19 Aug 2015

What Is In-Store Remarketing?

In-Store Remarketing: Remarketing done online to customers who have walk into a physical store and do not make a purchase.

In online marketing, the fastest way to increase sales is through remarketing to shoppers who have considered products, but didn’t buy. Yet, for most retailers, online represents only 10% of their sales and 90% of all retail sales still happen in the physical store.

One of the reasons we talked about customer identification in depth over the past month is because having in-store customer identifiers is the key to a successful in-store remarketing campaign. Having an email address as an offline customer identifier is extremely powerful to power In-Store Remarketing.

There have been massive innovations in digital and mobile technology that have given retail stores many issues and are having trouble finding viable solutions. In-Store Remarketing gives omnichannel marketers the opportunity to move ahead of the curve in a fast-paced digital age.

Pillars of In-Store Remarketing

Creating Continuous Customer Experiences

One of the biggest problems omnichannel marketers face today is the fragmentation of their experiences in the online and offline world. In a world where all shoppers are starting their research on their mobile devices, making sure that shoppers are getting the information they need when they need it is a critical first step.

When it comes to In-Store Remarketing, there are countless times when shoppers have been in a store, seen a product they are considering to buy, then walk out of store. Are omnichannel marketers  equipped when that shopper goes online later and purchases that item, but in a different color? Being able to providing a great in-store experience can lead to another online touchpoint that can drive to a potential sale.

Collecting Customer Data in the Store (While Maintaining Customer Trust)

Going back to the stat that 90% of all retail sales still take place in the store, there are incredible opportunities for retailers to take advantage of technology to drive omnichannel sales. Online, marketers have done an incredible job of innovating and optimizing their e-commerce strategies to collect the right data to make better decisions. However, we are very much the early days when it comes to collecting offline customer data and using it to inform business decisions. In-Store Remarketing effectively places a digital layer in the physical store and has powerful ripple effects in a retailers omnichannel strategy.

With all of this opportunity in retail, it is incredibly important to design and build  programs in place with consumer trust being top of mind. Customers understand online marketing and are aware of the information that they give out is relative to the value they receive from a retailer. When this data collection starts happening in the store, customers will become more aware and sensitive to the information they are providing in the store and will be less prone to do that if retailers are not providing enough value in the store.

Driving Insight Into Online/Offline Attribution

As mobile device usage and e-commerce are growing at a rapid pace, there has been more stress placed on store managers and associates getting people to make a purchase in the store. Traditionally, there haven’t been complementary metrics that measure store engagement relative to the online world. Closing the loop on multichannel attribution has been an issue for marketers, and now the data and technology is there to make that become a reality.

With In-Store Remarketing, the physical store is able to properly show its influence in a retailer’s omnichannel landscape. From store engagement metrics to store associate attribution, store employees can provide better experiences to customers without the fear of missing out on a sale or not getting credit for their efforts.

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11 Aug 2015

POV: Why Facebook Has An Opportunity to Own Omnichannel Marketing

Over the past month, we’ve been extensively covering customer identification in retail. As we look around the omnichannel landscape, retailers are having a hard time having a true omnichannel experience. While there are tons of technology companies that have specialized in creating solutions ranging from customer experience to point-of-sale, Facebook could disrupt the omnichannel space in a way that would be tough to compete with over time.

Here are three reasons why Facebook could disrupt the retail space:

Identity & Scale

Facebook simply has a reach across the Internet that cannot be matched. With 1.5 billion people on the social network and almost 1 billion of them are checking Facebook every single day. What makes this extremely powerful is that each person’s profile is filled out and accurate and serves as a strong identifier compared to others used online. Facebook has done an incredible job of extending their reach online with the creation of Facebook Connect and it being used to sign-in to many popular apps and websites. If Facebook decides to move deeper into the retail space, having Facebook ID’s layered into the omnichannel experience can provide a whole new set of data for retailers.

Attribution

The implications of taking Facebook’s social data and applying it to the physical store is immensely powerful. One of the biggest implications of using that data is in a product that is gaining significant momentum at Facebook. Atlas, the ad network Facebook bought from Microsoft a few years ago, has been rebuilt to challenge online heavyweights like Google and Twitter. Combining Facebook’s massive user base with the ability to track people across devices and attribute offline sales to online ad campaigns is something that many marketers have tried to crack but have had difficulty doing due to limits of the technology in place. Atlas gives omnichannel marketers much greater insight into their online advertising campaigns and the business results that marketers are held to achieving for their brand.

Beacons

Facebook recently launched a beacon program, which allows retailers to order beacons with the intention of engaging with shoppers when they are in the store. The beacons provide businesses the ability to engage and personalize with people who visit a business within the Facebook app and provide tips and recommendations from friends in their social graph.

While this might not seem like that big of a deal, they are quietly testing these beacons and could make a serious play with the evolution of the physical store. Using that treasure trove of social data, whether to share content or promote offers is compelling for retailers to implement in their stores. Imagine Atlas connecting the in-store engagement data with beacons to the anonymized person and matching their mobile device usage to their interactions to advertisements.

Facebook has done a great job in its mission of connecting the world and bringing people closer together. Now that it has the identity and scale to reach people anytime, anywhere, it can start diving into to industries that are ripe to disruption. Omnichannel marketers need to pay close attention to Facebook in the coming years and should be aware and keeping pace and innovation of relevant advertising and multichannel attribution.

Facebook® is a registered trademark of Facebook, Inc.

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28 Jul 2015

4 Retailers That Own Customer Identification

While we’ve done a comprehensive look at retailer customer identification over the past month, sometimes the easiest way to see how this is approached is to look at the retailers that are currently implementing these today.  For these purposes, companies who are deemed successful are ones who not only are able to gain the data, but they use this information to learn more about what their customers want and create a better shopping experience as a result.  This reflects that a retailer truly understands their customers and tailors the retail experience to their needs.  One should not simply think of customer identification as capturing emails just to send out promotional messaging.  An end goal should be in mind so one knows exactly what data needs to be known.  And then, every choice made should relate back to the customer and what would benefit their experience. The companies highlighted below show creative ways to capture customer data, but they also take what they learned to create an experience that is unique to their brand and reflects how their customers want to shop.

Starbucks

An innovator in the retail space and providing a superior customer experience, Starbucks also helps set a standard for customer identification. While many retailers and restaurants struggle to have customers download their app, Starbucks has had no problem with mobile app usage, where one in five transactions is done via mobile. It is not uncommon to see customers taking out their phone to pay through the app so they can become one step closer to a free pastry.  And if that wasn’t incentive enough, free drinks on users’ birthdays have caused a few downloads via customer loyalty. The app overall provides a significant enough incentive for customers to have it open while they are in the shop which gives a wealth of information about how customers are moving around.

Recently, Starbucks added in the ability for customers to order through their app so they can pick up immediately when they walk in the door. This shows Starbucks is giving customers what they want. If the baristas hadn’t already noticed, the in-store wifi could probably tell corporate that their lines were long, so they provided a way to show that they want to give each person the best experience.

Nordstrom

Nordstrom has been talked about for omnichannel, mobile, in-store experiences, social media, and anything that retailers discuss for years. Nordstrom’s efforts show what new things there are and what actually sticks. In terms of customer identification, they have unrolled a lot of unique opportunities for customers to enter in an email or interact with their brand. They can receive a phone number by having a shopper sign up for their text-to-buy program. They will soon be able to see how they can sell through a Pinterest feed with Pinterest’s new buy buttons. And they have always been a big fan of adding digital experiences in their store. The constant that they have is giving shoppers a way to buy or receive their goods that is most convenient for them.

American Signature Furniture

When it comes to mobile applications, low-cost and repeated purchases are when retailers see the most success. However, with high-consideration purchases like furniture, a retailer has to be more creative to implement a tactic for customer identification.  In the case of American Signature Furniture, they used CloudTags to place mobile tablets for customers to use to explore their stores. This helped to blend the offline and online experiences and only ask for a customer’s email if they feel that the wish list they created would be useful to them. They are able to use the information they receive to have customer intent data and to better understand where the purchase journey starts and ends. It is not ok for a retailer to look at offline sales and online sales as separate, and American Signature Furniture is able to efficiently join the two.

Nike

Nike is a leader in personalization when it comes to their shoes and apparel. Their customers are known for paying top dollar to have their shoes be unique, and Nike has the resources to do so. Nike is an example of a retailer that has been able to successfully issue an app and provide in-store digital experiences.  One of their apps targeted for women, Nike Training Club, gives workout guides, lets users track progress with friends, workout with celebrity trainers, and buy featured items. Nike not only gave customers a fun way that leads them to a product, they now will have a greater need to wear their stuff if they’re doing the workouts. Additionally, some stores will feature augmented reality, digital mannequins, and iPads throughout the store to make any online purchases. Nike truly sets a standard that’s hard to beat.

Takeaways

There are several other retailers that could be named, but these four show a variety of sectors and techniques. The constants across all four can be summarized as follows:

  1. Make the customer experience the most important goal
  2. Have something creative that will make shopping very unique
  3. Know what information is the most important to be known

What other retailers are leading the charge in customer identification? Let us know on Twitter @cloudtags.

 

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23 Jul 2015

When Mobile Apps Are Not the Answer to Omnichannel Success

Marketers have been talking about the rapid rise of mobile and the fast growth among adoption and usage over the past half a decade. With this movement, the popularity of mobile apps has skyrocketed with retailers vying to get a place on a customers phone, with the home screen being the grand prize. Retailers see mobile apps as a great avenue to drive engagement and lifetime value.

What are omnichannel marketers supposed to focus on in order to achieve success in mobile? Here are the benefits of investing in a mobile web vs. mobile app experience:

Benefits of a Mobile Web Experience

  • Emphasis on search (more focused on intent)
  • Accessibility (no need to download an app)
  • Compatibility across devices

Benefits of a Mobile App

  • Branded Experience for Customers
  • Greater set of customer data to build off
  • Personalized Notifications

Why apps aren’t always the answer to a retailer’s omnichannel issues

While retailers love the idea of a mobile app and the amount of data and engagement that they *believe* will come their way, the usage numbers come to say otherwise. Retailers are romantic about their mobile apps and have much more to lose with mobile apps than the mobile web.

Mobile Web is the Gateway to Getting Consumers In the Store

The biggest opportunity for retailers in mobile outside of the store is in search. Before retailers can consider the opportunities of converting shoppers in the store, they have to make sure their mobile search is optimized correctly and providing relevant information, such as product info and store locations nearby. According to Google, the power of local information, whether it be a store location or checking to see if an item is in stock, is a great way to drive store visits for retailers. This is helpful for retailers because it signals purchase intent from the consumer, and once their questions are validated through discovery, they will be more apt to continue the shopping experience to the store.

Apps are meant for retention

The biggest takeaway from retail mobile apps is that consumers need a legitimate reason to download a retailer’s app and justify not deleting it after one use case. Retailers that have lower cost items tend to perform better since there is more frequency and opportunities to purchase items. Consumers will be much more likely to have a Walgreen’s app on hand because it provides more value day to day vs. a Best Buy app where purchases are more sizable and infrequent.

Retailers love the idea of having a mobile app due to the amount of control they have in tailoring the experience to the customer. However, retailers have to be extremely careful in the value they bring to customers and ensure they are not annoying or creeping them out with the data they are able to collect from app usage.

Recommendations

Invest in a great mobile web experience

The biggest opportunity is in the mobile web experience: Only nine of the top 100 retailers have a responsively designed site, the format recommended by Google. When looking to make a purchase, the retailers that are going to win over time will focus on their mobile web experience with relevant calls-to-action that effectively move consumers down the funnel and convert into customers.

Control the Mobile Experience In the Store

Consumers already feel uncomfortable with downloading retailer apps and giving up personally identifiable information (PII) in order to get value from retailers. When a consumer downloads a mobile app, they are at the mercy of the retailer and subject to promotional messages outside of the store. Consumers like a mobile experience, but there is a level of trust that the retailer must adhere to that doesn’t drive them away from the brand. Brands such as American Signature have implemented their own mobile experience by providing customers with tablets in their stores and have driven substantial results for the furniture retailer.

What are your thoughts on mobile web vs. mobile apps? Let us know on Twitter @cloudtags.

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15 Jul 2015

A Primer on Offline Customer Identification Tools

As retailers are struggling to find ways to implement technology that moves the needle on identifying customers in the store, there are many different opportunities for retailers to choose. While each tool will vary in value by retailer, we put together a comprehensive list of customer identification tools for omnichannel retailers to consider.

Post-Purchase

Identifying the customers who have already purchased from you is extremely important.  On average, a first time customer has a 27% chance of returning to make a second purchase.  After each subsequent purchase, they are more and more likely to return again so that have three visits, there is a 54% chance of the customer buying something.  The potential lifetime value of these customers and the effectiveness of reminder marketing campaigns validates the focus on getting to know these shoppers.

Email Collection

The easiest time to identify customers while they are in a store is during the transaction.  The customer is already locked in, hopefully happy and must stand face-to-face with an associate.  This explains why it has become so common for a shopper to be asked their email address, phone number, and/or zip code while they are standing at the register.  Several retailers don’t even make giving the information seem like an option by phrasing the question as “What is your email address?” instead of “May I have your email address?”  While this isn’t ideal from the point of view of the customer, it certainly is effective for receiving a substantial number of emails.  However, more than 10% of emails collected in this form are invalid due to typing errors or the customer giving false information.  Therefore, it is recommended that the sales associate reads back the email given, asks them to confirm this on a keypad, or sends a ‘Welcome’ email asking the customer to verify their account.  These efforts, especially the last one, also make it clearer that this truly is opt-in which is key for customer trust and perception.

Receipts and Surveys

An extension of this tactic to receive an email address is to give the customer the option to have an electronic receipt.  This gives the appearance that the retailer is putting in effort to save paper and space in someone’s pocket.  From a marketing standpoint, this provides possibly the first interaction with a customer which can lead to re-engagement and future purchases.  However, it is important to not seem like one is “fooling” their customers by saying their email will be used for one thing (i.e. an electronic receipt) and then be used again for other efforts (i.e. email marketing).  It is suggested that the email with the receipt could prompt a response if they want to be subscribed to further emails.

On the other end of the spectrum, paper receipts can offer the ability for a customer to go online to fill out a survey.  Typically they are incentivized for a chance to win a prize or even a small gift card.  The problems with this method is the same that occur when a similar interaction takes place online but with even less participation as less than 1% of customers complete the survey.  The data that is provided from the survey can be thorough and exactly what the retailer is looking for, but it would only represent a small population and possibly only a certain demographic.

Pre-Purchase

Everyday, people walk into and out of a store unidentified.  They may or may not have been in before, and they may or may not have ever been to the website.  A customer could consider a product for an hour in the store, and if they did not buy it immediately, there would be no way to re-engage.  If this happened online, re-engagement would be simple and could help the customer to convert.  This is why in-store customer data is the most coveted not only for re-engagement, but for a number of behavior and identification information.

In-Store WiFi and MAC Addresses

MAC address tracking helps retailers find in-store customers with smartphones whose phones are searching for WiFi signal.  A MAC address is “a unique identifier assigned to network interfaces for communications on the physical network segment.”   This means that in-store movements can be tracked and the addition of cameras can match a demographic profile to the data.  However, true identification remains very low.  In 2014, Apple announced that MAC addresses for their iPhones would be random and scrambled.  Retailers now have trouble identifying the 25% of phone users and cannot match an iPhone user to any data collected when they previously visited a store. What is lost is seeing specific patterns of repeat customers.

What is missing in MAC address tracking is context and an identity.  One solution is for customers who actually end up connecting to the WiFi can do so by providing some information like an email address to “login”.  Then, all known offline and online data can be pulled together to create an accurate and well-rounded picture of this specific shopper.  Logging into the WiFi is generally considered opting-in, but customers may be weary of providing a lot of information for a quick store visit.

Facial Recognition

Facial recognition is up-and-coming and has customers skeptical.  Facebook has been using these tools for a while to identify people to tag in photos.  They released statistics saying that 97.25% of the time their algorithm can determine if two pictures have the same person in them.  There are different levels of facial recognition for different uses.  There are ways to simply detect that there is a face present, and there is software to profile gender, ethnicity, and approximate age of the face.  This is useful for a retailer to identify who is looking at what products and some gender and age-based consumer behaviors.  However, basic observations from store associates can provide most of this data without having to spend a lot of money on cameras and software.  But, to take this to the next level, retailers can use the same software that identifies shoplifters to notify staff when a valued customer comes in.  In order to make this opt-in, customers could create profiles online or possible use a social media profile picture to be associated with their account.

In-store Experiences

Some retailers are trying to blend offline and online experiences in the spirit of omnichannel.  Companies are using their creative sides to make customers feel more engaged while they are shopping in the store and in turn will want to continue the experience online or in the store again. These ideas range from interactive dressing room mirrors to mobile apps that can guide a customer to find the the items they are looking for to beacons providing coupons as the customer walks around.  These are excellent, effective, and show initiative in the importance of the in-store retail experience.  The novelty of the unique experience limits any creepy factor since hopefully the customer is just having fun.  A combination of a few technologies can help to achieve these experiences.  Companies can provide a mobile application that provides functionality in the store.  A BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) beacon can be placed throughout a store which can send information to the apps once they enter the store, move to a certain location, or stay in a location for a period of time.  The solution that CloudTags provides is to provide customers with tablets to bring online information into the store.  Customers view the technology as meaningful which gives more incentive for them to opt-in with their email at the end of the experience.

Summary

As of right now, email marketing ROI remains the strongest, so email acquisition should be a top priority.  However, to keep a quality list, customers need to know why they are giving their information.  If they see value, then they will be more responsive.  It is because of this that a unique in-store experience where a customer could continue later or unlock more with their information would be highly effective.  This gives customers something to look forward to from a retailers and can surprise and delight.

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