Retail Marketing Innovation: 3 Overarching Principles

BE INVISIBLE

Marketers should always avoid technology for the sake of it. Technology is only good as its application, it is a means to an end, it is the organization of a specific knowledge for the achievement of a practical purpose. In short – it has to be viable, accessible and relevant for people.

Retailers should analyze the customer journey of their clients and leverage digital technology to remove specific pain-points. They should develop solutions to real problems. Used correctly, Digital Technology can create moments of magic that leave customers walking away with a lasting memory. But you have to make sure you put people at the center of the equation. Retailers – and marketers in general – should ensure they design experiences capable of simplifying and humanizing technology.

A good strategy is leveraging tools people are already familiar with, in a way that makes technology invisible. For example, many businesses today are building chatbots on Facebook Messenger, so they can hold automated chats with customers that can eventually lead to sales or simply answer customer service requests such as order status. In doing so, they are de facto capitalising on a platform that is actively used by more than a billion users worldwide; other that saving money, getting useful analytics, improving CRM strategies and so on.

BE SEAMLESS

Retailers are more and more dealing with agile customers. People today search broadly, shop anywhere and anytime, and like sharing ideas that feel meaningful to them. We think in the now, are open to novelty and innovation and will change easily if bored, frustrated or enticed. We expect to move seamlessly between platforms, channels, media and devices to search for entertainment, products and services, shop for brands and share experiences. And we want to do this at home, in-store or walking down the street.

We have hit an inflection point where technology is now so pervasive and so useful that we are past the tipping point. And the world of e-commerce and commerce are now just seamlessly merged. It’s not about the phone or the desktop or the store—it’s about all of those.

It is not sustainable anymore for a retailer to think multichannel as people don’t care about channels, they care about brands and they value consistency no matter the touch-point. It is time to go omnichannel. It is time to align digital and physical touch-points, to focus on the overall customer experience, integrating channel-specific KPIs with broader cross-functional objectives. From people’s perspective it means being recognized as the same unique individual on whatever channel they choose, whatever the country they are in on that specific day for that specific need, and having a consistent experience. It is not something easy to achieve and it is also quite complicated to maintain. But best-in-class retailers are already making a significant effort in this direction and people tend to embrace this sort of innovation very quickly.

BE A DESTINATION

In 2016 the daily deal site Groupon released Haves vs. Have-Dones, a video which compared the “Haves” (i.e. people who spend on stuff) and the “Have-Dones” (i.e. people who spend on experiences). Groupon applauded the latter, saying, “If you’re going to own something, own the experience.”.

This is definitely a mature trend if we consider that back in 2000 Jeremy Rifkin explored the same concept. Almost 20 year ago he realised that buying things in markets and owning property were becoming outmoded ideas, while “just in time” access to nearly every kind of service, though commercial networks operating in cyberspace, was becoming the norm.

The bottom line of this idea is that consumers are increasingly seeking experiences instead of just stuff. Clearly this is not what retailers want to hear, as they are exactly in the business of selling stuff. But like it or not, it is happening. Gone are days where you can entice shoppers with merchandise. Since people can pretty much buy anything online, brick-and-mortar merchants must offer experiences that will lure modern customers into the shop. To accomplish you need to think of your location as a destination instead of just a store.

An extreme example in this regard is the Samsung 837 store in New York, a first-of-its kind cultural destination, digital playground and Marketing Center of Excellence, in the heart of the Meatpacking District of New York City. The only products you can buy in the 55,000-foot space is coffee and croissant at the rooftop bar. The point of view of the company is that consumers already have preferred go-tos for buying tech, whether it is Amazon, Best Buy or local mega-shops like B&H. Who needs another store then?