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Multichannel Marketing: Bricks and Mortar stores & Social Media

Multichannel Marketing: Bricks and mortar stores are opening spaces in their stores to make community online in a bid to drive business in store.

A recent WSJ story titled, “Can Shopping Be Fun Again” covered the phenomenon. Kimberly Grabel, Saks’s senior vice president of marketing was quoted, “Many of our customers already feel that Saks is a home away from home.” That’s why she says Saks is adding “community rooms” that allow customers to host private birthday parties and book clubs for free.

Excuse me; Saks customers already feel Saks is their home away from home? In what universe? Book clubs meeting at Saks? Doubt it.

Are there other brands that are doing it right? Yep…

Lululemon sells all manner of clothing for yoga enthusiasts. They move out the racks and hold open classes throughout the week. A great fit (no pun intended) for their target customer and their products.

Topshop does a great job for their target market of teenagers with their novel idea of a photo booth at in-store events that uploads photos to their Facebook page – brilliant.

But events don’t sell merch–nor does CMO speak–salespeople do.

Can brands leverage an online community and develop one in-store? Let’s see…

H&M has 8200 Facebook fans. Are they fans because of the online community or because H&M is the leader in fast-forward fashion they have allegedly copycatted from the designers’ runways and delivered at a price point?

How about the guy who buys the Prada sunglasses for $400. Does he really want to be part of an online community he can talk about his sunglass experience? Or does he (or she) buy them to show others how cool they are to those who can’t afford them? My guess is the later.

Can in-store events help improve a customer’s experience? Of course, take B&H Photo in NYC.

B&H has an event space where they teach about how to use cameras, use images digitally – the works. This is a great fit. It helps customers better use the niche products the retailer carries.

Barnes & Noble and Borders host book clubs and have author readings – a natural fit.

But is there a need for retailers to use social media to create online communities and then hope to get them to meet at their stores?

As far as it goes, that sounds fine. But…

Don’t confuse doing something with doing the right thing to build sales. Anyone can put on a party with free food and “hang out,” like Anne Wintour’s idea last year for Fashion’s Night Out. The real thing missing from all of these “image” events is how exactly does it grow sales?

I think it’s a distraction. Look…

How many businesses do you want to manage?

I remember coffee house owners telling me they couldn’t wait to offer “free music” at night. Sounded great until they realized that they, the owner had to listen to all the demo CDs, review the fliers, make sure it was all setup and everything ran smoothly. And then what did they have to do when the performer swore or told off-color jokes?

Events can be a way to build interest but it has to start with employees. Explaining to them why are you doing it, showing how can they participate, asking for their ideas to make it better and sharing your goals for the event all help.

In a cross-channel world it is easy to see how building community online should compliment and build your community in-store. But is that really even possible given limited resources?

How many more salespeople could you put on your team for the money you’ve invested in the event? Or how much more training could you give them to help sell your entire store, not just what your existing employees got with their 25% off employee discount last month?

That’s what is missing in retail right now – the laser focus on selling more on the floor. Much of what is getting ink and pixels right now seems to be a distraction.

What do you think about all the emphasis on in-store events?

Social Media Referral: How Foursquare Can Save Your Day

My plane had just touched down at Chicago O’Hare at 11:10 AM last week mid-way to Los Angeles when I turned on my iPhone to discover a message. It was a reporter for a national news magazine looking for information.

Realizing I didn’t have the needed information, I called the reporter back. After speaking awhile I realized that David, a guy I met at the National Retail Federation last January would be perfect for the reporter.

What was his last name? All I could think of was P with difficult spelling. And I didn’t have his contact information in my phone or laptop. (Sorry David.)

I follow David on Twitter but that was no help and then it hit me, Foursquare.

For those of you who have written this game of a social media app off without trying it, I hope you’ll reconsider after this story.

For those of you unfamiliar with it, Foursquare is an app mainly for people in big cities with Blackberries, iPhones and the like to help you meet up with your friends and let you earn points and unlock badges for discovering new places, doing new things and meeting new people. You sign-up and then invite friends. You can do this allowing it to scan your Facebook or Twitter followers for people already signed up for Foursquare, then send a request to allow you to follow them. Only if they accept can you follow them. I think it will morph into a digital loyalty card for restaurants and bars but that’s another post.

Mostly this is kind of a “Where’s Waldo” for people you know. I have one guy who is a cameraman for network news who often is at the White House or other presidential activities plus about ten others who travel alot. In a quick moment of voyeurism, it is interesting to check once a day.

When you’re at conferences it can be useful to shout out to people you know electronically for meeting up. But for me on a daily basis, living in a village of 800 in New England, its usefulness wasn’t as apparent. That is until last week at 11:10 AM.

I went to my Foursquare app on my iPhone, clicked Friends and found David. I clicked on his name and up popped the information he chose to share on Foursquare. Now I could call him, text him, email him or go to his Twitter feed.

How cool is that? I can’t do that with LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook .

I then called David, told him about the reporter and he followed up within minutes.

Without that Foursquare information, I would have been lost and he would have missed the referral.

Like most social media, there is valuable information only if you know it is there. I invite you to sign-up and find me from my Twitter profile @theRetailDoctor. Then you can recommend me to your media friends:)

PS- Those of you who read those stupid articles and posts fearing burglars will be breaking into your home because you checked in at Tom’s ice cream or wherever via Foursquare, a burglar is more likely to watch your home and know you are gone to work from 9-5 M-F. If you’re that concerned, just don’t link your posts to Twitter or Facebook so Foursquare remains a closed system. You can be careful but no need to be paranoid.

PPS – Want to learn more about social media for business?

Why People Quit Facebook: They’re Bad Neighbors

Facebook now has over 400 million members and is more popular than Google. You’d think with all those members people would be happy. But I’m noticing frequently they simply don’t check their own page regularly.

I think Rod Dreber spoke for a lot of people when he said in a blog post last year, “I have no time for Facebook. If I used it, I would broadcast irrelevant personal news, like the excitement we had late at night here last night, when a varmint invaded our chicken run and tried to make off with one of the hens (epic fail, but not without lots of lost feathers); and I would complain about my massive allergy attack that’s had me bedridden all day, as well as the return of the vertebra problem that’s made my left arm semi-numb. But who cares?”

Life is made up of little details. Our parents kept up with neighbors by learning the minutia of their lives. Not in the big Nancy Grace sort of way but tiny joys and occassional challenges.

You’re not on Facebook only to see what you can get out of it, you should be on Facebook for what others can get out of it too.

In a disconnected world that demands we pay attention to everything, we have lost the little moments of sharing. We don’t hold potlucks or fondue parties with our neighbors like the 50′s, but we can devote a few minutes a day to letting them know what you are up to.

Yes it is much easier with an iPhone or other PDA but it is a choice to think of keeping in touch with friends. Just like it was a choice for your mother to strike up a conversation with the neighbors while she hung her laundry out to dry on the clothesline or your dad to make small talk at the Little League game. They didn’t have to do it, they chose to stay connected. That’s what made great neighborhoods – a bit of sharing.

Another reason some quit Facebook is, well let’s face it, our friends don’t see pictures of us meeting the President, or going backstage at the Oscars or doing something really amazing like bungie jumping the Golden Gate bridge; we’re just picking up the kids, or posting a quick video of a thunderstorm or the garden we’ve just planted. We aren’t as a rule sexy, particularly smart or all that special – that’s probably why we’re friends.

Yes its easy to quit and say it takes too much time or no one ever posts much, but move past that. What have you done to make it interesting for your friends to check their Facebook page?

Instead of just reading, comment on a picture or post – something more than: “Great!” or a thumbs up. Post a picture or a link to an interesting item and comment on why you are posting it.Share a one line review of a movie.

Instead of taking yet another quiz or building a farm, work on taking care of your friends and you’ll find you will have a vibrant community that both gives and receives.

Why Your Business Needs To Be On FaceBook

In a piece entitled The Last of the Facebook Holdouts, ABC News today spotlights the people gloating they aren’t on Facebook. It said in part, “the Web 2.0 teetotalers just don’t understand what the fuss is all about and couldn’t be happier on their own. ‘Some of the great joys in life are meeting new people in person and people watching and spending time with my kids and writing,” said David Vicker, a 37-year-old freelance media producer.’”

Such comments miss the point entirely. It isn’t an either, social media is an AND. You can do that AND be part of various social networks.

According to a March report from research firm Nielsen, two-thirds of the planet’s Internet population visit social networking or blogging sites. Across the world, activity in “member communities” accounts for one in every 11 minutes spent online, the report said. Chances are good those are your customers as well.

In addition to today’s ABC story, a recent poll by the Gift and Home Channel found:

36% don’t think their customer base is on Facebook
31% don’t know how to get started on Facebook
18% don’t see the value in having a profile for their store on Facebook

I’ll talk about that but first a story I shared in my book, You Can Compete: Double Sales Without Discounting …..

When I was first becoming established as a retail consultant, I met a little coffee roaster; he had more debt than he had in sales. He had resigned himself to the thought, “It can’t go any lower.”

But it wasn’t always that way.

Mike Sheldrake, Polly's Gourmet Coffee

He had opened a coffee house in Long Beach, California in 1976 and made it stand out by roasting the green coffee right there in his pecky-cedar clad storefront. Being too far ahead of the curve on gourmet coffee, he could have failed but gradually he thrived.

A Starbucks opened ten blocks from him in 1994 and he said, “I know my customers, they’ll be loyal.” And for awhile they were. Then they started to drift away and sales went down 10% over the previous month for each month. This kept up for years.

Mike kept thinking something would change, maybe somehow Starbucks would trip, customers would try them and return eventually but when it really came down to it, his back was against the wall. He could go nowhere else.

When I asked him about his assumptions that he knew his customers, he had to admit, he had been wrong. Mike already had his leverage to force the issue and change how he looked at customers. He was faced with a hemorrhaging P&L statement and saw the consequences of his assumptions.

That’s why I encourage you to let go of all your preconceptions about marketing, sales and how “it used to work.” We are in a new arena these days and it is “change or die.” You can’t proudly cling to the past and be successful in a recession/recovery.

Do you remember the smell of the ditto paper? The ones still warm from the machine? Often still wet so if you got the ones on the bottom, your fingers became purple? Yeah, I remember those too.

Imagine if your teachers had decided, “Nope, no way my students could learn from anything but the blackboard.”

It is dangerous when you say you know your customers – especially when you may be wrong. Mike Sheldrake would be the first to tell you that.

Facebook works for businesses that potentially have fans of the business. Usually businesses with events as well but not necessarily.

I personally like my FaceBook fan page becomes people are pulling my information rather than me pushing it out to them. Same with LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube. With all the open rates going down on emailed newsletters it is one more way to get to customers who like you to remember you.

The beauty is that you can set up a fan page quickly and for free.

I’m not going to go into how you start one here. You can do a Google or other search on how to do it. One thing is important to know though right now, you need to setup an individual account first to link to the business page. Also easy.

After using it awhile, you might find FaceBook may not be right for you but another social media site is (see my post on Twitter.) But shouldn’t you at least try it before deciding your customers aren’t on there, you don’t need it or whatever lame excuse your lazy butt is comfortable repeating?

Boost sales by selling it, not discounting it with this system

Bob Phibbs, the Retail Doctor, has helped thousands of independent businesses compete by using his approach to business and not discounting. He speaks to groups large and small how to grow sales in a friendly, engaging and entertaining manner.

His Book, You Can Compete: Double Sales Without Discounting is the backbone of several companies training programs and teaches his methods for making over a business. Download more free tips at http://www.retaildoc.com/ or buy the recording of How To Generate Thousands in Free Publicity.

Become a fan of the Retail Doc on Facebook and follow Bob on Twitter at http://twitter.com/TheRetailDoctor

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