Salmat Pre-Shop® News | October 2009

Welcome to the October issue of Salmat Digital Pre-Shop News - back after a brief hiatus.

It’s Christmas again, almost. This year we will see more online participation and presence from Australian retailers than ever before. And this can only be a good thing for the millions of customers who are online looking for what to by and from where. It’s not too late to ensure all your promotions are online in a easy to navigate and discoverable format.

Don’t forget to follow daily news and discussions regarding multichannel retailing at the LinkedIn group – Australian Multi-Channel Retail Forum. Or follow the forum on Twitter for postings of the latest news and must-read articles.

Kind regards

Paul Marshall
Executive Director
Salmat Digital

Devotion to emotion creates marketing commotion

Today’s online environment has created a unique opportunity for marketers – the ability to engage directly with consumers and potential customers in a way that is individual, yet on a mass scale.

Time and time again, the brands that are thriving today are the ones that manage to connect with customers on an emotional level. It’s not necessarily having the best product or the most competitive pricing that ensures success – though these factors are important, too. Consumers also gravitate towards brands in which they have some sort of emotional investment. This involves factors such as brand identity and image, trust, experience and more.

By now, you’ve heard much about Twitter – there’s no doubt that I’ve extolled its virtues enough in recent months! – but in relation to emotional marketing, Twitter could not be more relevant. This microblogging service offers brands an opportunity to communicate directly with a large number of customers, practically in real-time. It’s not just a chance to broadcast your hot deals but also a chance to inject a little personality into your brand. Not every Tweet you post has to be a direct marketing message; in fact you shouldn’t just use it like old broadcast media where you push more marketing messages. Sometimes using a little humour or insight will go a long way to building loyalty amongst your Twitter followers.

A service called CoTweet has even emerged to help brands manage their Twitter presence. Multiple users can manage a single brand’s Twitter account and a case management function keeps track of all the various interactions between staff members accessing the account and followers. You can even assign tasks and manage follow ups. To further build brand transparency – a crucial element of emotional marketing – CoTweet appends a ^signature tag to each Tweet, so the brand’s followers can track which member of staff is talking.

Multi-channel must evolve to cross-channel

If you have added, or are about to add, online shopping to your business then your multi-channel journey has only just begun and you need to know more about cross-channel retailing. What is the difference?

Multi-channel is simply that: running more than one channel to sell, market, service or deliver. Cross-channel however is “the coordinated use of multiple channels to gain market share, grow revenue and profits, create a differentiated experience and increase customer loyalty”. It is how the real business benefits are delivered.

The evolution from multi-channel to cross-channel can be broken into three phases:

Multi-channel development: This is really about having a portfolio of channels in which to sell, service, market or distribute. For example, you may have an ecommerce website, or you may have a call centre to take orders over the phone. In this phase however there is no synchronisation between the channels. The channels operate in silos, the business is product-focused and channel-focused and the marketing is campaign-focused.

Multi-channel coordination – cross-channel retailing: Here the links start being made. Marketing campaigns are beginning to be synchronised across channels. Testing and measuring multi-touch media and communication strategies is a regular occurrence and you start to build up a picture of your customer across channels. You may be co-ordinating across channels in areas of delivery and customer service, for example buy online, pick up in-store. Channels evolve to collaborate at a technology level and a job/responsibility level.

Cross-channel optimisation: This is where you will truly have one business, one view of your customer and one over-arching strategy, played out through a well synchronised set of strategies and tactics using the many channels (and their unique advantages) available to you. This phase is all about customer focus - a single, holistic and heuristic customer view regardless of the communication channel. You will be creating unique customer experiences through the cross-channel value proposition and providing unique benefits through the use of integrated channels.

While this is definitely a journey and will take time and resources, you should be planning for it today – in your technology, internal communications, staff roles, responsibilities and performance measures. It will pay big dividends and there is a bigger prize for those that get to the end faster. Where are you today?


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