What's my business?

Many people I speak with are hesitant to embrace processes they feel are outside their core business.  But what does that mean?  I am not saying a hardware store should start selling perfume, or that a car dealership should begin carrying home furnishings.  What I am saying is don't be afraid to look at every aspect of your business to see where you can impact sales.
Target Corp. is attributing its sales surge online in part to its move to drop shipping fees for all online purchases until Dec 20. Thanksgiving saw a 40 percent surge in Target's online sales and was its biggest online sales day ever.
So is shipping Target's core business?  No, but they looked at the entire customer experience and found an improvement that had an ancillary impact on their business and drove a 40 percent increase.

What could you do with a 40% increase?

SMB

I can’t tell you how many small business owners have told me that they don’t need to advertise because customers “will just come”.  Why do they feel that way?  I think I have the answer after all these years;

When a person opens a business, it’s not a spur of the moment thing.  They have probably spent a good deal of time thinking about it.   Then they begin to gather money to fund the new business.  Then they rent or buy a space, send time and money and physical effort getting it ready and stocking it with what they need to sell.

Then they open, after what might have been 2 or 3 years of investment in time and dollars.  No wonder many business owners feel ready for some kind of payoff.  Unfortunately that is not usually the case.  Even though you have given birth to this enterprise through lots of blood sweat and tears, to the marketplace you are simply another entry to consider when making a purchase decision.  Further more you are a dark horse in the race because being new, no one has heard of you or knows what and how your product or service delivered and what the customer experience will be.  Again, unfortunately for them, customer experience is the number indicator that a new customer will come to your store…and you don’t have much in the way of customer experience to show off because you haven’t had many customers.

Advertising can help. It can show potential new customers what you’re all about.  What they can expect in doing business with you.  Like a colleague of mine always says, ‘Business goes where business is invited’.  Even after you are up and running well, do you market?  Let me answer that question with a question, have you seen a McDonald’s ad lately?  Ford? Budweiser Beer?  Yes, and most likely it wasn’t that long ago, because even household names in business know that their competitors are out there trying to gain customer share.  And so are yours.

Mom...is that you?

Just another example of how targeted advertising had become....

 

 

 

 

NEW MOMS GOING MOBILE

Mobile devices are increasing their role in moms’ lives across the board when it comes to shopping, especially with regard to purchasing new products, according to the

BabyCenter U.S. Mobile Mom 2014 Report: Small Screens’ Big Influence on Moms’ Path to Purchase. BabyCenter, a pregnancy and parenting website, conducted the study, which reveals a significant uptick (26%) in mobile’s influence on moms buying new products and testing new brands, rising from 47% in 2013 to 59% in 2014.

With moms on the go, smartphones in hand, the

study finds that a majority (79%) use their mobile device specifically for shopping while in-store. Of those who shop in-store with their phones, nearly three-quarters (73%) said they used their phone to comparison shop while in a mass retailer, 35% in a supermarket or grocery store, and 22% in a discount wholesaler.

When asked which types of products they shopped for in the past six months using their mobile phone, moms cited clothing, shoes, and accessories as the top category (54%), followed by toys, books, and games for children (43%), and food and beverage (38%). The latter category,

including grocery shopping overall, also was a significant spark for another type of smartphone use by moms – mobile couponing. More than 1 in 3 mobile-shopping moms (34%) said they used their mobile devices for coupons while purchasing groceries.

Coupons also proved to be a key feature in mobile
advertising, according to the study’s findings. Nearly three-quarters of moms polled (72%) stated that the inclusion of a coupon was the most appealing feature in mobile advertising, marking a 36% jump in this opinion compared to 2013, when just 53% of moms said that coupons were important in garnering their interest in a mobile ad.

White Pages go Dark

Centurylink has asked for and received an exemption from the MN public utilities commission so they no longer need to print and distribute a white pages phone book.    The PUC voted unanimously to allow them, and soon other phone providers, to skip the process that generally ends at the recycling bin.  The reasons are pretty simple; first off the rise of online directories makes the white pages unneeded.  But more importantly, the land line business is also going the way of the dinosaur.  40% of American homes don’t have one, and since cell phones are not listed in the white pages, which means you can’t find any info on 40% of folks you may be trying to reach.

Why is that important to you as a business trying to find customers?  It just shows the pervasive nature of our mobile culture.  A new study released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project finds that for the first time, a majority of American adults, 56 percent,  own smartphones. 35% have mobile phones that aren't smartphones, with 9 percent owning no cell phone at all.  Now what do you think? I think that I would like to make sure any banner ads I run have a mobile component to them and that my website has a mobile compliant version there for my customers looking for me that way.  The trend will not reverse.  Mobile bandwidth is the currency of many communications companies and it gets more valuable every day.  Get on board or stay at the station.  But you won’t be able to call anyone to come get you; they took out the pay phones years ago. 

A Quick Thought

How do you find customers?  When you do marketing there are two schools of thought.  First off, you try to create audiences.  This would be like content or event marketing.  Where you develop something interesting and gather a crowd to watch it then sell them your products or service.  The second school of thought, is you chase audience.  This is going to a place where the is already a crowd gathered and messaging to them.  This is where lots of media comes in.  Radio stations play songs, TV shows programs and newspapers write articles.  Content creators on the Internet develop all manner of interesting things to attract people.  The issue comes in crowd sizes.  The Internet creates smaller, fast moving audiences.  One day it's a grumpy cat, then next day it's Alex from Target.  They are harder to hit because by the time you develop a message for them they've moved on.  Chasing audiences is hard, but probably more rewarding you just have to move fast to do it.

Cord Cutter redefined

NOT NOW, BUT WHEN THEY GET A JOB

New research from Parks Associates reveals some surprising findings about the media consumption trends and attitudes of college students. Yes, they watch of lot of on-demand digital video now, including some television programs, and not so much linear TV—but that’s because of their hectic school schedules. Many think that will change when they move into the working world and have a more fixed schedule.

Asked about future viewing plans, nearly two-thirds of students said they expect their habits to change once they leave college, although there was no consensus on exactly what their future video consumption habits will be. The largest group said they expect their total viewing to stay about the same, but among the sizeable group who said they expect to watch more TV programming the main reason given was that they expect to have more free time to watch TV and a schedule that is better aligned with linear TV programming. "Many note that they will watch the news more often on TV in the future," the report said.

"These findings suggest that many of these college students will sign up for a pay-TV or online video service after graduation," the report said. "However, there will be a persistent minority of college students who simply do not have adequate interest in TV to subscribe."

In their present situation, the vast majority of the college students surveyed either own a TV or have easy access to one. A majority even have access to a pay-TV service, although few pay for it themselves or get to choose what services are purchased. They like viewing programs on a larger TV screen, but because of their schedules, the students tend to do most of their viewing on a computer screen. Many also watch videos on their smartphones, but say the screen is too small to fully enjoy the experience.

"Video service providers can lay the groundwork for future business by engaging students while still in college," Parks Associates says. Young consumers have grown up in a world where time- and place-shifting of content are a given. To win them over pay-TV providers have to build value beyond just aggregating channels and competing on price. And content producers need to cultivate audience-building and program branding. It suggests that apps, social networking second-screen experiences and other tools are now key components.

I've been bad again!

Between life and work I’ve been so busy, I have neglected my blog.  I’ve tried to calendarize it, prioritize it, and maximize my effort to it.  To no avail. 

So the president thinks we should make the internet a public utility.  Somehow this will ease pricing and increase speed.  What might the reality of it be?  Let’s look at public utilities.  Two that come to mind are electric and natural gas.  So when was the last time you were pleased about your natural gas bill?  Yah, me too.  But what about electric?  It has been said for decades that the power grid is dangerously antiquated and in need of updates.  The innovation isn’t exactly flowing out like a river from energy groups.  So why would you want to take possibly the single greatest innovation since electricity and turn it into a bureaucracy?  Do you think the munificent folks at Google would run all that fiber if it was capped on pricing? 

People are worried about ‘fast lanes’ being created and them being left outside with dial up speed.  But fast lanes are not about how fast internet comes into your home.  It’s about how fast Netflix and other internet dwellers get on to the internet.   

Another argument that is with ISPs getting larger, innovation will somehow be stifled.  Yet with Amazon, Hulu and Netflix taking more than their fair share of bandwidth, where do the smaller operators fit in?  Especially when there is no incentive to improve speeds because everything is set and mediocre might just be good enough.  I think there’s a better way.