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How Brands Like Fabletics Are Enabling Better Customer Recognition Through Synched CRM https://ift.tt/2OgIGp8 As personalization and recognition across channels becomes a greater expectation among shoppers, more and more retailers have turned to customer relationship management (CRM) technology for assistance. Leading innovators are creating systems that ‘log’ customers into physical stores to trigger recommendations and in-store activations, as well as inform assistants to deliver personalized service, all while simultaneously syncing customer experiences both on- and offline. From PSFK and Microsoft’s Retail Trends Playbook 2020, here are three examples that demonstrate how brands are investing in channel-to-channel software to optimize fluidity in their customer cycles: Nike House of Innovation 000 Alibaba x Guess Fabletics 55% of shoppers say retail experiences are disconnected across channels. For more ways that leading retailers are addressing this issue and building better retail experiences, download PSFK’s Retail Trends Playbook 2020, made in partnership with Microsoft. Lead image: stock photos from Iakov Filimonov/Shutterstock As personalization and recognition across channels becomes a greater expectation among shoppers, more and more retailers have turned to customer relationship management (CRM) technology for assistance. Leading innovators are creating systems that ‘log’ customers into physical stores to trigger recommendations and in-store activations, as well as inform assistants to deliver personalized service, all while simultaneously syncing customer experiences both on- and offline. From PSFK and Microsoft’s Retail Trends Playbook 2020, here are three examples that demonstrate how brands are investing in channel-to-channel software to optimize fluidity in their customer cycles: Mobile Marketing via PSFK http://www.psfk.com/ March 22, 2019 at 05:31AM
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Digital Marketing News: B2B Content Effectiveness Study, Modern Marketing Skills, & Influencer Social Benchmarks https://ift.tt/2WiLapX The post Digital Marketing News: B2B Content Effectiveness Study, Modern Marketing Skills, & Influencer Social Benchmarks appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®. Mobile Marketing via Hubspot https://ift.tt/2wiHYzh March 22, 2019 at 05:30AM
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Why Marketers Need to Care About Blockchain With Joel Comm and Travis Wright https://ift.tt/2TQryN5 The post Why Marketers Need to Care About Blockchain With Joel Comm and Travis Wright appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®. Mobile Marketing via Hubspot https://ift.tt/2wiHYzh March 21, 2019 at 01:01PM How Instagram Will Change Search, Path To Purchase https://ift.tt/2ukzNlp
Burberry, Michael Kors, Nike, Warby Parker, and Zara are among the 20 companies that participated in the initial rollout of Checkout. The move, which allows consumers to buy products from participating brands without leaving the app, aims to bridge the gap between the ability to discover the products and make purchases. Search engines have strength in what's known as discovery shopping, but completing the transaction has never been a strong point, mainly because brands decline to give up the ownership of the data. When making a purchase on Instagram, consumers need to enter their name, email, billing information and shipping address the first time they check out. After that the information is saved to the site. advertisement advertisement Perhaps the industry should re-categorize Instagram as a discovery or search engine, or a marketplace — a cross between Amazon and Google or Bing. With the growth of visual search across Google and Microsoft Bing, I can eventually see a similar service becoming available directly from search results. Perhaps that’s what meant when experts say search engines have become the website for brands. Google did launch Shopping Actions in beta last year to allow brands to serve up their products across numerous Google properties, but mostly connected to the Google Express platform. The products serve up in the search results, but the transactions occur in Google Express. Still, it's not quite the same as Instagram. I’m still waiting for Bing to enter this market. It’s evident in several examples of how the Bing team integrates machine learning and artificial intelligence into the search experience. Most recently Microsoft’s engine rolled out improvements to its visual search capabilities, which let people find and discover information using an image. Using a photo of a table, for example, Bing can serve up visually similar images, along with purchase options at different prices if the item is available online. The feature also automatically detects and places clickable hotspots above important objects. The visual search capabilities such as object detection are quick and automatic using NVIDIA GPUs for inferencing, which yield higher processing efficiency compared with CPU-powered inference, according to the post. Clickable hotspots could support the financial transaction, but also put the search engines in a precarious position. Not only with monetary gains, but also data. It does seem a likely move. Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile https://ift.tt/2oB2PsH March 21, 2019 at 11:26AM
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Robert Rose Shares How to Add Purpose & Focus Back Into Your Content Strategy at SMMW https://ift.tt/2OlRkD6 The post Robert Rose Shares How to Add Purpose & Focus Back Into Your Content Strategy at SMMW appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®. Mobile Marketing via Hubspot https://ift.tt/2wiHYzh March 21, 2019 at 10:38AM USIM Stumbles Upon Single-Source Solution For Measuring Retail Traffic Redefines Trading Zones3/21/2019 USIM Stumbles Upon Single-Source Solution For Measuring Retail Traffic, Redefines Trading Zones https://ift.tt/2HMIWef Independent media services agency USIM has been on a new business tear, and it turns out that at least part of the reason is a new proprietary method it has developed that enables retail marketers to create and target customers based on customized trading zones. While trading areas are a fundamental part of the marketing and media strategy for most retailers, they historically have been defined by geo-demographic clusters, or more recently in the digital age, by geolocation data derived from services that aggregate anonymized data from users’ mobile apps. The problem with that aggregate data, says USIM Director of Analytics and Insights Rob Jayson, is “it’s very dirty.” “It’s a lot of overlapping data signals that doesn’t represent a single person,” he explains. USIM stumbled upon what effectively is a “single-source” solution while working with a company that opts users into its own application in order to conduct surveys. advertisement advertisement Jayson was reluctant to disclose the provider for proprietary reasons, but he said the company has more than three million explicit users who opt in to receive rewards in exchange for participating in marketing surveys. Those users also provide their demographic profiles, so in addition to seeing how people travel to and from retail locations, USIM can attribute demographic information to them, which is important for refining media targeting, since all of the data is non-PII (personally identifiable information). While the database is not as big as the scale offered by geolocation data providers like PlaceIQ, Placed, Ground Truth and SITO Mobile, Jayson says it provides a much cleaner, single-source view of how consumers travel during their retail journeys. As a result, USIM is able to dramatically refine and improve the way it defines the trading areas for retail marketers to more precisely match the actual travel patterns of their customers. He says USIM does not utilize that data for targeting and buying media, because the database isn’t scaled enough to be stable for media-buying purposes. But once it defines and customizes each retailer’s optimum trading areas, it works with the programmatic media-buying platforms powered by the commercial geolocation data platforms to target individuals. “The end result is a much more efficient deployment of programmatic and OTT (over-the-top) and other media we can buy with geo tags that is much more efficient in driving traffic to stores,” Jayson says. To date, Jayson said USIM has found considerable improvements in “lift,” or the indicators agencies and clients use to measure the performance of their media buys. He said there so far have been “huge variations” depending on the nature of a retail client, and that they have ranged from improvements of 10% to 50%, but that the rule of thumb tends to be in the “10% to 15%” incremental improvement range. The method -- which USIM has trademarked “PurView” -- currently is only available to USIM clients, and the agency attributes it as being a key part of its recent new business wins with retail clients such as the Crunch fitness centers and West Coast retail chain Howard’s. USIM cannot say whether the method is a unique innovation, but President-Eastern Region Russell Zingale says the feedback it has gotten from clients in new business pitches seems to indicate it may be. “That’s what they’re telling us,” he says, adding that clients mention other solutions utilize aggregate geolocation data, but that PurView is one of the reasons they are moving business to USIM. “We think they’re leaving a lot of money on the table,” Zingale says of previous trading zone approaches. “And if we can return it to clients or reinvest it in buying more media for them, we think we can make a real difference.” Zingale says USIM has mainly been using the method for new clients, but it’s in the process of rolling out to its incumbent roster too. He says it has no plans to license or syndicate it. Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile https://ift.tt/2oB2PsH March 21, 2019 at 09:25AM App Retargeting Biz Soars For Google, Facebook https://ift.tt/2upjtj7 Google’s app retargeting business is on fire. During the second half of 2018, the search giant saw its share of the app retargeting landscape jump by about 190%, according to mobile attribution firm AppsFlyer. Of course, Facebook remains the biggest app retargeter and the top network for mobile apps overall. Compared to Facebook, Google did experience higher growth in non-gaming apps during the period, which AppsFlyer attributed to Google’s search intent model. Despite still operating in the shadows of Facebook and Google, AppLovin secured third place in gaming rankings. The mobile marketing firm’s share of the gaming app install pie has done nothing but grow over the past two years. When it comes to driving gaming app installs, ironSource almost doubled its market share during the period, while Unity Ads held its fourth position in the universal power ranking in the gaming category overall. (That's compared to ironSource’s fifth position.) advertisement advertisement Among the networks to see the biggest changes were Snap, which rose to fourth place from ninth in the non-gaming ranking, while declining from the top spot to the 12th spot in casual games. Among the networks appearing in AppsFlyer’s previous Growth Index -- which showcases performance of up-and-coming media sources in a specific region -- 40% saw absolute negative growth, while 10% remained in the rankings of the current and previous editions of the Index. Also of note, app install fraud remained high — about 30% worldwide — which impacted some of AppsFlyer’s rankings. Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile https://ift.tt/2oB2PsH March 21, 2019 at 07:06AM Interview: How Telemedicine Platform Rory Is Extending Digital On-Demand Care To Menopausal Women3/21/2019
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Interview: How Telemedicine Platform Rory Is Extending Digital, On-Demand Care To Menopausal Women https://ift.tt/2ulueD7 As telemedicine continues to grow in popularity, the space remains focused on millennials and, therefore, the health issues that younger people tend to face—often leaving older demographics out of the picture. Taking advantage of this opportunity, the startup behind men’s healthcare platform Roman, focused on treating more sensitive issues like erectile dysfunction, is launching Rory, a telehealth provider that connects women with online doctors. Centered around the symptoms that menopausal and perimenopausal women experience, Rory strives to offer education, support and treatment from certified physicians, ranging from supplements to prescription medications. PSFK spoke to Rory co-founder Rachel Blank to learn more about the platform and how it achieves its goal of empowering women with access to the resources, treatment and community they need to take control of their own health. PSFK: Could you explain how you became interested in the women’s health care space? Rachel: I grew up around women’s health. My dad is an OB GYN in Washington, D.C. That interest deepened for me when I went through my own experiences with the health care system, and with women’s health issues. I was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome when I was about 22. It’s a hormonal imbalance that causes symptoms similar to what you might experience in menopause, as that also is a result of hormonal changes. I had been experiencing symptoms for years, but never really thought twice about it, even though my dad is a gynecologist. I had an abdominal sonogram. The sonographer said, “Did you know you have PCOS? You have cysts all over your ovaries.” I said, “No.” I had no idea. That was this jarring moment of learning that there was something very off with my body that I didn’t know about. What’s really crazy to me is that 1 in 10 women has PCOS, and yet there’s really not a lot of education about it. When I was first diagnosed, I experienced that scary feeling of, “What does this mean for me? Am I some sort of freak because I have this?” That doesn’t need to be the case. I was lucky enough to have a father who was a physician, whom I can call at any time that I have a question. The older I got, the more I realized that most women don’t have that. They don’t have a person that they can call at 2:00 AM if they’re freaked out about something. I met the Ro team when I was working at General Catalyst and saw them pitch when General Catalyst was leading their seed rounds. With Roman, was that there was that personal connection to the brand. They knew that in order to serve women properly, they would need somebody who actually understood what it was like to be a woman with a health care issue going through the health care system. That was where I joined—to build Rory off of the Ro platform. Out of my own experiences, Rory was built to serve the needs of women going through perimenopause and menopause. The biggest population of women going through hormonal changes are women in perimenopause and menopause. There are over 40 million women in that age demographic, between ages 45 and 65, right now. The great thing is, every single woman will be going through perimenopause or menopause at some point. We built Rory to serve the needs of this huge population of women who are going through a time in their lives that’s completely natural and completely normal, and yet can feel scary because people don’t talk about it very much. How do you feel existing brands or health care companies were failing to serve this large demographic of women? We were having a lot of conversations with women going through menopause. Though I have my personal experience going through PCOS and understanding what hormonal changes feel like, it was really important to me to listen to women going through perimenopause and menopause to understand their their needs. What we kept hearing was that women felt unprepared. There is no textbook on menopause. Most people who started experiencing the symptoms, just like I did when I experienced PCOS symptoms, had no idea what it was. They thought maybe they were pregnant. They thought that maybe just something weird started happening with their period. A lot of doctors are not actually trained in menopause. Τhe majority of women are never actually treated for any symptoms of menopause. A lot of that comes down to this lack of education and lack of awareness. If we look at what’s been happening in the telemedicine space, where it has fallen short a bit is that a lot of the companies involved are addressing the needs of the younger consumer. They ignore this entire population of older women. Maybe it’s because we have this image of an older woman not being tech savvy. If you think about it though, they’re all women like my mom—using Uber, staying in Airbnbs, shopping online, and they deserve the extended access to care and information that everyone else is getting through telemedicine. That is why we built RORY—to meet the needs of the modern woman going through menopause. PSFK: How is Rory attempting to combat this stigma and lack of education that exists around women’s health? Rory is addressing the lack of education and stigma in a few ways. The first is we will not speak about symptoms in a way that sugarcoats them or is patronizing. If you have vaginal dryness, we will say, “vaginal dryness.” We will say the word vagina, which I know is uncomfortable for some people to say. My hope is that by saying the word vagina over and over, people will become comfortable with it. I grew up with my dad saying the word. He’s say, “It’s a medical body part.” That’s the message that we need to be sharing with the rest of the world. The second is, at the end of the day, Rory is about providing support and education. In addition to the solutions that we offer, which are all treatments that were designed by a team of medical experts, we have an all-female medical advisory board who are also leading experts in women’s health. We have a former surgeon general, leading OB GYN on our medical advisory team, as well as a team of physicians actually treating the women on our platform who all have special training in women’s health. All of the treatments that we offer were designed by those physicians. On top of that, we have educational material. We have a blog with a ton of content on all the different facets of what happens to women’s bodies at midlife. We also have a community on Facebook that is designed to support women. Again, we kept hearing that women felt alone going through this process. This community is a place for them to connect with each other to understand that other people are going through the same problems and same symptoms, and to learn from each other. Was it important for you to have an all-female board? Yes. The most important thing was to build an authentic, meaningful experience for the women who are going through perimenopause and menopause. One of the best ways that we can do that is by designing Rory from the lens of women who have had their own experiences with the health care system, who understand what it’s like to be a woman in the health care system and also are experts in the field. At the end of the day, it’s about giving women a voice and a place to take control of their bodies. Could you describe how the platform works? When visitors come on to our site, we have educational materials that explain the different solutions to their issues, explain why we chose them and explain why they might want over the counter versus prescription. Then, if they choose an over the counter product, they can just purchase that directly. Every treatment that we offer, whether prescription or over the counter, has been reviewed and designed by our medical team. We would only offer things that we feel comfortable with and that would provide the best experience to the member. If they choose a prescription product, they would start an online visit, which was developed by our team of medical experts. That is a dynamic online visit, so as they go through it, the questions will adapt based on what they have input. If they say that they’re experiencing hot flashes, we might say, “Do you have a family history of another disease?” If they said yes, we might ask for more details on that family history. The visit evolves so that we can get every piece of information that the physician might need to treat their symptoms. If you think about what an in-person visit is like right now, patients have about 10 minutes with the doctor. They’re almost spending as much time dressing and undressing as they are actually speaking with the physician. When they go through this online visit, they can take as much time as they want. They can do it at their own pace. Once they complete that online visit, all of that information will be sent to one of the physicians on our platform who will then determine if the medication is appropriate. If so, they will write a prescription which we will deliver to the customer’s door in discreet packaging. If customers have any questions at all, they could always chat their physician and send them a message in our secure messaging app. This treatment doesn’t end when you get they medication or treatment. It actually continues from there because they have a relationship established with a physician. For any individual treatment, they will always have the same physician to message. Are there other types of sessions—phone calls, video chats? It depends. They always start with that online visit because we want the physician to have every possible piece of information before hand. From there, depending on the issue in question, it could lead to messaging, a phone call or a video chat. There’s no app component to Rory currently. What is great about Rory and the Ro system in general is that we built our own electronic medical record system. Anything that you input into Rory is all tracked in our EMR, accessible to the physicians on the platform. Any physician you interact with on our platform will have all of that detailed information about you any time that they’re looking at your chart. Could you explain why you offer both OTC and prescription medications? One is, if you look at health care more generally, there’s a sense of wellness becoming a part of the health care system. Fewer people view health care and medication as completely isolated from things like supplements, and yoga and exercise. It’s more integrated with a lifestyle holistically. It might be someone is taking medication, but they’re also going to Peloton after work. That, to them, is living an integrated healthy life. Additionally, the more we spoke to women going through these symptoms, many of them mentioned that they didn’t necessarily want to jump to prescription—they wanted alternatives or more natural options. Since Rory is about giving women control over their bodies, we wanted to give women options. If they feel like vitamins are a more appropriate solution for them, or they want to start with a vitamin supplement and see how that works for them, they can absolutely do that. You mentioned a Facebook group. Could you talk a little bit more about how Rory enables community support for members? We kept hearing from our customers, “I feel alone. I feel isolated. I feel like I’m the only one experiencing this.” We built the Facebook community to have a place where women can interact directly with each other, where they can tell each other what they’re going through and offer support. We’re looking to expand that community further, perhaps through IRL events and meetups. How do you see Rory evolving over the next few years? For Rory, this is the beginning of what we can tackle in women’s health care, as menopausal and perimenopausal women is such an underserved space. Whatever direction we go in, my dream for Rory and is first and foremost a way to give women access to education, access to language to use when they’re interacting with the health care system, and an understanding that whatever they go through with their body, they have a way to take control and to advocate for themselves and suggest a treatment that they need. We think that we can do that both with the solutions that we offer, but also with the education, with support we provide—and with making it OK to say vagina in public. At Rory, we’re providing that partner in the health care system for women so that they can live their life on their own terms. Rory was built from a place of understanding what it’s like to be a woman in the health care system, of listening to women going through menopause and of our own personal experiences. We are here for every woman to feel like they can take control. Rory is about empowerment for women. I’m excited for it to come to life and to be that advocate for women. Rory is just one company helping increase health care education and accessibility through new digital capabilities. For more from similar innovative brands, see PSFK’s reports and newsletters. Mobile Marketing via PSFK http://www.psfk.com/ March 21, 2019 at 06:06AM
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How Airports Like JFK Are Delighting Travelers With Pre-Boarding Entertainment https://ift.tt/2FhBd5g “Airports are beginning to focus on improving the passenger experience by making their terminals more of a destination instead of a place people are forced to endure between flights,” says Cynthia Sandal, founder and chief marketing officer of ROAM Fitness. Indeed, airports are experimenting with immersive entertainment to redefine what it means to wait at the terminal. Here are four examples of airports using interactive activities and technology like AR, VR, gaming and movies to make sure passengers with long layovers can elude boredom: Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport Changi Airport Periscope VR Experience Center American Airlines The airport plays a huge role in the overall traveler experience. For more ways that airports are taking it to the next level, download PSFK’s extensive Reinvigorating The Airport Experience, out now. “Airports are beginning to focus on improving the passenger experience by making their terminals more of a destination instead of a place people are forced to endure between flights,” says Cynthia Sandal, founder and chief marketing officer of ROAM Fitness. Indeed, airports are experimenting with immersive entertainment to redefine what it means to wait at the terminal. Here are four examples of airports using interactive activities and technology like AR, VR, gaming and movies to make sure passengers with long layovers can elude boredom: Mobile Marketing via PSFK http://www.psfk.com/ March 21, 2019 at 06:06AM
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Interview: How Luxury Shoe Brand M.Gemi Uses A Hudson Yards Store To Build Lifetime Customer Relationships https://ift.tt/2Ofppof Direct-to-consumer retail is becoming increasingly mainstream, as more digitally native brands move from online to off with brick-and-mortar flagships, popups and showrooms. Since its arrival in 2014, footwear startup M.Gemi has become one of the most notable DTC brands on the scene. As footwear presents its set of unique challenges related to fit—with many online retailers fielding untold returns—the category impels physical retail experiences. M.Gemi has pioneered the showroom model, in which a store avoids issues of inventory management by offering in-store try-on with ship-to-home service. This offers high-touch retail experiences in an environment that allows customers to test and get to know the brand, making them more likely to become ecommerce customers in the future. In its first permanent New York City space, M.Gemi is among the DTC retailers setting up camp at Hudson Yards’ “Floor of Discovery,” a level of the new lifestyle and retail complex dedicated to brands born online. PSFK spoke to M.Gemi’s co-founder and president, Cheryl Kaplan, about the brand’s unique approach to accessible luxury and how even a transaction that ends in a return can lead to long-lasting customer loyalty. PSFK: What gaps in the marketplace led you to found M.Gemi? Cheryl: At M.Gemi, we saw footwear as an entrance into an Italian lifestyle brand that we wanted to build. We noticed a white space for highest-quality, truly handmade Italian luxury and premium service, minus the price. We knew that if we showed that to the customer in a different way, in the direct‑to‑consumer model, that we would be able to hit all of those components. It seems like you’re redefining luxury through this DTC experience. How do you communicate all of the value and the craftsmanship that goes into these shoes to the consumers? The brand and the storytelling is at the forefront of how we think about every shoe we make. Why did we make it? What’s unique and different about it? How are we going to tell the customer about it? We’re a very collaborative organization. We make sure that when the shoe design team is conceptualizing something, that the creative and marketing teams understand the ethos of the design, so that they can then bring it to life. We bring it to life through video, imagery, email, social media and also our stores—our fit shops. We build them out in a way that feels more experiential than just a transactional, go-in-and-buy-a-shoe journey. At every touch point we have, we make sure we’re hitting on why it matters and establishing an emotional connection to the brand. You’re opening a new store in Hudson Yards. Could you explain this choice? We’ve had a few different fit shops in New York. We’ve learned a lot about what works for us. Hudson Yards has a little bit of everything, which makes it a true lifestyle neighborhood. Whether people are shopping, living there, working there, or they’re working out there, they’re being entertained there—there’s a reason to be there. It’s not just a shopping mall, it has so much more. It’s about the experience. We love that people who are New Yorkers will be there, but also it will be a destination where people come from all parts of the country. It’s going to be a great cross section of people. For us, when we open a fit shop, it’s very much about showing up where our clients are. Is this your first permanent brick-and-mortar location? Yes. We’re very flexible in the way we open our fit shops. We’ve done everything, including mobile trucks that travel around weekend by weekend. It’s fun. It started off as a summer campaign. We call it Andiamo. It was a gelato truck, an old Italian truck that we rebranded. It initially started as, “We’re just going to do it on the weekends throughout the summer on the East Coast,” but then it was so great. People loved it. We served gelato, but also had shoes. People could try them on in the back of the truck. We started using it as a way to test other areas. The truck’s been to Texas, Chicago, D.C., Virginia. We also tried it out in some mall centers. We set it up inside in the winter at some locations. Hudson Yards is the first permanent one. The confidence in that came from all the learning that we’ve gotten in the different areas and the different types of stores that we’ve built out. The Hudson Yards store will have an Italian cafe in its concept, right? What inspired that? One of the things that we saw early on in our SoHo fit shop was the potential of an experiential store. People were coming in and they were trying on shoes, but they ended up staying for extended periods of time. It wasn’t in and out. They’d come with a friend. They’d have a coffee or we’d give them a glass of Prosecco. It really became a friendly environment. They got to know our sales associates. What we found was by keeping them comfortable and engaged in the experience, that they’d try to learn more. They were a little bit more experimental in the shoes that they would try. Sometimes if you’re buying it online and you’re going to try a new brand, you buy one pair of shoes, you see how it is. Here, they’re like, “While I’m here, I’m going to try on that over‑the‑knee boot that I might not have spent money on online.” Even though they don’t buy everything at that moment, they’re getting more familiar with the brand and trying more things. They’re more fully engaged. The coffee bar was an example of making it feel like something much more than a store. It’s a place where, even if you’re shopping with your friend or your husband, they have a place to sit down and enjoy. For opening weekend, we’re going to have a mini gelato truck. The plan is that every month we’re going to have community events and find ways to bring people in for reasons other than just to buy shoes. Will you offer any related services in addition to the cafe and events? Customers can sign up for the VIP treatment. They can go on to this reservation service, Resy, and make an appointment. We can pull out the shoes in their size and get it set up for them when they want to come. It’s just very high-touch. Beyond that, we’ll do events and community work with partners that may or may not be services. We’re also looking for ways to have different artists participate in what we’re doing. Could you explain how the Monday shoe drops increase engagement and excitement in this space? Part of our concept of reinventing the luxury footwear category was that most of our competitors are launching shoes seasonally. We have this opportunity to utilize a very rapid supply chain. Right now, we’re designing for June of 2019. Most brands are designing for June of 2020 or at least fall of 2019. By having this rapid supply chain in our office that is in Italy on the ground, we don’t have to take as much fashion risk. We can utilize customer data. If we see a trend in the market, we can take advantage of that. By not having to produce a full season’s worth of product and drop a new shoe every Monday, we can be learning all the time and adapting that in-season. What happens on Monday can impact a Monday in a few weeks. It’s amazing. Every buyer in the country would love to be able to do that. It also gives our customer reason to come back and check in. We always say, “We don’t expect you to buy every day,” but we want her to come in and see what’s happening. We wanted to take an industry that’s been around forever and mix it up, make it more dynamic. We have to evolve with what the consumer wants. Consumers don’t think seasonally. You don’t need a sandal in December or January. This whole concept of buy‑now, wear‑now is so real for us. We want to take advantage of not only the customer data, but also the opportunity to implement it. Can you describe your supply chain and how you’re able to turn around designs so quickly? A big part of it was that some of the bigger brands had left Italy. They went to countries where they could make it for less or for all different reasons. What happened was some of these workshops left behind had capacity. Some other brands come in, and they do a season, then the workshops go quiet. By partnering with them and working on our many cycles, we help them. For us and for them, it’s good. It’s steady business. Who is your target consumer and how do you establish an ongoing relationship? Our customer could be any age. We’re generally targeting a young 30‑something, but I would say that our customers are interested in style at various ages. They love to discover a new brand. They’re not about having to have the label but like beautiful things and appreciate the craft, and the design and the details. On your website, you offer a two‑minute fit consultation to online shoppers. How does that work and how does it help increase shopper confidence? We set out, even before we opened our first fit shop, to figure out how to remove as many hurdles as we can. At the end of the day, it’s footwear. Like swimwear, jeans, and bras, they’re hard. Free shipping, fast shipping and free returns was where we started. That was like table stakes. Beyond that, we added exchanges as a functionality. If customers buy a pair of shoes that are a little bit too small, they can go on the website or call us. We’ll send out the other size immediately. They can have them both at the same time and compare, or they can send them back. We’ll already be sending out the other. It also helps people not buy two sizes because, obviously, that’s costly. In terms of the customer service piece, that’s the biggest hurdle. It’s why our phone number is everywhere. It’s why our live chat icon is there. The Fit Consult, up in the top, was there for that exact same reason. I don’t measure customer service in how long someone’s on with a customer, or on a contact or ratio. There are all these old-school metrics that people use. What we want to do is make sure that we’re helping them. It’s about building that relationship with the client. We know that if someone engages with us, they are that much more likely to have a good experience. It’s why we ask customers for feedback. It’s why we reach out to people through our Net Promoter Score surveys. We are constantly looking for clients to engage with us, because even if they bought a pair of shoes and they returned it, if they talk to us they could end up being a great lifetime customer. Even when you have a bad experience that’s turned good, that’s the one you tell everyone about. M.Gemie is using optimizing customer service both on and offline to better suit today’s fluid consumer dynamics. For more from similar leading brands, see PSFK’s reports and newsletters. Lead image: M.Gemi via Facebook Mobile Marketing via PSFK http://www.psfk.com/ March 21, 2019 at 05:37AM |
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