Supplyant

Louis Vuitton is on a mission. It has singled itself out as the spearhead of campaign to manage its brand online, and the largely un-regulated search engines are its enemy.

Louis Vuitton has a  problem with the google adwords results. They hate the fact that google is profiting from allowing people to use the Louis Vuitton brand name in adwords. They also feel that Google is profiting from giving people who infringe trademarks, with fakes, the ability to promote.

Google generates $21 Billion a year from adwords so as you can guess they dont really want to change anything unless they have to.

What you will notice is that the words Louis Vuitton doesnt appear in the title. As you can see there are plenty of way to circumvent that if you need to.

Unfortunately for Louis Vuitton the European Court of Justice has ruled against them, so its business as usual. This issue is far from dead though with appeals already in place.

If you need help with working these methods into your adwords contact us today

Something that happened to me that really singled zappos as  a cool company.  My brother Nick was talking on Seesmic, a video blog site,  about company culture. During that conversation he was contacted by a guy called Tony who offered to send a copy of his companies culture statement to see if it would help.

Two days later all the way from the states arrived a really cool 200+ page book signed by Tony Hsieh of Zappos featuring each and every one of the employees at the company, telling the readers what they thought of it. Nick wasn’t going to buy anything from them in the states, it was just a really cool thing to receive.

Zappos has just sold to Amazon for a staggering $900 million.

Some cool zappos facts:

• Zappos.com has more than 10 million customers.
• 75% of business is repeat customers
• They uniquely offer free shipping both ways (if something goes wrong, dont worry we’ll pick it up)
• CEO Tony Hsieh receives about 2,000 e-mails a day.
• Tony now has 1,039,695 followers on twitter

The things I find interesting are:

• The site isn’t “flashy” but “functional”
• Everything is geared around exceptional service, nothing to do with the web
• The zappos culture is right in front, its preached on every page
• They have made a point of being open, embracing social media like twitter and facebook.

And why did amazon buy them?

• Zappos is growing quickly and shows no signs of stopping
• Zappos culture that has been fundamental in its  success. Amazon will love learning from this
• Zappos has great customer service.  Associating with this is great.
• Zappos has grown a group of amazing people. From its leaders to the post guy they are unified.

I read a great post over at practicalecommerce.com which looked at what leading money saving words that people use when searching google. It really indicates beautifully what consumers are looking for when trying to save a few pennies.

The report was obviously weighted towards America as the word coupon was the most searched for phrase over discount, sale and free shipping.

So In the UK we substituted those words with more UK centric words.

SALE v DISCOUNT v CHEAP v FREE DELIVERY v VOUCHER

There is one big trend here. More people are looking for sales and less are looking for cheap. Surprisingly thought this fits in with the normal marketing rules during a recession. A prime reason for purchasing better products in a recession is that they are less likely to go wrong, break or be of poor quality.

Reliability is a highly prized virtue at the moment and branded items on sale offer a percieved better value than cheap products.

Another indicator of this is the rise in popularity of big brand shops on the Internet.  Consumers have to feel safe in the knowledge that  the company they are buying from will last as long as the item they purchase.

FREE DELIVERY v NEXT DAY DELIVERY v SATURDAY DELIVERY

More people are looking for free delivery than next day delivery and its growing at a huge rate. In fact searches for free delivery at Christmas were a massive 80% higher than next day delivery.  Looking at the same report for Free Delivery vs Low Price its the same situation.

So what do I do?

In the minds of consumers

• putting themselves out waiting for a delivery is OK as long as its cheaper
• cheap products are not OK
• consumers are not prepared to risk  money with an unsafe retailer.

The numbers would indicate that a free delivery option is a winner, even if you offer an extended delivery option for free.

If you dont you may be missing valuable traffic.

In pre internet days if you upset a customer then they simply didn’t come back to you.

In the worse case scenario they might tell a few  friends that they didn’t like how they were dealt with. It was easy to get somebody in, piss them off and not care about it, as there was a constant stream of new leads.

Things have changed!

The modern, web savvy, shopper is a well informed and dangerous animal, especially if you upset them. No matter if you’re a small local shop or a worldwide retailer your customers have a mountain of weapons in their arsenal to discredit you and your business.

• The customers claims may be completely incorrect
• They may have made their own mistakes
• You have dealt with their issues in accordance with all the best practice rules.
• If you are a manufacturer, be aware that mail order sales have 7 days grace, where products can be returned for no reason.

It doesn’t matter who’s wrong, a customer like this can do far more damage to your brand than the price of the order

Just take a look at this disgruntled customer. He was so angry that he patiently sat and made a video about his bad experiences.

Reviews sites, Forums, Blogs, Facebook, Twitter and even YouTube offer them a lot of options. In most cases you won’t have a right to reply.

Your Weapons

Unless you really are offering bad service, all is not lost. In most cases the reviewer is alone, they may have hit every social network they can find but they are normally still alone.

1. Your biggest weapon is your existing happy customers.  If you can persuade them to start writing publicly available reviews, you’re onto a winner. 1 bad review and 20 good reviews and  30 glowing  reviews is more likely to win you a customer than 30 glowing reviews, it looks more real…
2. Do a quick Google search for “your company” reviews , look for bad reviews. If the complaint is unfounded some sites will give you the option to reply. If you can’t respond, get onto your friends, family and everybody else you know to get some responses back in there quick.
3. Don’t all respond from the same office – most sites will look at your ip address when you post to check you’re not spamming them.
4. Speak to the customer concerned, what can you do to change his  mind?

The ultimate weapon, go above and beyond normal service levels and turn an upset customer into somebody who actively tells people how you solved the issue.

Do you have any other great tactics?

Everybody has favourite websites; sites you use, recommend and admire. I never look for inspiration from sites in my own market, but for leaders in other markets. That’s the only way you can innovate.

In my eyes ASOS stand out clearly as a company using a common sense, planned approach to rapid growth. ASOS’s recent annual report, gives a great insight into what a rapidly growing online trader is looking towards to maintain this growth.

The headline figures:

• Turnover: £81 million to £165 million
• Profit: £37 million  to £71 million
• International Sales: up 303% to £32 million

The full report is here

The ASOS story – ecommerce by numbers

Find a niche
ASOS (As Seen On Screen) began life imitating celebrity fashions. Seen a handbag posh spice  is wearing in a magazine? ASOS will sell you a handbag in the style of posh.

Grow the customer base
By doing a great job, customers used them often and recommended them to their friends, building a loyal bunch of fans.

Brand Extension
ASOS then launch into men’s, designer labels and kids

Overseas
The UK is a small place, lets take on the world.

What’s next for ASOS?

Delivery
Improved delivery has been identified as a big mover in increasing conversion rates. So much so that a same day delivery service is being launched.

Social Media
Growing the blog, Facebook, Twitter and Bebo channels are a fundamental part of the strategy. Building a community of people who love clothes and love talking to each other about clothes.

Overseas
A weak pound and economies of scale with delivery allow massive growth opportunities

More own brand
Now they have built a strong brand with a great identity it’s time to leverage it.

The lesson

It’s easy to look at your own competitors and copy them, but it will be time consuming and expensive to build a brand by doing this. ASOS didn’t start out saying “We want to be like Next”  they had a clear identity and worked it.

If you must copy somebody, look to leaders in other markets and take the best they have to offer. It’s a better way to retain a clear identity.

When your starting a new project its important to do your research and due diligence to understand  whats going on out in the big wide world of the internet.  Luckily Google has a great tool for visualising search trends.

Google Insight allows you to look at how many people are searching for a particular phrase over time. What this tool allows you to do is gain some great additional information about the market, which in turn gives you great insider knowledge to use in your business plan.

• Seasonal ups and downs in particular niches become really clear
• Which of your competitors is growing and which is shrinking
• How different brands compare over time
• Is a brand or market segment you’re looking at, growing or falling.

Example 1: Supporting the good online retailers.

Two wheel brands have adopted very different strategies with online retailers marketing.

Dotz provide great support to high quality online retailers. They see the benefits to the Dotz brand by working closely with retailers, who are then able to present their products in the best light, adding further value to the brand. Nice work from the distributor.

Wolfrace continue to support online retailers that over-discount and show the products in a poor light. The upshot is that the poor representation and over-discounting has devalued the brand. Wolfrace are now trying in-house retailing and should use the extra control this will offer them to begin rebuilding their brand.

This graph shows growth in interest in the brands.

Example 2: Seasonal trends in the DIY sector

Its incredible to see how closely Homebase and B&Q track over the years

Do you have any good examples for you market? click here to comment online

Web 2.0 has become the 1 millionth word in the dictionary.

But just as Web 2.0 has become commonplace, people have started looking forward to Web 3.0  and to what the internet of the future will look and feel like.  Thinking about where the technology is going  gives us an opportunity to start planning now.

My Web 3.0  Trends & Predictions

1. How you will use it ?
   Stop thinking about the web being something you need a computer to use.  It’s started already with the iPhone, even now people are spending huge amounts of money on products and services using phones. Just last week potn.com received an order for a £1000 set of wheels, which was placed using a phone and PayPal. In the next 5 years mobile phones will become the primary method of interacting with the Internet.
2. Single Log In?
   Open ID is a technology that’s growing quickly and being adopted by Google, Facebook and every other hi profile tech company. What this technology will do is allow you to log into any site on the Internet with exactly the same details. No more registering everywhere you go.  By taking away the registration barrier interaction with sites is easier and will become much more common place.
3. Information overload will see social marketing thriving.
   The Internet is crowded already and there’s more information than you can keep up with. This will lead to more people joining groups of like minded individuals who’s recommendations will become more valuable than any advertising.  Management of this information overload will become a hot topic and lead to development of radical new ways of keeping up.
4. PUSH PUSH PUSH
   At the minute you visit websites, but as web 3.0 kicks in you’re going to find more information pushed to you. In whatever form they take, subscription based services are going to take over.

Do you have any predictions of what’s coming next?

I hate losing customers because it makes me sad. Winning new customers is an expensive game too. It takes a lot of effort, a lot of advertising, a lot of permission building and too much of your precious time.

The top reasons why people leave your company and start using another are;

1% – Death
3% – Change email / Lose favourites
5% – Buy from a friend
9% – Sold by a competitor
14% – Better product / Better price
68% – Perceived Indifference

As Guerrilla marketeer guru Jay Levenson says, you should be spending over 75% of your marketing resource talking to your old customers instead of wasting time on new ones.

68% of your customers will leave you if you don’t talk to them. So stop reading this and start figuring out ways to talk to your customers.

What is the lifetime value of your regular customers? Its a key measurement you should consider when looking at your marketing spend and can be a big influence on the way in which you handle everything from the initial enquiry all the way through to keeping in touch with your customers longterm.

I read an article on The Times website about Tesco relaunching there clubcard scheme. The plan is to get 1 million new clubcard users, the cost is £150 million pounds.

Source: The Times
Tesco is to spend £150 million relaunching its popular Clubcard scheme. The supermarket, which claims that one in two UK households currently use the card, said it expected to attract a further one million customers as a result of the promotion — taking it to 16 million altogether.

So Tesco’s is looking at £150 a customer based on the proposed marketing spend. A few years ago Amazon took a slightly different approach to winning customers. They scrapped a multi million dollar  TV advertising budget and used the money to offer free delivery. The instant effect was that more people brought from them.

If somebody offered me £150 in cash to do my shopping at Tescos instead of Sainsburys for a year wouldn’t that be easier?

Theres a golden rule when thinking about how your site should look or even when writing content for your site. Think about your customer tuning into WII FM (Whats In It For Me).

WII FM isnt a radio station but a smart reciever inside your customers head. Your customers WII FM reciever is a smart bit of technology:

It tunes out:

• Information about your company
• Your capabilities
• The services you provide

It tunes in:

• How does this help me
• Will it make me feel better
• Is it going to solve my problem

Sometimes its easy to forget this simple sales principle. People buy to meet needs or solve problems. To get them to buy from you we need to clearly address which of these two things matters most to them.

How about an example
Spax Competition Suspension is a great british brand in with an awesome history in  motor racing.  Its real race suspension that  has been modified to offer great performance for road cars too.

Pushing the message that Spax “gets you round corners quicker” resulted in sales increases of over 15%.  This change made  enough difference to sales that we actually decided to make it the biggest piece of text on the whole site, resulting in even bigger increases. Established in 1970 does not solve my problem.

Remember:
If your looking at your site, an advert or an article remember to picture youself as your customer, look at it and say  “Whats In It For Me?”