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At first look, the task of arranging a category of products for your customers to choose from may seem to be relatively simple, say the authors of a new research report. “However, in reality, this task is quite complex,” they note, “offering a virtually infinite number of assortment format choices.”
Case in point: Today’s online consumers are increasingly sophisticated—and demanding—regarding their search options at favorite sites. (Think of the array of cool category clicks at Amazon, Zappos, Netflix—the list goes on and on.)
So, what’s a product-category manager to do to keep up with savvy-consumer search demands? Focus on your “subcategory formats,” these researchers advise, and build in a surprise factor.
Example: In one restaurant-based experiment, these researchers showed sophisticated diners two menus. The “type-based” menu was organized by grouping the restaurant’s different kinds of foods together—sandwiches, soups, etc. The “theme-based” menu was more of a surprise: It grouped foods by nationality—Italian, Mexican, etc.
The result? The more sophisticated diners favored the unexpected theme-based menu, stating they expected it would give them a better understanding of the dishes being prepared.
The message for product managers? Surprising subcategory groupings of favorite products can pique the interest of your more savvy (read: bored) shoppers. “Unexpected subcategory formats can be used as a ‘newness cue’ … among higher prior-knowledge consumers who might otherwise be somewhat complacent in their processing,” the researchers state. “Happily, these consumers are more satisfied and expect to learn more” when presented with a surprise.
Stir things up. Consider fun new category groupings for familiar products. (Hertz lists cars in subcategories like “fun” or “green,” in addition to “sedan” or “truck,” these authors note.) A little surprise might recharge a sophisticated customer’s interest.
Source: How Assortment Formats Influence Consumer Learning and Satisfaction. Cait Poynor, Stacy Wood.
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Writing at the Retail Email blog, Chad White offers some interesting facts about the Baby-Boomer generation. First, by 2015, nearly half of the US population will be age 50 or older (AARP). Second, Boomers currently control over 80% of personal financial assets and account for more than 50% of the country’s discretionary spending power (ThirdAge).
According to White, marketers have failed to address a simple issue critical to continued patronage from this growing, affluent audience: readable font sizes. “[They] regularly use small text on their websites and in their emails and other marketing materials,” he says, “creating unnecessary legibility issues for some of their most valuable customers.”
With this in mind, he has created the acronym-friendly Boomer Legibility Initiative for a New Decade (BLIND). Its mission? To increase font size by one point in 2010, by another in 2015 and by one more in 2020.
“Increasing font sizes is also becoming vital as more email and websites are viewed on mobile devices, which often scale content down, making text even harder to read,” he notes at the initiative’s LinkedIn page, where he also recommends limiting the use of:
- Reverse type, with a lighter text on a darker background.
- Low-contrast pages, with little difference between colors used for text and background.
- Background images with a text overlay.
“Not considering the needs of Boomers when designing marketing materials means lost revenue for marketers and a poor user experience for many Boomers,” he concludes, “not to mention other visually challenged people like myself.”
They have to see you to believe you. Make sure the Boomers in your audience are capable of reading your messages. Otherwise, you won’t see much ROI from them.
Source: Retail Email blog.
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No matter how excellent your company’s product or service, and no matter how outstanding your customer service team, you will encounter disgruntled customers. It’s a fact of life. And, warns Michael F. Kelly at MarketingProfs, this disproportionately vocal group can do serious damage to your company’s reputation.
“If 20% of your market has a negative opinion of your brand and each person shares that negative opinion with five others, while the 80% with a positive opinion each tells only one other person,” he notes, “within a short time the market will be more negative than positive.”
It’s a scary proposition, and he offers this advice for dealing with the negative word of mouth:
Don’t shy away from criticism. Ask your customers for complete honesty and prepare yourself for tough answers. “Look at this as an opportunity to greatly increase the effectiveness of the entire organization,” advises Kelly. “Senior management must encourage the hunt for and elimination of things being done that make customers value the brand less.”
Identify a problem—as well as its emotional impact. “A statistic that merely says people wait 4.5 minutes on the phone for customer service is not sufficient to convey the customer’s experience,” he explains, “and it’s easily ignored. Instead, ask customers how they felt about the delay.”
Fix the problem, and clean up the mess. This isn’t always easy, and you can’t expect instant results. “People have memories,” he says. “A bad experience with your company or product, especially if it was associated with an unresolved emotional reaction, can be remembered and acted on for years after the problem is ostensibly resolved.”
Whatever you do, always begin the conversation with a genuine apology. “Without an apology,” says Kelly, “nothing else is heard.”
Source: MarketingProfs.
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“Many of the successful new product introductions each year are brand extensions, such as Apple’s iPhone, Godiva coffee, and Jeep strollers,” one group of researchers recently wrote. However, not all brand extensions are successful, they note in the report. “Consumers tend to respond more favorably to extensions that fit with their perceptions of the parent brand,” they state.
So, what must a marketer do to get customers to stretch and accept a product that doesn’t quite fit a brand’s established line? The researchers conducted a few experiments to determine what makes a brand “elastic.” Here are some of their findings.
First, a few consumer tendencies:
- Consumers are more accepting of extensions into distant product categories for brands with prestige concepts (think Rolex) than brands with functional concepts (think Timex).
- With functional brands, holistic thinkers provide more favorable responses to distant extensions than analytic thinkers. (Both groups respond equally favorably to prestige brand extensions, the researchers note.)
Then, some advice for marketers:
Use a sub-brand (e.g., “Excer wallets by Toyota”) instead of a direct brand (e.g., “Toyota wallets”) to reduce analytic thinkers’ resistance to a product stretch.
Use “elaborational communications.” These address “potentially problematic features of the extension, to reduce analytic thinking,” they write. (Example: Consumers are presented with a press release describing the “Excer wallet” to elaborate on its appeal.)
Match extension information with the consumer’s style of thinking. “Adjectives induce a holistic frame by encouraging a focus on global, abstract relationships; verbs induce an analytic frame by encouraging focus on specific properties and details,” they suggest.
Stretching doesn’t have to hurt. By applying a few tactics to address how consumers think, marketers may get shoppers to stretch and accept an innovative brand extension.
Source: “What Makes Brands Elastic? The Influence of Brand Concept and Styles of Thinking on Brand Extension Evaluation,” by Alokparna Basu Monga and Deborah Roedder John.
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“Adding social-media icons to your email campaigns … takes just a few seconds,” writes Jim Hitch at the Emma blog, “but it can increase your reach and help you identify your most avid followers. Who knew all of that could be as simple as pushing a couple of buttons?”
According to Hitch, the single decision to include that little “t” (Twitter) or “f” (Facebook) icon in your message, can net benefits like these:
Harnessing the power of social media. “Facebook claims that the average user has 130 friends,” he notes, “so every 1,000 email subscribers represents a potential audience of 130,000 people.” From there, the potential reach is infinite, because those people, in turn, have hundreds of friends each.
Growing your email list. “This may seem obvious,” he continues, “but when your content is shared on social networks, it’s typically being shared with a group of people who share common interests, so it’s already likely relevant.” In other words, your content will reach people who are more likely to actively request your email offers and newsletters.
Creating a shortcut for savvy customers. “Even if you haven’t seen it,” he explains, “your recipients might already be sharing your content.” By adding the icons for social sharing, you make their job easier.
Identifying your most loyal fans. “Having your audience share your content is quite an honor, of course, so you may want to provide something special for folks who regularly share or help you spread an important message.” With social-media tools, you’ll know exactly where to find them.
Boost your audience appeal. Your customers are moving fluidly between the email and social-media channels; adding an icon or two to your email messages will help them share—and show you care.
Source: Emma.
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When you work with contractors such as copywriters and Web designers, you might not realize that certain casual statements can earn you membership in the “difficult client” category. Rick Sloboda of Webcopyplus has compiled a list of things best left unsaid, and here are a few examples:
This shouldn’t take long. You might genuinely believe a project won’t take much time. But a remark like this assumes you know more than the contractor you’ve hired for her expertise—or, worse, it implies you’re trying to get the job done on the cheap. “If you’re saying these things in an effort to subliminally reduce the amount of hours you will have to pay for,” he notes, “you’re just going to annoy the provider and start your relationship on the wrong foot.”
Last change, I promise. “Your copywriter has just sent you 15 pages of web copy for approval and awaits your comments,” says Sloboda. “Instead of taking the time to carefully go through the web copy and collect your thoughts on edits, you start firing off emails.” Complicating matters, you’ve also sent the pages to a number of colleagues, who proceed to email their thoughts in a similar, piecemeal fashion. A single document with edits approved by all stakeholders will keep tempers cool—and the streamlined process will keep your costs down.
Turn this (water into wine). A graphic designer might be capable of amazing technological feats, but “even the best designer can’t turn a tiny, pixilated thumbnail into HD.” So adjust your expectations accordingly.
You don’t have to walk on eggshells—all your words need to do is demonstrate a basic level of respect for the contractor’s time and talent.
Source: Webcopyplus blog.
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When people click on your unsubscribe button, there’s a good chance it takes them to a preference page where they can confirm the unsubscribe request, or adjust their subscription to a topic and frequency they prefer. But what about including an offer that tempts them to stay?
In a post at their blog, the Bronto team discusses the merits of a 25% discount coupon offered by one online retailer to potential unsubscribers—specifically, whether the offer seems desperate or brilliant. Here are a few highlights:
Kristen Gregory sees the strategy as a way to grab a final sale rather than keep someone on an email list. “If this were me attempting to unsubscribe,” she says, “I would do the following: 1) unsubscribe anyway or 2) go ahead and use the coupon and then unsubscribe. One negative consequence of this approach is that people can continuously feign unsubscribing in order to receive non-stop 25%-off coupons—unless this is somehow set up as a one-time offer.”
Kelly Lorenz finds the wording confusing. “Combining the offer and unsubscribe language intertwined … makes it hard to discern what I need to do as a consumer to either redeem or unsubscribe,” she notes.
Jeff Levine thinks the concept has potential, given the right presentation. “It’s important to recognize that while a person may wish not to receive emails, it does not necessarily disqualify them as a ‘money-spender’ for your company,” he says. So tying the offer to a survey about reasons for leaving might produce the last-ditch sale suggested by Kristen Gregory—or it might re-engage a subscriber who had felt unappreciated.
The Po!nt: Offer that carrot with care. Offering a discount coupon on an unsubscribe page is a chancy move: It might prompt bored customers to reconsider—or it may just simply annoy them.
Source: The Bronto blog.
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“You might have noticed a trend in more and more marketing,” writes Rohit Bhargava at the Influential Marketing Blog, “where large brands are featuring real people and actual employees in their ads.” Heavy hitters like Intel, Best Buy, Dominos, IBM and GE have all used real team members to tell a compelling story—and here’s how you can get in on the action:
Identify your company’s in-house cheerleaders. “Many times,” notes Bhargava, “you can find the most vocal of your employees already online talking about what they do and what your company does.” Also look for those who consistently earn high marks in customer surveys and close the most deals—they’re likely to be your best ambassadors.
Aggregate their voices for the greatest impact. “If some of your employees are on Twitter,” he suggests, “consider asking them to use the same naming convention for their accounts (such as @bobatyourcompany).”
Establish clear guidelines. Let employees know what flies—and what doesn’t—when discussing your company in online forums. For instance, they should always disclose their professional affiliation and should never share the company’s trade secrets or financial data.
Make social-media efforts part of their job description. “Having passionate employees who want to share online is great,” he says, “but to sustain it you need to try and make sure that they are not overloaded with other facets of their ‘real job.'” Bhargava recommends treating it as any other job component—with performance reviews, incentives and rewards.
Make the most of employee-evangelists by giving them the tools and encouragement to tell your company’s story.
Source: Influential Marketing Blog.
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As direct marketers know all too well, the obligation to collect taxes from Internet and catalog sales depends on whether a retailer has a “physical presence” in a customer’s state. Charging and collecting taxes in these “nexus” states adds an administrative burden to sellers, and more cost to each buyer’s purchase. But does it affect overall sales as well?
To find the answer, one group of researchers studied how customers of a “multichannel apparel retailer” responded when the retailer began collecting sales taxes on Internet and catalog orders after opening a physical store in one state. The analysis focused on “a sample of 13,021 customers who live on either side of a border of the ‘focal’ state in which the firm opened its new store.” Among their findings:
- Internet sales decreased significantly (11.6 percent) in the state where the new store opened. (The researchers suggest the ease of online search prompted customers to simply shop with another merchant to avoid paying the new state tax).
- Catalog sales to customers living in the state were unaffected. (Conversely, the difficulty of finding an alternative retailer kept catalog customers more loyal, the authors suggest.)
“The evidence that taxes lower Internet sales but not catalog sales presents retailers with a trade-off,” the researchers note. “Should they forgo the benefits of opening a store to avoid damaging Internet demand?”
One additional finding suggests that merchants are taking this tradeoff seriously: Retailers that earn a large proportion of their revenue from direct channels are avoiding opening a first store in high-tax states, the researchers report.
The customer is always frugal. Sellers with a successful Internet presence may want to weigh the effect of opening a physical store in a given state. Local customers shopping online could balk at paying a new tax—and move on.
Source: “How Sales Taxes Affect Customer and Firm Behavior: The Role of Search on the Internet,” by Eric T. Anderson, Nathan M. Fong, Duncan I. Simester and Catherine E. Tucker.
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“My dentist is Dr. Matt Stohl of Foothill Dental,” writes DJ Waldow in an article at MarketingProfs. “As an email-marketing nut, instead of critiquing how he administers Novocaine or how the hygienist flosses my teeth … I think about how the staff communicates with customers.” Waldow gives Dr. Stohl high marks, and says if his dental practice’s staff understand email marketing, so can you.
Here’s what they get right:
- They request an email address when setting an appointment. It’s a simple fact: They wouldn’t have received Waldow’s address if they hadn’t asked for it.
- They explain why it’s beneficial for the patient. “The receptionist at Stohl’s office told me that the staff would use my email address to remind me of appointments,” he says. “Simple, yet powerful.”
- They deliver on their promise. Two days before his appointment, Waldow received a message that asked him to confirm the scheduled time by clicking on a large, green button.
- They follow up with other relationship-building messages. “Besides my appointment-reminder emails,” he notes, “Foothill has also sent me a brief survey (which I completed) and a Happy Birthday email.” Waldow believes they could expand these messages to include a monthly e-newsletter.
“On my last visit, one of the dental hygienists … told me that they could [contact me through] … whichever medium was most convenient for me,” Waldow reports. “Yes, for me.” He confirmed that he was happy with his email reminders. “If I could give out stars to Stohl and his staff, they would receive 4.5 out of 5,” he concludes.
Now, that’s healthy, clean customer service.
Ask and deliver. When executed properly, a simple email program can reinforce your relationship with your customers—and strengthen your customer service.
Source: MarketingProfs.
At first look, the task of arranging a category of products for your customers to choose from may seem to be relatively simple, say the authors of a new research report. “However, in reality, this task is quite complex,” they note, “offering a virtually infinite number of assortment format choices.”
