Click here to read Online Strategies magazine’s August issue!
Posts Tagged ‘email’
Retailers – Get Your Customer “Big Pictureâ€
Wednesday, February 4th, 2009
Make no mistake about it, the 2009 economy is doing no one any favors and there are few bright spots to find. One good result is that poor economies force us to become more efficient with our resources. We need to get the most out of what we have at our fingertips.
Over the past few years, multichannel retailers have been forced to purchase systems to help optimize their channels. One system manages email, another manages direct mail, a third manages your web data, and still a fourth manages your search engine optimization and search engine marketing tactics. In the end, we have a number of disparate operations that have no understanding of the big picture in your marketing strategy. Now is the time to consolidate those efforts into a single source of truth.
For those of you who market across multiple channels, integrating the full customer view is a key to understanding the efficacy of your efforts. Take, for example, search engine marketing. Using just the data that you get from Google or your web analytics team, you can determine which search terms drive the most traffic or the most conversions and continue to invest down that path. But, is this really the right investment? A search term may drive more traffic, but is it the most desirable traffic that you are seeking, and what percent of offline transactions are affected by the search engine marketing? Now, if you were able to overlay the search information into the marketing database, you can see how many offline transactions were affected by search and apply lifetime value and profitability analysis to the keywords to make a more informed decision.
Here comes the good news- as customer interaction channels have proliferated, there has also been an explosion in integration technologies such as SOAP based web services to underpin our ability to programmatically pull together these new channels. The vendor community has done a pretty stellar job of using web services to create application programmatic interfaces (API’s) to aid in the integration effort. Now is the time to apply your energy and efforts to using those capabilities to create a comprehensive view of your customer and your marketing activities around that customer.
For those of you with IT departments to handle this opportunity, congratulations and consider yourself lucky! Those of you who do not have that luxury might be considering outsourcing; look for a solid marketing automation provider that offers a good hosting option. You’ll want a database structure that supports online and offline channels as well as an extensive capability to integrate with downstream execution engines such as email, behavioral targeting, POS and call center applications. Your goal? A single source to manage your entire marketing eco-system - consolidation that can cut your marketing infrastructure budget by 35-50 percent.
In the end, this economy is forcing organizations to adopt new ways to become more efficient. Often adopting new technologies to help consolidate decisions and efforts into one source does this. If there is a bright spot to the economy of 2009, it may be that it helps to usher in a new era that empowers marketers to make better decisions across their channels and become more efficient with their marketing budget. The knowledge and technology to accomplish this is within reach; now’s the time to find it and use it.
Jeff Hassemer is vice president, product management of Entiera.
Your 2008 Sales Got You Down? Let’s Turn it Around
Monday, January 5th, 2009
As we wind down the holiday buying season and start to look ahead to next year, the question on many direct response marketers’ minds continues to be how to target the right customer with the right offer. And perhaps even more importantly, how can this be done without increasing CPA.
Marketers need the ability to capture their audience’s response through any channel. For instance, what happens when your customer sees that spot on TV and decides to purchase via a mobile phone or the web days after the airing? What about the customer who saw the ad, visited the site and did not buy? Or, what about the client who did not see the spot, but is a potential buyer because of his or her past history?
The key is to cover multiple media channels and add new channels for response. It’s much more cost and time efficient for marketers to integrate all channels, as opposed to planning for TV, online and mobile separately. It only makes sense to consider multichannel response options because you can’t tell a customer where to buy; you can only suggest mediums through which to engage. Try to cover as many POS areas as possible, so the experience for the consumer is as integrated and easy as possible. You will extend the reach and effectiveness of media buys and capture sales that might otherwise be lost.
Not all customers want to transact the same way, so behavioral targeting and dynamic scripting which changes “on the fly†adapting for each customer’s specific responses is critical. By providing them with multiple options in the most important segment of the purchasing funnel – the actual buy itself – you can convert them from a shopper to a buyer.
Let’s take a brief look at a typical customer journey. Let’s assume that the consumer sees something they like on TV and calls the 1-800 number flashing on the screen. Depending on what the consumer is asking for in the phone call, you need to provide them with the right automated response and guide them down the purchasing path. Next, look at all the buying criteria and create individual scripts for each product. If the transaction was not completed the first time, follow up with email or SMS campaigns to help close the deal.
For your next keystone-marketing event, don’t leave sales on the table. Direct your consumers’ response through a multichannel program to capture ALL the sales generated by your advertising activities. Make a New Year’s resolution not to lose the right customer to the wrong channel or wrong offer.
Michael Ferzacca is CEO of Ignite Media Solutions.
Santa Comes Down the Chimney; Identity Thieves Creep in Through the Computer
Thursday, November 13th, 2008
Over 9 million Americans have their identity stolen each year. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reports that in 2007, the highest category of complaints was identity theft, attributing 32 percent of total complaints received to the category. Consumers reported fraud losses totaling more than $1.2 billion, almost double that of 2005.
Shopping online safely helps you prevent your own identity theft. Parents teach us to look both ways before crossing the street, but most of us didn’t grow up hearing “make sure your password contains a number†or, “look for an SSL connection when shopping.†All retailers should help inform consumers about safe practices.
Do’s and Don’ts Security Tips to Prevent E-commerce Identity Theft This Holiday Season:
1. Download Updates. Do click “Update Now†when you receive security updates from Microsoft, Apple, and Adobe. Don’t avoid these updates that arm you with the latest fixes before starting to shop. Web application exploits are very common now and can harm you if you simply go to a bad website.
2. Create Complex Passwords. Do mix letter cases and use at least seven characters when placing an order online. Don’t choose a word from a dictionary as hacker programs guess passwords very quickly.
3. Thwart Hackers. Do use your wireless router’s security features when surfing the web. Don’t let hackers join your network where they can try to listen in on your shopping experience. Hackers can use network sniffers to eavesdrop on you.
4. Use Onetime Credit Cards. Do shop online using a virtual credit card that expires after one use. Don’t use your actual credit card numbers on less familiar websites.
Some websites masquerade as shops but really just steal your credit card numbers.
5. Verify Secure Connections. Do make sure the padlock symbol in your browser’s status bar shows that you have a secure connection when conducting online financial transactions. Don’t press submit if there is no padlock at a store. Padlocks represent an SSL connection, which protects any information you send.
6. Check Your Credit. Do visit annualcreditreport.com before and after the holidays. Don’t wait until you receive a bill for a credit card that isn’t really yours. Your credit report shows all your accounts and overdue balances.
7. Lock Up Your Passwords. Do use a password manager to save all your passwords. Don’t save passwords in your web browser without a master password to protect them. Password managers encrypt all of your passwords with a master password so you only have to remember the one.
8. Enter Web Addresses Manually. Do go directly to a store’s website by typing its address into your web browser manually if you plan to buy something. Don’t click on links from an email message. These are known as phishing attacks and are very common.
9. Shop From Your Terminal. Do shop online using your own computer. Don’t shop online using a public computer at a hotel or airport. Public computers can have spyware that records your information as you type it.
10. Communicate Securely. Do call a business and read them your credit card information if you trust them and want to buy a present for someone. Don’t e-mail or instant message personal information. E-mail and instant messenger are insecure.
Todd Feinman is CEO of Identity Finder.
