Servant of Chaos

Driving Retail from Digital to Destination

• The marketing funnel has imploded under its own inadequacy
• Marketers must respond to the shift to digital with the 5 Ds of consumer engagement
• Analytics is essential to understand the path to conversion

For decades, Australian retailers have under-invested in technology and online innovation. After all there was no “burning platform.” People still bought goods – especially appliances and larger items in stores, and “online” was considered risky, unreliable, and difficult to navigate when it came to returns, warranties and customer service.

But then consumers connected. Reviews helped identify quality products. Reputation management allowed online merchants to demonstrate their credibility. And web experiences improved. Prices were better.

People talked.

And kept talking.

Those conversations shifted from sites to platforms. They happened in places far away from the brand police and customer service teams. They proliferated on sites like Twitter, Get Satisfaction and Facebook.

But just as the connected consumer shifts digital channels in the blink of an eye, taking the conversation with them, so too can brands follow this consumer lead. Those with a considered and well executed strategy can connect the dots and drive retail from digital to destination.

Marketers should develop three practices to drive retail from digital to destination:

1. Understand the 5 Ds of Consumer Engagement: The marketing funnel has imploded under its own inadequacy. It’s time to understand the buyer’s journey from the outside-in. Following the 5 Ds allows marketers to understand, map and engage their connected consumers at key stations on the buyers journey
2. When it comes to content and channels, don’t think ONLY think AND: It’s time to break down the silos. Based on the 5 Ds, marketers must begin to work with strategic omni-channel (or multi-channel) formats. This means understanding how content, interactions and engagement work at each station – and where digital can extend or augment an experience (digital or non-digital)
3. Know and measure your path to conversion: Don’t fool yourself that all conversion must happen in-store. Make it easy to purchase anywhere – after all, mobile is the ultimate impulse device. But understand that in-store is now about controlling the brand experience. Ensure that the destination experience is worth the journey in. Use omni-channel analytics to measure and understand the path to conversion.

Now, take a moment to view this (now finished) campaign from Adidas NEO. What’s the customer experience? What’s the journey? And what’s the engagement strategy at play?

Now, how would you play this out with your brand? Be creative.

 

Mobile Disruption Catches Retailers Off-guard

We are now deep into the last quarter for 2012. Marketers are pre-occupied by two challenges – planning for 2013 and preparing to launch Q4 campaigns designed to close out the year on a sales high.

Innovation in the customer buying journey has, however, changed the game. We are all retailers now and the ground has already shifted from beneath our feet. Google Retail’s recent report on consumer shopping confirms what we have known for some time:

• The connected consumer sees no distinction between online and offline shopping
• The connected consumer discovers, debates and decides on purchase ahead of the marketing funnel
• Trust drives conversions

Marketers have failed to keep pace with consumer led innovation

While there has been some investment in digital technologies, and campaign experimentation over the last nine months, there has been precious little innovation where it counts – in marketing practice.

Six principles to transform your marketing efforts

Our recent big idea report on recasting the marketing funnel for consumer engagement identified six principles that must be addressed:

1. Fragmentation creates silos not synergies
2. The marketing funnel assumes a passive customer
3. The next-gen customer experience is owned from the outside-in
4. Next-gen customers purchase in their own time frame
5. Purchase decisions occur before consumers reach your marketing funnel
6. Trust is the currency of digital marketing

Marketers must prepare for the most social holiday retail season now

The 2012 holiday season is primed to be the most social ever. And in terms of “social”, read “mobile”. The Deloitte Dawn of Mobile Influence report on mobile retail reveals that mobile already influences significant in-store purchases and this is predicted to accelerate through 2016. This shift is a global phenomenon as our upcoming report 5 Lessons from Digital Asia Pacific’s Digital Trajectory shows, with mobile innovation efforts garnering 100 million+ audiences across the region.

To outcompete in your markets, retailers must move quickly to identify and fill gaps in the customer experience journey. To counteract this mobile disruption, retailers should:

1. Re-cast the marketing funnel in terms of the buyers journey
2. Look to software-as-a-service providers to fill the technology gap quickly and effectively
3. Consider whether your digital (mobile and social) marketing really does focus on customer need across the buying cycle (answer the WIIFM question – does it get me made, laid or paid) and recalibrate accordingly

Your POV

Are your retail efforts up-to-speed? Are you ready for the social holiday season? Add your comments or send us an email.

Please let us know if you need help with your digital strategy efforts.  Here’s how we can assist:

• Assessing social business/digital marketing readiness
• Considering new digital strategy
• Developing your social business/digital marketing  strategy
• Designing a data to decisions strategy
• Create a new vision of the future of work
• Deliver a new customer experience and engagement strategy
• Crafting a new matrix commerce strategy

Three Things Cycling Taught Me About Social Media

I must admit to being a reluctant cyclist. Sure, I like the benefits and I even like getting out in the weather – but it can be hard to overcome the initial inertia. There is one thing, however, that fascinates me about cycling – and that is the way that your mind begins to make the most wonderful connections as your body starts to get “into the zone”.

As I start to feel my body warm up and my heart rate hit a comfortable cadence, there is always a collision of thought and experience. Here are five things that I learned as a cyclist that I value in social media:

1. It’s harder to build momentum than to maintain it. As you approach a hill on your bike, it can appear insurmountable. But on the flat you have momentum – it is easier to build your pace down low and to carry that up the hill. If save your effort until you lose momentum halfway up, it takes much more effort achieve a much smaller outcome. When it comes to social media, keep a steady pace. You’ll find it much harder to re-start if you stop, pause or suspend your efforts.
2. It’s no point being in the right and being in the hospital. Cycling can be dangerous. There are potholes, glass and plenty of cars around you. And while taking five seconds off your personal best time is an achievement, if you put yourself at risk in the process, it’s not worth it. Ease off, suck up the 5 seconds and finish in one piece. In social media, you are bound to come up against people with opinions that rub you the wrong way. Are they the audience you are seeking? Are they provoking a response from you? Maybe they are just trolls.
3. Five minutes of planning and preparation can change your day. It’s easy just to jump on your bike and head off for a ride. But have you got water? What about a spare tyre? A pump? If something goes wrong and you get a flat, it’s great to know that you can fix it and keep going in a matter of minutes. But realising that you left your repair kit on the bench and walking your bike home can be demoralising. The same applies to social – when you step out online, make sure you know where you are going and that you have what you need to enjoy your efforts. Don’t be caught short.

Five Must-Read Posts from Last Week

We all want our communications to “cut through” – to reach the people who matter and have an impact (no matter how small) in their lives. But in our push to make this happen, we often contribute to the noise rather than strengthening the signal. This is where strategy and tactics combine. But which comes first? Last week’s articles provide some suggestions. Enjoy!

1. There is no doubt that we are overwhelmed by information. And yet, at the same time, we consume it at ever increasing rates. One of the challenges we face as marketers is sorting the wheat from the chaff. Valeria Maltoni explains why listening is hard and how to think critically.
2. Are you driving change in your marketplace or just responding to it? Greg Verdino thinks it’s time for marketing leaders to place some bets and start by working from what we know is true.
3. We hear a lot about businesses and not-for-profit organisations – but the growing rise of “social enterprises” represents a way between the two. What are they and how are social entrepreneurial organisations different? Jen Stumbles shares a personal view.
4. Many small businesses baulk at the idea of investing in a website. Yet many of those same business owners regularly purchase online. What is the disconnect? Craig Wilson shares the results of a recent survey that shows those business who go online are generating almost half of their sales this way.
5. A great article from Faris Yakob showcasing the 7 habits of highly effective communication. Read and act on it!

B2B Marketing Benchmarks and Trends + Two Insights for Content Marketers

The Content Marketing Institute (CMI) and MarketingProfs today launched the 2013 edition of their B2B marketing benchmarks and trends report.

Based on a survey of over 1400 marketers in North America, the report reveals the trends impacting corporate marketers across the full spectrum of business size:

• Content marketing remains a priority: With 90% of marketers using content marketing in some form, using up to 12 tactics to deliver on their programs
• Social media leads the way for content marketing: With an 87% adoption rate, social media has become the #1 tactic for content marketers
• Budgets will grow in 2013: Content marketing accounts for 33% of marketing budgets, and more than half of those surveyed indicate that budgets will increase in 2013.

While the trends are good news for content marketers, there are TWO revealing insights based on this report:

1. Marketers will demand content performance analytics. While content marketing has the CONFIDENCE of marketers, there seems to be a gap between that confidence and hard figures around effectiveness. As budgets increase, so too will accountability. Marketers will demand performance-oriented analytics to justify budgets, prove channel and content effectiveness and optimize campaign performance
2. Brands will turn to agile content producers. The survey indicates that the #1 challenge is producing ENOUGH content. While there has been a trend towards in-sourcing content (56%), we are also seeing the rise of agile content production agencies and sole traders (which is part of the Constellation Research business theme the Future of Work). Faced with increasing demand for content and supported by content performance analytics, content marketers will turn to agile content producers to fill the gap in their content marketing schedules

 

B2B Content Marketing: 2013 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends–North America from Content Marketing Institute

Report - CMOs: Time to Re-Cast the Marketing Funnel

It is often said that companies only have two functions - marketing and innovation. Despite this, most corporate marketing practices are based on century old theories and frameworks that no longer adequately accommodate the complexities faced by today's CMO. Rather than the inside-out view offered by the traditional marketing funnel, marketers need to develop a view of the customer journey that takes into account the challenges and opportunities presented by digital and social technologies.

To be released tomorrow this "big picture" report provides an outside-in view of the “connected customer” and key stages in next generation customer experience. The report provides a vital framework for marketing leaders seeking to move from a transactional relationship with their customers to one based on what I am calling the “5 Ds of Customer Engagement”.

But wait! There’s more!

You can go beyond the report and join me for a webinar on this topic to understand:

1. Six trends driving change in digital marketing
2. How the 5 Ds of customer engagement reflect the new realities in customer engagement and marketing
3. Key recommendations for marketers seeking strategic approaches rather than simply digitizing "business as usual"

And the best thing to remember about a webinar is that they are recorded. If you can’t join live, register and watch in your own time and tweet me with any questions.

A Palpable Dis-Ease - Graham Brown’s Mobile Youth

(Graham Brown) The Mobile Youth: Voices of the mobile generation from Graham Brown (mobileYouth)

We don’t have to look far to see that we are living in a digital world. On my desk sits half a dozen connected devices, wifi enabled, flashing, beeping, spewing updates from sites, friends and acquaintances thousands of miles away. But for me, this is a world that I have chosen to participate. For many in the Gen X and Baby Boomer demographics, adoption of technology has been a conscious choice. We grapple with this changing world for work or for pleasure – sometimes for both … but always with the knowledge that the off button is only a short distance away.

But for succeeding generations – the always connected Gen Y and Gen Z groups, there has never been a time of “non-connection”. A battery or wifi failure is not just a technical issue. It’s an existential crisis.

In May 2012, when young Chinese student, Xiao Zheng, sold his kidney in order to buy an iPad2, the headlines around the world amplified the outrage. From the outside it’s easy to point a finger and call out the insatiable materialistic desires of a morally bankrupt generation. But surely there is something deeper going on.

Graham Brown’s new book The Mobile Youth digs below the surface to reveal a compelling story of dis-ease. Peppered with statistics, insight – and most importantly – an anthropologist-cum-storytellers eye for observation, Graham reveals a hard truth that we all share in:

The rise of technology isn’t undermining the social fabric of society. Technology’s rise is a response to our loss of a meaningful social world.

As a reader of a lot of business communication (books, blogs, papers, presentations), I am often disappointed that the power of the writing doesn’t match the power of the ideas. This book is the opposite. It’s a business book written in the style of a page-turning blockbuster. For anyone interested in the changes taking place in our society and the collision of generations, culture and communication, it makes for compelling reading.

But most importantly, it provides an insight into the seemingly disconnected nature of our ever-more connected lives. Download your copy of The Mobile Youth and let me know what you think. I found it fascinating.

Five Must-Read Posts from Last Week

The profusion of digital media – not just in terms of technology but also in terms of content – can be overwhelming. Brands, businesses and bloggers are all working to create a toehold in your imagination – creating content aimed to attract, entice and engage. But sometimes we don’t need something new, we just need a guide to what is already available. Here are five posts from last week that might just do the trick for you.

1. “Can we make the logo bigger”. Ever heard that from a client? Ever asked it to a designer? Too often we confuse a brand with a logo. Drew McLellan reminds us that your brand is more than a logo – it’s an experience.
2. Recent changes to Facebook will be felt by all brands using pages as part of a social media strategy (here’s hoping your entire strategy isn’t Facebook). It’s not JUST that your reach figures are down – but that you’ll have to rethink your content and engagement approach. This is likely to be costly and challenging says Mandi Bateson.
3. A man called Thomas Cook, called out travel company Thomas Cook on their Facebook page, asking for compensation for years of ridicule. He cheekily suggested a weekend in Paris ought to cover it. Rival LowCostHolidays.com stepped in and gazumped Thomas Cook UK right there on their “own” Facebook page. The DailyMail has the full story.
4. Olivier Blanchard steps us through the five stages of a crisis and how to manage one through your digital channels
5. While not really a “post” – this call out for interns from Graham Brown is a great opportunity for an aspiring digital anthropologist. If you are ready to go deep into the world of youth culture and behaviour, drop Graham a line.

Men … How Dense Are You?

While osteoporosis more frequently affects women than men, men with hip fractures have a mortality rate two-to-three times higher than women.

And as 30-to-40 per cent of fractures due to osteoporosis occur in men, it’s clearly an issue that men should be (cough) seeing their doctors about. The only way men can find out if they are at risk of osteoporosis is to have a bone density scan – which, yes, sounds like a visit to the doctor.

Rather than searching Dr Google, Osteoporosis Australia have created a simple test to help you find out whether you are at risk. You can take the test at HowDenseAreYou.org.au

Just do it –> remember early detection of low bone density can prevent osteoporosis.

What Your Purchases Reveal About You

The promise of big data is that it produces a win-win outcome for the customer and the business. As consumers, we relinquish our fears over (and some rights to) privacy, and in return receive a range of benefits – free access to networking tools, file and photo sharing, email and so on. It’s a well-worn path created by technology companies like Google and Facebook.

But who really wins in this big data exchange? For example, Dominos Pizza found that by analysing data, more pizza is ordered when it rains. This simple insight allows them to target offers to people in locations where it is inclement – using, of course, big data to do so. There could be a win-win here in that rainy weather may prompt us to seek warm, convenient food such as pizza – but we may also ask which comes first, the pizza craving or the suggestive sell?

This infographic from CamCode reveals some surprising statistics about the big data that is already out there and available to your favourite retailers. And while the advertising may suggest that you are important to retailers, it seems they don’t really want YOU. They want your data.