Manish Grover's Blog, page 4

Including personality types into marketing segmentation

Depending on who you are as a person – even after trying to fully align this post with your professional  interests – you may not give this post a read beyond this first sentence. And that’s exactly the point of this post. The content marketing world is heating up. Customers are saturated with an overload of information being thrown at them. And brands are finding it much more difficult to get their messages through. Everyone is now talking about context. And the rise of data analytics and digital technologies are making it more feasible to build this so called context. Still, very few are able to initiate customer relationships other than offering a promotion when a customer is near by, or based on what customers bought before. Even with all that, given the abundance of promotions, there is suspicion about your great bargain offer as customer scramble to investigate if what they are being offered is indeed a good deal (price, quality, fit, etc.).   In this post I’d like to highlight a very interesting concept of personality types, that may enable us to boost the effectiveness of our promotions, build better context and strengthen our long term relationship with our customers. An examination of personality types may be a great way to begin to build relationships based on the inherent nature of our customers – all else remaining equal, what offer and positioning is likely appeal to them. Which part of our offer will they most resonate with? Jay Rosenberg at The Quant Method (www.quantmethod.com), sent […]

The best retail store is a bank! – Creating transactions from experiences.

The Retail Design Institute’s 2014 Store of the Year award was presented to a concept for Umpqua bank! Some banking myths were definitely broken here. What’s really going on with banking in this digital age? what kind of transformation is in order for retail branches? While a lot has been said about this trend – operational efficiency, the death of the branch, more selling and less service at the branch – it will help to take a systematic view of the trends and how that translates to the future. The first realization is that we must question the momentum of the charging herd. For several years we’ve compared the branch experience with the online experience. That may not be the right comparison. The question we must ask is whether the branch is expected to serve a very different, much more profitable business? For banks the answer is yes, and perhaps for retail, the answer is a resounding positive too. Too much time has been spent on trying to counter the movement of customers from one channel to another. It’s time to help that movement and get on with bigger, better things. Given that assumption, does it imply that that the concept of Omni-Channel customer experience must be looked at in a different way. Is it really about “Omni-Channel relationships” – with the data, transactions, people, motivations and history stored in a central place for “multiple stakeholders” to contextually access? Does a customer really need a persistent shopping cart, or should their underlying need come across more clearly instead? […]

The (missing) ingredients of retail pricing

As the holiday season of 2014 starts in full swing, we see news reports of how often retailers are changing prices on their items, how price matching with online retailers is becoming more prevalent and how the effects of show-rooming will be countered. Its obvious that while retailers – both online and physical – change prices based on their internal analytics of customer behavior, the effects of competition are also an important element. Factors such as the following come into play: 1. Competitor shipping times and inventory for an item: How fast are the other retailers, especially the brick and mortar stores able to ship items out to retailers. What are their potential inventory levels given the demands of that item? 2. Closeness to the holiday dates: Closer the holiday, say Christmas, and customers preferences start to weigh risk in – price versus guaranteed delivery. 3. The tendency for immediate gratification: Items and conditions that are likely to trigger the need for instant experience are more important to service as soon as possible than others.  For example, how pumped are you about playing that  XBOX game on your new smart television? 4.  Offers such as bundling other products: The discount or free shipping thresholds (e.g. free shipping for items over $100), are likely to change the trade-offs in customers’s minds. However, in all of the above, the most important ingredient – and the one conspicuously missing – is the ingredient of “context”. Who is the customer? What is causing them to look for the item they are looking at? All of the […]

The missed lesson from JC Penney’s failed strategy

JC Penney is on a slow recovery after a disastrous 17 months trying to eliminate promotions, introducing upscale merchandise, and making the stores a little fancier. Consider this quote on a blog from a couple of years ago when the JCP changes were going live. This quote was from Candice J, a shopper at JC Penney. She brought out a simple observation that a lot of pundits have failed to understand: “I don’t know how I feel about this, being an avid JCPenny shopper. In theory this sounds great, but how it will actually play out is a whole other thing. …Some of their sales were staples to me. The Back to School Sale, MY FAVORITE!… I don’t have the luxury anymore to just go out and wander aimlessly to see if the prices are worthwhile. I need to know before i start packing up my daughter and step foot out my house that its worth my time and money.” From this, and several other shopper views, its obvious that the strategy failed not because it was wrong, but because it wasn’t backed up by the right supporting processes. So what are the insights here? 1. It’s simply that customers needed to be given the right external reinforcement. The heavy promotions that were eliminated had always provided the impetus and guidance for folks to come in. Any shopper worth their salt knows benchmark prices, and what constitutes a good deal. But now they just weren’t sure about the right deal both because of the changing merchandise, and lack […]

The end of show-rooming, or the beginnings of the ecosystem war

  With better store experiences, price match guarantees, ship-from-store innovations and using the concept of “stores in store”, the impact of show-rooming appears to have been stemmed towards the latter half of 2013. News about Best Buy having some success this past holiday season is all around us. The keyword in the opening paragraph is “appears”. Price and convenience were the obvious factors to be satisfied this holiday season. Customers needed a reason to walk in. And once they walked in, the most pressing factors that led them to the competition were countered effectively. Great promotions brought them in, and then improved store experiences with price guarantees (and fast shipping if required) kept them from walking out. The holiday season is also a time when most purchases can’t wait so that may have been an added ingredient to the successful recipe of the 2013 holiday season. The key question is: Did we witness a successful counterattack or did we just see the beginnings of a long strategic war? Who will emerge with a comprehensive and decisive response to the world of traditional and transactional shopping? In today’s digital economy, purchases are not isolated, and loyalty is not just about the latest coupon savings. In fact the battle of show-rooming is just starting.     The recommendations economy The battle of show-rooming needs us to insert ourselves in the recommendations economy, long before the consumer hits the catalog. An Omni Channel shopping experience attempts to help solve this problem by guiding decision making without being too […]

Circles of collaboration – delivering global products successfully

Products can be physical like shoes, apparel or computers, or they can be software platforms. As you move from year to year, a physical product line needs significant investments in manufacturing to refresh. And the process of determining what bets should be made to maximize that investment is critical. Software products need refreshes too, and although they seem pretty malleable, are also a complex undertaking. These challenges are enhanced in a global scenario. It’s critical to keep up with: Local market pressures:  consumer/customer trends, innovation, competitive product parity Internal demands: budgeting, sales schedules, marketing calendars, inventory flushes Partner needs: Supply of material, manufacturing, distribution, tooling etc. While technology systems, analytics and processes play a big role, I wanted to highlight today the need for what I call the “circles of collaboration”. Much like Google circles, but perhaps much more productive; J Product innovation and development happens in multiple groups or circles of stakeholders (an obvious observation I guess) . And the significance of these groups varies in scale and magnitude along the product lifecycle depending on where we are in the product cycle.     Of course, we all know that product lifecycle is iterative. At the very beginning, the collaboration circle that leads the innovation process includes heads of businesses, category product managers and the target markets. As research and market analysis yields gaps and points out white spaces, product concepts are born & qualified. Efficient and contextual collaboration at this stage leads to a healthy pipeline of the most viable product innovation candidates […]

Top 3 mobile must-do’s for brands in 2015

As mobile takes off, there are predictions by Forrester on how the mobile gap will become insurmountable for some, while some will lead the charge. In addition, one simple fact remains – we are still using mobile as way to push promotions and deals, instead of creating customer experiences. That’s not wrong, and it’s keeping in line with traditional marketing methods brands and retailers have long been using. Those methods are indeed required to survive in a competitive world. But in the new connected world, things must change or rather, more must be done. All research that points to the success of mobile campaigns should be taken with a grain of salt – because yes, people will respond to offers, more so when you give them discounts on what they are already considering, and increase the chances of them actually seeing the promotions. Here are 3 things you should keep on the top of your mind as you plan your mobile strategy for 2015:   1. Becoming a partner in the decision cycle Taking a cue from our own personal experiences, we may not respond to the first offer that comes by unless we are already looking at that product or unless it’s too good to be true. In both cases we actually undermine our business by leaving a lot on the table. There’s no cause for celebrating promotion effectiveness if 80% of the customers were already ready to buy from you, or were anyway going to walk into your store. So this year, while […]

My new book: Dancing the Digital Tune

Happy to report that I finally published my book on The 5 Principles of Competing in a Digital World. In a rapidly evolving and connected digital world, traditional digital engagement models will be inadequate for future success. We need an approach that orients our organizations to the new connected world. The 5 actionable frameworks in this book will help you align your digital strategy with the customer. This book is about partnership with customers, about connecting with them on multiple levels, about crafting uniqueness, about leveraging the transformation this connected world is going through, and as a result, about staying ahead of the pack.   Learn why and how you should: Not leave to chance what customers need to build context Unify emotional appeal with physical interactions Be un-commoditized Not act as the 5 blind men as you engage with customers Look beyond and create a chain of links The 5 principles represent a trophy. Those who will rise above the pack in today’s connected world will win. For the first time, an overarching and systematic process has been presented to think about customer engagement. The five principles in this book will provide a validating structure for your existing strategies. The unique perspective that the 5 principles provide will help you connect your digital strategy with broader organizational goals, industry dynamics and above all, with your customers. 1. The Principle of External Reinforcement How should you be the customers’ advocate and trusted advisor, so they make a decision “with” you instead of “about” you? Be […]

Now available: the essential ingredients for contextual, location aware retail

One the biggest challenges facing brands today is that consumers are bombarded with promotions. It’s anybody’s guess that an average shopper has tens of products they want to monitor, as they wait for the right time to buy. Add to that the fact that shoppers also have multiple wish list items  – these are items they’ve seen but are not ready to buy yet due to price, availability, timing or other reasons. So far, the meaning of contextual location aware shopping was treated as another channel used by marketers to bombard (or communicate if you will) with the consumer. This was on the lines of “tell the shopper what’s on sale when the shopper enters the store or vicinity”. However with the latest developments launched by Apple in their iOS 8, and indeed with Samsung doing the same, retailers can now almost create a loyalty platform leveraging the capabilities provided by these device manufacturers Consider the scenario where a consumer, while in a train, receives a promotional email on their iPhone from Banana Republic, finds an item of interest and moves the items to their wishlist. The wishlist is common across retailers and specific to the consumer. The consumer is also able to browse and review the same items on their iPad when they are relaxing after work at home.  Next time, on a trip to the mall, the wishlist app automatically reminds the consumer to try & pick up the item from Banana Republic. The discount is automatically applied, and the payment is seamless. We leverage these capabilities to make this happen: […]

SAP declares war on the “CRM Experiment” – Or does it?

In a press release on Sep 22, SAP announced that “The CRM experiment has failed. Today’s empowered customer requires a new model for engagement”. What SAP is referring to is its launch of multiple solutions in the digital and social arena. There is no doubt that the story is compelling. Enterprise customers everywhere are looking at ways to simplify their technology landscape while providing contextual, real time information to their employees and customers. All functions including sales, marketing, service and supply chain need to come together to enable that experience. And what’s different about the new SAP solutions is that they seem to now come together to leverage the same underlying information across all functions. The user experience is obviously much better, and more contemporary. By the way, sorry SAP, but its really the same as what others have been touting. But there are 2 primary challenges underlying all this marketing hype from all the big vendors like Salesforce, Oracle, SAP and Microsoft: First, enterprise clients are still implementing solutions in silos without an enterprise roadmap story. This means that departments or even smaller business units will deploy these solutions even as the rest of the organization evolves separately. While the product vendors would positively love to provide a singular solution, the magnitude and complexity of that engagement is huge. And it requires a resounding nod from the top, which may be too much of a battle for the CEOs. After all, no one wants to see such an initiative fail in execution. Consider the social […]