Category: Consumer Strategy

Having a mobile strategy and presence does not need to be a difficult proposition. Sometimes the simplest tools can add big benefit. In a recent article on the website Mobile Marketer, Dan Butcher identifies the six trends affecting mobile marketing and commerce.

The trends are:

• increased Smartphone sales and usage
• dramatic increase in mobile Web usage
• mobile commerce adoption grows
• mobile search becomes essential
• multichannel marketing mix expands
• market fragmentation continue

To anyone who has an iPhone or other Smartphones, these trends seem obvious as we reflect on our own behavior and map them back to consumers at large. 

Mobile strategies are multifold and depend on your business, marketing, and revenue goals. But as marketers, we must understand the need to respond to these trends and to use the platform to meet our objectives. This will not always involve the development of a ground-breaking strategy or the launch of an iPhone app that is featured in the store, but can be as simple as enabling our current sites to be useful and readable in a Smartphone’s form factor.

Strategies will evolve as we understand user behavior and must take into account how, when, and where consumers interact with their devices. Much as TV marketing strategies are different from online/web/pc-based strategies, mobile device users have different goals and must be communicated in a unique way.

Apps are a key element of mobile marketing, but are still very nascent as marketers understand how to interact with consumers.  For now, utility is the name of the game. Top apps (as is true with websites) make it easier for consumers to do something, not just to be entertained. 

The lowest hanging fruit is to launch a mobile-enabled version of your site or elements of your site. With the proliferation of Smartphones, more consumers are using their mobile devices to visit websites for commerce and information. Thus, it should be an integral part of all marketing efforts to have a web presence which allows consumers to interact with the brand in a manner specific to the smaller real-estate available on the browser. 

A great example of this is the mobile version of the VW site. This site simplifies those tasks which a mobile user would be most interested in: reviewing car models, finding a dealer, and contacting road-side assistance. This is all designed for the form-factor of the phone and offers a very unique and valuable experience to the consumer, which is a different from the experience of going to the main VW website from a Smartphone.

The trends will only continue as the adoption of mobile is ramping faster than desktop internet did and will be bigger than we think. 

According to a new research study conducted by Context-Based Research Group and Carton Donofrio Partners, 78% of Americans agree that the American Dream has died. And that’s not a bad thing:

“We see that a new dream - focused on freedom and ideals rather than material possessions - is being born.”

The research findings show that Americans are going through a five stage process to achieve this new dream:
1. I no longer want to be identified by what I buy
2. I cut back on my credit and started to save
3. Transacting live is not as valuable as building relationships
4. I’m getting rid of value-less things and surrounding myself with people and things that matter
5. Now I’m more strategic and smarter - connecting my emotional, rational and social senses to how I live and consume

This shift to the “New American Dream” will have impact on marketers, for sure. One thing that comes to mind is the notion of showing customers how brands, products and services fit into their lives in a way that is relevant to their shifted values. A good model for this might be Walmart’s current brand campaign “Save Money, Live Better”.

In the direct marketing channel, DMers may need to rethink product USPs and benefits, and develop new and thoughtful ways to articulate them in a transactional environment.  

Would you pay $193.50 for a small figurine of the Russian saint of extremely fast dancing? The Significant Objects Project proves that “narrative transforms the insignificant into the significant” and people pay big bucks for tall tales.

NY Times contributor Rob Walker and author Josh Glenn challenged a group of writers to find random objects and create fictional stories that added a certain je ne sais quoi to them. Between July and November of last year, $128.74 worth of these dust collectors sold for $3,612.51 through eBay auctions.

(It should be noted that the founders said they “did not set out to hoax eBay customers” and that they took care to avoid the impression that the stories were in any way true. A second phase of the project is underway that focuses on charitable fundraising.)

Whether you’re selling an HDTV or a sea captain pipe rest, just know that engaging narrative helps move merchandise.

Black Friday effect: Weekend sees rise in shoppers
More shoppers hit stores, but spend less each
Shoppers fill streets if not their bags
Shopping’s up, spending’s down

This is a sampling of headlines from reports on Black Friday consumer shopping activity (USA Today, NYT, WSJ and Washington Post). Just from the headlines, you get the idea. As anticipated, there were lots of people out shopping over the weekend - NRF estimates 195 million people shopped in stores or online during the four day weekend up from 172 million last year.

But, they were spending less than last year. Consumers spent an average of around $343 this year vs. $373 a year ago. Total spending was on par with last year at $41.2 billion.

What were they buying? Well at Walmart.com, one of the biggest sellers was the  Bissell Steam Mop Hard Floor Cleaner, indicating that this may well be the year of practical gifts. Consumer electronics, especially flat screen TVs, digital cameras, e-readers and game consoles were also big sellers.

If this news seems anti-climactic, take heart in the fact that the forecasting models predicted this behavior.  Expectations are set, and consumers are generally incredibly predictable. Short of money falling from the sky, we’re probably not going to have any surprises this holiday shopping season.

Makes one wonder if the notion of pent-up demand is a thing of the past, or if we’re going to see a post-holiday spending spree? President’s Day shopping forecasts anyone?   

French fries. Gnocchi. Kugel. Pierogi. Europeans love them some potato. But it wasn’t long ago when this Peruvian import was viewed as hog feed that caused leprosy in humans.

This all changed thanks to research and savvy marketing by the French scientist Antoine-Augustin Parmentier. It was the mid-18th century and Parmentier was serving as an army pharmacist in the Seven Years’ War. The Prussians captured the big thinker and forced him to eat potatoes. He survived (with all limbs and digits intact) and returned to France determined to promote the potato as a viable food source.

Parmentier conducted experiments that proved potatoes were nourishing and helped cure dysenteric patients. He was showered with praises and awards from the scientific community. The French Parliament even lifted the national ban on potato cultivation. Yet his countrymen couldn’t seem to shake the hog feed stigma and continued in their non-potato eating ways.

When support from the government and academia failed his efforts, Parmentier turned to marketing. He hosted dinners for dignitaries (including Benjamin Franklin) with potato dishes proudly served. He delivered beautiful bouquets of potato blossoms to the King and Queen. But perhaps his most ingenious tactic was placing guards around his potato patch with explicit instructions to accept all bribes and look the other way when people tried to steal the crop.

Parmentier understood the basic human condition and marketed against our weaknesses. He sought celebrity endorsements, influenced the influencers, and created a high perceived value among consumers. After the potato saved France from famine in 1785 and 1795, the hearty tuber officially made the jump from feared to revered.

So the next time you order steak frites, take a moment to thank Monsieur Parmentier.

[Source: Wikipedia]

In yesterday’s Forrester newsletter, they referenced one of their research studies, “Profiling The Multichannel Consumer”. On its own, this sounds like a rich study, with one of the big conclusions is that some online shoppers are simply “window shopping”. Implication being: growth potential lies in converting these window shoppers using techniques and offers specifically aimed at lowering the barriers to purchasing amongst this segment.

But wait, there’s more!  Listed within the related research documents, there is another little gem: “Coordinated MultiChannel Campaigns”. The executive summary for this report states that less than half of online advertisers coordinate web design and search with their advertising creative. 

One of the reasons we brought all of our companies together under one umbrella called SolutionSet is to answer this challenge for Multichannel marketers. We’re calling for an end to silos, of disconnected marketing efforts, of disparate strategies and fragmented executions. These pitfalls only serve to confuse the intended recipient of your marketing, and ultimately supress sales. In this economic environment, we marketers must do everything we can to strip away barriers to purchase.  Sometimes that begins at the top  - with unification of strategy, messaging, creative, execution and measurement across all channels in order to cause a focused, consistent message that drives transactions.  

Free operating systems. Free content. Free apps. Free email. Free hosting. In an article published on Fast Company, author Farhad Manjoo questions the merits of the business model that dominates the web:

Why? Because free costs too much, weighed down with hassles that you’ll happily pay a little to do without. That’s why people buy bottled water and cable TV. That’s also the model that The Wall Street Journal uses to goad people into paying for news online. Anyone can read its stories for free through Google or a news-aggregation site like Digg, but people who want the full newspaper experience pay $103 a year for the privilege. More than a million subscribers consider that a good deal.

Manjoo notes customers understand that responsibility for product quality is only truly passed when money changes hands. If a free iPhone app is busted, you’re not too terribly surprised and will just delete it. If a $4.99 app is busted, you’re ready to write an angry letter. It’s all about expectations. If you can justify a cost with a promise of quality and support, then why mingle with the businesses in the free pool that can’t? Read the full article.

Advertising is a fairly common sense business. Find out where your target spends their time and, well, hit them with an ad. Beer commercials during football games. Organic baby food banners on mommy blogs. Hotel ads in travel magazines.

So the news that retailers are increasing Back-to-School spending in social media should be no big surprise. A recent USA Today article reported that spending will be down 7.7% to about $548 per family versus $594 a year ago, so marketers are working hard to find the epicenter of teen activity. From the source:

The money that businesses spend on social media now is growing faster than any other form of online marketing. Some 25% of small businesses surveyed by Ad-ology Research said they would spend more on social networking in 2009, beating the numbers who’ll spend more on e-mail, blogging or company websites. Forrester Research projects the $455 million that companies spent on social networking in 2008 will balloon to more than $3.1 billion by 2014, a growth rate more than three times what it forecasts for e-mail marketing.

The real difficulty for brands will be whether or not their social media campaigns can pass the useful test. Retailers who create apps that function as tools like collaborative online shopping will have a better chance of survival in this hyper-connected demographic.

Google conducted a study on how our eyes process their search results (something they clearly have a stake in figuring out). From the source:

Our User Experience Research team has found that people evaluate the search results page so quickly that they make most of their decisions unconsciously. To help us get some insight into this split-second decision-making process, we use eye-tracking equipment in our usability labs. This lets us see how our study participants scan the search results page, and is the next best thing to actually being able to read their minds.

This video shows how one participant scanned results to the query “how to tie a tie” in real time. It helps to illustrate a fairly obvious point—you’re either on the first page, or you’re toast.

Check out the full story here.

The relationship between designers and developers is too often overlooked on projects. Commonly the two teams are removed from each other and designers are asked to simply throw their work over the fence to the HTML monkeys who faithfully turn the designs into a webpage using 10,000 typewriters. At SolutionSet, the “front-end” of a website is a combined effort of three different teams; The IA/UE team does the sitemap and the wireframes, the design team creates the designs, and the HTML/CSS team takes the designs and turns them into a web page. It is all too easy to fall into a pattern of non-communication between the departments where we start to lose focus on the real people that live on the other side of the proverbial fence.

In the web industry, there is a long standing battle between the design team and the development team. One source of the conflict comes from the varying backgrounds of the designers who may have a stronger background in advertising or print rather than web. In reality, it is the designer’s job is to push the envelope and make something inspirational, drawing from a diversity of sources, not just the web. HTML/CSS developers usually make poor designers because the more experience they have with HTML, the more practical their designs become. This is another source of the conflict: the developers can feel like the designers are punishing them by building designs that have drop-shadows over gradients, multiple different homepages load at random, as well as many other interesting and creative ideas that become difficult to translate into a syntax.

The conflict can get even more heated with a looming deadline. With a few pen strokes on a Wacom tablet, huge swaths of functionality can be added to a project. Suddenly there are light boxes everywhere, stylized tooltips, special buttons, a different width for the left column on every page, and the list goes on. Digesting a PSD is a daunting task and the natural process of design approvals ensures that each page will be *slightly* inconsistent. And of course, the design needs to be ready by next week so that the back-end team can take over.

It is extremely difficult (and not always desirable) for the designer to fully consider the development implications of a specific design. The developer is also faced with the fact that they are going to need to get elbow deep in the design, inspect it with a fine tooth comb—often zoomed to 1600%—and do it fast. This can get vicious for both sides.

Designers can develop too!
First, any designer that knows the most basic of the HTML/CSS rules will already bring something special to the table. Web designers should familiarize themselves with the basic rules of HTML/CSS and interactive elements in Javascript. What bugs exist in IE6 and IE7? What are the difficulties that come with lightbox that covers a flash element? Will my developer be able to implement an ajax image gallery if he has 6 HTML pages to build in a week? With basic HTML skills, the designer can not only create beautiful designs for the web but also determine the best way to create web beauty and developer friendly designs.

Developers can be designers too!
This one is huge. Get a front-end developer into the project life cycle earlier. Get them in on the design reviews, interactive design reviews, introduce them to the project timeline, the client, and the designer. This will allow the designer and developer to communicate with each other and gain a better sense of the difficulties of both sides. Letting developers become part of the design process allows them to gain respect from the designers for knowing what visual hierarchy is just as the developers are impressed by the designer for knowing about the double-margin bug in IE. It’s important to remember that most front-end developers went to school for web design not a degree in HTML/CSS.

Module design/development
In college a web designer friend of mine introduced me to a design methodology that he practiced that completely inspired me and has since become my primary way of development. When designing, he first determines the layout of the site (Right sash, left sash, 3 col, etc), the color scheme, and builds a logo. From here he designs all of the sites standard elements. This includes h1 - h4, paragraph text, links, link hovers, ordered and unordered lists, blockquotes, tables, numbers, drop caps, forms, buttons, any elements that the site will need. Then he designs by element in a modular way. He will take the header box and start designing only the header. He will add his login form, his logo, anything he wants to go in the header. He will not touch the navigation, the body, the footer, nothing else on the page until his header is complete. Then he moves to another element, and one after another he puts together a page. This is now how I develop. Build a navigation (or whichever element is ready to develop) in HTML/CSS/Javascript, test in all browsers, then copy/paste into the main site layout. This allows me to complete element by element and keep them all separate not only in my html but on my stylesheet. Everything remains completely organized, consistently cross browser compatible, and easily replicable.

A strong bond between the designer and the developer can create an extremely efficient development cycle using this type of methodology. There is always an offset between what the designer is designing and what the developer is developing. We obviously can’t be developing the footer until the designs are complete. The idea of modular development reduces the offset. If both the designer and developer can move from element to element, both teams can nearly work in unison.

At SolutionSet—time permitting—we produce style guides after we’ve had the initial designs approved by the client. Style guides essentially distills the Photoshop document into its base elements. There will be a page describing the grid, a page listing out all of the header styles, and so on. This is also a positive step in the direction towards modular design. Style guides help catch funny situations like having 25 different header styles on a site. In general, the style guide records the intent of the designer much better than the raw PSD’s. A designer under a time crunch can make minuscule mistakes (most frustratingly page to page) that aren’t noticeable to the naked eye but make a big difference in the CSS.

There’s always ways to improve a process. The biggest challenge is trying to make common practice out of something that is constantly changing. Every project is unique, every design will be completely original, new browsers will launch. It’s a tough world to keep up with. We shall see if some of these new ides bring anything to light. If you have other ideas, please contribute.