FREEDyourMind

Social Media Strategy for Retailers

Get a Facebook page!

Okay, so that's not so much a strategy, really more of a tactic. But research we released today clearly shows the value of a Facebook page to retailers. Among our key findings:

• Facebook is, by far, the best place to reach shoppers—both because it’s where they already are, and it’s where they want to hear from retailers.
• 56% of shoppers to top e-retail websites who interact with social media websites have elected to "friend" or "follow" or "subscribe" to a retailer on a social networking site like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube
• Customers mainly interact with retailers on social media sites to learn about products and promotions (rather than for help or technical support)—a marketer’s dream come true.
• Half of the top 100 retailers have a lackluster or nonexistent social media presence. If you can't find a retailer's Facebook page by going to Facebook and searching for their name, or if they are a top 100 retailer and have fewer than 10,000 fans... they aren't maximizing the value of this marketing opportunity.

Your customers want to interact with you! Make sure you're giving them what they want and that they can find you. And make sure you understand the needs of YOUR customers rather than industry trends (you know, like the one we're reporting in this research), because we see huge differences in preference and satisfaction from one retailer to the next.

Bringing the Web Into The Store

Over the last few years consumers have demonstrated their desire to utilize multiple channels in their shopping pursuits.  We like to call it the Merged Channel experience.  No longer will consumers just shop in a store, or just shop on the web.  Consumers are demanding an experience that crossed channels, and hopefully does not come across as distinct and different experiences. 

So what methods will improve the merged channel experience?

One approach is to bring the web into the store.  The web provides a great research experience online, with the ability to look at product reviews, see detail specs on products and comparison shop.  Kiosks provide one alternative to bring the web into the store. We are starting to see more retailers look at Kiosks as an extension of the web, right there in the store. 

But another alternative that is starting to emerge this year is the mobile phone. Various retailers are rolling out sites optimized for mobile devices to bring some of those web based features right into the hand of the consumer as they are in the store.

Sears recently announced  a new site, Sears2go.com, and Best Buy has a beta site, M.BestBuy.com available.  I applaud both retailers for pushing the envelope and bringing the various channel experiences together.  This is the wave of the future and these two retailers are ahead of the curve.  The newer mobile devices (such as the IPhone on AT&T and the G1 on T-Mobile) bring us a platform where browsing the web becomes a real value.  Especially when the site is optmized for the handheld devices.

These sites are worth checking out while you are doing your holiday shopping.  We will see more mobile sites launch before the holiday season and come a year from now, I expect it to be the standard across many major retailers.

Multitasking Madness

Did you hear the piece on NPR about multitasking? Many of the multitasking activities they mentioned were caused or enabled by technology. Like I talked about with the Emmy's and the VP debate, people are partaking in multiple media at once for entertainment purposes...add that to working, sending emails, checking Facebook, talking on the phone, and texting, and many of us have the ability to--or feel compelled to--do more than one thing at once.

The NPR piece cautions though that you aren't REALLY doing more than one thing at once, you are shifting your attention quickly from one thing to the next.

Do you think the many channels of activity you are expected to monitor helps you or does it drive you crazy?

Multichannel VP Debate?

It's all-politics-all-the-time over here and I'm thinking that people are watching the debates the same way they watch the Emmy's . . .maybe people are taking even more advantage of the merged channel idea when it comes to political things because of the flurry of emails and blog posts and YouTube clips that pop up starting even minutes after the debate is over.

So the true political junkies could watch the debate on TV while fact checking and reading along with pundits and live bloggers on their laptop, then review key moments on YouTube, network websites, etc. the next morning. You can use your iPhone while you're stuck in traffic to post a snarky status update on your Facebook page, mocking whichever candidate you thought was more mockable.

In what was the most hyped VP debate that I can remember, did it live up to your expectations?  A search on Google News for "VP Debate" yields 4,613 stories.  I think the headline from the Boston Herald probably sums it up pretty well, "It's all substance, and no sideshow".

Out of curiosity, how many of you skipped the televised debates all together and just watching selected clips online the next day?

Multi Channel, Merged Channel, Cross Channel, ...

Whatever you want to call it, it is here to stay.  While it is getting obvious (and expected) in retail, it goes beyond that.  While watching the last few minutes of the Emmy Awards, as Tina Fey is making her (one of many) acceptance speech, she mentions that you can watch 30 Rock on NBC.com, Hulu, itunes, etc. 

Now, watching a show on my laptop or my iPhone is not quite the same as the 60" TV.  So what else do we need to make a merged channel experience for TV complete?  Convergence of my computer and my TV.  Either a "integrated" device, or let me quickly and easily stream that content from my laptop to  the big screen.  Now, there is technology to do those things, but it is not yet in the mainstream.

Multichannel Insights From Online Visitors

I think I've mentioned before that I like Evan Schuman's term for multichannel--he calls it a merged channel because people are using all channels for research and purchase, and the line of influence of one channel over another is starting to blur somewhat. Customers' experience of a company now usually involves many or all of the channels a company offers. The smartest companies are working hard to figure this out and start to quantify multichannel influence, cannibalization, etc.

This can be really hard because of the anonymity that still exists with cross-channel shopping. But what you can measure and analyze easily and concretely is online voice of customer data, which can give you immensely valuable insights into loyalty, recommendations, and even sales across channels. You can even survey customers after they've left your website to see:

• Which online and offline channels did site visitors interact with?
• How satisfied were they?
• How did satisfaction affect their purchase decision?
• Were they exposed to a competitor (and how did that exposure affect their purchase decision?)

Then, if they made a purchase, you can find out:

• What was the role of the website?
• How much was spent?
• Which product category was purchased and how does the interplay between website and store vary for different kind of products?

This is just the tip of the iceberg. This stuff is easy to do if you have enough volume on your website to get a decent sample size.

Seniors & E-Commerce

The next frontier of e-commerce: seniors becoming multi-channel shoppers, or better said, merged-channel shoppers. 

New research from the USC Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future shows a new multichannel shopping trend among seniors: researching offline and then purchasing online. Two-thirds of people aged 50-69 researched offline before buying online, and more than one-half of consumers over 70 did so.

The bottom line: consumers of all ages will choose the right channel for them, and you better meet their needs and exceed their expectations. In orther words: satisfy them!

A good survey tool will allow you to segment by age so that you can see if this trend is true for your customers too, and if so, how you can maximize the relationship between various channels to encourage purchase and loyalty.

How Will the Economy Affect E-Business?

From RIS News:

 “It is a sign of tough economic times. Retail store closings are up in 2008 by 25 percent year-over-year as the national economy continues to deteriorate. The International Council of Shopping Centers estimates there will be 5,770 store closings in 2008 compared to 4,603 in 2007. Surging gas prices, higher food costs and powerful inflationary forces are squeezing consumers and retailers alike.”

 And from the San Jose Mercury News:

Electronic commerce has grown about 22 percent in the past two years, said Hal Varian, [Google’s chief economist], who spoke at a forum on the state of the Internet economy at Google's new  Washington office. Ed Garrubbo, chairman of the Electronic Retailing Association, said online sales jumped 17 percent in the first quarter of this year. 

"The lesson here is that the economic slowdown is not an Internet slowdown," Varian said. "The Internet is looking pretty strong compared to other sectors."

I wonder if the slow down for brick-and-mortar retail is actually a boon for the e-commerce industry.

Research published in Claes Fornell’s recent book, The Satisfied Customer: Winners and Losers in the Battle for Buyer Preference, he proves that a customer’s ability to spend is not necessarily a predictor of his willingness to spend. The best predictor, as crazy as it may sound, is whether or not that customer is satisfied. A satisfied customer will spend even if they don’t have the money.

Study after study shows that the online channel is the bright spot in any industry in terms of customer satisfaction. In the February release of the ACSI, we saw online retail (81.6 on the ACSI’s 100-point scale) trounce offline retail, which scored 74.2. Our study with Forbes about online financial services showed that customer satisfaction with online banking (82) outpaced satisfaction with banking overall (78).

So, in general, websites satisfy people more than other channels. Add that to increasing gas prices, and I think we have a few good reasons for people to move more and more of their business online. They can conduct business anytime, anywhere, and they don’t have to worry about inconsistency in service. And if the companies they interact with online are doing a good job satisfying customers, it might not even matter how much money they have!

My bet is that we will continue to see growth in the online channels of industries that are starting to feel the pinch of tough economic times, gas prices, and inflation.

Cyber Monday Satisfaction Up From Last Year

Well, we crunched our data (from more than 38,000 satisfaction surveys completed by holiday shoppers on Cyber Monday and over the previous holiday weekend), and we found that online shoppers were actually more satisfied with their experience on Cyber Monday 2007 than they were in 2006. Satisfaction rose a point over last year, a statistically significant amount given the numbers we’re dealing with. I think this is in large part because retailers were better prepared for volume (we saw higher scores for elements like site performance and functionality than we have in previous years on Cyber Monday) and because retailers are being a lot more consistent with free shipping offers, 2-day sales, and other attractive promotions.

The other really interesting thing, in my opinion, was that we saw future behavior scores for likelihood to buy online and likelihood to buy offline BOTH increased this year. This means that the online channel is actually doing a good job driving both online and offline sales, where as in previous years, we’ve seen it primarily driving one or the other, but not both. This is a great indication to me that retailers are finally starting to figure out the multichannel (or merged channel) implications of the increased traffic they see during the holidays.

Because satisfaction as measured by the ACSI (which is the methodology we used for this and all surveys) is predictive of future success, financial results, sales, and word of mouth, these higher Cyber Monday scores indicate to me that online retailers have a nice year ahead of them!

You can read more about the findings in the press release.

Audiocast #2 With Evan Schuman: Multichannel/Merged Channels

I recently did a series of audiocasts with Evan Schuman (of StoreFrontBackTalk and eWeek) about a variety of topics having to do with measuring the online experience. I posted the first one (about the Nielsen/ComScore "time spent" metric) last week.

This week's installment is about the challenges and opportunities of multichannel or "merged channel" measurement, which sort of fits in with my theme this week about online shopping during the upcoming holidays, since most retailers selling  holiday gifts online are working in a multichannel environment.

Hear the audiocast below if you have Quicktime (while I figure out how to support other players on the blog), or you can also get the audiocast here .



Let me know if you have any feedback on the content or format either by emailing me at larry.freed at foreseeresults dot com or by leaving a comment. I'll be posting the remaining few segments of my chat with Evan in the coming weeks.

I recently did a series of audiocasts with Evan Schuman (of StoreFrontBackTalk and eWeek) about a variety of topics having to do with measuring the online experience. I posted the first one (about the Nielsen/ComScore "time spent" metric) last week.

This week's installment is about the challenges and opportunities of multichannel or "merged channel" measurement, which sort of fits in with my theme this week about online shopping during the upcoming holidays, since most retailers selling  holiday gifts online are working in a multichannel environment.

Hear the audiocast below if you have Quicktime (while I figure out how to support other players on the blog), or you can also get the audiocast here .



Let me know if you have any feedback on the content or format either by emailing me at larry.freed at foreseeresults dot com or by leaving a comment. I'll be posting the remaining few segments of my chat with Evan in the coming weeks.