Black Friday and Cyber Monday - Rest in Peace

The day after Thanksgiving has been considered the biggest shopping day of the year for decades. It was the day that kicked off Christmas shopping. When retailers realized that they could draw large crowds with deep discounts on loss leaders, they turned an active shopping day into an event dubbed Black Friday. Cyber Monday was launched shortly after the Internet became a shopping mecca.

The events were a one-two punch for multichannel retailers. Together, they created a golden goose that consistently delivered revenue year after year. Newspapers loaded with advertisements landed with a thump on doorsteps Thanksgiving morning. Sifting through the promotions became a favorite after dinner activity. Strategic planning by serious shoppers could rival any military coup. In many American homes, planning the shopping on Black Friday was part of Thanksgiving tradition.

Stores that normally opened at 10 AM had early bird specials that usually started at 6 AM. As popularity for the early morning shopping grew, stores started competing to see who could open the earliest. Last year, Black Friday crept into Thanksgiving for the first time. There was an outcry and protests but people still showed up to take advantage of the super deals. This year, the event creep continued. Cyber Monday and Black Friday started before Thanksgiving for some retailers.

In theory, increasing the number of hours people are allowed to shop for super discounts is a good idea. A representative from Walmart told ABC World News Tonight that the company took in over $10 million during the first hour last year. He was so excited that you could almost see dollar signs in his eyes. So much revenue in a short period is enough to turn heads. I can imagine the conversation in the boardroom.

“What if we could do that for two hours?”

“What about 10?”

“What if we started before Thanksgiving?”

If the deals are good enough, people will come out. This year may be good but it is the beginning of the end for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The after Thanksgiving shopping event that turned into a tradition has been altered. Once the line was crossed from Friday to Thursday opening hour creep was bound to follow. The people envisioning hour after hour of cash registers ringing forgot to consider human behavior. Three factors affect the dynamics of after Thanksgiving shopping.

First, tradition and experience are key triggers for people participating in the shopping events. Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales have turned into Black Cyber Week events. People now have a span of time instead of having a targeted time and date to start shopping. The excitement and anticipation are diminished. This will have a direct effect on how much money people spend because people buy more when they are excited.

Second, the simplicity of Black Friday and Cyber Monday just got very complicated. Early bird specials have morphed into varying hours over multiple days. The combination of Black Friday and Cyber Monday was perfect for multichannel retailers because both events benefited the company. Now, it is one big ball of confusion for consumers. They don’t know the best times for shopping at the store or online. Understanding the process requires more effort than the discounts are worth.

Third, traffic will decrease because the people who decide not to shop on Thanksgiving will presume that all of the great deals are already gone. If there aren’t any great deals available, why venture out on the busiest shopping day of the year? Less traffic means less perceived competition and the shopping frenzy that makes people buy more than they intend is gone.

It’s probably too late to save Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Retailers will adjust their hours next year to match their competitors. The creep will continue. The golden goose is cooked.

This may be a wonderful gift for small businesses. So far, event creep has not affected Small Business Saturday. It may turn out that the downfall for Black Friday and Cyber Monday is a boon for small businesses.

For information on how this applies to your business, email Debra at dellis@wilsonellisconsulting.com.

Easy Customer Retention
Customer retention is a company job. People often think that customer acquisition is a marketing function while retention belongs in the service department. Both of those functions are interchangeable because a company that does a good job retaining customers finds it easier to acquire them. Loyal customers keep coming back and bring their friends with them.

Every job description should include customer retention. How your employees conduct themselves on the job and in their private life has a direct effect on people’s perception of your brand. Creating an environment focused on keeping customers coming back improves the stability of your company and reduces cost. Providing quality service is much less expensive than the alternative.

What is quality service?

We know that poor service alienates customers, reduces lifetime value, increases acquisition costs, and escalates operational expenses. We also know that quality service contributes to customer loyalty. The problem is matching service to expectations. To a degree, expectations can be managed. But there is that gap between perception and reality that is very hard to define. Sometimes, the best a company can do is strive for continuous improvement in meeting expectations.

Overall, expectations have changed. There was a time that people expected white glove service almost everywhere. The marketplace has evolved and a new self-serve customer has emerged. Companies that create an environment where people can easily serve themselves have stronger loyalty and lower costs. It turns out that your customers don’t really want to talk to you. They want to complete their transactions and move on with their life. With this in mind, here are a few ways to keep customers happy while reducing costs:

  1. Provide one-stop service. Moving customers from one representative to another like a game of hot potato is the fastest way to lose them. When people have problems, they want them resolved quickly. When people have questions, they want them answered quickly. Train your people well so they can resolve problems and answer questions without transferring customers to someone else.
  2. Make it easy to return purchases. Before you start visualizing mountains of returns, please note this is not an untested recommendation. Making it easy for people to return purchases reduces your operating costs. It does not increase the number of returns. Having clear instructions, preprinted labels, and easy to complete forms streamlines the return process for your company. It also reduces the number of, “how do I do this?” calls and emails.
  3. Offer self-serve options online. People like serving themselves. They want to be in control. Providing online options for them to get their questions answered, start a return process, and troubleshoot issues improves satisfaction and reduces service costs. Make the functionality user-friendly and intuitive. The easier you make it, the happier the customers and the lower the cost.
  4. Keep the promises. Work with the marketing department to define promises before they are shared with customers. Once the promises have been publicized, do everything reasonably possible to keep them. If a promise has to be broken, explain to the customer why, and then tell what you’re going to do to make up for the failure. People understand that things happen. They don’t understand a failure to fix it.
  5. Be grateful. Your customers can choose to spend their money elsewhere. Pricing becomes less of an issue when people feel valued and appreciated. Allow your customer service representatives the time needed to show their appreciation. The effect on your operating costs will be minimal. The effect on your customers will be incredible.

Counting Down to Customer Retention Improving customer retention is the fastest way to more sales and profits. In addition to having a higher lifetime value, loyal customers advocate for your brand. I used to wonder why customer retention wasn’t the top priority for every company. A few years ago, a marketing VP gave me an excellent explanation when asked why resources were not being allocated to customer retention. He said that justifying resource allocation for customer retention was close to impossible because retaining customers was considered a part of the daily job function.

It is presumed that once acquired, customers don’t leave until they die. No one in the boardroom wants to hear a presentation on how many customers were retained. The VP explained that every presentation on customer retention had been followed with one question, “why aren’t you acquiring more customers?” Marketers that acquire customers get bonuses and promotions. There are no rewards for customer retention.

Since hearing his explanation, I’ve noticed the same challenge in many other organizations. Ironically, improving retention has a side effect of increasing acquisition. If challenged to grow a company, I would always start with the existing customer base and build from there. These are people that already know your company and like your products or services. They are more likely to make a purchase than prospects that don’t have buying history.

Starting with customer retention is easy if you have autonomy over the marketing and service departments. If you don’t, you have to work within the constraints provided by your organization. This makes it a little harder, but not impossible. The trick is to start small, generate measurable results, and leverage the information learned into a bigger retention program.

There are things that you can do in marketing that improves retention without involving the service department. They are not expensive or time-consuming. They are effective. Here are some ideas to get you started:

  1. Say “thank you.” Now I’m sure you already say “thank you” every time someone makes a purchase. This “thank you” is different because it is not tied to a specific action or used to generate an action. Send an email to your customers that simply thanks them for their patronage and wishes them well. It’s a breath of fresh air in a sea of promotional messages.
  2. Start a win back program. Choose a segment of your customer file that hasn’t purchased in a while. Send an email telling them that they are missed and offering a good comeback deal. Choosing a deal that matches previous purchases or interests improves response. Make the emails as personal as possible.
  3. Add educational emails to your marketing mix. I’m often asked how many emails are too many. You can’t send too many emails if the messages you are sending are relevant, timely, and helpful to the recipients. Make your educational emails easy to consume with benefits clearly shown. Sending educational emails has an added bonus – people start looking for your messages. This gets your company emails preferential treatment and eliminates the Gmail tab threat.
  4. Become a virtual assistant. Juggling work, family, friends, and everything else in an active life is exhausting. Create emails to remind people of birthdays, anniversaries, special events, and service schedules. Emails that reduce stress are always welcome in the inbox. Create a path of least resistance that leads to your company.
  5. Invite feedback. Listening complaints about service or marketing messages is an uncomfortable but necessary part of the improvement process. When done well, your customers feel valued and your marketing team learns how to improve customer relationships.

Each of these ideas can be implemented in an hour or less if you have the infrastructure in place. If not, start building that infrastructure now so you can capitalize on these inexpensive solutions for improving customer retention. Capture as much information as possible that can be used to get more resources allocated to customer retention.

For more ideas and specific examples on customer retention, check out 31 Ways to Supercharge Your Email Marketing.

email-marketing-renewal-product
Customer retention is essential to companies offering renewal products. Most people don’t think about their insurance or banking until they have an issue that needs resolving or they receive a renewal notice. This makes it easy for the competition to steal your customers.

Your competitors promise lower prices and better services. Both promises are extremely hard to validate. The out-of-pocket price may be lower but the coverage or services are probably not the same. Sorting through contractual agreements to identify the benefits is so difficult that even lawyers find it challenging.

Quality of service is even harder to validate than the price comparisons. How much service do you really get with a certificate of deposit? If you never need to file an insurance claim, how can you say one company is better than another one? If you do file a claim, how do you know the process would be easier with another company? Odds are, there will never be two identical accidents or events. Any attempt to make a comparison is a waste of time.

Customer satisfaction is a matter of perception. If your customers believe that your company cares about them and your pricing is competitive, they’ll never leave. Your objective is to create an environment where customers feel valued and empowered to make good decisions. Regular communication that provides educational information improves retention. An educated customer is a retained customer.

Email is an excellent tool for communicating with customers and prospects. It is relatively inexpensive and can be set up to provide information in a timely manner with minimal maintenance. The top four areas in the customer lifecycle can be improved and managed with email. This includes acquisition, retention, sales, and service. When done well, it reduces operating costs, increases revenue, and improves satisfaction.

Renewal product companies seeking better relationships and longer life spans stay connected with their customers. This keeps people from being tempted by offers of lower prices and better service. To create a comprehensive email marketing strategy that keeps customers coming back:

Identify your customer relationship breaking point. What’s the normal lifespan of your customers? Is there a particular point where customers tend to be lost? Are there specific activities that happen prior to losing customers? Knowing where the relationship breaks is the first step in fixing the problem.

Define your marketing and service benchmarks. Establishing benchmarks creates a baseline so that you can clearly monitor the effectiveness of marketing and retention campaigns. Attributing revenue and retention can be extremely challenging in a global fishbowl and multichannel world. Having benchmarks allows you to see that your campaigns are working even if you can’t specify the most effective areas.

Target your customer pain points. People worry about things. Reducing the stress for your customers makes them want to stay. The news provides content every day that increases stress and gives you topics to discuss with your customers. Choose timely subjects and answer the questions people have before they ask them.

Design a marketing, retention and service campaign for each renewal category. Use the information acquired in reviewing relationship breaking points, benchmarks, and customer pain points to design a comprehensive campaign. It should begin as soon as a new customer is acquired or any existing customer renews.

Optimize outgoing emails to improve deliverability, searchability, and readability. This insures that your emails get to your customers, are available on demand, and are easy to understand. Optimization increases your marketing reach and response. It also makes it easier for smaller companies to compete with larger organizations.

Commit the resources necessary to create and manage effective campaigns. Email marketing and service strategies require a set up process. Once done, emails are like a semi-automatic tool that keeps working with minimal maintenance. Investing in doing it right from the beginning reduces churn rates and keeps your campaigns working well longer.

For specific ideas on creating acquisition, retention, sales, and service campaigns, check out 31 Ways to Supercharge Your Email Marketing.

Making Viral Videos
Viral videos get millions of views but do they really help companies grow? Contributions to the revenue stream are possible when the videos connect with people that use the products or services. Without that connection, a video is little more than entertainment.

It’s hard to remember that the real objective is to sell products and services when creating videos. The allure of virality is too strong. After all, do a few thousand dollars of sales really compare to a million views?

One question I’m asked on a regular basis is, “why aren’t my videos viral?” Here are my top ten answers:

  1. Your target audience is too small. If the only people in the world interested in your video are your parents, don’t expect millions of views.
  2. You didn’t optimize for search. The search engine bots don’t read “video”. Add text filled with good keywords so your videos will show up for the right people. (Don’t bother if the video is for Mom & Dad. Send them an email with a link.)
  3. Your videos don’t fill a need. Viral activity happens when people share content with each other. If there is nothing in your video worth sharing, nothing will happen.
  4. Your PR campaign didn’t work. This usually happens because there ISN’T a PR campaign in place. Contrary to social media lore, reporters don’t spend their days scouring YouTube for videos. (If they did, nothing would ever be reported.)
  5. Your videos are too long. People have the attention span of a gnat these days. Keep videos under four minutes to maximize the exposure.
  6. Your videos are boring. Yep, that’s right, BOOOORRRRRING. Of course it’s almost impossible to make some topics exciting, but give it a try.
  7. You are unlucky. Odds are that you’ll win the lottery or be struck by lightning before you have a viral video. Buy a ticket, get a lightning rod, and make a video. You might as well cover your bases.
  8. You didn’t hire the right SMEE (social media expert extraordinaire). There are people who promise that they will make your videos viral. So you know, those promises aren’t really guarantees, they are more like wishes. If you think that you need a SMEE, read number four again.
  9. You don’t have cats and dancing babies in your videos. It’s a sad but true fact – cute and funny are requirements for viral videos. (Gross and disgusting works too, but who wants THAT associated with their brand?)
  10. You aren’t making and posting videos. The only true guarantee for viral videos is that you won’t have one if you don’t post one. To win it, you have to be in it.

To create winning videos every time, make them interesting, relevant, and helpful for your customers and prospects. Videos that solve problems may not go viral, but they will generate revenue. And, that’s why you are in it. Right?

To learn more about how problem solving improves sales, email Debra at dellis@wilsonellisconsulting.com.

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