SHOPPER MARKETING - The Path-To-Purchase-and-Beyond

Shopper Marketing differs from Consumer Marketing mainly because the consumer and the shopper are not necessarily the same entity and a shopper of a brand or item typically browses that brand or item in different media or channels.

Shopper Marketing targets the individual or prospect in a shopping mindset, says Venky Shankar - Professor and Coleman Chair in Marketing and Director of Research, Center for Retailing Studies, Texas A&M University.

Here are few excerpts from his publication SHOPPER MARKETING 2.0.

Shopper Marketing is the planning and execution of all marketing activities that influence a shopper along, and beyond, the entire path-to-purchase, from the point at which the motivation to shop first emerges through to purchase, consumption, repurchase, and recommendation.

The Indian retail industry with the largest number of retail outlets (12 million stores) accounts for 10–11% of GDP with sales a turnover of US$ 456 billion and constitutes 6% of the total employment. The organized and the retail market share is pegged at 5% (US$ 21 billion) of the total sales and is growing at a CAGR of >25%.

In this new environment, to formulate and executive effective shopper marketing strategies, managers need better understand the complete picture of how online, offline, mobile, and in-store marketing influence shoppers in the path-to-purchase-and-beyond cycle.

The rapid rise in shoppers’ use of mobile devices, medium, and channel and the widespread use of social media are enabling manufacturers and retailers to use out-of-store shopper marketing activities through this medium and channel.

The end goals of Shopper Marketing are to better meet shopper needs, improve customer relationships and loyalty, increase sales, and enhance return on investment. To achieve these goals, manufacturers, service providers, and retailers must focus their shopper marketing activities on influencing shoppers, increasing the probability of purchase through all the stages in the path-to-purchase-and-beyond.

Share your thoughts on Shopper Marketing in the comments section below!

Tips to "handle" Twitter for better results

Any successful B2B social media plan includes strategies and tactics to forge relationships and build a brand. Building a brand through social strategies doesn’t happen overnight – it requires a sustained commitment using effective strategies for engagement and relationship building. This holds true when marketers consider building a presence on Twitter – only marketers who use the right strategies build and contribute to lasting social engagements. To understand which strategies attract followers and boost lead generation, consider the following 12 tips.  1. ReTweeting If something is valuable, marketers should share it – this is what ReTweeting is all about. ReTweeting accomplishes three goals; one, it allows you to share additional relevant information with your followers.  Two, it shows respect to the follower you are ReTweeting and three, it exposes the person you’re ReTweeting to your followers, potentially expanding their network.  It’s also a good idea to thank followers for ReTweeting your tweets with a simple reply like “Thanks for the RT!”. 2. Reporting news Today, news moves at the click of a button. When news breaks in the B2B arena, consider sending out updates and insightful information to followers and encourage them to share it with their audience. 3. Original content One key to B2B social media success is sharing original and insightful information. Sharing content from other B2B sources is a given, but be sure to include links to your own content from newsletters, B2B blogs, white papers and other sources in your tweets. 4. Hashtags On Twitter, getting your content in front of a particular audience is as simple as a hashtag. Adding a targeted hastag to a message  can put that message  in front of potential prospect searching for information based on that hashtag. Research tags already in use and utilize them in your B2B social media campaign. 5. Thank you Although simple, thanking someone for sharing your message goes a long way. As part of a total relationship campaign, share and thank all those who spread your updates. 6. Listening Understand what’s being said about a brand, service or product by listening on Twitter. Utilize keyword searches and hashtag monitoring to identify and engage with prospects while boosting lead generation through B2B social media. 7. Offline events This effective way to promote online events works equally for offline events. Utilize Twitter to send out resources and insights to offline events, such as industry and user conferences, before, during and even after. 8. Customer service Consider using Twitter to answer questions on products and services or customer service issues. Not only does this give customers and prospects faster results, it gives marketers valuable statistics for B2B social media campaign strategies. 9. Keywords Consider researching keywords relating to a brand, product, and service niche and learn the needs and wants of prospects. 10. Tools Going beyond the default interface, third party Twitter tools and clients increase  productivity, search and other operations. With these tools, you can schedule, import and effectively manage numerous accounts associated with Twitter. 11. Other networks Powerful B2B social media strategies dictate using multiple networks and tools. Consider integrating other networks and content platforms including: Facebook, B2B blogs and LinkedIn. Some allow automatic or scheduled updates from or to Twitter. 12. Lists Twitter lists not only give marketers the opportunity to categorize resources within lists, it lets those contacts know the marketer considers them as go-to resources for particular subject matter information. Source: Marketo

CHECKlist for creating NEW CONTENT

Marketers are working hard to create great content that can be used to create sales leads, drive website traffic, promote brand, and educate customers and prospects.  Unfortunately, not all content is created equal.  To ensure you get the most out of your content marketing efforts, you must follow these six rules:

1. It is not promotional – promotional materials will neither excite nor inspire, both critical com­ponents of content marketing.
2. It is relevant – generic materials that are not highly relevant to a reader will not result in increased success. When writing content you must make sure it will be useful to the reader, regardless of whether it supports your company message.
3. It closes a gap – content marketing should answer a business question or problem. Giving people information about topics where there is no need for information will be a wasted effort by the organization.  An added benefit of this useful information is it’s ability to be used in lead nurturing. 
4. It is well written – poorly written thought leader­ship may not only provide poor results, but may also hurt the company’s reputation. Take time to ensure content is presented in a thoughtful man­ner and is free of errors.
5. It is relevant to your company – if the content you create does not support business objectives in any way, it is a waste of resources to produce. Keep business goals in mind when creating content.
6. It gives proof  – since you write to support a business goal, your content may seem biased. Make sure that content you create gives proof either through quotes and testimonials or through actual metrics and statistics.

Keep this as a check list when you are creating new content, and review again for it goes live.  And this checklist isn’t just for white papers, content includes everything from webinars to articles to videos.

Source: Marketo

How To Publicize Your Publicity

Getting your business mentioned in the news is incredibly exciting. Whether it’s your local newspaper or The New York Times, media coverage builds credibility and makes your brand more visible to customers, investors, and other stakeholders. It promotes business growth and leads to new opportunities.

So don’t stop when you get in the news. Instead, leverage your press coverage to get even more publicity and generate business. Here’s how.

Publish a news release

Coverage in a top-tier or influential publication often warrants a news release of its own. Online news distribution services like PR Web make it easy to issue targeted news releases.

Coverage in a credible, third-party news outlet is instant validation for current and potential customers, employees and investors. An online news release is a fast and visible way to publicize it.

Share your news

Keep your company website updated with your latest press hits and clearly display that coverage on your homepage. When your company earns a press mention, post the link to Facebook and tweet it multiple times over the course of a week.

Use your coverage as validation

When you pitch your next story, use your existing media coverage as evidence that you’re a respected resource on the topic. Include a link to the media mentions on your website, and relevant links to third-party stories that feature your business.  

When journalists, bloggers and other members of the media begin to see your brand showing up in the news, more coverage will follow.  

Think Like a News Editor for Content Marketing Success

Blogging and social media offer marketers the opportunity to publish their own content to attract customer attention, as well as pitch the media.

This strategy requires a balance of content that provides fresh news while also covering ‘evergreen’ topics.

For best results, think like a news editor. Create a regular mix of current events, original research and timely commentary for all-round reader engagement.

Here are three key elements you need.

Monitor and anticipate trends

Use social media to participate in larger conversations beyond just pushing out your company news. The more your brand interacts with timely content, the more people will see the brand, and its digital offerings.

Monitor trends in the news, pop culture, and the lives of your customers. Map out how your brand can participate in these conversations, via social media, blog posts, or other appropriate media. Don’t get involved in every conversation. Instead, focus on stories that relate to your overall brand strategy and messaging.

Create evergreen content that your customers need

Know your customers’ pain points, busy seasons, challenges and strengths. Create ‘evergreen’ content and address long-term issues that don’t go out of date.

When your customers search topics that regularly impact their lives, you already have relevant content out there. Customers and reporters alike will come to rely on your brand as a resource for their research, they’ll become more engaged with your timely content as well.

Leave room for real-time

24-hour news is your brand’s opportunity to offer instantaneous commentary. Remember the Super Bowl blackout? Oreo’s social media team was on standby and capitalized with timely humor. No one could have anticipated the blackout, but they seized the opportunity as it happened.

For maximum effectiveness, create an editorial calendar. Consistency is key: by regularly publishing quality content, you can drive more traffic, more leads, and more revenue as you nurture those leads into customers.

How many online reviews does your business have?

You probably need more. When choosing a business to buy from, customers search for reviews by other customers. If you haven't got any, you're in danger of being overlooked.
 

Don't fear the added attention of online reviews. While you can't control what consumers say about your brand, there are ways to foster positive reviews among your customers. Here are four steps to achieving them:

Expand your social horizons.

We know who the heavy hitters are when it comes to social networks: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. When it comes to referrals, though, several other networks are worth your attention. Yelp!, OpenTable, and Foursquare are huge for customers leaving tips and reviews. Be sure to log in and see what's being said about your business. Then…

Spend some time there.

While it's absolutely necessary for your business to have a presence on multiple social channels, you can't stop there. To get the full value of social media, you need to maintain an active, up-to-date presence on all of your business's social outlets. If your customers see a Facebook page that isn't updated, or see that other customers' comments and reviews haven't been acknowledged, they will see no value in leaving a review themselves—unless it's negative.

This also goes for networks like Yelp! and Foursquare. Take the time to interact with customers who leave reviews. Acknowledge positive reviews and address negative reviews. You'll encourage feedback and responses, which in turn will lead to positive referrals.

Ask!

Encourage your customers to leave referrals and make it easy for them to do so. This can be as simple as having a call to action on receipts, in emails, or on other marketing materials such as: "We want to hear what you think! Leave your feedback online at (insert link)." Sometimes, a simple request is all it takes.

Incentivize and reward.

It's no secret that people are more apt to do something when they get rewarded for doing it. Some ideas to consider for encouraging customers to leave reviews include: awarding points toward future purchases, entering reviewers into a contest or giveaway, or recognizing them as a "brand expert" for other customers to rely on after they've left a number of credible reviews.

You might encounter some negative reviews. However, the positive effect of having an active, involved presence online will outweigh the risks. It will provide a perfect platform for addressing complaints when they do occur, giving you a public opportunity to turn negative into positive. That's what effective PR and marketing is all about.

Turning Customers into Brand Ambassadors.

You know that social media has the power to amplify everything you say about your business. But there's a flipside: it also amplifies everything your customers say. While this lack of control might seem like a cause for concern, it's actually a great opportunity to leverage your customers as brand advocates.

Some of the most effective marketing you can do is good old word-of-mouth. When happy customers spread the word about your business, new customers will soon be knocking at your door. 

Thanks to the speed of social media, word-of-mouth now works faster than ever. Here are four ways to generate it from your customers.

Reward loyalty.
Make sure your customers know that you value their business. Even a simple "Thanks for your business" can make a difference. Tactical tools such as loyalty cards or discounts are great, but they're even better when offered in conjunction with face-to-face gratitude. If you're feeling confident on social channels, try recognizing your most loyal customers on Facebook or Twitter with a special "customer of the week" feature and discount just for them.

Embrace the good and the bad.
People tend to share extremely positive or extremely negative customer service experiences. However, some of the most compelling stories arise from companies responding to bad customer experiences effectively. If someone shares a negative story about your company online, respond to their complaint, do everything possible to remedy the situation, and communicate what you're doing. Think of complaints as opportunities to improve customer relations and earn more word-of-mouth.

Get more social.
Apps like FourSquare, Yelp! and Open Table to name a few, allow customers to leave real-time reviews about your business. Make sure you know what people are saying about you on these forums, and respond appropriately. Better yet, become an active presence yourself, thanking people for positive reviews, responding to concerns, or even offering discounts or promotions for users. To encourage reviews, you can add buttons to your website which link directly to these sites.

Give customers something to talk about.
Neutral sentiment does nothing to further your brand. Customers don't talk about 'average' experiences with brands. What they'll remember—and share with others—is how your company goes above and beyond to make customer interactions easy and pleasant.
 

By managing relationships with your customers effectively, you can turn them into marketers for your brand, as well as keeping them happy and satisfied.

Spring Clean Your Marketing For Success

Just like closets and cupboards, marketing strategies and assets can accumulate clutter over the course of the year – It’s time for some spring cleaning.

Here are three ways to make sure your marketing is current, polished, and efficient:

Clean up your lists

Bounced back and duplicate emails are ineffective and can damage your goodwill with customers, journalists and other stakeholders. Go through your lists to verify that names, email addresses and other information are still current. Delete inactive addresses as well as duplicate or incomplete entries.

This is especially important for your media list. Journalism is a fast-changing world and writers move to different outlets and cover different topics. Ensuring that you’re contacting the right people with your news is critical when it comes to generating publicity for your business.

Revisit your social strategy

Take stock of how you are using your social media channels and content. If you’re neglecting certain channels or networks, consider deactivating them until you have the time and/or resources to maintain them regularly. Focus on cultivating the channels that serve your business best.

Check that your content still aligns with your overall marketing goals.

• Has your strategic message changed at all?
• Have your social media goals changed?
• Do your analytics show any weak areas that need improvement?

Answer these questions to evaluate whether you need to update your social strategy.

Update your boilerplate and website

It’s easy to forget about your company boilerplate. Take stock of your accomplishments and milestones from the last year and update your boilerplate accordingly.

The same goes for your company website. Have you hired new team members? Secured killer press coverage? Launched a new product or service? Now is the time to update your website to reflect your recent growth.

Don’t let out-of-date information and content weigh down your marketing. Spring-cleaning your strategy is crucial to long-term success.

Lead Generation - Getting to the perfect world

In the perfect world, your sales reps would only speak to prospects ready to buy.  This is how you got to work towards that perfect world.

Develop a nurturing program
Many leads are still in research mode, so emails and offers should provide best practices, statistics, research, etc. to help the customer frame their research.

Progressively understand your prospect’s needs
Every campaign the prospect responds to tells you about their interests. Every page they visit on your website tells you about their interests. Every link they click, and every piece of information they fill out on a form, tells you more about them.

Track anonymous visitors and tie their data to new leads
Simple code on your Web pages help you track prospects, whether anonymous or known. As anonymous prospects complete forms on your website or landing pages, any previous web visits can be automatically attributed to the new lead.

PR by Pin: Tying Pinterest into Your Marketing Strategy

You've probably heard the buzz around Pinterest by now. You may already be using it to 'pin' your favorite images from around the Internet to share them with your friends. But did you know that you can use it to market your business? Like other social media channels such as Twitter and Facebook, Pinterest is all about networking, sharing new things, and linking to content, which makes it ideal for driving new customers to your product or service. Here are three ways to use Pinterest to promote your company's content and website. 

1 Pin the images in your news releases.
A quick way to expand the reach of your online news releases is to embed an image in the news release and then pin it. The image could be your company logo, a product shot or even a headshot of the company spokesperson. For a news release about a new organic flower shop opening in Springfield, include an image of the new location and pin it to the appropriate board on your Pinterest account—that could be places, news or favorite things like flowers. 

2 Optimize your images.
Choosing SEO keywords that describe your business and incorporating them into the titles of your images or the copy that accompanies them will help customers find you via search engines. Drawing on the example from above, the title of the pinned flower shop image should include the keywords "organic flower shop Springfield." When customers search for flower shops in Springfield, this will help your new shop appear near the top of their search. 

3 Be yourself. 
Although Pinterest is a great tool for marketing your business, it's only as effective as the real people behind it. Personality sells, both in person and on social media, so don't be afraid to be yourself and pin things just for fun as well. Being authentic builds trust with new prospects.

Just as retweeting on Twitter and reciprocal liking on Facebook helps to build your network, taking the time to pin a few images to group boards each week and 'repinning' others in your network builds connections and brand awareness, which helps drive new business over the long term. Think of each social media interaction as another investment in your overall public relations equity—supporting a strong marketing strategy overall.

Social PR - INFLUENCING THE INFLUENCERS

The modern PR knows that having great connections in the traditional media world (print, broadcast, etc.) is only half the battle in today’s socially-enabled world. Indeed, if a story is to be truly disseminated (especially when you are targeting an audience of millennials), you’re going to have to get to know the people who influence the people who are no-longer influenced by the mainstream media.

 

So who are these influencers?

Well they are a disparate group of individuals and organizations which makes pinning them down even more difficult. They could be bloggers, musicians, stars of reality television, YouTube celebrities, authors, independent journalists, film makers, politicians, activists, sports people, hobbyists - in fact, anyone from any walk of life who has a large following on social media.

How are you getting to grips with influencing the influencers? Ignore them at your peril and risk losing YOUR influence.

THE THREE C's Of Facebook

THE THREE C's Of Facebook 
No online marketing strategy is complete without Facebook. The world's largest social network can give your campaigns enormous reach, especially when you integrate it with your other marketing tools. According to the latest stats, 96 percent of small businesses now have a company Facebook page. If you're in that 96%, fantastic – but are you getting the most out of it?

Effective Facebook marketing comes down to three key points: Customer Service, Content and Connections. 

Customer Service
Having a Facebook page where customers can post reviews, comments and even complaints is essential to building a rapport. Over time, that rapport will turn into brand loyalty. It also inspires word of mouth, as customers/fans encourage their friends to "like" your page, and try your product/service. Try to monitor your company page for a few minutes a day and respond to customer comments within 24 hours or less. You can also sign up to receive an email alert whenever someone posts to your page. 

Content
Your Facebook page is a face for your business. Keep it fresh. Share news, offer promotions, link to outside content and thank customers for their feedback. They're all great ways to keep customers engaged. Think for a second about how you use Facebook to check out your friends' news and click through their photo galleries. Customers want to check out your business the same way. Facebook is an ideal platform to share product photos and for customers to post their own photos of your products in action. 

It's not just about engagement. There are several apps available that let you add "buy now" buttons to photos, taking customers straight to your website. Other apps let you create customized coupons for your fans, and host customer sweepstakes on your Facebook page. Whether you use apps or not, aim for one update, post or promotion per day. 

Connections
Social media is a vital publicity tool, which makes it an integral part of effective marketing. Getting "likes" and fans is how companies build connections on Facebook. Got a special event happening? Send a message to your fans. Need feedback on a new product? Create a quick survey using a Facebook survey app. The more you connect with your current fans, the more likely their friends are to see your page and become fans (and customers) themselves.

Remember that growing a fanbase on Facebook isn't a popularity contest. It's about building loyalty for the long-term, one interaction at a time.

Visual Online Marketing: Are You Looking Good?

Images have never mattered more to marketers, brands, social media managers, and customers alike.

Facebook now owns photo sharing app Instagram. Twitter has beefed up its own photo sharing features. Sites like Buzzfeed that collect images from around the Web are surging in popularity. Pinterest, the network devoted entirely to sharing images, is the new social media darling that also drives sales with users buying the products they pin.

Visual online marketing is here to stay and it has big implications for your business. Here are three steps to implementing a solid visual marketing strategy.

1          Turn your website into a lookbook

When designing your website to showcase your products or services online, use hi-res images and think about what you want customers to feel as they browse.

How can you use images to create an emotional connection? One strategy is to give context to your images. Show people using or display your product in its natural habitat – a home, café, at the office – as opposed to cold, static product shots. This helps people envision themselves using your product and may inspire them to make a purchase.

If your business offers a service, you can still incorporate images into your web design. Own a spa? Try using a rotating backdrop of serene, peaceful places intermixed with high-quality images of your space. Scale back on the text and let images do the talking for you.  

2          Incorporate social for sharing

Another benefit of using context-rich, hi-res images is that these are the visuals most shared on Pinterest. Pinterest users collect images that speak to the greater theme of the board they’re creating. This means that visually pleasing images within a context are easier to incorporate and more likely to get re-pinned.

Instagram is a social network where users share their own photographs. Twitter also has photo-sharing capabilities. Think about creating promotional campaigns that encourage customers to post to Instagram or tweet photos of themselves using your product or service, at your location, or enjoying the service you provide. Capitalize on the popularity of these apps to drive sales and reach new customers! 

3          Remember the big picture

As with all marketing strategies, keep in mind your long-term, big-picture goals. Using images and visual social media strategies should be just one part of a comprehensive, integrated marketing strategy. The key to marketing success on social channels and beyond is all about producing engaging content—and your visual strategy should be no different.

GET YOUR BLOG ROLLING

Don't let the constant buzz around short-form social media channels fool you; original, thoughtful content is still king. And a company blog is the perfect platform.

Blogs are a fantastic marketing tool. While short-form social media channels are great at building buzz, thoughtful blog content adds real long-term value to your business. Done right, blogging gives customers insight into your brand, establishes you as an industry expert and resource, and attracts traffic from search engines.

And if you're asking, "How can we maintain a blog?" or "How can we come up with new ideas?" we have four tips to get you rolling.

1          Get personal.

Got a great customer referral? Share it. Has a particular mentor shaped the way you do business? Profile them. A star employee you want to call out? Do it. All of these things personalize your business. When it comes down to deciding between similar businesses, potential customers will often go with the company they can relate to. Content - especially stories - is the vehicle for that.

2          Write about what you know.

Struggling for ideas to blog about? An engaged writer makes for an engaged reader, so make sure you’re writing about something that interests you, and tie it in to your business. Don’t be afraid to have an opinion. Certified foodie? Passion for fashion? Crazy for “American Idol”? Whatever your interest, if it’s something that you care about, it will be easy to write about and to apply to your business.

3          Be brave.

Writing about what customers want to know about is a sure-fire way to keep them engaged. To do so, you've got to be willing to tackle tough topics in your content and commentary. Blogging about difficult issues and controversies within your industry attracts customers, and keeps them coming back to you as a resource.

4          Be trendy.

Blogging provides an excellent vehicle for discussing news trends that may not directly relate to your business, while engaging with potential customers about a topic that has piqued their interest. Keep abreast of the latest breaking news and figure out creative ways to engage readers. By positioning your brand as a thought leader, you build trust with customers, which will count when the time comes to make a purchasing decision.

Above all, keep it simple. Your company blog shouldn't read like a promotional brochure. Readers are looking for concise writing with clear takeaways, along with some fun and personality. Keep it brief, make your point using relatable examples, and then post it.