The Future Of Brands In A One-Touch World

By Doug Stephens

Only a short time ago, the value that brands provided to consumers was chiefly two things – familiarity and consistency. Shoppers had so little access to objective information about products and services that, amid a field of unknown and untrusted alternatives, a familiar brand logo, jingle or tag line provided the much-needed cognitive shorthand to help them confidently choose.  If you were a traveller in a strange city, you needed only to find a familiar Hilton, Marriott or Holiday Inn logo to have a consistently predictable experience. If you were shopping for beer, you knew what to expect from Budweiser or Miller – there were no surprises. Familiar and predictable, that’s what consumers wanted from brands and that’s exactly what many big brands gave them.

All this has now changed.  Shoppers are no longer blind to their options.  With a couple of taps of their smartphone they can gather an immediate and even geospatial understanding of product and service alternatives available to them in the moment.  Moreover, they can easily evaluate those alternatives by seeing what others think.  They can take virtual tours of stores, restaurants and hotels, watch videos of products and services.  They can be completely and objectively informed in a way that was unimaginable only 20 years ago

Consequently, shoppers – especially young shoppers – are no longer as dependent on brands to serve as familiar shortcuts to a decision. Now, the same traveller in a strange city can just as easily use their mobile device to find an outstanding boutique hotel to stay in.  The beer drinker can quickly gather online recommendations to learn what local craft beers are popular. Instead of deferring to the familiar and predictable, the shopper can confidently venture out to discover the new and exciting in a risk-free way.

The New Value Of Brands

So, if we no longer need brands to be beacons of familiarity and predictability, then what do we expect of them?  I believe that now, more than ever, we need brands to be innovators, always working to push us out of our comfort zone by offering new products, new experiences and new services that interest or excite us.   We now look to brands to catalyze change…constant change.

Some brands seem to implicitly get this.  Starbucks, for example, is constantly introducing new products, services, technologies and store concepts into their model.  Just when it seems they might become predictable, they introduce something new to stoke our interest and augment the brand’s appeal.

Amazon too is continually proffering new services, devices, concepts and products. And while some are quick to point at Amazon’s failures, like Fire Phone for example, I would argue that even those failures can and should be counted as strategic victories because, if nothing else, they reaffirm their position as an innovator.

Even 114-year-old Nordstrom is constantly moving its customers along a continuum of innovation like its recently introduced shop by text program.  While it would certainly be easier for Nordstrom to rest on its legendary laurels of superior customer service, it clearly recognizes that its role as a major brand lies in innovating beyond the familiar.

Other brands, however, like Volvo, McDonalds, Abercrombie & Fitch and Macy’s – to name only a few – have chosen to stick to the path of familiarity and dependability.  They have also suffered the consequences of doing so, with poor sales and declining customer loyalty.

Making The Cut

So, do brands still have value in the digital age?  Certainly they do.  But that value no longer lies in faithfully delivering the familiar but rather in revealing the unknown; to no longer be predictable but rather to be constantly surprising.

For most major brands this will require a complete organizational re-wiring – a top-to-bottom overhaul of their people, their beliefs and their manifesto and above all, a willingness to risk. This isn’t easy.  In fact, it very often proves impossible for organizations to alter the D.N.A that got them where they are.  But in a world of one-touch discovery, a relentless pursuit of quantum innovation is the only alternative brands have left.

To View Original Article: http://www.retailprophet.com/blog/the-future-of-brands-in-a-one-touch-world/

Keeping Up With the Shifting Retail Scene

SCAN MAN: Janam showing an attendee how their scanners work and what their booth is all about.    

By Deborah Belgum | Thursday, June 11, 2015          

Retail is an ever-changing landscape that is expanding to different horizons all the time. Many retailers are so baffled about how to be up-to-date and incorporate the maze of software out there that they don’t know where to start.

But experts have one major piece of advice: Do nothing and you die.

Whether you should be sending out emails, setting up in-store events, developing a loyalty program or posting to Facebook, something has to be done. “The first thing I want to set in your mind is if you are unable to recognize and engage your customer across every channel, your competitor will,” said Mike Mauerer, chief executive of Teamwork Retail.

Mauerer was speaking at a one-day seminar organized on June 4 by One Step Retail Solutions, a Glendale, Calif., company that improves retailers’ operating efficiencies through technology. The seminar, called “Taking It to the Next Level,” was held at the Old Ranch Country Club in Seal Beach, Calif.

Most retailers, Mauerer said, are attempting to build extensive customer email lists; posting information on various websites and channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram; and monitoring their online shopping. “They are spending money like crazy on different things, and their staff is overworked trying to keep up with orders and synchronizing various sites,” he said.

While many retailers think that this is embracing the omnichannel way of doing business, they’re wrong. This is called multichannel.

To be truly omnichannel, the various systems have to work on one platform and talk to each other instead of acting as silos of information. That means that if a customer purchases an item with your mobile-phone app, they should be able to come into your store and return it without a hassle. The store employee should be able to call up the receipt at the cash register and see where the item was purchased and make the return easily, delivering something called “frictionless retail.”

“Most retailers are multichannel today,” Mauerer said. They need to be omnichannel, particularly when it comes to embracing shopping on smartphones and melding that system into the rest of the system. “Your customers spend more time on their phones than they ever will in your store,” he noted.

 

Capturing consumer information

Customers are a retailer’s most important asset. Communicating with them is paramount for conveying messages about promotions, new merchandise and special events.

“The thing that drives traffic more than anything else is email marketing,” said Dan Jablons, owner of Retail Smart Guys, a retail consulting company based in the Los Angeles area. “For every dollar you spend on emails, you get $4 back.”

But developing a good email list can be challenging. “You have to add it at the point of sale,” Jablons advised. “But don’t ask them, ‘Would you like to be on our mailing list?’ That is like saying, ‘I have some extra garbage. Would you like me to drop it on your front lawn?’ You have to make it worth something. Stop calling it an email list and start calling it a VIP list.”

“If they think there is a VIP discount or they will be invited to a special event from being on the VIP list, they will give you their dental records,” Jablons added.

That email list can be used to rustle up customers on a deadly slow Monday. “If you are freaking out about no traffic and you have to pay the rent, send out an email about a discount on sweaters and 15 people will show up,” the retail expert said.

Another successful marketing tool is holding in-store events where proceeds benefit a local charity or organization. Being tied to the community and helping out wins over customers who will patronize your store because it is a part of the neighborhood. Attracting shoppers to an event can involve discounting items, having entertainment or serving food. “As a friend says, ‘If you serve booze and chocolate, everyone will show up,’” Jablons noted.

 

Developing loyalty

The National Retail Federation recently conducted a study and found that the average American consumer belongs to 23 loyalty programs—from hotels and airlines to grocery stores and drugstores. “Customers want them,” said Ron Friedman, head of Friedman Business Consulting.

He noted that the first loyalty program was developed in 1896 by S&H Green Stamps, with stamps given away with purchases and pasted into books later redeemed for products.

There are various kinds of loyalty or reward programs. Friedman believes that cash back after a purchase is the wrong way to go. “Wouldn’t it be better to tell them about the $5 off before they come into the store?” he asked.

Friedman’s favorite loyalty program is the gift card that can be used by anyone and shouldn’t expire. Transferrable gift cards serve as a referral program to friends and relatives. Customers frequent you more often with a gift card in hand and spend more.

Target is an example of a retailer that gives away a gift card if a certain item is purchased. “When Target advertises this, the item is not on sale. So they get full price on the item, and you have to come back to the store to shop again,” Friedman said.

 

Hiring and firing

Developing a good sales staff is essential to keeping customers coming through the doors. But how do you do that?

Jablons of Retail Smart Guys suggests auditioning potential salespeople. “Try a sample shift from 1 to 3 p.m. on a Saturday. Tell them you will pay them, and then see if they can start a conversation with a customer who comes into the store and then have them pass the customer on to the sales staff,” he said. “You want to find out if they can start a conversation with a customer rather than having them walk around the store like Frankenstein.”

Jablons also recommends writing a job description and using that job description as a template for training new employees. “Once you have hired them, the biggest mistake I see is that there is not enough time spent on training,” he said.

If you have salespeople who are extremely funny, put them toward the front of the door. Also, train them to be knowledgeable about the products they are selling. “Every vendor has a story to tell, such as these sweaters were knit by monks in the Himalayas. So then your salesperson can tell the customer, ‘These sweaters were knit by monks in the Himalayas.’”

And if you find out your new salesperson can’t operate a cash register or point-of-sale system, don’t keep them. “If you don’t, your next career will be unraveling the crazy things they did at the register,” Jablons explained. “This is the spinal cord of your business.”

To view the original article please visit: https://www.apparelnews.net/news/2015/jun/11/keeping-shifting-retail-scene/

Todays Millennial Consumers May be Picky, But They're Loyal, Too

Millennials may be down, but they're not out. See how this key demographic spends its Benjamins.

By Vicky Castro

 

@vcastro_medill

Image: Getty Images

 

It’s well known that Millennials were among the hardest hit by the economic downturn these last few years. And while it’s taken a toll on their financial strength, young people remain a key consumer base--and how they spend their cash should be top of mind for any customer-facing business.

 

That’s the focus of a new survey from Elite Daily, an online publication known as "The Voice of Generation Y," and Generation Y researcher Millennial Branding. On the whole, young people are eager to spend on technology like smartphones and cars versus, say, shelling out for a mortgage. As far as shelter goes, they would prefer to rent, according to the survey, which polled more than 1,300 Millennials in October 2014.

 

For this group of consumers, not only is brand loyalty important, but it is earned through product quality, a good customer experience, and the brand’s support for society. While 60 percent of respondents said they are often or always loyal to brands that they currently purchase, nearly half said the quality of the product is the most important attribute in a purchasing decision--more than twice that of price. And despite growing fears that all Millennials are all selfie-taking narcissists, 75 percent reported that it is either fairly important or very important that a company gives back to society instead of just making a profit.

 

A good customer experience and a “quality product” are the two most cited reasons for what influences Millennials to share information about a brand online. Sixty-two percent say that if a brand engages with them on social networks, they are more likely to become a loyal customer. Forty-three percent say Facebook is the social network with the most influence on their spending habits, followed by Instagram at 22 percent.

 

“If you want to connect with Millennials, then you’re going to have to rethink the way you advertise and market your product to them,” says Dan Schwabel, founder of Millennial branding. “Instead of traditional advertising, which they ignore, brands have to publish authentic content as a way of building trust and loyalty with this extremely important and influential demographic.”

            

 

 

To view the original article visit: http://www.inc.com/vicky-castro/todays-millennial-consumers-may-be-picky-but-theyre-loyal-too.html