I would like to introduce you to Retail Touchpoints Exposed (Australia edition). Before we dive into the research let’s talk about the methodology behind the madness. The retail touchpoints campaign started when we looked at the fastest growing retailers in the United States. Here is what we did : Data Pool: National Retail Federations “Hot 100 List”, the fastest growing retailers based on annual revenue growth What We Did: our Research team shopped online and in store (where applicable) with the entire hot 100 list. We tracked our experience in store with visual/signage communication and sales associate interaction mostly. We also tracked our post purchase experience for both purchases made in store and online. In addition we signed up for email communication for all hot 100 retailers and tracked deliverability, website email acquisition, onboarding, email frequency, personalization and remarketing efforts like cart abandonment messaging. From there we took a look at each retailers experience from a mobile site and mobile apps perspective. And finally, looking at social interactions primarily focusing on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
The first trend we found was user mobility.This trend is the more important out of the 5It is what is transforming the world today. How many have a smartphone?
Important because of search engines and the relevance of search traffic for the consumer. Consumer use their phone constantly
425M users through FacebookNow let’s look at some of the data.
JEFF Let’s take a look at the activities consumers are doing on their phones: - Talking on the phone, of course78% use text messaging daily66% use email dailyFollowed by internet and Facebook Also to note: 15% are using Twitter daily RESULT: Consumers are using the smartphone as an integrated mobile experience, searching for content, communicating and doing it across channels. Starbucks has now processed more than 26 million mobile payments since January, - 1 in 4 transactions done via mobile.
Take any major sports team or major brand… Tom’s Shoes, Charity Water. There is no question where you achieve the ripple in the pond effect of “viral marketing”.. Somebody who has liked your company has shared your content OH HEY here is a company… I have no idea what they do.. I’m going to Like their page.. Spend copious amounts of time surfing. We like on Facebook… what we like in the real world. Facebook liking is a trailing indicator of a relationship not a leading indicator of a relationship
Increasing communication between customers: The ability to share information between people is faster and easier than ever before. Social media, email and texting have all made a major change the way we communicate with each other. Consumers are now using these channels to find out what products and brands their friends and family are purchasing and what they think about these items. 24% of American adults say they've posted comments about a purchase they've made & 62% of people read online reviews before making a purchase. In addition posting something on your Facebook wall or tweet a message about a product you want to purchase will immediately provide the consumer with hundreds of opinions and recommendations.
Satisfy the CustomerThe easiest, and possibly the most affordable, way to build customer loyalty is to satisfy the customer. Begin by implementing the most basic customer service rule: treat the customer the way you want to be treated when shopping. Ideas: Back in stock emails, customer survey emails
Challenge #3: Leveraging technology and dataThe digital era definitely gives retail marketers the opportunity to speak more directly with customers and really connect with them on the 1:1 level. The use of data & technology plays a big part in this very personalized relationship.Once you have people coming into your stores and coming back for more it is time to start collecting information from them….Sound simple, yeah right! Sorting through all of the data you have collected and keeping up on the latest technology trends is a very daunting task for most retailers. Even the most sophisticated retailers are still not where they would like to be with their data usage.
Recent study. Email continues to be highly viable as a promotional vehicle for brands. Especially in offers and discounts. If you would like to get messages from friends and family > social media. Which makes complete sense. Notice that SMS is also moving up the list.