Father’s Day Marketing Ideas
Despite it being a slightly low-key celebratory day, it has gained enough popularity on the social media at least. And hence, capturing a huge section of audience becomes quite easy on different social media platforms. Here are a few ways, you could cater to your employees/audience and market the idea of Father’s day to them:
Promote on Email
Irrespective of your company being the type that celebrates such days or not, or if you don’t specifically cater to the type of audience that does, promoting in-house events related to the day or events that are in correspondence to the same can be promoted within your target audience. Building up on catchy headlines/subjects for such promotional emails are highly likely to attract greater audience.
Team Up
It can be a significantly healthy and fruitful idea to have your company approach local restaurants, eateries, bars and even fitness centers and partner with them and host vents or promote deals and offers that cater to the audience who are likely to be attracted by the same. Some offers such as ‘Bring your dad & the beer’s on us’ or ‘Like father-like son fitness challenge’, etc can prove to quiet a hit amongst younger generations.
Rule on Social Media
Having set up a contest specifically promoting the bond between fathers & children can be a great idea too. Running a contest that encourages people to post selfies of themselves with their father or having to write the funniest incident they shared with their children/father can also turn out to be a successful strategy to grab attention. Having the winners announced & distributing a promotional voucher or even a freebie of your own brand can do the company a whole world of good.
Spoilt for choice
Making your audience/customers part-take in events organised by you that celebrates father’s day & having fun games and rules set up for the same could be quite interesting. Partnering with fashion brands or clothing lines can also be an off-beat option but still quite impressive, though mothers are more likely to be interested in the shopping part, but that’s where it gets better. Your sale/event can have all the members of the family invited and participate in a game that requires them to select pieces of clothing each & the father gets to pick his favorite which can be given to him as a prize or at a discounted rate, etc.
These are some of the fun, interesting and practical ways to market Father’s Day to people in a more economical, interactive and impressive way for a wide range of audience.
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Will AI Replace Traditional Loyalty Programs?
The face of customer loyalty is changing constantly with the increasing cut-throat competition between companies. There are a hell lot of retail options available to customers. So what makes a person choose one over another? And there comes the most basic customer retention techniques- rewards for their loyalty. They have made themselves as Loyalty Rewards Company – a give-away reward to retain their customers. But is it the future? Do customers really want to be engaged in this way only?
The future is Artificial Intelligence. AI will help in gaining a foothold in this very competitive environment. AI consists of speech recognition, natural language understanding for creating better intelligent assistants. They will help customers with accessing information and completing tasks. AI will result in better business processes and customer orientation. The urge is there from customer side to make it more personalized and nothing can do it better with Machine Learning, which is a part of AI. Companies like Nectar are leveraging upon the technology giving their customers more personalized offers and they are very successful. As more customers use their Loyalty Rewards Programs and other digital channels, the better the machine learns about what is relevant for them. Customers are more likely to shop with retailers that deliver more personalized experiences.
Machine learning will totally eliminate the guessing work, it uses the data & analytics to provide the most likely predictions. Loyalty Reward Management programs basically will be utilizing the customer’s prior behavior on certain set of rules. For example, AI facilitates virtual assistants that can monitor the customers on the basis of their engagement in good behavior and then they could be rewarded for it. This reward would lead to more loyal behavior, and all of this will be done without any human interference. Further, this will significantly reduce the marketing cost since they would be targeting only the most relevant customers.
In the very future only, machine learning and AI would be touching every industry and customer loyalty is no different. A Loyalty program company which will use AI and Machine learning will no longer have different teams working on different campaigns for designing and managing offers schemes and discounts for their customers. So, with the help of Machine learning, they would not have to push 200 offers to everyone, but to push 20 offers for 20 type of audience which would have a higher conversion rate with low cost.
Also, the ability to deliver real-time personalized offers based on the ever-learning algorithms will completely replace the traditional loyalty programs. AI will disrupt business functions in nearly every industry. Different loyalty rewards companies are heading towards adopting this technology for better retention of their customers.
Millennials as Customers and How to Gain Their Loyalty
It is the age of the millennials — also commonly known as the Gen Y. This savvy generation not only comprises smart customers, but also include decision makers in top firms. Holding the largest share in the consumer marketplace, they have taken it hands on to change the rules of how brands engage and conduct their customer-experience design. It’s both easy and difficult to gain millennials’ loyalty. But the job is half-done once their tech-savvy psyche is grasped!
1. Customer-facing technology can’t be slow or complicated
Millennials have always embraced and aligned themselves with technology. So a user experience that is not friendly, simple, fast and advanced, is generally frowned upon by consumers. Companies should be careful not to present an obsolete process or a complicated system to consumers that will keep them away.
2. Smartphones have been the norm for millenials
Millennials are used to getting everything immediately and experiencing everything in real time. The queries need to be attended to as soon as possible and in an authentic language; otherwise, the customer moves on to someone else who understands him/her more.
3. Purchasing, for millennials, is a social experience
Engaging on social media is a part of everyday life for millennials. Often, these posts concern their consumption activities, their next purchase or what they might be looking for. This greatly affects businesses — as the opinion and review of one consumer could influence another.
4. Millennials seek an authentic and engaging experience
Which is why the company website should include a FAQ page — how to go about making a purchase, detailed repercussions of what could go wrong, or any sort of guidance. This can be done either through articles or videos — where customers can discover quick-fix methods and find instant solution to all their problems.
5. Interference or help from customer care is considered tedious
This means that they are self-reliant too and do not need customer-care executives getting in the way, just to mess up their whole experience. More often than not, they would prefer self service.
6. Surprisingly, they also want to co-exist
They’re open to new experiences and want to associate with the brand more than with just a transaction. To speak plainly, millennials are adventurous and seek the same from the brand. For example, a cause supported by a favourite company would also be supported by the loyal customers.
The bottom line is that — nothing with the millennials can be taken for granted. The skeptical approach of the previous generations also needs to be done away with. They move fast, like to experiment and are prone to changing loyalties only after one bad experience. It would also be good to know what the target audience is, in order for customer service to be innovative, seamless and top-notch on the whole.
How to get rid of your excess inventory from retail shelves?
Available statistic shows that about 20 to 40% of most business’ capital is tied up in inventory. This portends that any business that mismanages its inventory levels even to a small degree can have a huge challenge on their hands. It can affect their capacity to operate effectively and it can place a huge burden on the Company’s finances. The more inventory any business holds the higher the likelihood of running into costly issues such as tampering, theft, damage and stock excesses, obsolescence and so much more. Also, excess inventory on retail shelves can keep you at the mercy of market fluctuations in commodity value.
Here are things you can do to get rid of excess inventory from retail shelves:
Flow with the Market
When the market value of a good dips significantly below what you paid when you were acquiring them, keeping hold of a sizeable quantity of those goods can affect your business. As any effective inventory manager will admit, there is no way to completely insulate yourself from overstock. However, you can run with a plan that helps you reduce your inventory to optimum levels. This would also aid the financial state of your business and position you for other great prospects.
The major goal of controlling your inventory level is to ensure you have enough to match the fluctuations in customer demand. You do not need to tie your cash in maintaining unnecessary stock. You can reduce inventory by communicating effectively down the supply chain. The engagements at each stage must be in sync and data driven. This will ensure that goods reach your customers without interruption while the safety stock requirements will be kept to a minimum. Some organizations use inventory management software to fulfill this role. Every process manager across the distribution channel is can be properly positioned to work with up to date data which creates effectiveness.
Get rid of surplus or obsolete inventory
Inventory management software can help a business to identify obsolete or surplus inventory. It is important to earmark the most effective way of taking out obsolete inventory. The long term damage of holding in unnecessary stock outweighs the damage of holding on to it in the short term. There are a number of channels which businesses can use to dispose unwanted inventory. The first thing to do is to categorize the stock that needs to be scrapped or thrown away, those that can be sold off and the stock that can be used within the organization.
You can also negotiate the option of returning surplus stock to the supplier. Closeout and special discount offers is a good avenue to increase customer demand and move excess inventory. Goods which are sold at a discount in an International market allow the retailer to get back part of his investment while moving the stock. As a last resort, it may be vital to give the goods to a cause or charity which will create some goodwill in the community or you can simply scrap them.
It is important for a business to invest in running with a good inventory management system. This would help to reduce the challenges in your supply chain while improving your profit margins.
Channels of Engagement at the Point of Sale of consumer goods
It is interesting to talk about a subject that is creating so much buzz across various business circles. There is a lot of evidence that points to businesses enjoying higher sales through active engagement of their point of sales units. The influence of the out of store online activities on in-store purchase decisions is unique and worth a close look. The moment a consumer is about to do a transaction; it is critical to build loyalty and create multiple income channels for your business.
The message of marketers to attract customer interest in various brands has reached a saturation stage. Sadly, this has led to a point of diminishing returns for marketers who operate in various industries. This means that any business that wants to stay ahead of the pack must be able to communicate with its consumers at the right moments in order to win the lion’s share of the customer’s attention.
One of the best ways to engage this opportunity or business dynamic is to envision the engaged consumer as a segment all by itself. Many brands have an opportunity to engage a great number of their clients but are not paying attention to this new trend. It is important to give a high priority to this move in order to draw customers that would be loyal and valuable to your brand in the long term.
Here are 4 of the channels of engagement at the point of sale of consumer goods that is generating the right results:
Text Message promotions
Shoppers can be enticed to enter contests while shopping with the use of an effective text message. It is important to get the buyers’ consent in order to interact with them and build a strong following for your brand through their mobile device. About 67% of individuals do their shopping through a mobile device so this is a channel that must not be overlooked. You can create a trend by telling them the best time to shop while tying it to various store locations where you may want to drive increased sales.
Email Coupon programs
Consumers can register to receive limited time offers and coupons from their favorite brands. They opt in for such messages/communication from in-store promotions, brand websites, text message, mail messages or in response to calls. You can track the conversion rate from this medium and further understand the location from which the consumer makes the purchase. This can help you to build a strong data and dominate the market that you serve.
Brand Websites
Consumers are encouraged to register on the sites and provide important details about themselves. The data would capture their social network profile, information about their household and this can aid the message, research, segmentation or relevance of your sales approach to reach them. This can help you create a stronger engagement with even the most passive customer on your list.
Social Media
Social media connects brands to their customers like no other channel. When this avenue is well harnessed, it can influence the shopper’s behavior and increase the profit margins of any business.
Why Sales Promotion work and some don’t?
Every sales promotion begins with a business or brand making the right offer. This is true of one-time marketing concepts that help in boosting your short-term revenue or expanding your business.
The ideal sales promotion offer needs to have the following components:
1. Align with your competitive edge
2. Creates real value for your clients or customers
3. It is relevant
The usual strategy is to go for conventional offers like Discounts , extra of the same product, a related product by the same company or a freebie of excess inventory. Lets look at each aspect
1. Discounts – these work always, but to a extent. A brand cannot forever be giving discounts and get identified as “discount” brand.
2. Extra of the same product – this is a slightly better strategy than giving discount as it gives a better perceived value to the customer.
3. Get a related product – Good if want to sample your new offering that does not conflict with the existing product category
4. Give a free from your excess inventory – This may save you some monies but could give the customer a wrong impression if not communicated right.
The new approach to sales promotions is to catch the fancy (and the spend) of your customers by giving them something which is aspirational and has a much higher perceived value. Two things stand out:
1. Offer a service – Run a promotion that rewards the customer with something exciting that matches the target profile like Movies, a spa experience or mobile recharge .Something that gives instant gratification and has a high perceived value and is relevant
2. Sweepstakes with assured gift – Everybody loves to win. An assured prize giveaway with a chance to win a grand prize appeals to all. A sure win gives instant gratification and gets the brand love and a chance to win big like a car / mobile phone / dream holiday keeps them engaged .
When you have decided on the sales promotion plan that you want to implement, it is important to prop up its message and communicate effectively. This is the point where many businesses miss it in their campaigns and marketing efforts. This failure usually happens in two ways:
- They do not effectively promote their program to their clients and potential customers
- They use the wrong message or marketing tools to reach their audience
- The rewards are not exciting enough
- It’s not easy to get the free gift
A close look at the first point shows that the default sales promotion drive of most businesses is to advertise. However, advertising adds to the expense that an organization incurs. The cost of running a media campaign is high and the returns may not justify the investment made. Research shows that price-sensitive shoppers may be attracted by an advert but may not return to consummate the purchase or transaction.
There are effective ways to drive sales promotion and some of them would be discussed below.
Use your Store effectively: It is ideal to make full use of your store signage to woo buyers to the products you have on offer. The employees can strengthen the stakes by mentioning the promotion to your customers. Employee stickers/tags/buttons can talk about the promotion while promotional flyers can also do a good job. Reminders on receipts or the use of an inexpensive sticker or rubber stamp can help to drive the best returns for your business.
Embrace the Internet: You can give a strong voice to your Sales promotion by highlighting it on the main page of your website. You can create a page that talks about your promotion and draw in a strong following by offering freebies which can help you build lists for future marketing efforts.
The Telephone: Your employees can harp on the promotion to anyone that calls your business or you can change your answering machine message to let customers know about what you are doing.
Email – You are sending out hundreds of emails everyday. Add the promotion to the footer. Its zero cost free media.
There are other powerful media which you can harness to generate the right results for your sales promotion. They include Flyer distribution, use of conventional media and word of mouth. It is important to get the word to as many people as you can through these channels. It is vital to mention that you can have a great sales promotion plan but without a strong marketing base to drive it; no one will know about it and this can lead to failure.
The best sales promotion is simply anchored on understanding your market and driving your plan to bring the returns you desire. There is a thin line between success and failure in this range but following some of the rules listed above would get the job done for you.
Effective Promotional Marketing
There is one Marketing question that always begs a detailed answer – What is the right way to go about planning a product promotion activity? It’s easier asked than answered. Over the many years that we have been working with Marketing divisions across Industry types, we have actually drawn up a list of 10 important issues that Managers must consider while planning a Promotion. While they may not be in Chronological order, each point jostles for attention. This is an attempt to assist the Marketing manager build a template for every promo; remember every promo needs the same amount of consideration before an idea is finalized.
1. Identify the Role of Incentivization
Providing added value to customers by making available an “incentive” instantly influences purchase. If the customer is convinced that he is getting more than the value he is spending on the product, it will persuade him further to make the purchase. The strategy lies in convincing the customer that he will not only receive the worth of his rupee but also supplementary benefits. These incentives may be in the form of free samples, gifts, discount coupons, demonstrations, shows, contests etc. All these measures motivate the customers to buy more and thus, it increases sales of the product. The promotion must be able to change the perceived value or price of the product or service.
2. Communicate with your consumer – offline & online.
Social media, smart-phones and the Internet are the buzzwords of marketing of the future. The customer is becoming more and more technology-friendly and accustomed to the ways of approaching products through these media. By making product promotions accessible via such media, the customers are significantly encouraged to utilize the benefits offered to them. Not only do these media influence the behavior of the customers, it is the swiftest and most effective way of reaching out to your befitting target-audience.
3. Collect, manage & nurture data.
Sales promotions are not only effective in the acquisition of new customers but also in the retention of your existing customer-base. It is essential to recognize the significance cultivating a relationship with your existing customer-base. In-order to develop and nurture relationships, it is important to firstly collect and create powerful databases. Secondly, they must be managed to eliminate unusable data in order to effectively target the usable database. The customers must be made to feel their value in the company in order to extract long term loyalty.
4. Be relevant
Sales Promotions must not only be relevant to the type of product being sold but must also suit the needs of the target-audience. If the customers are able to relate to the promotion being offered are able to comprehend it effortlessly, then the chances of the promotion resulting into a sale are higher. The sales promotion must also be able to hit the consumer at a particular behavioral stage.
5. Make sure to Customize and localize
The promotions offered must be customized to suit the requirements of the customer with regards to their demographics and psychographics. The promotions must be also be designed according to the attitude & behavior of the target-audience. They must be able to provide instant gratification on a temporary basis in-order to convince the customer to take immediate and simplistic action to achieve results of the offer.
6. Clarify objective and provide tangible benefit.
The customer will only be convinced to make the purchase of the product if they feel the value they are receiving is more than the amount they are spending. The customers must be able to measure the added value they receive along with the purchase. By offering clear objectives of the promotion, the brand is able to foster a trustworthy relationship with the customer – which is key in terms of long-term loyalty benefits.
7. Maintain timing, duration and frequency
Sales Promotions if introduced at a appropriate time can yield greater results. India is a very time driven economy; festivals, occasions and seasons are great influencers in the consumer’s purchase decisions. The promotions must be able to provide the customers with instant gratification over a temporary period and must not be repeated too often, as the customers will then be unable to differentiate the added value of these offers in comparison to the original product.
8. Engage your customer
The customer wants to be felt important and appreciated; and if the brand recognizes this need of the consumer and nurtures it, they can witness groundbreaking results. The brand must endeavor to involve the customer in promotional activities as much as possible. Any activity that engages the customer to interact with the brand – for instance contests, sweepstakes or coupons will instantly appeal to the customer’s psyche and induce a sense of association and bonding with your product.
9. Integrate sales promotion with the communication strategy
Sales promotion is an aspect of a promotional mix that includes –advertising, personal selling, direct marketing and public relations. While sales promotion is an effective tool itself, it must be used in accordance and relation to the other tools of the marketing strategy as well. Once the promotions are complemented by the other elements of the promotional mix, the efficiency of this tool will automatically be intensified.
10. Integrate sales promotions with social media
Sales Promotions must be run on social media such as _ Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare. Linkedin and Pinterest. Sufficient word of mouth is generated via social media that not only increases awareness but also heightens reach of the promotions. Integration with social media immensely intensifies the effectiveness of the campaign. The reach of social media must not be overlooked and must be used effectively to create viral effect.
Customer Engagement in 2015 & Beyond
A customer is not an interruption to our work, but the purpose of it. There may be a controversy about who quoted this, but the inherent truth in the statement can never be contested. Companies spend millions of dollars every year to attract customers, yet they manage to retain very few. Technology can help to bridge the communication gap between customers and brands, yet it threatens to make them lose the human touch. To quote an example from our everyday lives- how many of us have the patience to wait on the IVR until our call is connected to a human customer service representative?
Here’s what every business needs to do in order to engage customers in 2015 and retain them for years to come:
1. Know your customers and know him well
When Wally Urtz, a store manager at the Food Emporium in Hastings-on-Hudson, a New York City suburb was transferred to a nearby suburb, the entire village of around 8000 people rallied around him. A manager may seem to be an unlikely person to set off such an emotional outburst, but he represents ‘a dying breed that is being replaced by something that people are resentful to and very unhappy about because the human element is missing’, quotes an article about him in the New York Times (October 26, 2003). Incorporating the human touch in our business isn’t difficult. Simple steps like calling clients, sending them letters/emails, or meeting them in person can go a long way in knowing customers and making them feel special.
2. Personalize the experience by using technology to automate communication in a scalable way:
Technology can be used to automate communication. This can be tackled by creating interactive documents and integrating elements such as drop down menus, data feeds, etc.
3. Emotionally engage…its beyond offers and discounts now:
Companies are obsessively fighting the price war, yet customers are more fickle than ever. Only those that can move beyond the price tag zone and create real value for customers can survive. As earlier said, know your customers well. And use this information to surprise them and personalize their experience. A discount driven approach cannot sustain for long, but one driven by customer loyalty can. To be successful in customer engagement, make sure that you tweak your business model to rely on loyalty.
3. Engage across channels:
A typical modern day customer refers to not less than 6 to 7 communication channels before deciding on a product. Some of them include website content, in store, or social media. Businesses should ensure that information passed through each of these channels shouldn’t be conflicting or ambiguous. Technology can help in this regard by standardizing enterprise wide systems, thereby allowing companies to send out branded messages via emails, SMS’s etc.
4. Mobile engagement is most effective…get this right:
Smartphone searches are all set to replace desktop search. Companies are now busy exploiting this trend with location based messages and mobile ads, incorporating mobile SEO and adapting a responsive web design.
5. Reward them for actions…even the simplest one:
Don’t we all thrive on attention? Rewarding customers with small surprises can go a long way in creating brand loyalty and increasing customer retention.
6. Make customers feel like a VIP:
The easiest way to show that you value customers is by being polite. Words such as ‘thank you’ and ‘please’ often seem insignificant until someone stops using them. Get to know customers interests and wants by using technology such as Google Think Insights and include these habits by publicizing and praising them openly.
7. Use technology effectively…build or outsource, but do it:
Technology can be used to get your message across its intended audience. Webinars can be hosted on topical issues, using QR codes, Wi-Fi targeting and arranging virtual meetings are some of the things that businesses can do. If adapting to technology seems an overwhelming task or if you are starved of time, outsourcing is a good option.
8. Use the Internet of Things to engage:
Market researchers have predicted that by 2020, more than 212 billion devices are likely to be connected through IoT. To explain IoT in a nutshell, this is a technology that enables people to connect everyday physical objects to the internet, enabling them to communicate with other devices and even transfer data. With IoT, you’d never run out of grocery supplies because your fridge could be preprogrammed to monitor stock and send a message to the local grocer automatically.
9. Participatory engagement- involve customer in your next product development:
A new product development need not necessarily involve inventing something new. More often than not, it involves modifying an existing product by eliminating its limitations. Involving customers in this process not only results in better customer engagement, but also ensures that the end result is in line with customer expectations.
Customer engagement needs patience and creativity. Creating brand loyalty is the ultimate goal because this is directly linked to profitability. But without maintaining a fine balance, your efforts are likely to backfire, because you may end up overwhelming him. There may be different ways of engaging a customer, but at the end of the day the main aim of every strategy is to create happy consumers who can promote your products to one and all.