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BrandBuildingPro

  • Panera CEO: We Can Never be the Food Police

    Panera CEO: We Can Never be the Food Police

    “Panera can never be the food police,” says Panera CEO Blaine Hurst in a recent interview. “That is not even our mantra. We have got to be the brand that is relentlessly pursuing better eating.”

    Blaine also announced that Panera is about to begin “the most extensive renovation and remodeling of Panera Cafes that’s ever been undertaken in our brand.” This is a back to basics strategy that is following years of tremendous investment in technology by Panera.

    Blaine Hurst, CEO of Panera, discussed the company’s strategy in a recent interview on CNBC:

    Panera is in a Pretty Good Place Going Forward

    We did see a slight slowdown versus expectation in September, but what’s been amazing to me, as we look at our two-year comp which is our two-year trended sales, we have actually seen a real pickup actually in the last few weeks. Some of this may have been that our volumes are so high in September that we may have been challenged just to handle the volume.

    We don’t see this as a long-term downturn in the consumer, at least not Panera’s consumer. We also compare our sales to the black box all composite industry comps and we continue to dramatically outperform the trends that we’re seeing from other folks. I think Panera is actually in a pretty good place going forward.

    Tougher to Find Great People than it’s Ever Been

    Finding employees is a challenge for everybody in our industry without a question. The good news for Panera is because of who Panera is, what we stand for, what our brand stands for, and what we’ve done over the years, I think we’re in a better place than most.

    That being said, our turnover levels are well below the industry and it is tougher out there to find the great people that we’re looking for at Panera than it’s ever been. I do think that’s an overall trend and we are not completely immune to that trend. With our new channels that we’ve launched, the new product categories that we’ve launched, we seem to at least be on the positive side of that trend.

    We Spent a Lot of Time, Treasure, and Talent on Technology

    We spent a lot of time, treasure, and talent on technology and the differentiation of Panera across the channels. Then our clean initiative, which frankly was not quite as inexpensive when we look at the total system costs as we had all hoped it would be, but it was the right thing to do. That was pretty much all we could do as a public company.

    Beginning the Most Extensive Renovation of Panera Cafes Ever

    As a private company, we actually are now able to talk about making investments around a longer-term strategy. For example, in 2019 we will begin the most extensive renovation and remodeling of Panera Cafes that’s ever been undertaken in our brand. I’m not sure as a public company we probably could have done that, but as a private company, it’s like that makes sense, we’ve got to do it, it’s not an option.

    Panera Can Never be the Food Police

    Panera can never be the food police. That is not even our mantra. We have got to be the brand that is relentlessly pursuing better eating. I think a part of that is options, which clearly we have delivered through our apps and other things, but also through transparency.

    What we started talking about earlier this week was the amount of whole-grain in our breads. It’s only six of our products, but we think it’s important to talk about that and give people that insight as they make their choices.

    Further with our launch of Food Interrupted, which is a video series delivered through Facebook Watch, we think that is just simply helping our consumers to make better choices with better information. In no way will we say do this, don’t do that. Literally, this entire video series has very little mention of Panera. We are specifically communicating through storytelling what better eating could be in America of the future.

  • YouTube is Now Making it a Lot Cheaper to Advertise on TV

    YouTube is Now Making it a Lot Cheaper to Advertise on TV

    In its bid to capture a portion of television advertising revenues, Google’s YouTube has finally launched an option to run campaigns on TV screens. Labeled “TV screens device type” on the Google Ads platform, the option will allow advertisers to target engaged viewers watching YouTube content on their TVs.

    It’s not surprising that YouTube has added TV to its list of devices for video ads, along with computers, tablets, and mobile phones. Based on the video giant’s estimates, people watch an average of 180 million hours of YouTube on TV screens daily.

    The considerable shift isn’t harming mobile device viewership, though, as many viewers use their tablets and smartphones to stream content onto their TV screens.

    The availability of set-top boxes Roku and Apple TV, devices like Chromecasts, video game consoles, and smart TVs have paved the way for video streaming and changed viewing behavior. YouTube saw the potential and allowed marketers to develop ads tailored for TV viewing. Advertisers will also receive television-focused analytics to determine an ad’s impact on their overall campaign mix, so they can make tweaks wherever necessary.

    With the flexibility and affordability of Google Ads, YouTube advertisers can optimize and set specific bidding prices for campaigns or ad groups on different devices. After all, viewing habits tend to change depending on the platform being used. Mobile viewers, on average, watch videos in 60-minutes increments, while the watching duration for TV screens is about 4.5 hours.

    Brand awareness and ad recall may also be different on TV and mobile, but on both platforms, high-quality content on ads remains essential.

    For companies that already created amazing TV commercial ads, it’s cost-effective for them to post the video on YouTube as a way to spark more interest in their brand. They can tap into new markets while keeping their existing customers engaged. And, by uploading the video ad on YouTube, companies get the added benefit of easily uploading it to the company’s website for more views and sustained interest.

    [Featured image via YouTube TV]

  • 5 Social Media Tactics You Need to STOP Using (And What You Should Do Instead)

    5 Social Media Tactics You Need to STOP Using (And What You Should Do Instead)

    These days, it seems like everybody is using social media. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t have a Facebook or Instagram account. Statistics have shown that there are now 2.2 billion social media users around the world, and the numbers are expected to reach 3 billion by 2020. With such a massive reach, it’s no wonder that every year more companies use social media as part of their marketing strategy.

    However, it’s not enough to have a social media account; you also need to use effective strategies to make them work. Unfortunately, a lot of companies are still behind the times and are using outdated tactics that may actually be doing them more harm than good.

    Are you guilty of any of these social media faux pas?

    1. Engaging Only When You Need Something

    Social media is a communication tool and the interaction goes two ways. Some brands look at social media strictly as a promotional tool and only post when they need something. But today’s consumers are pretty savvy and know when they’re being used so don’t expect this strategy to be well-received.

    Better Tactic:

    Engage your audience regularly. Ask questions. Join conversations and make sure you actually have something worthwhile to say. Don’t just show up, post a link, and then disappear. Personalizing your interactions with customers is time-consuming, but it’s a great way of engaging them and build a rapport.

    2. Using Too Many Hashtags

    Hashtags are great! They make your post easy to find on social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram. Plus, it’s fun trying to come up with witty hashtags. What’s not fun is when hashtags are used excessively so stop if you’re guilty of this. An avalanche of hashtags makes you look desperate and spammy, especially if you’re hashtagging every adjective that comes to your mind even if they’re not relevant to your product (ex. #blue, #cool, #nice, #small).

    Better Tactic:

    Take the time to come up with an appropriate hashtag. Be deliberate in your description and ensure they’re relevant to your product. More importantly, make sure your post has more words than hashtags. This will ensure that your audience is focusing on your message and not on the #.

    3. Jumping on the Social Media Bandwagon

    Reacting to every trending topic is one social media trick that you need to let go. Some brands jump on a popular topic or meme simply to start a conversation or to appear relevant. If it doesn’t fit your demographic or brand then your audience doesn’t need to hear your thoughts about it. For instance, your post congratulating Prince Harry about becoming a father will fall flat when your main audience is in Southeast Asia.

    Better Tactic:

    If you are going to say something about a particular topic, make sure your post will bring something to the table. Ask yourself if what you’ll be sharing is relevant to the discussion, your brand and market. If not, then there’s no need to post that meme.

    4. Inappropriate Tagging of People or Companies

    Tagging is a great way of calling attention to your posts. But it doesn’t make sense to tag people or brands in promos or images when they’re not in it or have no clear connection to the post. This move is reminiscent to a mass email campaign. It’s obviously generic, sloppy, and just as irritating. It’s also quite rude to tag someone without making an effort to personalize the request or post.

    Better Tactic:

    You’ll have a higher chance of getting a brand to help you if you send a direct message or tag them in a separate post first. If the company or influencer is someone you have worked with in the past, then include their links in your post. For instance, you can thank the influencer for their article on your company and include the link. Then segue to your promo and call-to-action.

    5. Limiting Posts to the “Best Time”

    Studies have shown that there are best times to post on social media. However, these are calculated based on averages; on the times that the majority of users are active and engaged. But every demographic is different. What if your specific followers are not active during those reported “best times?”

    Better Tactic:

    Instead of relying on the aforementioned study, you should also conduct your own research. Utilize your social media tools and check when your audiences are really online. FB Insights will display this for your Page. There are also tools that will tell you when your Twitter followers are active. Experiment and post at different times and days. This will help you come up with your own unique pattern of engagement.

    Social media is a great marketing tool. However, a strategy that works for one brand might not work for another. So make sure that the tactics you use are relevant to your company and your market.

    [Featured image via Pixabay]

  • 5 Ways Smart Marketers Repurpose Their Content

    5 Ways Smart Marketers Repurpose Their Content

    Coming up with new, high-quality content on a regular basis can be a struggle for marketers. And with billions of blog posts and other content being released daily, there’s a big chance that your content won’t even be seen by most of who it’s intended for.

    The problem of keeping up with posting fresh content is further compounded by a lack of time as your content not only needs to be good but also consistent. However, what many marketers haven’t figured out yet is that they don’t need to create new content every day. Instead, they can repurpose old content and transform it into something better.

    5 Ways Marketers Can Repurpose Content

    Assuming that you’re using Google Analytics or a similar program to track the results of your output, start by sifting through your content pile and picking out the most popular ones. Once that’s done, you can then apply several methods for repurposing your content.

    1. Transform Content into a Slide or Infographic

    Humans are visual creatures, which explains the popularity of infographics, slideshows, and graphs. Transforming your content into a visual format is one of the best ways of repurposing your work. Check your posts for pieces that could be designed into an infographic. While this format is often utilized to make statistics more appealing or to illustrate steps in a procedure more clearly, you can still use content that’s text-rich.

    Here are three things to remember when repurposing content into an infographic:

    • Make sure it’s eye-catching. (Use bright, high contrast images)
    • Only use images that are relevant and memorable.
    • Keep it simple and focused on the essential data so that you don’t overwhelm your audience.

    Here’s a tip for making charts and infographics: Try Canva or Chartgo; both are free and easy to use.

    2. Host a Webinar

    There are two trends that you should take advantage of—the demand for useful content and the popularity of video. 

    You can hit two birds with one stone by going online and hosting a webinar based on the content that you’ve already developed.

    Maybe you wrote a piece describing a new product and how it works. Instead of reposting it, conduct a webinar and teach your audience how to use your product or service step-by-step. Facebook Live, Instagram, and Snapchat are great platforms for webinars and tutorials since they’re free and very social. Users can log in and comment in real time, giving you the perfect opportunity to engage with them.

    3. Put it up on Pinterest

    You can recycle the images you’ve posted on your social media accounts with Pinterest. The photo-sharing service now has 250 million active monthly users, making it an ideal place to get attention for your brand. A reported 93 percent of Pinners have admitted to using Pinterest while planning their purchases and 87 percent said they bought a product after seeing it on the platform.

    Take advantage of this by creating a Pinterest board or post. Go over your company’s image collection or infographics and organize them by theme. You can then curate them on the platform. Don’t forget to complement your posts with similar topics or related images from other Pinners.

    4. Come Out with an eBook

    Consider bundling your most popular posts into an eBook. Use different aspects of your blog posts as chapters of your eBook. Make the copy meatier, add a table of contents, an introduction, and a conclusion.

    As a savvy marketer, you may also want to try conducting interviews of colleagues and experts within your niche. The information you collect could then be organized and sold as an eBook. Tactics like this can turn out to be quite profitable if you already have a highly engaged audience that is eager for insider information. 

    5. Turn Old Posts into a Newsletter

    Breathe new life into your blog posts by turning them into newsletters. Your followers won’t be able to see every piece of content you post, particularly if you upload new ones daily. A newsletter will ensure that they don’t miss out. You can collate the most popular or relevant posts for the week and showcase them in your newsletter. It will expand your reach and lure more subscribers to your website.

    There’s no such thing as old content. You can still get value out of your old posts by repurposing. Adding new information or placing them in a new format will go a long way in making them look new and relevant once more. More importantly, you’ll save a lot of time and effort.

    [Featured image via Pixabay]

  • ThirdLove Leveraging Data and Tech to Successfully Compete With Victoria’s Secret

    ThirdLove Leveraging Data and Tech to Successfully Compete With Victoria’s Secret

    How does a startup compete with a huge brand like Victoria’s Secret which by some accounts has nearly a 50 percent market share? By being different and utilizing technology and data.

    That’s what Heidi Zak, co-founder, and Co-CEO of ThirdLove, says is key to their growth and success.

    Third Love co-founder and Co-CEO Heidi Zak recently spoke about how her company is competing effectively with Victoria’s Secret.

    ThirdLove Seeks to Be Different Than Victoria’s Secret

    We are a direct-to-consumer ecommerce vertically integrated brand that makes very comfortable bras and underwear. Our differentiation from Victoria’s Secret and others happens in a few different ways.

    One is really focusing on product quality and a range of sizes. We have 70 sizes while Victoria’s Secret offers about 36. We have more than double including half sizes. I always say that shoes have half sizes, so why shouldn’t bras?

    Another differentiator is our marketing where we use real women in our marketing instead of models with a lot of diversity. We also leverage data to help women find their fit online. What we have done is digitized that experience.

    ThirdLove Leveraging Data to Compete With Victoria’s Secret

    We created Fit Finder so that in under 60 seconds you can answer questions about your breast shape, body type, fit issues and we will recommend the size and style. Over ten million women have actually done the Fit Finder. We have a massive amount of data with over 700 million data points.

    We use the data for product development and design, for thinking about sizes and specs, we use it marketing and personalization, and we use it in inventory management. Across every aspect of the business we are using data day in and day out.

    ThirdLove is a Blend of Tech and Beautiful Products

    ThirdLove is a company that is a blend of apparel and tech, for sure. Absolutely, data and tech are at the core of what we do, but we also create really beautiful products.

    At Google, I really learned to push the boundaries and to think about new ways of solving problems and applied that at ThirdLove. Also, I had been in traditional retail in New York at Aeropostale after business school. So it was really that blend of retail and tech coming together in terms of my background that I think made me comfortable to start this company.

    We’ve been growing over 300 percent year-on-year since we were founded in 2012 so we have seen substantial growth. We have 1.5 million customers and we continue to take on more and more market share.

    Victoria Secret’s, depending on the numbers you look at, owns somewhere between a third to 50 percent of the market, so there is a substantial amount of market share to be taken given that they are the worst performing stock on the S&P this year. Our current market share is a few basis points, I would say.

  • Moz Founder Says Google Knows Everything and is Now Relying on Behavioral Data for Search Rankings

    Moz Founder Says Google Knows Everything and is Now Relying on Behavioral Data for Search Rankings

    Google is now relying on behavioral data that it gets from searchers, Chrome users, Android, etc. as the primary way that it ranks pages, according to Moz founder Rand Fishkin, who spoke at the recent MozCon event.

    Google used to have to predict what searchers are going to do and used a reasonable surfer model as the premise for its search algorithm. No more says Rand Fishkin. Google knows everything so it doesn’t have to predict because it already knows. Interesting but very scary stuff.

    Rand Fishkin, founder and former CEO of Moz and current founder of Sparktoro, discussed Google’s current approach to ranking websites at MozCon:

    What is Google Going To Do About Judging Links?

    I want to from my mind of all the things that I knew about link building up until this point and instead, take a look at companies and brands and websites and just ask what did they do right and what did we do wrong in the past and what is Google going to do about judging links?

    You might remember that last year when Google announced RankBrain they said it is the third most important ranking factor. You might also recall Danny Sullivan asking them what are the first two? A few of us were on a phone call with one of Google’s engineers and brought this up and he was like, what are you talking about, everyone knows the first two are content and links. Still true.

    In the past, link evaluation algorithms have been in these places we’re all familiar with such as PageRank, source diversity, anchor text, trust distance, domain authority,  location on the page, spam out link analysis, yadda yadda yadda. All these little individual factors around how Google judges a particular link and all the links that point to a website.

    Google is Going Away From the Reasonable Surfer Model

    But this is not where they’re going. Google’s is going away from the reasonable surfer model. Remember what PageRank was supposed to do, even in 1998, it was supposed to predict which links on a page were important and then it was supposed to assign values to them and it was supposed to assign those based on the probability, the chance of someone clicking on those links.

    Of course, Google was very naive in 1998 and so all they could do was assign the same weight to all the links on a page and they assigned the weight of a page based on all the links that pointed to it.

    Google Search Relying on Behavioral Data Because Google Knows Everything

    But that is not today. Today, thanks to Chrome and Android and Google WiFi and Google Fiber, Google knows everything. Google’s sample of everything that happens on the web is probably in the 80 or 90 percentile range. It’s insane and it’s crazy. Because of that, they can see. Google knows where people were, where they go and where they go next. You don’t need a reasonable surfer model anymore. You don’t need to predict because you know.

    Google’s goal is pretty clear, it’s searcher satisfaction. Google knows that if they satisfy searchers well, those searchers will return again and again. The number of searches will go up and the number of searches per searcher will keep going up and that’s what we’ve been seeing. Even as desktop has leveled off in its growth, mobile keeps growing and searches and searches per searcher keep growing.

    Google’s core search team asks the same question every time, are searchers satisfied with the results? The way they know that is finding out if searchers are getting the answers that they’re seeking. Google asks how do we get to that? It’s behavioral data.

  • What are Retargeting Ads and Why Should Your Business Use Them?

    What are Retargeting Ads and Why Should Your Business Use Them?

    Online retailers and small businesses understand how crucial advertising is in driving traffic to their websites. Unfortunately, 97 percent of first-time site visitors will leave without buying anything. There’s a big chance that they won’t ever come back unless you can find a way to convince them to return. One way to go about this is by retargeting them.

    What are Retargeting Ads?

    Have you noticed that some of the ads you see while browsing a site or checking your Facebook feed are from a website that you previously visited? That is retargeting. These ads either offer you customized deals on items you previously looked at or remind you of an abandoned cart. They can help your business re-engage consumers who visited your online store but didn’t push through with a purchase. These ads ensure that your brand is kept in front of bounced traffic even after your prospects have left your website.

    How Do These Ads Work?

    Retargeting is an ad technology that redisplays your company’s product or service to consumers who had shown an interest. If someone visits your product page or downloads your app, that’s a pretty good indication that they’re interested in your brand.

    Retargeting utilizes a simple Javascript code called a “cookie” that allows you to “follow” your audience. This inconspicuous, little code is integrated on your website. An undisclosed browser cookie is then dropped whenever a new visitor lands on your site.

    Image source: Hubshout

    Once the visitor tagged with the cookie starts to browse, the code informs your retargeting provider when to serve your ads. The prospective client will then see your ads popping up while they’re playing a game, listening to music, reading an article, or browsing another store. For example, if a visitor checked a product page for a blue blazer but didn’t buy it, an ad retargeting them would show the same blazer and maybe a deal slashing the price by 15 percent. Or they might see an ad showing similar apparel.

    Image source: RevLocal

    Your ads will remind them of their interest in your product and hopefully bring them back to your website. Site visitors who see retargeted ads are 70 percent more likely to make a purchase.

    Why Should Your Business Consider Retargeting Ads?

    You won’t be able to convince all your site visitors to buy your product or try your services. The best that you can hope for is to keep them interested while they decide whether they are willing to try your brand. In order to do this, you have to utilize more than one marketing channel. Google revealed that integrating retargeting with other marketing campaigns can help you close up to 50 percent more deals. That’s because most shoppers are more likely to notice the products that they had previously looked up. 

    Retargeting ads are also 10 times more effective than conventional display ads. The former’s click-through rate is close to 0.7 percent while the latter only has a CTR of 0.07 percent. It’s understandable that small businesses would typically opt for display ads. But a retargeting campaign is still relatively affordable and can complement any ad strategy.

    Here’s the Kicker

    Retargeting is a powerful and compelling conversion and branding optimization tool. However, this strategy is more effective when used in conjunction with a bigger digital marketing campaign.

    Strategies like AdWords, content marketing, and targeted display are good for driving traffic, but they’re not as effective when it comes to optimizing conversion. Meanwhile, retargeting helps boost conversions but can’t drive traffic to websites. It’s best to combine the tools that push traffic and retargeting ads. You’ll get the best of both worlds while helping your brand make its mark.

    [Featured image via Pixabay]

  • How the World’s Largest Online Travel Company Used Acquisitions to Grow

    How the World’s Largest Online Travel Company Used Acquisitions to Grow

    Booking Holdings is the world’s largest online travel company that owns Booking.com, Priceline, Agoda, Kayak, Rental Cars and Open Table. Glen Fogle, CEO of Booking Holdings says that it is through acquisitions that the company was able to grow as big as it is with revenue now exceeding $12 billion per year.

    Glen Fogle, CEO of Booking Holdings discussed their growth through acquisition strategy in a recent interview:

    Without Acquisitions We’d Probably Have Been Acquired

    We are an internet technology driven company. Without the acquisitions that we’ve done, we’d be nowhere where we are now. In fact, who knows where we’d be, we’d probably be owned by somebody else who would have acquired us.

    I was fortunate that I found these guys at a Cambridge University who started this little company called Active Hotels. We talked and talked and eventually, they said yeah they would join with us. Then we found the guys in Amsterdam at Booking.com and said this would be great, it’d be like music. You can have a great soloist who is wonderful but I think a whole Orchestra can produce better music and that’s kind of like bringing more people together to create that big beautiful Orchestra.

    Asia Could Be Our Largest Travel Market

    Everybody I think will say that Asia is the greatest growth area for almost all industries, and travel even more so. It’s growing faster than most of the areas of the world. As these people age and get going from young adults or teenagers into young adults and earn money and then they want to travel we need to be there now to help develop these brand habits. It could be our largest travel market.

    One of the reasons we did those investments (top Chinese online travel agency Ctrip and ride sharing platform Didi Chuxing) and one of the reasons both those companies were interested in having us invest and create a relationship is because of our outbound capabilities. Both companies are very interested in making their outbound services more powerful and they recognize that we can bring things to them that will help them. That’s the reason to do that.

    Our Outbound Business is Key In China

    We believe that there are really three things that are so important for our business being successful in China and one of them, without doubt, is that outbound business. We need to make sure that we are providing a great service to every single Chinese customer who wants to explore and experience the world.

    The outbound market is an area where we’re growing nicely. Our job is to make sure that that Chinese customer and they think they need a hotel somewhere around the world, where they need a non-hotel, a home, or an apartment, we want to make sure the first thing they think about is using Booking or Agoda.

  • Neil Patel: Word-of-Mouth Marketing is the Best Form of Marketing

    Neil Patel: Word-of-Mouth Marketing is the Best Form of Marketing

    The best form of marketing by far is word-of-mouth marketing because it is not only free but inherently viral. Internet marketing pioneer Neil Patel dives into word-of-mouth marketing in his latest video and in a simple way explains how every entrepreneur can attain this holy grail of marketing by just providing a product or service that people love.

    Neil Patel provides his expert advice on the world’s original and best form of marketing, word-of-mouth marketing:

    The Best Form of Marketing is Word-of-Mouth Marketing

    Do you know what the best form of marketing is? Word-of-mouth marketing. If you take care of your customers, you do what’s best for them, eventually not only are they going to keep coming back and buying again from you, but they’re going to tell other people about it.

    It’s funny, everyone these days is trying to optimize to rank higher on Google, to be popular on Facebook, and to be popular on Instagram because that’s how they believe they’re gonna grow their business. And sure, those things do help. But, the real core reason companies become big is because they solve problems and they do it better than anyone else.

    If You Create an Amazing Product of Service People Love It

    If you create an amazing product or service, like Slack, for example. People love it. They weren’t the first into the space, but they’re a more usable and better product. They didn’t do much marketing, it just started growing. If you look at the marketing that they started doing when they raised the money, they were doing television ads with all these animals in their TV commercials.

    No one really understood what Slack was based on that TV commercial. But, you know what, they’re still a multi-mil billion, not even a million, they’re a multi-billion dollar company, and it’s because they created an amazing product.

    When you create an amazing product or service, that generates more word-of-mouth marketing, which is bar far the best form of marketing. If you think about shoes, running shoes, what brand are you going to buy? It’s probably Nike because everyone talks about Nike and they know it’s amazing. Same with credit cards. You’re going to either pick Visa, Master Card, or American Express because everyone talks about them. Their brand is everywhere. People have had amazing customer experiences with some of these brands.

    Popular Products and Services Are Growing Because of Word-of-Mouth Marketing

    Whatever you look at when it comes to a product or service that you admire, or even a company, like Amazon. A lot of these companies are growing not because of their marketing efforts. They’re growing because of word-of-mouth marketing. And that’s not created by being popular on Instagram or being popular on Facebook. That’s truly built by providing amazing product or service, caring for your customers, being the best out there.

    Look at Zappos. Zappos moved their company from Silicon Valley to Vegas, because they needed a more affordable way to do support. They were able to do that in Las Vegas. And their big belief was to provide the best service out there. When you would call Zappos and you’d make an order, in many cases even though you paid for ground shipping, they would just randomly give you overnight shipping on your shoes for free. Why? Because they cared about you.

    They want to give you such an amazing experience that you would tell your friends about them. And that’s what caused them to get bought out and being worth now, these days, well over a billion dollars.

  • Hopper CEO Says that their Travel App Predicts Future Prices via Big Data and AI

    Hopper CEO Says that their Travel App Predicts Future Prices via Big Data and AI

    Hopper, an AI-driven prediction travel app that competes with Priceline and Expedia, is somewhat under the radar but actually has been around for over 3 years and has over 30 million users. Hopper founder and CEO Frederic Lalonde says that Hopper is fundamentally different because the app sees into the future.

    “We’re fundamentally different because the Hopper app sees into the future. We were built on the premise of big data so we collect billions, actually 750 billion prices every month, and we track airfare predictively.”

    Frederic Lalonde, CEO of Hopper, talks about Hopper and how it is fundamentally different than Priceline and Expedia in a recent interview.

    New Round of Fundraising For International Growth

    This round of fundraising is all about international growth for us. The Hopper app has been around for about three and a half years and on and off and it’s the number one travel app in the US. We have over 30 million users, but what’s really changed in the course of the last year is our pickup outside of North America.

    There are markets like Europe, Southeast Asia, Australia, and Latin America where we’ve seen extraordinary growth, upwards of 300 percent year-over-year, because we’ve been adding inventory to the app. This latest funding puts us in a position to continue that growth and become the worldwide leader in mobile travel.

    The Hopper App Sees Into the Future and Predicts Prices

    We compete directly against anybody who sells travel online, that’s Priceline and Expedia, and those companies own all the brands that you’re using. We’re fundamentally different because the Hopper app sees into the future. We were built on the premise of big data so we collect billions, actually 750 billion prices every month, and we track airfare predictively. If a user is looking to go from New York to London, Hopper up to a year in advance will tell you the best day in the future to buy your airfare. we also do the same thing for hotels and we’re expanding.

    We’ve been doing this for over a decade and we have proprietary algorithms that also operate. Fundamentally, Hopper is part of a new generation of commerce marketplaces that are deeply built on data and AI. You can see by the success of the platform that it’s different.

    Hopper is Mobile Only

    The other thing that makes us totally different is the fact that we’re only an app. We’re mobile only and the user experience is totally different because you’re letting the app do all of the heavy lifting for you. You’re saying when you want to travel and you can even leave that open and where you want to go and the app continuously tracks and shops all of these prices for you and you receive push notifications. For scale, we’ve sent about 2 billion push notifications to our users over the last two years.

    The other things that we compete against are websites where you have to do all the work yourself. What we’ve seen because we track all the data is when we as human beings do this we end up on average paying 5 percent more than we would have if we bought the first price that we’ve seen.

    Some people will score some deals, but on average we do much worse because we’re being tracked by cookies and the airline companies and the websites know that we’re doing this at predictable hours. The Hopper model does this for you and the outcomes are actually much better.

  • CaaStle CEO: Our Clothing as a Service (CAAS) Technology is not Disruptive

    CaaStle CEO: Our Clothing as a Service (CAAS) Technology is not Disruptive

    The clothing as a service business model is not disruptive for clothing retailers says CaaStle founder and CEO Christine Hunsicker. “It’s completely accretive and one of the big things about this technology is that it’s not disruptive. It’s not a disruptive model that’s threatening their businesses.”

    CaaStle is a fully managed service that allows retailers to offer Clothing as a Service (CaaS) to their consumers. CaaS is an access model that they say has “transformative benefits” for retailers and consumers. CaaStle says it simply provides technology, reverse logistics and managed services to help retailers participate in the new economy.

    CaaStle founder and CEO, Christine Hunsicker, recently discussed her CaaStle and why clothing as a service is not a disruptive model threatening retailers:

    Enables Clothing Retailers to Rent Clothing on a Subscription Basis

    CaaStle is a fully managed service that allows any retailer to offer a rental subscription service to their customers using their inventory. We are completely behind the scenes and nobody knows we exist. We are the people building the front end consumer experience, we’re handling the logistics and were handling the technology and the algorithms. We just take the clothing and the consumer list from the retailer and make it all happen.

    What we found is that fundamentally consumers rent very differently than they buy, so most of the things that you buy, and if you think about your own wardrobe, are gonna be the basic core and the staples, things that you can get a lot of wear out of, and that makes sense from a cost per wear perspective.

    When you rent you tend to go more towards the fashion and the trend. For a company like Express or like Ann Taylor or like New York & Company they’re going to continue to sell just like they always have. What they’re doing now is increasing engagement with their brand and increasing that brand loyalty through renting more of the fashion pieces.

    Our Clothing as a Service (CAAS) Technology is not Disruptive

    It’s completely accretive and one of the big things about this technology is that it’s not disruptive. It’s not a disruptive model that’s threatening their businesses. Right now it’s an opportunity for these retailers to jump on board and increase the number of new consumers they have and increase the spend that consumers have with them. It’s a significantly more profitable business and has very high engagement rates.

    It’s everyday clothing. You can’t be concerned that you may snag it or tear it or spill something on it, there’s going to be some damage that happens. We want the consumers and the retailers want the consumers to be very relaxed and comfortable in the clothing. It’s actually part of the service fee, there’s no nickel and diming for extra insurance. It’s going to happen that occasionally the clothing comes back damaged, very rarely though.

    We get paid on a per consumer basis so we’re completely aligned with the retailer to help them grow their base and maintain their base and have very happy consumers.

    We’re Building this Company to Take it Public

    As far as the Eloquii acquisition ($100 million) by Walmart, they have this strategy with Mark Lore (Walmart CEO) and under Andy Dunn to bring in a bunch of brands and expand their consumer base. As far as straight retail goes you saw it with Bonobos and Eloquii and ModCloth, this is just another step in that in that path.

    I think it’s great for the plus-size consumer. I think it’s great for the Eloquii customer. They’re going to be able to leverage the Walmart supply chain and logistics and deliver a better experience probably at a lower cost point.

    When it comes to, do we want to be acquired? We’re building this company to take it public. We don’t want to be acquired by any single player largely because we believe in fragmentation. If you believe the industry has been fragmented and will remain fragmented and if you want to impact the tremendous part of the economy you need to be a platform underlying all of the brands and the retailers as opposed to being a singular consumer-facing brand.

  • Facebook Group Vs. Facebook Page: Which is Better for Marketing Your Brand?

    Facebook Group Vs. Facebook Page: Which is Better for Marketing Your Brand?

    For some time now, social media has been a popular way for marketers and brands to get more exposure and grow their customer base. Among the many social media platforms on the web, Facebook ranks as the most popular with nearly 70 million active business accounts.

    If you’ve been considering using Facebook as a marketing tool for your business, you’re probably unsure of whether to use the platform’s Page or Group feature. And given the overwhelming amount of information available online regarding the matter, researching it may only confuse you more.

    Let’s break down the two options in simple terms to make it easier for you to decide:

    Facebook Page or Facebook Group: Understanding the Difference

    A Page and a Group are two distinct features of Facebook’s platform.

    A Facebook Page can be described as the personal profile of an organization, a public figure, or a business. Since it represents an entity, it has the visual and style elements associated with the business or website it’s promoting. The Page also acts as a communication channel with a brand’s fans or followers. Users who connect to a Page instantly get access to all the brand’s news and content.

    Meanwhile, a Facebook Group functions as a forum. It’s primarily used as a communication channel for people with the same interests. Members freely exchange information and knowledge with each other. Interactions are more honest and opinions are willingly expressed since the Group is considered a safe environment. One or more moderators can manage discussions within this space.

    There are several key differences between Pages and Groups, like ads, member interactions, and privacy settings. Any posts or updates made on a Page are visible to the public. Anyone who likes or becomes a fan automatically receives updates or notifications. Groups, on the other hand, are typically private. Membership can be by invitation only or has to be approved by a moderator. Ads are not allowed in Groups, although you can promote your product. Conversely, Pages can carry ads and promos, although there are limits.

    Pros and Cons of Pages and Groups

    Facebook Pages and Groups both have their pros and cons. For instance, Facebook Pages can be set up easily. Updating them is also a breeze. Page creator tools can also be used for easy customization. You can also personalize the URL to make it easier for followers to remember. Pages are also a great way to openly engage with an online audience and advertise products.

    Groups, however, are more about communication and members can use emails, wall posts, and direct messaging. Interactions here tend to be more personal, making it easier to market directly to your audience. You can’t advertise directly but your network can spread the word about your brand, thus you get some free advertising.

    It comes as no surprise that Pages and Groups also have drawbacks. For example, it’s a well-known fact that growing Pages organically is difficult now. Facebook’s algorithm essentially leaves brands with little alternative but to invest in banner ads and boosts if they want to grow their Page quickly. Aside from that, moderators have to monitor all posts carefully since everyone can read it. Conversations between the Page owner and customers are also hard to manage.

    Facebook Groups can also be challenging, especially for marketers. For one, the platform does not offer Insights to groups so it’s more difficult to keep track of everything that’s happening between members. It’s also hard to customize Groups since they don’t have access to some of the design and SEO elements available to Pages.

    Which One Should You Choose?

    So which one is right for your business—a Page or a Group? That will actually depend on your goal.

    Pages are suitable for brands or companies who are out to promote their product or message. For instance, a brand’s Page is where they can talk about the benefits of their product and offer the latest deals. Meanwhile, Groups are better suited for in-depth discussions and for expanding networks. A budding businessman can join a Group for entrepreneurs to learn how to get started.

    Think of a Facebook Page as the front porch of a house and the Group as the living room. The porch is where you meet and greet people quickly. A Page acts the same way. People who visit your Page stop for a while to get the latest news and updates. There is nothing personal shared.

    Using the same analogy, the living room is where you let in the people you know and interact with them on a more personal level. It’s the same with a Facebook Group. People talk about their ideas, experiences, and passions. Interactions in this channel tend to run deeper and more passionately. There’s no active promotion allowed but members can build networks. Think of it as support groups for anything and everything, from mental health issues to SEO specialists.

    Facebook Pages and Facebook Groups are two powerful marketing channels. The former is similar to personal profiles while the latter is essentially a forum. Both can provide you with the chance to engage your audience and promote your brand.

    [Featured image via Pixabay]

  • Foursquare CEO: Facebook and Google Are Not Your Friends and Are After Domination

    Foursquare CEO: Facebook and Google Are Not Your Friends and Are After Domination

    Foursquare CEO Jeff Glueck said in an interview that “Facebook and Google are not your friends, they’re unreliable partners and are after domination.” He added in a blog post, “That’s why we’re building a company that stands apart from Google and Facebook as the most trusted, independent platform for understanding location.”

    Glueck also announced the first close of a new round of $33 million of equity funding led by strategic investors Simon Ventures and Naver Corp. and by Union Square Ventures. He says that the first close of $25 million occurred on Friday and that he anticipates a secondary close of at least $8 million by year’s end.

    Jeff Glueck, CEO of Foursquare, spoke about the new funding and how they were going to use it in their quest to “become the location layer of the internet” on CNBC:

    Foursquare is Really the Location Layer of the Internet

    Foursquare is really the location layer of the Internet. This round led by Simon Ventures is really gonna give us the fuel to continue investing. If you think about the location features on your phone, most of the time they’re powered by Foursquare technology. If you get a Snapchat geofilter, if you type a place into Uber,  if you get matched on Tinder to people who like the same places, those are all examples of Foursquare technology at work.

    Foursquare Helping Companies Take on the Amazon’s of the World

    With this round of financing we’re going to take that into the retail world, into the dining world, and into the general media publishing world to bring location technology to bear. Foursquare helps media companies and brands and apps create location features. The examples of our customers are like Apple and Microsoft the like but 90 percent of commerce still happens in the real world.

    For all the attention on Amazon and what Jeff Bezos said, Amazon is just 4 percent of consumer spending. Over 90 percent takes place in the in the real world including grocery, auto, and retail. We want to help those companies prepare to take on the Amazon’s of the world and that’s what we’re doing.

    We help marketers reach people based on where they go in the real world, measure whether it leads people into the stores. We help apps be contextually aware so that when you walk into the store if there’s an offer you’re aware.

    We Started as a Consumer App so 100% of What We Do is Opt-In

    We started as a consumer app, so we think about privacy and enhancing consumer experiences with everything we do, so 100 percent of what we do is consumer opt-in. For instance, a lot of the apps that use us they say would you like to opt into background location to be to be alerted when you’re near a service or a special offer, about 60 or 70 percent of people choose to participate and about 30 to 40 percent don’t.

    Everything we do is anonymized or aggregated. For instance, the data goes into a panel of over 25 million phones that we see always on and that creates a kind of Nielsen panel of the real world foot traffic. We were able to, for instance, predict the Chipotle sales famously we’re going to be down 30 percent before they announced their earnings. At an aggregate level, no one’s worried about privacy.

    Everything We Do is Designed to Create Value for Users

    Everything we do is designed to create value for the users. We’re not helping some flashlight app ask you for your always-on location. What good is that to you? We’re helping pair people in dating based on their favorite places. We’re helping to deliver contextually aware weather alerts for AccuWeather. Hey, you’re at the stadium and rain is about to happen.

    All the cases where we make the experiences better the users opt-in because it makes the experience better. In a world where you don’t want to open a lot of apps, you want the app to tap you on the shoulder at the right time to remind you that you have a chance to get 50% off, or there’s a weather alert, or you’re near a friend. All these things are really valuable. Apple already reminds people that you’re opted into location sharing. It’s actually the part of the ad tech ecosystem that is doing shoddy things that we don’t think are best practice in privacy that I think will be heard over time. Why should a location be on for your flashlight app?

    We are the independent Switzerland. If you think about Facebook and Google, there are only three companies in the world that can understand when a phone moves out of your pocket moves out of 100 million businesses in over 170 countries, that’s Google, Facebook, and Foursquare. We are the independent option.

    Facebook and Google Are Not Your Friends and are After Domination

    Our customers, which include folks like Apple and Microsoft and Tencent and Twitter and Snapchat and on and on. They look to us as an independent company. Facebook and Google are not your friends, they’re unreliable partners and are after domination. We are the Switzerland and I do think the location space needs a public independent company at some point that has the wherewithal to invest in pushing location technology.

  • Blitzscaling: Grow a High-Value Business at Lightning Speed

    Blitzscaling: Grow a High-Value Business at Lightning Speed

    No one understands startups and how to make them grow at lightning speed better than Reid Hoffman. The businessman was an executive at PayPal when it first started out and then went on to start LinkedIn. Hoffman has since invested in several quick-growing companies through his Greylock Partners.

    Hoffman’s success has earned him the moniker “startup whisperer of Silicon Valley.” He also coined the term “blitzscaling,” a groundbreaking concept that allows entrepreneurs to quickly grow their companies and stay ahead of their rivals.

    What is Blitzscaling?

    A blitz is defined as a sudden attack or a concerted effort, and it’s those ideas that are behind the principle of blitzscaling. Blitzscaling is the concept of building a company quickly in order to serve a large market, usually a global one.

    Hoffman describes blitzscaling as a form of high-impact entrepreneurship, the kind that generates a lot of jobs and affects other industries.

    One of the best examples of blitzscaling is Amazon. In 1996, Jeff Bezos only had 151 employees and a revenue of about $5.1 million. Three years later, the company had 7,600 people and generated a profit of $1.64 billion. Despite criticisms and people advising against it, Bezos pushed for concepts like one-day deliveries and cloud storage and invested on these ideas. The company’s profits are not what stakeholders expected at times, but there’s no denying that the company has basically defined eCommerce.

    How Dangerous Is Blitzscaling?

    There are untold rewards in blitzscaling, but there’s also a lot of danger and challenges. To a lot of people, blitzscaling seems to be the opposite of everything that’s taught in business school. Hoffman actually likened the strategy to the blitzkrieg campaigns of World War II. Soldiers carry only what they need, they move quickly, surprise their enemies, and emerge victorious.

    Similarly, startups utilizing this strategy have to move swiftly. Therefore, they take on more risks, like getting the right people for the job. The talent or skill set a company requires changes as it grows. Employers need to pick the people who are ideal for the moment, and not someone they necessarily think will be effective once things settle down.

    The need for speed also means that companies have to be willing and prepared to launch a product even if it’s not perfect yet. The goal is to be the first to stake your claim and get immediate feedback that will be used to make improvements. Business would also have to neglect certain aspects of the business. Hoffman admitted that as PayPal was growing, they ignored customer complaints and just concentrated on improving their product.

    Another challenge is implementation. A big company like Microsoft can easily finance its growth, but startups have to convince investors to put money on them. Unfortunately, it’s easier to sweet talk investors if they know their gamble will pay off, and that’s not something that blitzscaling can guarantee. Blitzscaling also requires more money, and the company has to place some of its capital in reserve so they can recover from the mistakes made.

    Why Do Entrepreneurs Blitzscale?

    As an entrepreneur, you want to corner the market. Blitzscaling is a great way for doing this. Being the first in the niche to scale means your company will have a “first-scaler advantage.” Other networks or companies would recognize you as the leader. Once you have established that, getting the talent and investors you need becomes easier.

    Blitzscaling also gives entrepreneurs the element of surprise. By scaling at lightning speed, a brand can bypass exclusive niches and create breakout opportunities. Take into account Slack’s impressive growth. The company took bigger companies like Microsoft and Salesforce by surprise. It also gave Slack the chance to set the pace and force its rivals to try and catch up with it, which resulted in its competitors having less time to develop and implement a counter-attack.

    The goal of blitzscaling is to hit the market as hard as you can and make enough buzz to draw the attention of talented people and interested investors. However, the strategy brings with it great risks so make sure you weigh that against what you hope to achieve.

    [Featured image via Pixabay]

  • Search Marketers Should Reframe Around Precision Marketing

    Search Marketers Should Reframe Around Precision Marketing

    If you are just starting your career as a search marketer, Amanda Richman, CEO of Wavemaker which is the second largest media agency network in the world, says that you should “reframe it around precision marketing instead of search.”

    Richman adds, “Folks coming up from the ranks the search have this great understanding around consumer intent. They understand how to optimize against certain signals. They should broaden that beyond the digital world to think about what insights they’re saying that they then act on that they could bring earlier into the strategy and planning process.”

    Wavemaker CEO Amanda Richman recently reflected on her career with Geoffrey Colon, Head of Brand Studio at Microsoft Advertising, and offered advice to those new to search marketing:

    What To Tell Young People Just Starting Their Career in Search Marketing

    It’s about the journey, not the destination. If you’re very linear and you think about your career and levels of advancement and steps and hard goals and in your mind at 24 you think here’s where I’m going to be in 20 years, prepare to be blown away and maybe blown out as well.

    You have to stay relevant and I’d say have a certain humility too. Acknowledge that you’re not going to master anything in this space. It’s constantly evolving, stay nimble, surround yourself with really smart people that you can constantly be learning from and your career is going to take some really interesting twists and turns and you’re going to enjoy the ride.

    Search Marketers Should Reframe Around Precision Marketing

    I would say first to step back and reframe it around precision marketing instead of search. Folks coming up from the ranks with search have this great understanding around consumer intent. They understand how to optimize against certain signals. They should broaden that beyond the digital world too to think about what insights they’re seeing that they then act on that they could bring earlier into the strategy and planning process.

    They might consider how they think holistically across an addressable television and other formats and obviously, within search itself, voice and other means, to actually get to that consumer intent and pay it off for brands. That is a tremendous skill set and an opportunity for them to really reframe from search expertise to broader precision marketing experts.

  • AT&T Launches Xandr, Enabling Individualized Targeted Television Ad Sales

    AT&T Launches Xandr, Enabling Individualized Targeted Television Ad Sales

    AT&T launched a new advertising company called Xandr last week led by CEO Brian Lesser. “Xandr is a name that draws inspiration from AT&T’s rich history, including its founder Alexander Graham Bell, while imagining how to innovate and solve new challenges for the future of advertising,” said Lesser.

    “Our purpose is to Make Advertising Matter and to connect people with the brands and content they care about. Throughout AT&T’s 142-year history, it has innovated with data and technology, making its customers’ lives better. Xandr will bring that spirit of innovation to the advertising industry.”

    Brian Lesser, CEO of Xandr, discussed the new company this afternoon:

    Advanced Television to Power Direct Advertisements on a Household Level

    Xandr includes our existing advertising business which is about a $2 billion dollar television ad sales business, television and digital. We had an internal data project to pull all the data together across all of AT&T, and over the summer we completed an acquisition of AppNexus so that’s all now rolled up into Zander.

    The fastest growing part of our business is what we call advanced television. We sell quite a bit of television advertising but the most popular products we sell are television advertising powered by data using technology to direct advertisements on a household level. What that means is you and your neighbor could be watching the exact same program and getting different ads within the same content based on the behaviors of your household.

    Individuals Have a Control Over Their Data

    Some data we won’t use because of our privacy policy. When it comes to who you call that’s not information that’s relevant to how we’re going to serve you ads, but for example, if you’re on a browser on your phone and you are browsing content or you’re using DIRECTV NOW on your phone we can then use that information to direct ads both on your phone and on your television.

    AT&T is a 140-year-old company and we have a lot of respect for our customers and therefore how we treat data is a big part of our advertising business and our advertising program and our policy is dependent on us having that relationship. This means customers should always understand how and when we’re using data. They should always have choices as to how we use it and they will have control of it.

    Most of the information we get has to do with how AT&T interacts with you such as an app like the AT&T app, DIRECTV, or other information that you give us as a customer. The policy is the data that we collect from our customers always stays within our systems and we don’t sell data for advertising purposes. When we buy data to supplement that’s anonymized data and we never know who a person is.

    We have a profile in a database that says not you but an anonymous version of you likes to watch certain programs on television, you have certain apps installed on your phone and then we can buy data from brokers to augment our understanding and serve you relevant ads.

  • Twitter Ad Chief: We’ve Never Been More Clear About What is Our Superpower

    Twitter Ad Chief: We’ve Never Been More Clear About What is Our Superpower

    Twitter ad chief Matt Derella is at Advertising Week in New York City spreading the message that Twitter video advertising is the best platform to reach valuable audiences when they are most receptive. He says Twitter has never been more clear about what is our superpower.

    Matt Derella, Global Vice President, Revenue and Content Partnerships for Twitter, discussed why Twitter is valuable for advertisers on CNBC at Advertising Week in New York:

    Twitter Video Ads Now Generate Over 50% of Revenue

    If you look back to our previous quarter our ads business is incredibly strong right now growing over 27 percent year-on-year and its broad-based all around the world. I think that’s because we’re continuing to innovate and bring new products to bear. Video, in particular, is now over 50 percent of our revenue and marketers are getting great results from using it.

    I was just on stage here at AdWeek sitting down with the head of digital at Nestle and he’s talking about the fact that two of his biggest brands,  DiGiorno and Lean Cuisine, Twitter was the number one platform among social platforms for return investment. As long as the results are there we’re going to continue to grow our business with our customers and continue to earn their trust.

    We Want to be Really Transparent About Political Ads

    Well, being completely transparent, I think Jack Dorsey (Twitter CEO) modeled this when he went to DC and actually talked to the regulators and the congressmen. We want to be really transparent about what we’re doing. There are some serious issues facing all services that are global in nature like ours we’ve taken some very tangible action just in the last few months.

    You’ve heard about our Ad Transparency Center. This is a searchable database where anybody can go and see all the political advertising on Twitter and who is funding it. We’ve also introduced labels around all the political advertising so they’re clearly demarcated so you know and have trust in where that message is coming from.

    Lastly, just on spam, we’re doing more than we ever have. Two times the amount of spam is being taken off the platform compared to just a year ago. This is what we’re talking to marketers about and content partners about to continue to get better.

    Brands Can Target Very Specific Conversations

    A big part of philosophically how we designed the platform is so that control goes in the hands of the advertiser. We have targeting that allows you to target just specific conversations. If you’re a brand who wants to connect with the NBA and all the conversation having around that that’s something that our tools allow to do.

    I’m in charge of content partnerships and our content business has been flourishing. We’re helping partners grow their business. One of the great things about how we designed it is that marketers can actually choose the specific content that they want to align with and ensure that brand safety and brand alignment that’s so important for them.

    We’ve Never Been More Clear About What is Our Superpower

    The primary driver of everything we do is to help serve that public conversation that’s so unique to Twitter. Great content, whether it’s the World Cup highlights, that we had every single goal here in the US from the World Cup with Fox, is a great place for us to get video and bring that public conversation around it and it’s great for consumers. It also happens to be terrific for marketers who want to align with that passion here at Advertising Week.

    I think for Twitter we’ve never been more clear about what is our superpower, we have the most valuable audiences when they’re most receptive. If you’re going to launch something new Twitter is the place to start because we have those valuable audiences when they are the most receptive. That’s the message we’ve been going with and we have the data to back it up. I think we have a very defensible position going forward with marketers.

    We have to focus on the long-term and really what’s been incredibly encouraging is hearing from some of the most important influential CMO’s around the world supporting us as we make the decision to focus on the health of the service in the long term. Some of the decisions that we’re making, the hard decisions that might impact short-term metrics, but ultimately it’ll be the right thing for the platform.

  • 5 Ways to Instantly Improve Your Product Description Page for Better Conversions

    5 Ways to Instantly Improve Your Product Description Page for Better Conversions

    A visitor that arrives at your product description page is only a few clicks away from making a purchase. But whether they leave your site or buy your product depends in large part on the page design.

    Despite its importance, a lot of store owners don’t pay enough attention to their product page. Most are happy to just put up a photo and a brief description. This is a travesty since the product page can make or break a sale. If the customer doesn’t find the page appealing and informative, they won’t move on to the checkout.

    There are, however,  a number of fast and easy strategies you can implement right now to improve your product page and boost your sales. Let’s take a look:

    1. Analyze Your Customer’s Behavior

    One of the best ways to improve your conversions is to have a well-designed product description page. You’ll need to have the right balance of images and information, especially since shoppers tend to just scan the page. According to a Nielson report, 79 percent of consumers don’t read word by word. They just scan a page and pick out specific words and phrases.

    A heatmap is a great tool to use when designing a product page. It lets you track where your customers typically look, what they click on when they arrive at your page, and how far down they scroll when reading your content. Knowing where they’re looking gives you the chance to remove any distracting images or irrelevant data.

    [Image source: MockingFish]

    2. Establish Trust

    You want to build trust with your customers from the get-go. Product reviews and security seals are just two ways to go about this. But you can also establish trust by providing clear information on shipping costs, duration, and details like how many items can be ordered, etc. Knowing this key information will give your customers peace of mind and keep them moving toward your checkout page.

    [Image source: Harry’s]

    Summarize these details to save space, but make sure you place them in a strategic part of your page. For instance, customers who visit Harry’s product page will see this information next to a photo of the item on sale. Also, consider adding links in the description that offer more detailed information about the product. 

    3. Enable Chat on Select Pages

    Your prospective customers may get frustrated and exit your store when they have questions about an item and there’s nobody to advise them. And many consumers simply don’t have the time or patience to call customer service or email your company. You can use live chat to solve this problem and improve conversion rates.

    [Image source: ZenDesk]

    This feature also makes life easier for shoppers since they immediately get the answers they need. It also tells them that your company is efficient, always available to listen and willing to resolve their concerns, thus increasing brand trust. 

    4. Use Customer Photos as Social Proof

    People trust recommendations given by friends, family, and their fellow customers. It’s why many brands include customer reviews and feedback. But you can step up your game and enhance product page conversions by using customer-generated photos. Seeing your items showcased by customers helps put them in context. The social proof it provides can also influence a prospective buyer’s decision while giving your customers a realistic look of your product.

    Amazon.com uses this strategy quite well. The website allows customers to upload images of items they purchased via the site and links them to the review on the product page.

    5. Improve Product Titles

    Your product’s name is the first thing that will catch a shopper’s attention on the product page. So it makes it even more important to create a good product title that will entice them to look at what else you have in store. The title is where you can be creative while giving your customer key details about the item and its features.

    Make sure you use a tone that your demographic can relate to. For instance, fun and whimsical titles are good for a young audience while a formal voice is better for connecting with a B2B market. You can use different fonts, colors, or icons for your titles. You can also pick out interesting features of your product and highlight it in the title. For instance, UncommonGoods sells a set of socks with environmental motifs which they named “Protect The Planets Socks,” appealing to the environmentally conscious customer. 

    A well-thought of and designed product page can result in a positive shopping experience that will boost sales. Try to incorporate these five strategies and watch your conversions shoot up.

    [Featured image via Pixabay]

  • Vlocity Thriving on the Salesforce AppExchange Focusing on Industry Verticals

    Vlocity Thriving on the Salesforce AppExchange Focusing on Industry Verticals

    The Salesforce AppExchange is where companies can find third-party applications that run on and integrate with the Salesforce platform. David Schmaier, CEO and Founder of Vlocity, a Forbes Cloud 100 Company, says that Vlocity is the fastest company ever built on the Salesforce AppExchange and the Salesforce platform.

    Companies leverage Vlocity Industry Cloud apps to extend the power of the Salesforce platform.

    Vlocity CEO and founder David Schmaier discussed his companies amazing rise in an interview at Dreamforce:

    Vlocity Has 5 Industry Verticals Built on Top of Salesforce

    Vlocity is the single fastest company ever built on the Salesforce AppExchange and the Salesforce platform. The app exchange has 4,000 companies that do basically everything you can do possibly with the world’s number one CRM platform and cloud platform Salesforce. What we do is we build five industry verticals on top of the Salesforce platform; communications and media, insurance, healthcare, government, and our newest addition is the energy business. We take what our regulated businesses and we make them digital.

    I came to my first Dreamforce in 2013 and I was looking around for opportunities. Some friends had built a company called Veeva, which is the biggest company ever built on the Salesforce platform and they do pharmaceutical and life sciences CRM. I came to Dreamforce to find the next Veeva and when I found was astonishing. Back then there were around 2,700 companies on the AppExchange and I saw CPQ, CGI, Middleware and Document Management, but no other industry vertical applications.

    There was only one back then and yet it was the largest company ever built on the Salesforce platform and the only one to go public. You didn’t need to be a Ph.D. in computer science to figure out that there was an opportunity to build another Veeva, a bigger Veeva, which we call Vlocity.

    Vlocity Transforms Industries to be Modern, Digital, and Customer Centric

    We named the company Vlocity because we’re fast, but we try and we’re trying to improve the agility of our customers. A good example of this is last night we were with New York Life Insurance which has rolled out about 18,000 users of Salesforce and Vlocity in about a year and they do it all in a mobile-first way.

    Before they would go in and talk to you about life insurance in your kitchen with pen and paper and now they just tap on their phone to sell life insurance. We’ve taken the whole process and made it mobile first and made it digital so they can connect with their customers in a whole new way. That’s the kind of capabilities that we provide for people. We call it digital, we call it agile and it’s all available now on the mobile device.

    Vlocity Announces New Mobile Products

    We’re announcing two new mobile products. The first is a visual studio where I can point and click and drag and drop and I can put in a companies logo and I can build high fidelity rich mobile apps and I can deploy them really really fast versus having to custom build them. We simplify the development process and allow you to point-and-click and put your colors and your branding and your logo and roll out very high fidelity mobile apps.

    The second part is we’re coming up out with a new app for consumers so that when I want to browse my bill or look at my usage or add devices or buy the new iPhones that just came out I can do that all from a branded consumer mobile app that’s that comes out of the box and ready for use. We’re doing a lot of things in the mobile-first area.  

    Vlocity Integrates AI and Siri

    I’m excited about Salesforce’s big announcement this week where Einstein and Siri are now best friends. We were in parallel working on these mobile apps and because our software’s all built 100% native and additive on the Salesforce platform all that great work Salesforce is doing with Einstein and Siri we get for free.

    Now we can ask Siri questions about paying the bill or understanding usage or adding the new iPhone and I can do that all through the voice capabilities that Salesforce has added to the platform. The platform keeps getting better with analytics, with Einstein, now Einstein meets Siri, and we’re just thrilled to be part of this great ecosystem.

  • How adidas is Creating a Digital Experience That’s Premium, Connected, and Personalized

    How adidas is Creating a Digital Experience That’s Premium, Connected, and Personalized

    Digital marketing is changing and adidas is working to make it integral in connecting with their customers and to really change their lives in a positive way. Joseph Godsey, Head of Digital Brand Commerce at addidas, says that “The beauty is with digital is we can create relationships at scale.”

    The company is reaching out and connecting with customers in a personalized way via their app that they launched last year and have recently announced major new features.

    Joseph Godsey, Head of Digital Brand Commerce at adidas discusses the company’s new digital marketing strategy at Dreamforce:

    Digital Brings the addidas Core Principals to Life

    We spend a lot of time really listening to consumers in focus groups and through lots of studies in order to really understand what their needs are and how we can serve them better, particularly using our digital channel. It started really with our core belief as a company that through sport we have the power to change lives.

    Then we asked ourselves the question if digital is a focus and clear priority for us how does digital actually bring that core to belief to life? The beauty is with digital we can create relationships at scale. We can really connect with the consumer and match their needs using digital in a way that we could never do before.

    Creating a Digital Experience That’s Premium, Connected, and Personalized

    When we talk about interacting with the consumer we look at how we can make a difference in their game, in their life, and in their world. We look at how we can hit home on all of those fears and then ultimately in digital create an experience that’s premium, connected, and personalized.

    Premium is about inspiring love for the brand and desire for the products. Connected is about taking all the touch points that they can interact with us in a physical or in an online environment, and there are a lot, that we’re actually seamless and really interacting with them in a consistent way. Personalized, because in our brand there are so many sports to talk about, but I need to talk with you about what’s relevant for you, not what’s relevant for someone else.

    I can’t just blast out a communication anymore and hope that it’s interesting for you. I need to respect the interactions we’ve had together across any touch point and make sure I bring what’s relevant to you in that particular context but also what’s interesting in terms of your profile. We really want to create that relationship that creates value and meaning that hits home on what’s most interesting for the consumer.

    Announcing the Launch of a New addidas Membership Program

    We have some exciting news that we’ll talk about during Dreamforce this week which is about a new membership program that we’re launching in the US and then later will expand that in other countries. It gives us the ability to really engage and hit home on what’s most interesting for a consumer. They might be looking for value, they might be looking for experiences, or they might look to actually give back and be part of broader causes. Depending on what’s most interesting to them we can expose that in our ecosystem and reward them for those interactions but also give them the chance to interact as well.

    I think to be relevant in today’s world with the proliferation of brands and experiences that are out there we have to have something that’s really meaningful that consumers will come back to again and again. They have to also see how we are represented as a brand and have a way to interact and connect with that as well. We’re looking across all the experience to have something that’s sticky and makes it seamless and easy to use. If you want to buy something you can do it quickly and easily but we also make the experience a positive one.

    The App Changed the Paradigm

    We launched the app last year and we’ve now rolled it out in 18 countries which is a very small space of time for a massive global rollout but also expanding the features and the capabilities in the app. It’s a great example where we really tried to change the paradigm and how we develop things because when we initially launched the app we put out there a starting point, we had a very clear strategy how the app would enable us to create a connection with the consumer to be even more personalized. For instance, with the newsfeed, they can really surface what’s personally relevant for that consumer where we can talk with them about new releases and new things that are coming.

    At the same time, we only launched it as a starting point, so almost like we put out the very first version of a car. We wanted consumers to give us feedback in mass.  We did consumer testing to build the app extensively but when you really get it out there and people start using it they tell you what’s really interesting and what they want more of. Through that experience we realized some of the things that we might prioritize in our backlog, actually, we need to elevate some other topics that are more important to the consumer.

    The adidas Digital Strategy for the Future

    I think for us ultimately with our digital strategy the first part is how do we create that ever-tightening relationship that has meaning and value from a consumer perspective and really hits home on those three pillars of premium, connected, and personalized. How do you really surface that in a meaningful way?

    Take something like a product description. How do we really have the product descriptions and offerings so that if you’re interested in sports we will help you find exactly the product that you need for the sport that you’re interested in? We will also educate you and bring you back at different points in time to help you find out what you need when you need it, or with an engagement program. Ultimately, like the membership program, that it has something that’s sticky, that you can give back to something, even more, you can participate in events and experiences.

    For us, a lot of it’s really deepening those experiences but also exploring new technologies and new areas. Omnichannel was kind of the original wave which happened and  I said it was the freight train that came past us a couple of years ago. Now we’re also looking at what those next freight trains are, whether it’s technologies like blockchain or experiencing picking up a new channel. For example, we’re working extensively with Salesforce on automation, how we can automate consumer experiences. Take something as simple as a consumer service interaction. How do I make it so easy for you, no matter if you talk with us via Messenger, WhatsApp, online, or in the app itself, that we can respond to those questions fast and easy but not have to have thousands of agents all the time on the call?

    I would say the interesting complexity but also the opportunity comes from that connected sphere. How do you connect all of those different things that are relevant? If you participate in one of our communities how do we also reward that interaction through a membership program? How do we build that seamlessly into a sales or commercial experience as well? That’s really part of that opportunity and that multi-year journey that we’re on and really expanding.

  • How to Use Data to Become Incredibly Customer Centric

    How to Use Data to Become Incredibly Customer Centric

    Steve Stone, former CIO of L Brands and Lowes, recently discussed how retailers can use data to serve their customers better and become incredibly customer-centric:

    Retail Grew Up Differently

    When you think about retail, retail grew up differently. We started with stores and then we eventually added e-commerce. We were also very much notorious best-of-breed in the way we build our applications. Over time, you’ve got this technical debt where information about the customer and information about the product is stored in many different places.

    When you’re trying to build an integrated seamless frictionless customer experience it’s very hard to do that if your information is disjointed. One of my favorite sayings is if the plumbing isn’t right it doesn’t matter how nice the experience is it just isn’t going to work. This is a huge challenge for retailers and it’s where technology really has to play a role, not only to combine the information but to find ways to add speed and agility to the entire process.

    Data Key to Meaningful Customer Experiences

    I’ve always said data governance isn’t exactly sexy but it’s it’s what really drives the ability to deliver those types of meaningful customer experiences. With the focus now today on the customer experience with the Internet of Things and with all these new technologies coming at us and especially with the advent of AI and machine learning, we now see that data has to be right, the hygiene has to be great. Suddenly, master data has become a vogue term in retail and in consumer products.

    I think the biggest problem a lot of companies find is they’ve got to find a place to start. You’ve got to get that starting point. Picking an experience, an experience that you want for the customer, and then flowing back through, where are all the interaction points of data, where does it originate, and where is it getting corrupt? Cleansing that and building that one experience we’ll start you on your journey.

    Be Customer Centric, Not Product Centric

    After that, it’s really getting into the plumbing and understanding your data and understanding the customer. It’s always amazing when we build these great customer experiences, but they’re built more for us and not for the customer. At L Brands we always put the customer first. Be customer centric, not product-centric. How do we integrate, how do we become customer first in everything that we do?

    We’re really at the point now where the technology exists to do this right. The integration platforms such as MuleSoft are really strong now that allows you to stitch together your applications plus build an extensible layer where applications can change quickly. That experience becomes one where if I’m a customer and I walk into a store and you don’t have the product I want there’s no problem. The product will still be at my doorstep the next day or hopefully that day.

    Knowing Your Customer

    I’m online and I want this product and I don’t want to have to wait for it to come from your distribution center in Detroit or Wisconsin. I want it and I’m in California and I get it in a couple of hours because the retailers are able to use the inventory in those local stores.

    As a customer, you know me regardless of the channel, whether I came to you via the call center or whether I came to you in a store or online. You know me and that’s to me where retailers have to be. I don’t think that’s differentiating as much anymore, instead, I think that’s becoming the table stakes.

    You can’t compete against the past, you’ve got to compete against what the future is going to be. I see retail changing so much from inventory, from the customer, and even the whole level of personalization that we’re trying to offer to the customer now. The customer is going to be asking for things that we would never have dreamed possible and yet in a few years we’re going to be delivering it.

    The Best Retailers Cater to Their Customers

    Retailers that I really admire are Costco, Lilly Pulitzer, Ulta Beauty, Tractor Supply, they have a really great connection with their customer. They cater to that customer and they’re building out technology capabilities that really allow that customer to operate on their terms, not on the retailer’s terms, and I just think that’s so powerful.