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Thursday, May 26, 2011

Taming the Fickle Financial Services Customer

Last week Maxymiser US hit the road for our second big trade show of the year in the Windy City. Net.Finance is one of the biggest shows for financial services marketers, and though I was very tempted to roam the streets of Chicago with my new DSLR camera, it was fun to rub elbows with some of the biggest names in finance—Mastercard, HSBC, Citibank, USAA, and many, many more.




Our presence at the event dramatically increased when I was asked to provide a keynote presentation on day two of the event. Being that multivariate testing, personalization and optimization is our thing at Maxymiser, I led attendees through an educational presentation of how even small changes and targeting techniques on their websites can dramatically improve conversion rates, the customer experience and lifetime values.

What as most surprising is how few people in the audience raised their hands when I asked who today was performing testing and segmentation on their sites. Literally 4 hands out of hundreds went up.

It’s no secret that financial services marketers meet many roadblocks to successful digital marketing, in real-time. Their websites are complex, hosting dozens of products and offers. Then there’s the privacy, security and legal concerns. No wonder most optimization projects probably never get past the IT team. 



The good news is, technologies (yes, like Maxymiser) have the ability to eliminate IT from the picture, test and optimize even in secure areas, and help financial services significantly improve the digital experience for their customers.

For more information on getting started with this, I invite you to download our recently released Financial Services White Paper.

Back to Net.Finance. The second half the day was met with a private luncheon we hosted for eCommerce and Marketing VP's. I was delighted to have Ben Lang from Santander fly across the pond to speak on Maxymiser’s behalf. Santander is a long-standing successful financial services client of Maxymiser’s, and together we spoke on the importance of implementing a culture of testing within in a financial services organization to streamline conversion rates, revenue and customer loyalty, by ensuring no new content or products hit your site without first being tested.

Maxymiser hits the road again in a couple weeks, when we speak and sponsor the EyeForTravel Online Marketing Conference in Miami. We hope to see you there!

Cheers,

Mark Simpson
Founder and President, Maxymiser Inc.

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Why You Should Segment by Recency and Seasonality in Ecommerce


In a recent post, Brad Weitz, our Director of Client Services,  wrote about segmentation strategies based on click-behavior. Now it’s time to move past click behavior and ramp up your segmentation strategies based on buying behavior! The time a consumer comes to your site and the season play a huge role on not just click behavior, but buying behavior.

Recency

First up is recency, or rather “when did the activity or purchase happen” and “did multiple clicks or purchases occur?” Ask yourself how far apart these activities happened, and does it impact your specific business:
Retail: Purchase cycles have a huge impact on browsing or purchase activity, so make sure you mind that data before segmenting and targeting too quickly. Take a retailer like LL Bean, whose purchase cycles tend to be short and sweet. Customers may buy pants one day, and a shirt the next, so your product recommendations may need more emphasis on items bought in the same cart or visit, or items viewed in the same week. Don’t try to reach too far back in the analytics around that consumer, because chances are they’ve moved on to a new shopping mentality.
On the flip, for companies similar to Best Buy, basket analysis is still important, but reaching back into the past can also be beneficial to your recommendations. If a customer had previously purchased a higher ticket item, such as a TV, stereo system or washer/dryer, the purchase cycle is much more infrequent, but still relevant when the time comes around to upgrade that appliance.
Travel/Leisure: With the cost-comparison factor playing a huge role in online travel booking, behaviors will undoubtedly vary by time of year and type of travel product being purchased. Time on the site is a huge factor that, if used correctly, can dramatically boost your targeting and personalization conversions. Travelers usually browse several days, or even weeks, before they purchase vacation packages, hotels, rental cars, flights—you name it. Expect most consumers to browse and compare prices earlier in the week and complete the booking later that week.
Media is more about browsing, rather than buying, but still holds a great opportunity to target.  Be mindful on when consumers are viewing content, particularly within the same session or visit. Browsing activity is very dependent on content. For example, ESPN browsing is based on sports season whereas the New York Times will be more story and topic specific.

Seasonality

The second wave to watch for is seasonality. This is a huge factor in segmentation since consumer mindset inevitably changes, and purchase behavior, as well as browsing activity will be impacted.
Retail – Holidays, holidays, holidays. You can already expect an increase in traffic and purchases, and you’ve put in a lot of work into your sales, promotions and branding. But remember, people are buying gifts, not shopping for themselves. So, first of all, don’t spend too much time targeting based on their past purchases in the off-season—it may not have much of an impact since they are shopping for a loved one, friend, co-worker, etc. However, the important items to highlight for this mad-dash-shopping-segment are shipping dates and stock status. The comfort they receive in knowing that you have it in stock and they’ll receive it on time, no matter if there is a slight price difference, can ensure you win the business instantly.
Travel – In the winter, recommend getaways to the Caribbean or sunny destinations, while for long weekends emphasize last-minute getaways that you know people can actually afford money and time-wise. If you notice a consumer frequents the same destination year over year, or changes up their vacation, recommend and target accordingly. Remember, it’s all about giving them what they want, not steering them to somewhere they’d never go. Additionally, if you know a visitor is a business traveler, up-sell dry cleaning or room service add-ons, or highlight babysitting services or kid-friendly local attractions.
Don’t forget that the ability to integrate your loyalty data to highlight different discounts and benefits, in addition to recency and seasonality will leave you with highly personalized campaigns, for the right person, at the right time and on the right product.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

A Vanilla Website Is the Worst Flavor of All


With warm weather arriving, the ice cream trucks that pop on every corner here in New York have it pretty easy when it comes to offering consumers value:  All it takes is a nice cone of vanilla—maybe with some sprinkles thrown in—to make people happy.  But where vanilla might be all the flavor people need to get excited about ice cream, don’t assume the same holds true for other businesses.  When it comes to selling your products online, be warned:  sticking to vanilla won’t get you anywhere.
You know what I mean when I say vanilla. You’ve been to these ecommerce sites, and you haven’t been inspired.  They’re not dynamic, segmented or personalized; they simply “are”.
Boring.
About a month ago, I had the pleasure of speaking at a very unique virtual event, The Personalization Revolution. In 60 minutes, 60 speakers spoke for 60 seconds each on various topics on website personalization—a hot topic in the online marketing world right now.  After listening to the variety of expert opinions and best practices, I got to thinking:  Why would any marketer today NOT employ personalization techniques to attract and retain consumers?
I’m not talking about inserting someone’s first name into an email (Hi Debbie!)—we all understand that companies have at least grasped Excel Best Practices 101. I’m talking about truly knowing your consumers on the individual level and providing that experience across all channels, in real time—starting with your website.
It hasn’t been easy for every digital brand to jump on the personalization bandwagon, as easily-integrated, real-time solutions were hardly the norm until recent years. But technology has moved forward, as it always does, and the potential to be impactful with real-time personalized marketing is now a reality.
Not only is the web responsible for the strongest growth in recent sales, but it’s also partly responsible for making customers more demanding—and more fickle—than ever. Sure, tried-and-true marketing practices still work at some level, but these days, brands have about seven seconds to capture consumers’ attention with their websites. And even after brands master the basics of capturing consumer attention, retaining their loyalty is a constant challenge in a very noisy marketplace.
The real trick for retaining consumer interest lies in being able scoop out and serve up (non-vanilla) relevant, personalized content and offers for each individual who comes in contact with your brand.
By providing each consumer with a unique experience—and one that helps you achieve your business goals—whether through up-selling, cross-selling, offering more products per person or being their go-to retailer, you have ultimately provided a more relevant experience, regardless of prices or competitor promotions.