New $1m startup and trademe competitor Wheedle is a classic example of how bad it can get. Nasty software bugs and big security holes caused by poor engineering resulted in an embarrassing shutdown on 3rd October, just days after going live. From our investigation, poor planning and penny-pinching was the basic problem.  TV News report

The fix? Wheedle management immediately got to recruiting replacement $15-27/hr web developers from India. Again. (Local ones are too costly it seems). It’s not so much that Indian developers are necessarily less competent. But communication issues certainly do arise when using foreign staff, timeframes blow out, shortcuts taken, a loss of control etc. Outsourcing to offshore can work, but you need a your own company [expertly skilled] staff to oversee every aspect. The extra effort required and frustration encountered often outweighs the dollar savings made. But such arguments seldom wash with naive, highly entrepreneurial company managers or their cost accountants.

Us old engineers have seen it all before. Many times. Using cheap components, cheap outsourcing, cheap training, cheap labour is all high risk stuff, yet the drive to lower costs often overrides common sense, especially when the company has non-technical people driving it. And the Wheedle managers apparently can’t tell the difference from a good coder and a bad one. They can only go on what the candidate claims they can do and hope the University they went to was a good one – Not a good way to run a new high-tech, online business. Hey, think of Apple and Trademe. Built by engineers (coders), who also had the required entrepreneurial flare and a vision.

I can’t see Wheedle coming back and making a success of it.

Big businesses make similar mistakes too. The $1b telecom mobile systems fiasco a couple years back when their new XT system repeatedly failed, doing immense harm to their reputation and bottom line. It too was a classic case of engineering shortcuts and was totally avoidable. Another sad case of a telecommunications company that had outsourced all it’s technical services to lowest tender, losing control.

The drive to save money by the running down of local skills and good engineering practices, resulted in a poorly engineered and managed system that could not reliably do what it should. The customer and shareholder then paid the price. Large companies like Telecom can often recover from these disasters, but smaller businesses like Wheedle do not.

Cheap and not so cheerful…

My point is that when dealing with technology, the push for cost reductions is a dangerous path for anyone to take. Especially smaller businesses. I see it in small business websites all the time. Where a keen price is required, focus is upon getting the right look. Or worse still, they decide to setup on of those MYOB or similar host-provided DIY sites, each guaranteed to be hated by Google and get very little traffic.

The hidden bad coding and poor SEO (since there was no budget for it) doesn’t show up for months when the business belatedly discovers they’re not getting any traffic or sales leads. The site is basically a dud. Whatever was spent, was money wasted.

Like the Wheedle and Telecom disasters, it’s all avoidable.

One of our local clients is a 6-person HR and Recruiting company. Like me, they get a lots of emails each day. But unlike me, this email is spread across multiple staff email boxes. To date, in order to keep everyone informed of what’s happening with various projects and clients, they have to cc many client-related emails to their colleagues as well as re-save correspondence to various server folders. This is a common in most small businesses and after a while it gets very messy.

We helped them setup a new system to track this email traffic called AffinityLive. (They had heard about Affinity on the Xero accounting website, not me). And it only tracks emails that relate to existing or new clients. It’s a very useful tool for services-based businesses to track client activity and correspondence including any attachments or related files. It is naturally accessed and tracked online in a slick, secure visual portal.

all data relating to clients, projects, email and invoicing is tracked and managed

But wait there’s more! It is also a slick CRM and project management system. This means almost everything to do with specific details and transactions relating to clients, projects and their emails is tracked. It also tracks the time taken on projects and their invoicing!

It could double your business worth

Like all these types of systems, it takes a bit of work to setup initially, which scares many people. Stories of stalled CRM and Project Management systems are common as business owners expect a quick fix and instant results. But when done well, the time and frustration saved in a year can be be huge.

But the real hidden value of this technology goes way beyond becoming more efficient and effective. There’s intrinsic business benefits. With this type of system, were for example, this small HR business ever sold, I’m convinced having a business system like this in place that virtually runs the company, would almost double its net worth. I’d seen this happen with a shared quoting & job management system in a small innovative print company I worked for in Christchurch ten years ago.   

I’ve looked at other project management and CRM systems over the years but none do it anywhere near as well as Affinity Live and for the modest monthly subscription cost, could save the wages of at least one person by making everyone in a small office more productive.

More Control

The other thing my old Christchurch print boss loved with his system was the control it gave. It also meant he could safely go on holiday and ‘the system’ was safely monitoring things on his/her behalf and knowing that tasks were being attended to. It helped both him and his staff to know what was happening with clients and their daily priorities. A login via the net gave instant access to view activity 24/7 which was nice. I expect Affinity are already working on an iPhone/iPad App too, meaning your business can literally be in your pocket…

Certainly the initial trick with client email and task management is the most fascinating and eliminates a lot of frustration and wasted effort common in many service-based small businesses today.

Cloud Computing that works

It’s a classic example of how ‘cloud computing’ can really work for small business to lower costs and become more efficient. I’d already setup a WordPress website and Google Apps for them that has helped bring in more clients and work, since they’re now visible online. But this new system is the real jewel in the crown, allowing them to better manage their business and their growth. We’re now investigating how their website online job applications and enquiries can go directly to Affinity instead of email notifications, which would be really nice, ensuring no new client enquiry or sales lead is ever lost. 

In the coming months I intend implementing it in our own business, as a shared resources for the other designers, marketers and coders we collaborate with on various online projects. Oh, and it’s another Auzzie developed system too which seems to be particularly adept at this sort of thing.  Watch this space.

Check out their website and if any locals need help implementing it, let us know. email zn.oc.gnitekramlatigidnull@nivek

They provide expert systems for businesses and agencies that run and expertly track both online and offline campaigns for clients across all media. i.e. Printed direct mail, print and web display ads, Google Adwords, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Blogs, Mobile, eMail Marketing etc.

How far behind business thinking is here was loudly demonstrated by a comment from a retail client of ours  this week, who amongst other items, sells Nike products. Word is that within Nike, when it comes to online marketing at least, it’s all about setting up e-Storefronts and using Facebook. Blogs and other online channels are not working they say… Yeah, right.

My client then questioned their current emphasis on their blog (which gets hundreds of hits per day and has many thousands of readers). Should they focus on an online store and their Facebook page? The problem here is that everyone is still looking for the next big thing or bandwagon to hitch on to. The ONE thing that will magically bring them instant sales and new customers.

More Channels Means More Leads

But the world (and customers) don’t work this way. There’s no single magic fix available. No simple shortcut to success online, be it using Blogs, Facebook or email. Customers use multiple channels to connect with their suppliers or retailers. Many use Google, Blogs or email to keep informed.  Others prefer Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, or a mix of the above. We should all realise this and avoid ‘closing down’ or dismissing any marketing communication channel as unimportant – Even print and the old telephone.

…we should be looking at how we use ALL channels, simultaneously

Instead of jumping from one channel to another to find ‘the best’, we should be looking at how we use ALL channels, simultaneously... It’s what Dukky clients do, and it produces stunning results.

Why isn’t cross-channel marketing popular?

So, why hasn’t cross-channel taken off? The problem, is that these campaigns take time and skills to plan, and then implement. You need as many geeks in the planning room as you do creatives – And they seldom get along, explaining why the big creative-driven agencies like to market one channel and campaign at a time.  They simply can’t understand the need for complex workflows, analytics or data mining applications. Can’t see how it can be used to grow sales – To most it’s all nasty numbers and math, not lovely art.

p.s. I guess from the agency or graphic artists viewpoint,  it’s always been easier to sell the visuals and wow factor, than to sell figures or results – Unless of course you’re selling to an accountant or the company owner. Maybe this explains why online hasn’t taken hold in many small business sectors. Business owners are still awaiting the payback details. Something beyond the fancy visuals…

Read also:

1. eMail Marketing Shortcuts – Seth Godin
2. Show me the money (with more channels)
3. 15% more sales with cross-channel

For many businesses, promoting themselves online is a new experience and process too. But it’s no longer a simple management decision about ‘building a website’ based upon their old company brochure, then giving the job to a local web designer. Online promotion today is a totally different animal to the old internet and the offline world of radio, TV and print.

The simple, ‘let’s build a new website’ strategy and hand responsibility over to a web designer is doomed to fail. Creative design is never enough. The elements and decisions that need to be made to successfully promote a business online are mind numbing. (See chart).

Today companies successfully promoting themselves online will still involve a graphic designer. Visuals and branding are the first step, but thereafter these skilled designers have only a minor role to play.

In fact some recent research tells us the businesses should talk with an SEO expert first to determine the best market segment or opportunity, then a skilled copywriter, who provides the brief to the graphic designer….

As the new website must be content-managed, a good WordPress/CMS developer is needed early on to convert the static design, ensuring the site is well coded, Google-friendly and interactive with all the right forms, a blog etc

High traffic, sales-focused websites also need a good copywriter or marketer to optimise the message, offer and content, together with an SEO guru that ensures the site ranks high on Google, who also takes care of the Analytics, Keyword and Adwords management.

And when all this is in place there’s email marketing, social media, CRM, Video and mobile toolsets to consider, each playing a major role in boosting site traffic and sales over time. But bringing all this together at once can result in a needlessly complex and costly project. Introducing new tools and marketing systems is never easy. Arguments on what to do next are also common. Everyone has a ‘friend’ (or relative) with an opinion and a once promising web project can go off the rails very quickly.

Obviously, someone needs to take charge. A champion, with the right vision and guidebook, to keep things on track. Able to work to a pre-defined plan as well as monitoring results. Not be swayed by any single voice. But where does one start? How can it be made affordable? Many SMEs can’t afford to employ all these experts, especially with total costs of the ‘full package’ exceeding $30,000 pa.

Why is it this hard? Is there a worksheet available?

The secret for these types of projects is to do it in stages, over a 12 or 24 month timeframe. Details will be revealed next month in part two of this three-part series…. It’s really a question of defining a game plan that everyone adheres to and gets involved with.

p.s. It’s little wonder that businesses don’t do online well and become disheartened by the apparent complexity of the web. Many wish for the simple days where you left marketing in the hands of the yellow pages, radio or local newspaper reps and maybe printed a few brochures, then waited for the phone to ring…. Those days are long gone… However the rewards for those that build an online plan and execute well are immense. Far higher than was ever possible with traditional offline media. 

The listen and it’s gone forever summed it up for me. This is the issue with radio advertising. You’ve got to capture the audience attention and close the deal in an instant. It’s an almost impossible task, confirmed by small business owners I know that have spent a fortune in radio ads over the years, with almost nothing to show for it.

As mentioned in earlier, somewhat similar articles on traditional yellow pages advertising, the reason radio survives at all, could be the fact they have a skilled team of telemarketers or sales reps pushing it. If Radio, Yellow pages or printed classifieds were based upon actual sales results for their customers, they’re be dead in the water….

The other thing that helps radio (and Yellow) survive is that business owners, large and small, are inherently very slow to change their ways. In many markets much slower and more conservative than their own consumers who are often more online and mobile ‘savvy’.  Put simply, just because their existing radio ads aren’t actually working, does not mean they are looking to change things. Their internal business systems, people and processes are there to maintain the status quo. (There’s ample evidence of this sad fact across society – It’s our ‘fear of change’ at work).

Just show me the numbers!

Radio sales reps also spout out the numbers and stats just like eager Yellow pages reps. They mention these huge figures off some ten-year-old survey which sounds comforting, coming to the belief that there’s huge numbers of ‘listeners’ out there today, eagerly waiting for the next commercial ad break. Yeah, right…

But Radio will survive, in spite of itself

A recent analysis in the US has it that radio advertising, in spite of it’s ineffectiveness in terms of results, will continue to stay around 10% of media spend over the next few years. Local studies reveal similar trends here (read more)

Although sales skills and relationships are major factors, I think there’s also a ‘feel good’ factor here too for the paying advertiser and business owner. Just hearing their ad on air gives them a psychological boost. – We all like to hear about ourselves, right? And therefore happy to pay for it each month. It’s somehow ‘classier’ than print ads.

But the problem with radio as Seth mentioned, aside from the fact that it’s intrusive ‘push advertising’ that most consumers hate, is that for the listener, the message is fleeting.

Unless the individual has that exact need, the moment they just happen to be listening, it’s gone. Few will make a note of it for future reference. Some will think, that’s okay, I’ll Google it when I get home. But because the advertiser has no cross-channel marketing strategy in place, little useful comes up in a search result. (see page ref links for these tricks)

The worst, lease effective radio ads are those where the call to action is vague and/or hard to recall. Most seem to rely upon providing a phone number, which few people will remember or write down.

Certainly there are several things radio ad creatives could do to help, like sending clients to an easily remembered website address. Perhaps a directory off their own radio website would help if the client has no website or can’t easily alter it.

This, somewhat ironically, would also help the stations online profile and ad income stream.

Better still, have them use mobile text messaging to make the contact and have a record of the event. e.g. The radio ad could include “Text TOYS to 456 on your mobile for more details and chance to go into a prize draw” The text messaging system would automatically respond, sending through added information or website links at minimal cost. That link could theoretically go straight to the advertisers online store to purchase immediately via mobile, or capture their email address or Facebook details. The advertiser would also now have the customers phone number, from the initial contact, allowing instant follow-up. This is interactive advertising (and selling) at its best.

Sorry Small Business Owner – The old school ways win out

But these little tricks certainly won’t be covered or suggested by the ‘old-school’ radio sales rep or station manager. Like others who work in the agency, design or print sector, aside from the old telephone number, they dislike including other competing media channels as part of any client promotion. These third party ‘extras’ around the web and mobile would certainly boost end results and leads, but are also perceived as unnecessary ‘impediments’ to closing the ad sale (i.e. it’s a harder sell), needlessly delaying the reps sales commission.

On top of this, it’s all part of the established ad provider strategy. If you’re hooking up a client, make sure you get as much of his/her annual ad budget as possible. Make sure they don’t share it with someone else, especially another competing (often lower cost), media channel.

What may be good business for the client, is often not for the radio station, Yellow pages, newspaper or magazine publisher. This self-serving attitude will ensure that print, radio, TV and general advertising strategies will remain locked into the 80s for many years to come – A time when costly promotions were proudly displayed (or said), and the customer expected to pick up the phone.

N.B. The integration of online with offline advertising that provides real returns for business owners certainly seems a long way off. This article helps explain why is there so little consideration for the business owner, listener, or reader in today’s business advertising -  Why 90% of NZ businesses, agencies and advertisers appear reluctant to connect with consumers beyond yesterdays secular tools. Why a change for the better using lower cost, super-effective, new media and cross-channel tools is being held back…

Ref: Cynics sanctuary;  Changing the Channel;   Integrating Radio and Offline with Google Search

Here’s a youtube clip of how a new age 1-year-old views the world of print and magazines.

To promote his wisdom, Andrew recently started an iTunes and Youtube channel with some amazing tips and ideas for small business owners. Here’s one below.

Enjoy.

Call or email us at kevin@digitalmarketing,co.nz to learn more about Andrew’s strategies and how they can be applied locally.

Tri-messaging is marketing messages that are created, integrated and unleashed for email, social and mobile channels to stimulate engagement.

The graph Lyris provided, reminded us again of how marketing has dramatically changed. Again how the consumer, not the marketer or advertiser is in control. Business are now just participants, not drivers of marketing. Seth Godin and other gurus forecast all this long ago,

However this paper showed what digital marketing is really about today. Finding the best touchpoints where our customers are. Certainly it is around email, social websites and mobile.

Mobile is the most interesting element, since is can bring everything together. Modern iPhone and smartphones can do it all – Collect and send emails, monitor, view, even update blogs, facebook pages and twitter accounts at will, on the go.

The other neat, emerging mobile phone marketing tool is text messaging and the use of business-defined keywords. These can be easily established for any business, allowing customers to ‘opt in’ to company specials, coupons or events. It’s not broadcast marketing or spam either. These are customer-requested, auto-response text messages providing quick information, coupons, even weblinks through to a mobile-optimised ‘mobi’ website, in realtime.

“Laptops are for old people”

It’s only a matter of time before smart retailers, restaurant owners, advertisers and marketers realise the sales potential on interacting with their customers through these channels, focused around mobile email, texts and mobile web. Forget clunky MS Outlook or IE/Firefox on a PC – As my friends teenage son told me, who’d ditched his PC for an Apple iTouch, “Laptops and PCs are just for you old people”.

Why is it so hard to make lasting changes in our organisations, in our communities, and in our own lives? The primary obstacle is a conflict that’s built into our brains, says Dan Heath, the co-author of the new book, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard.

Psychologists have discovered that our minds are ruled by two different systems – the rational mind and the emotional mind – that compete for control:

• The rational mind wants a great beach body; the emotional mind wants that Oreo cookie.
• The rational mind wants to change something at work; the emotional mind loves the comfort of the existing routine. This tension can doom a change effort-but if it is overcome, change can come quickly.

For us natural entrepreneurs, (being around 8% of the population), change is normal and healthy. We actually thrive on it. However this is not the ‘normal’ human condition. Most people (92%) abhor change, even when the change can make a significant improvement in their lives or business results. We have internal and external ‘systems’ that always want to maintain the status quo.

This discussion isn’t about the management of the process once the initial decision is made. We have project managers and change management consultants that do that chore. No, this is how we get to the point of accepting the need for change in the first place. Dan Health is one of several who have examined all this. This new book should help us understand why we act as we do.

For those in sales and marketing, it’s essential reading… Order it here.

For frustrated salespeople that want another perspective on all this, read Sharon Drew Morgans book, Dirty Little secrets. However as Sharon notes, that fact that our best strike rate in sales is under 10% simply reinforces the fact that people aren’t good at change – Giving them features and benefits is seldom, if ever enough. We have to manage their buying process too.

Finally, the other hidden factor in all this seems to be around perceived risk when buying anything. It’s long been known that if a money-back guarantee or similar is included, sales often improve by up to 50%. This is especially vital for new products or services. With no other change, just lowering this risk factor can make a huge difference when selling….

However if you’re selling, there may be a bigger elephant in the room. Is it just the message,  or the fact that we’ve made a connection? If you’re in sales and working with established clients, the message or offer may not be important. It’s the connection and fact we’ve taken the time is the key – Relationship selling concepts come to mind. We’ve spoken a lot on this blog about the emotional factors when selling. An article on what new strategies to employ with email marketing being the most recent. (Read more) 

It perhaps emphasises the need to remain human when selling. Less of the old ‘hard sell’. Local guru Sean D’Souza of Psychotactics had an interesting observation on all this in his weekly podcast. Take a listen…

Why Connection Is Way More Important

Be sure to signup to his newsletters. Better still, buy his book, Brain Audit – Why Customers Buy

Radio, TV, banner ads, pay-per-click (PPC), magazine ads, billboards… There are dozens if not hundreds of marketing channels you can use to get your sales message across. [Many marketers forget this]. We don’t expect you to use all of them all of the time – but you should know what your options are. Test different channels and different channel combinations, and roll out with what is most effective for you and your organization.

Do not, however, make the mistake of thinking that if a specific channel does not meet the return on investment (ROI) goal for your overall multi-channel marketing campaign it should be disregarded.

Take a look at the chart below:

In this example, you are selling your product for $100. You had $85,000 to spend and your goal was to make $1.25 for every dollar you spent, or a return on investment of 125 percent.

You had tremendous success with your online efforts (endorsed e-mails, banner ads, and PPC campaigns). On your teleconference, your marketing efforts yielded a 90 percent ROI and lost $500. And on your direct-mail campaign, you produced only an 80 percent ROI, losing a whopping $10,000.

It has been our experience that customers who come in as a result of direct-mail efforts have a higher lifetime value.

Since two of your five channels lost a total of $10,500, are you going to cut them from your multi-channel campaign? Of course not. Those two channels brought in nearly 42 percent of your new customers. Customers you now have the opportunity to bond with and sell more products to. It has been our experience that customers who come in as a result of direct-mail efforts have a higher lifetime value. This means that the 400 new customers from your direct-mail campaign will most likely become your best customers. On top of all this, you’ve met your goal of 125 percent ROI on your overall campaign.

The idea is to subsidize some channels with the channels that have greater ROIs to produce incremental orders that can bring in additional revenues.

Ed: This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, a free newsletter dedicated to making money, improving health, secrets to success. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.

P.S.  For those wanting to learn more about cross-channel marketing, MaryEllen has an amazing book on the topic entitled Changing the Channel. I read this over the Christmas break and it has to be one of the best, most objective and down-to-earth books on marketing I’ve found. Based on 20 years of real-world experience, not just theory. It’s a virtual case study on how a company achieved massive growth using direct response marketing, across multiple channels – Openly discussing what worked and what didn’t…

Every marketing student, entrepreneur and business owner should read this book

It covers must-know tricks on direct mail, email, search engines, telemarketing, social media, events, PR, print advertising, radio, TV and more. An easy-to-read book that puts it all into perspective – Something few marketing books or ‘experts’ do today, who all seem to have their own agendas and media biases.

This is the essential marketing handbook for any NZ business.

It can be purchased online from www.fishpond.co.nz

Much of this 1-hour interview was a reminder that marketing is failing us, seldom giving a good ROI. And based on Mark’s and many of his clients experiences, 95% of today’s ad agencies and marketers are image and brand-focused, still seeing ROI as relatively unimportant. (A recent UK survey seems to back this up) .

Click on the mp3 graphic below to listen to a 5 minute extract from the interview – Here Mark talks about a simple strategy that started the turnaround in sales for a large client in the finance sector. He then discusses a disturbing case with a smaller operation, that clearly demonstrates where many of us are failing.

Your Marketing Sucks. by Mark Stevens – Excerpt.

Marketing is not about spending money on such things as advertising, direct mail, and P.R. Those are just tools. Marketing is about growing your business–its revenues, profit, and valuation. If you saw someone open an office window and start tossing out handfuls of thousand-dollar bills, you would have every reason to think that he’s nuts. Yet that’s what happens in business day in and day out, as company after company wastes millions of dollars on spending camouflaged as marketing.

… Smart people do stupid things all the time when it comes to marketing. Since the art and science of marketing is not their core expertise, not surprisingly, their marketing is far less effective than they dream it will be. It’s a trap that is easy to fall into. Think of it this way. There is a Christmas-morning sense of excitement when you get your company’s new brochure with its pretty pictures or see yourself hawking homemade hickory furniture in a cable-TV ad. In the back of your mind, a little voice says, "We’re big-time. We’re on television. We have a beautiful brochure. We’re marketers. Wow!"

But hold it a minute. You know how they say, "Anyone can be a parent. Being a good parent is where the tricky part comes in." Well, a similar dynamic occurs with marketing. All you need to market your business is money. You don’t need an iota of creativity, smarts, experience, or savvy. No, all you need is a cheque book. And with that cheque book, you can buy ads up the kazoo, public relations that can make Donald Trump look like a recluse, brochures to fill warehouses, websites that would make Steven Spielberg envious.

…when the return on your investment isn’t there, there can be no arguing that your marketing sucks.

The problem is that if you are like most companies, all of that spending will result in a negative return on investment. Your marketing will cost you more profits than it brings in.  Why? Because in all likelihood, your marketing sucks.

…when the return on your investment isn’t there, there can be no arguing that your marketing sucks. This book tackles the problem head-on. It will help you

• Rid your company of spending camouflaged as marketing, and redirect your dollars to programs that deliver strong and measurable financial rewards. (If you get the Christmas glow too, that’s fine, but keep the ego-gratification stuff to yourself. We’re in pursuit of dollars here.)
• Stop overlooking simple but obvious ways of increasing sales and earnings. For example, you will be amazed to see how easy it is to sell additional products or services to existing clients. (We will be talking about that in detail later.)

To buy the book, click here

Persuasion architect guru Bryan Eisenburg of futurenow provides a nifty little online calculator which calculates your website or brochure effectiveness. (Click here). It looks at the we vs you words and determines how often you talk about yourself and how often you talk about the prospect.

Ref: It’s the Customer Stupid.

Making communications more personal and relevant, as well as more targeted and timely the key to profits

The international audit during 2008 of some 650 senior marketers revealed that making communications more personal and relevant, as well as more targeted and timely, was among the top strategies for realizing greater revenue and profitability from existing customers. Other leading strategies included addressing under-penetrated markets or new customer segments, as well as finding new ways to up-sell and cross-sell existing accounts.

The CMO study highlighted three key obstacles and deficiencies to overcome. This included:

• Lack of real-time data that captures across all customer touchpoints.
• Information not only being selectively gathered, but often inaccurate.
• Data restricted in its availability and use across the organization.

The core need for change  has been simmering for a while now. It started with that groundbreaking research by Romano and Broudy way back in 1999 who clearly established the benefits of  utilising client profiling and transactional data within marketing campaigns.

“It is inexplicable that the vast majority of marketers today are still struggling to source and extract meaningful insights from customer data at a behavioral, transactional and account value level,” noted CMO Council executive director Donovan Neale-May.

Hospitality and Retail have the biggest growth opportunities

An earlier Retail Trends Report in 2005 came to surprisingly similar conclusions to the CMO one. It concluded that retailers that take a customer-driven approach to marketing will be able to withstand the competition for dwindling discretionary income, and still have a productive and profitable. The key to success for small retailers is to identify their best customers, find potential niches to cater to, get to know what motivates customers and then interact as individually as possible.

Retail Trends Report suggests that retailers creating personal experiences and communications are those most likely to come out ahead. Personalising the selling experience and marketing messages will help to level the playing field between small and larger retailers.

According to Gary Wright, of Wright Marketing who specialise in retail strategies, "Technology today puts personalised communications within the reach of every retailer, regardless of size. With new database and digital press technology, small retailers can affordably engage in one-on-one communications which has been proven to significantly increase a customer’s brand loyalty and lifetime value."

when you communicate with a known customer, you are 5 times more likely to generate a response and a sale

Wright encourages retailers to explore database programmes and digital production opportunities that will merge customer data with promotional materials in order to produce personalised and highly relevant materials at a fraction of traditional printing costs. His report indicates that when you communicate with a known customer, you are 5 times more likely to generate a response and a sale. When you add customer-specific information from a database to that correspondence, the potential increase jumps to 13 times.

Loyalty marketing guru Rafi Albo knows all this well. He’s shown us in his own retail sector numerous examples that gained a 15-35% response / voucher redemption rate. Winston Marsh also provided some handy tips for small retailers where he touched upon the benefits of using the internet and email in innovative ways. Now, in 2009, we can add in mobile TXT messaging and QR barcodes.

The opportunities here for all retailers, restaurants and the hospitality sectors are immense, but like any marketing strategy, expert planning and execution is the key to success.  Call us on 027 244 4884 to discuss how we can together devise a retail marketing plan to suit your industry or market sector.

If you want more information on the Routes to Revenue study go to  the CMO web site at http://www.cmocouncil.org/index.asp.

Kevin Trye