BE YOUR OWN AMAZON: PART 3
Our final “Becoming Your Own Amazon” blog post is here, as we provide some final thoughts on how to compete, and hopefully beat the Amazon giant. To start, if you haven’t read "The Truth is in the data. For real." our Amazon Part 2 post we recommend you do so before reading any further. We promise this blog will make a little more sense if you do.
Over these last few weeks you’ve become steps closer to competing with Amazon. You’re now aware of Amazon’s powers, realized that individualized customer experiences can take you far, and also understand the strength of location based data and analytics. So how can you leverage all this information and beat out the competition?
Let’s continue with our smoothie example from before. If you recall, we looked at location-based data and noticed that two distinct groups frequented a customer’s smoothie shop- one health focused and the other not. Based off of our findings, we spun the marketing to the latter group to focus on the amazing taste of the smoothies (as opposed to the health benefits) and delivered personalized advertisements accordingly. With that, we tapped into the power of personalized messages, and recognized that this type of marketing can make all the difference. But let’s pause there for a moment - what if we told you that this messaging was not enough. Sure you can deliver these messages, but how do you really know that they’re working.
With everything in life, there’s give and take, push and pull, trial and error. Your messaging isn’t going to be perfect the very first try, and it’s ok to recognize that. Nothing is perfect....at least at first. To help nail down the most efficient and effective marketing tactics, we think that marketing attribution analysis and feedback is key, in addition to everything else we discussed. This will give you the edge that you’ve been looking for, and is all about testing and tweaking, and most likely testing and tweaking again. So exactly what is marketing attribution? The short answer is this - marketing attribution is the science of determining which media is driving the most purchases. Say you send out an ad that says, “Healthiness aside, our smoothies satisfy all cravings. Trust us, they’re irresistible.” You’re happy with the messaging, but now need to see if people actually respond to the ads by coming in. If it works, great! Now it’s time to send even more ads with similar messaging. If it doesn’t, the tweaking process begins.
Maybe you thought half of your demographic frequented your store because of the great taste of your smoothie, when really your customers wanted a more wholesome treat to balance out the burger they just had. Because you’ve discovered that the customer’s focus is less about the taste, you might change your messaging to say “if you’re going to have a burger, let our healthy smoothie be your dessert.” Ah ha, that worked. You learned that while your customers aren’t primarily focused on strict healthy eating, they still want to partake in what they think is a somewhat balanced diet. Remember to hammer in the angle that works. There’s many variations and variables you can test and try. A 20% coupon might not work, but a $2 off might. Everyone’s business is unique, thus everyone will have a unique customer profile.
With that, how you compete with Amazon is going to be a little nuanced for each company. For a retailer, price matching might be key. Think about how many times you’ve thought to yourself “This is cheaper on Amazon. I’ll just leave this store and buy it when I get home.” What do you think it would’ve taken to keep you in that store and buy directly from the retailer? We’ve said it once and will say it again - knowing more about your customers will give you the ultimate advantage over Amazon and really any other competitor you might face. Remember that people like to feel like individuals, not demographics. If you can strategize beyond the demographic, you will find yourself in a great place. Think about the steps you can take right now to make this happen- maybe try linking brand affinity, dig deeper into understanding life patterns or even update your CRM. Knowing more will soon be mandatory- let Mogean help get you there.
So that’s a wrap for our “Becoming Your Own Amazon” three part blog series. We feel that we’ve equipped you with a good base knowledge of what you need to be doing to get ahead of the competition. With individualized customer experiences, location based data and analytics, and a winning strategy you’ll be set for success. Mogean is the fuel that powers consumer based marketing, and we’re here to help you beat out all the competition. In fact, we’re here to help you win.
Interested in talking more about this? We'd love to hear from you - drop me a note at phoenix@mogean.com.