my receipt. So I have no idea either before or after the visit if I have any extra points for my extra visits to Costa (assuming that's what Costa want me to do, visit them more often than another coffee shop I more readily frequent).

I'd best visit Costa a couple of times and see what happens.

Oh and while we're here 2 more things Costa

1. You recognise me via the email link as having a card, so why is the right hand pod asking me to register my card?
2. I sometimes forget my card at home so I can't collect points. Why can't I add them later with my receipt?

But surely they could have made it easier..so maybe I'll stick with the sophisticated Cafe Nero card

After all, It's Not Rocket Science

So You Want to do Social? Stick a Pin Anywhere.

Nobody said doing social was going to be easy - and judging by this landscape pulled together by Buddy Media it might not be.

In-store Purchases Stopped because of Mobiles

A new study from the Interactive Advertising Bureau in the US says that 53pc of mobile users stop an in-store purchase because of their phone.

The stat was lifted from www.mobilecommercedaily.com and although US centric I'm sure it's a factor here in the UK.  Indeed I can say that Foyles at St. Pancras Station in London loses most of my book purchases because of my Amazon app.


But it strengthens my belief that a multi-channel experience is key or retailers  . This is not something that will go away, so retailers need to face up to it and think about the reasons why the purchase was stopped


38 percent have done because they found a better price in another store,  
30 percent because they found a better price on line, 
- obvious pricing needs to be competitive but how can the overall shopping experience be improved or even tailored to the individual. What do you need to do to get that sale?


21 percent because they found a better item on line, 
- why don't you have that item in store or available on your e-commerce site?

11 percent because they saw a negative review,
- so surely you knew about the negative reviews? and what about offering alternatives?


11 percent because they could not find information on the product they were planning to purchase.
 - ever thought of QR codes on your shelves to facilitate research?

Picking a New ESP?

Email Vendor Selection very kindly asked me to write a few words on selecting an Email Service Provider. And as last year I went through the process of selecting a new Email Service Provider, for the digital agency where I was Head of eCRM, I felt up to the challenge.

A few things to think about: ( all links go to Email Vendor Selection)

1 – What the email platform needs to to for you

What will the email platform need to do for you? Crazy Suggestion? Not really. Too many organisations don’t think about what their email strategy is. What are you using and planning to use your emails for. Are they transactional or service messages? Are they for marketing?

Are you looking at just emails or are you actually looking for a platform that will deliver through other channels such as mobile, social, web etc.

2 – What are your volumes?

This can help you eliminate perhaps some of the platforms that can’t cope with the ‘enterprise’ volumes or indeed the speed with which you need to get the messages out. It good to know the difference between small midsized and enterprise email marketing solutions.

You’ll also need to know, because the ESP will want to know to give you a price. And that price will be a reflection also of the commitment you give them in terms of volume and length of contract.

3 – Who needs to be in the decision making process and at what stage

This isn’t just about IT and Marketing. It’s also about Customer Service and Operations. Think also about the teams who will be pulling the emails together internally. At the agency they were called Campaign Managers. And when does Finance want to look at the numbers with you. What does your ESP selection team look like?  There is often a Business Case to be created.

If you are working at an agency, do you need to get the input from your clients as well?

This is also an opportunity to think about what is missing from your team and so what gaps the ESP could fill in terms of technical or strategic expertise

4 – What does it need to integrate with?

Think Website, Databases, Social Platforms, CRM systems, Content Management Systems, Finance Systems.

5 – Flexibility

Particularly true if you are an agency with a mix of clients. A platform that is geared up for truly sophisticated multi-channel messaging with 50 million emails per year may not be the right platform for a client who sends out just 50 thousand emails per year

But also think about how flexible you might want the ESP to be in terms of support. Do they need to at least be in the same country? Do you want them on site?

The original piece can be found here

GM Pulls Facebook Adverts

US car giant General Motors (GM) has said it will stop advertising on Facebook

Apparently GM don't believe that paid for advertising on Facebook doesn't influence consumers into buying a car.

Surprise surprise!

I've suggested that previously that ' interruption  marketing ' on social sites isn't a million miles away from old fashioned TV advertising and detracts from the real essence of being social. But there is no denying that ads either on Facebook or TV have some impact.

I think the Ford spokesman captured it perfectly..

 "You just can't buy your way into Facebook. You need to have a credible presence and be doing innovative things."

Of course, it could just be that the ads weren't much good. And of course an ad isn't the only influence on a purchase decision, but one of many.

Social Drives Business Success

A recent Google MillwardBrown survey in Europe showed that 81% of high growth businesses are using social tools to drive growth

This is certainly an interesting correlation but of course it doesn't mean that we should dive head first into every social application available to us.


I heard an interview with Rick Wion. Director of Social Media at Macdonalds ( iStrategy San Francisco 2012)who was asked about how they evaluated what Social tools to use. He correctly pointed out that it wasn’t about choosing a technology that solved a business application but one that ’relevancy for our customers’ and so help MacDonalds reach their marketing goals.

Social is everywhere but it is not the same thing to everyone.

Social has become big at double speed because it gives people a way of doing what comes naturally to them, expressing themselves, whether that be the sharing of stories, complaining, giving advice or just generally hanging out for no real reason.

But you can’t crowbar Social into your Marketing Programmes. It’s either a natural fit or it isn’t. 

It doesn’t have to involve a ‘conversation’ between you and the consumer, but it could be a way of you giving the consumers an opportunity to talk with each other, or just allow people to win stuff!!

So for Social don’t just see Facebook and Twitter. Also see blogs, communities, forums, ratings and reviews and so on.
( original post here) 


And as is expressed in the report, let's not forget the importance that social tools can play inside a business as well.


The chart below from the report shows how social tools are used and their impact to connect people and share ideas

But the tools are seen as making real contributions to this as well as saving time, improving quality and cutting costs.

We all know that Social is here to stay, but it would seem that it's here to stay and improves the way we run our businesses as well.

Report can be downloaded here

It's Not Rocket Science - 4

Making it easy for me to do what I want to is good eCRM. Turning Product Registration into a Market Research Exercise is not.

As an avid gardener (not), I decided on a new hedge trimmer ( watch out for my next post from A&E).

Having seen the opportunity to win £10,000 by registering the product..I thought why not?

Now having seen the generic landing page I kind of thought Bosch could have made my life easier with a link to the actual registration page, or at least when I got to www.boschgarden.co.uk , it would be easy to find the registration page

Think again...

But in for a penny, in for £10,000 I carry on.

So I'm thinking next stage you will ask a little about me, and I'm right. But do you really need my date of birth?

And check out the clause to get me entered into the prize draw..it involves me opting into 3rd party marketing!

But from here on in it gets worse!!

Followed by

and just when you thought it couldn't get any worse!!!

I wanted to register a hedge trimmer not give you my life history!

As a consumer I have no idea why you want all this stuff ( as a marketer I do). Please think of me first and your segmentation/profiling/targeting second

It's Not Rocket Science!

It's Not Rocket Science - 3

You have my limited attention with an email so cut to the chase.

Don't Say one thing...

And do another...

The 3 brands you've enticed me in  with are the 3 I want to see straight away. I don't want to scroll down and see if I can find them elsewhere in the email.

We all know supermarkets put the Pharmacy and Bakers at the back of the store so you have to get to them via the rest of the merchandise in the hope that you will buy on the way.

You have my limited attention with an email so cut to the chase.

It's Not Rocket Science!