Crumbs from the Scone
There are lots of good frozen-yogurt shops in Simon Glickman’s Pasadena, California, neighborhood. But one—21 Choices—seems to enjoy bigger crowds than the rest, and he explains in his Editorial Emergency newsletter how the small storefront keeps customers coming back from more:
- It delivers plenty of atmosphere. Unlike most corporate chains, the environment is quirky and inviting—multiple television screens flicker with cooking shows and vintage cartoons while the teenage staff “sing and shimmy” to a Motown soundtrack.
- It makes customers feel valued. When the line moves slowly, staffers require no coaxing to hand out samples, genuine apologies and coupons for free yogurt. If it turns out you don’t like a flavor combination, they’ll replace it without charge, and Glickman’s wife once received an extra scoop because an employee liked her sock-monkey key chain.
“But the company’s service ethic goes much further,” notes Glickman, “and this is where you should put down your Snickerdoodle Swirl and pay particular attention.”
Simply put, 21 Choices excels at thinking in terms of community:
- Personalized touches include a poster by the front door that lists regulars by name.
- Since customers care about environmental issues, the shop made the switch to biocompostable cups and spoons. “A handmade sign explains that this move has added to their overhead and resulted in slightly higher prices,” he says. “No one seems to mind.”
“No matter how much money and resources are allocated to make a business like this fit into a community, there’s no substitute for earnestly getting to know and embracing that community.”
Source: Editorial Emergency.
Crumbs from the Scone
“Oh, no! I thought that sale ran through today!” Your customer planned on grabbing a bargain, only to realize she got to your store a day after the sale ended. Is there any way you can still convince her to buy? Well, read on.
One researcher recently worked with a kitchen-and-bath store to offer consumers different coffeemakers “on sale.” Customers were told they had just missed a $25-off sale on a Cuisinart coffeemaker. As solace, one group was invited to get the Cuisinart for $10 off. Another group was given a choice of either the Cuisinart or a similar Krups coffeemaker at $10 off.
Turns out, 87% of the latecomers who were offered the Cuisinart at $10 off said “no thanks.” However, of those who were offered either the Cuisinart or the Krups at $10 off, only 60% said no: 40% made a purchase.
Why did the offer of the Krups boost sales results here? The researcher suggests that consumers may transfer the “negative affect” (regret at missing a sale) to the promoted product itself, leading to a lower opinion of the product.
The message for marketers? You might want to “time sales of different brands, or even of different items in [a] product line, to ensure that a consumer who misses a sale on one product can find another sale on a different yet similar product,” this researcher suggests.
Keep those options coming. When one item goes off sale, consider offering similar products at a slight reduction, to keep sale latecomers happy.
Source: “Releasing the Regret Lock: Consumer Response to New Alternatives after a Sale,” by Michael Tsiros. Journal of Consumer Research.
Crumbs from the Scone
When it comes to the analyzing the data you collect at your Web site, you’re doing a great job. You know which of your customers visit most often, where they live, which keywords they use to arrive at your site and which links provide the best traffic. But are you missing out on additional information your visitors would gladly volunteer?
In a post at the Dosh Dosh blog, Maki recommends methods like these for learning more about the people who visit your site:
- Polls. They’re easy to set up and a good way to collect data gradually without seeming too intrusive. “Run a poll for two weeks and change the questions to pull in more information,” he says.
- Surveys. Since these can be lengthy and often require more effort from a visitor, it’s best to include incentives like a special offer or entry in a sweepstakes.
- Interactive features. Engaged visitors can be an excellent source of additional information. “Think strategically about what data you want and create a feature that allows users to indirectly reveal it,” says Maki, though with the caveat that this requires a clear privacy policy and an easy opt-out process.
“Instead of simply monitoring web statistics,” says Dosh Dosh’s Maki, “create opportunities for visitors to voluntarily reveal personal data and opinions.”
Source: Dosh Dosh.
Crumbs from the Scone
“Trigger-based email is when you email a message to a customer in response to certain [behavior] or preferences,” Valerie Khoo reminds us in a post at the Sydney Morning Herald’s Enterprise blog. “The email is literally triggered by something the customer says or does, or is based on other information that has been collected about a customer.” According to Eydie Cubarrubia of Mobile Storm’s Digital Marketing blog, each of these messages—whatever their content—has a central purpose: “[To] ensure that a brand remains engaged with and relevant to consumers by giving them important updates.” Reporting from this month’s Adtech conference in Sydney, Khoo outlines the key steps in a trigger-based program:
- Use creative strategies to build your database.
- Determine key triggers.
- Find the right technology.
- Enrich your data.
When done correctly, there are a number of benefits. “It’s extremely low–cost, and when you set up good systems (yes, that’s the laborious part), there is an element of ‘set and forget,'” notes Khoo.
But remember: While the technique might look simple on the surface, successful implementation requires a deft hand. “Think of trigger-based email as the master’s degree after getting a bachelor’s degree in email marketing,” says Cubarrubia.
Pull that trigger! But get some practice in first. “The rules of email marketing best practices must foremost be understood and used,” Cubarrubia says, when sending trigger-based messages.
Sources: Sydney Morning Herald and Mobile Storm.
Crumbs from the Scone
“I think one mistake many marketers make is to think of their lead management requirements too narrowly,” says Jon Miller in a recent post at Marketo. He suggests it’s time to move on up—beyond just nurturing and scoring leads—to a higher level of overall lead management.
To help show the way, Miller has offered these Top Five Lead Management Best Practices:
- Be everywhere. “Cast your marketing net wide so customers will find you no matter where they are searching,” he advises.
- Build prospect profiles. Create a lead database to manage and store all your leads, and then make sure you have a strategy in place to keep that database clean (e.g., lead de-duplication).
- Automate lead handoffs. He offers an example: “Define different lead status values to indicate whether someone is a qualified prospect but still nurturing, or a true sales-ready lead.” Then update their lead status in the CRM system.
- Provide sales-lead insight. Give the sales rep the prospect’s history, and offer insight about the “interesting moments” that caused that person to become a lead.
- Recycle leads as necessary. If your sales rep can’t follow up right away, or the prospect isn’t available, don’t let a lead just sit and turn stale. “[H]ave a process in place to reassign the lead or escalate the issue,” Miller advises.
Take more control. “[M]arketers need to move away from a mindset of ‘generating leads’ and toward a model of ‘managing leads,'” Miller concludes.
Source: Marketo.
Crumbs from the Scone
Uh-oh. Just when you thought e-commerce might survive these dreary days, a new report comes along that says online merchants didn’t do nearly as well last year as they could have done. Why, you ask? Because online shopping is just too scary for some people.
According to research results released mid-March by Javelin Strategy and Research (working with eBillMe and First Data), consumers’ fear of identity theft, and of Internet shopping in general, caused retailers to miss out on $21 billion in online sales in 2008. Ouch.
Some stats: Of those surveyed, 39% believe that online stores will sell their information; 50% believe they will receive junk mail and spam if they shop online. And 12% of fraud victims report they no longer shop online at all, while 25% say that the frequency of their online purchases has decreased.
So what’s a kind and gentle marketer to do? Multichannel Merchant reports that, according to the survey results, the top-five motivating factors that would convince consumers to shop more frequently are:
- Assurance that information is secure (83%).
- Offering zero liability against identity theft (81%).
- Stronger security at the store Web site (80%).
- A guarantee that the purchase will match the quality expectations of consumers (80%).
- A guarantee for the best price online (79%).
It’s time to reach out and touch your fearful customers. Be as upfront as possible about your privacy policy, and offer satisfaction and security guarantees to help them feel safer in these uncertain times.
Source: Multichannel Merchant.
There are lots of good frozen-yogurt shops in Simon Glickman’s Pasadena, California, neighborhood. But one—21 Choices—seems to enjoy bigger crowds than the rest, and he explains in his Editorial Emergency newsletter how the small storefront keeps customers coming back from more:
