CRM

“You! In Waterstones! I’m watching you…”

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We follow a fella called Chris Brogan (author of an excellent book called Trust Agents) on Twitter and via one of his (many) blogs.

He recently tried a bit of an experiment.

  • He searched on Twitter for the words,“I’m at Barnes & Noble” (a US Bookshop like Waterstones) , which came from a FourSquare check-in.
  • He then went through the list of results checking the profiles of the Twitterers.
  • For those users who fitted his profile, he  sent them a direct message asking them if they’d seen his book, (and instructions on where to find it)
  • This, naturally, started a dialogue with them, because it was the author talking directly to them!

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To be free, or not to be free…

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We hear there is a new book coming out by Saul J Berman, the lead partner for Innovation In IBM called “Not for Free”.

If you have read “Free” by Chris Anderson (founder of Wired magazine), you might want to have a look at Berman’s new book.

We’re huge advocates of the ‘Freemium’ model Anderson talks about in his book, but, obviously, business is about collecting money and free stuff is only one step towards that.

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Do you REALLY want to get more customers?

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Ok. I’ll admit this is a counter-intuitive question, but let me expand.

Now that your potential customers can evaluate, compare and review your offers easily over the Internet, (and, especially easy using social media like forums) you probably find more and more of your new customers are price sensitive.

Fine. Who cares? They’re putting money in the till, yes?

Well actually, you should care.

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Not all customers are equal

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In fact, using Pareto rule, we know 80% of your profits usually come from just 20% of your customers.

However, Tesco and other big retailers are beginning to realise that it might be more like a 95:5 ratio.

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The Future of Loyalty Schemes – Part 2

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This is Part 2 of this article. See Part 1 here.

The biggest objection we come across when building these campaigns is that the business has not got time to hand craft offers for every single consumer.

And this is valid.

It would not be a good use of business owners’ time to create thousands of offers all dependent on complicated combinations & permutations of data. Instead, the smart marketeers segment their data to create a few general behaviour profiles, for which they can formulate specific offers.

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The Future of Loyalty Schemes – Part 1

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This is Part 1. See Part 2 here.

I think we can now all agree that loyalty schemes are here to stay.

Whether it’s a Clubcard, a Nectar card or even a ‘Hi-Life’ dining card, loyalty schemes have become a part of our culture, and they play an increasingly large part in shaping our buying behaviour.

It may not be a surprise to learn that Tesco are leading the development of the next generation of loyalty schemes. They are pioneering joined-up, intelligent schemes that not only reward loyalty, but influence future buying behaviour with highly relevant vouchers & offers for high-margin items that the shopper has previously bought (but, often, and this is key, not for a while).

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The Only Way That Local Retailers Can compete With Tesco…..

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Back in October, the UK’s largest independent chain of Green Grocers, Stokes, went into administration.

Media coverage suggests that Stokes was just another High Street casualty in a losing battle with Tesco and the other big chains. Whilst there is little doubt that increased competition from low price driven super markets contributed to administration, this doesn’t tell the full story.

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