Is iCircular going to revolutionize the way weekly ads are distributed?

It is not news that newspaper circulation has been declining for years – as a result, the advertising dollars are also drying up. In hopes to help newspapers keep their revenue from circulars and coupon inserts , Associated Press (AP) is developing an app for circulars.

When I heard this idea, I thought: “Another app? I already have apps for some of the retailers where I shop – apps which allow me to locate stores near me, create a shopping list and also see the weekly ad!”

Exploring further, however, I saw AP’s proposition is different. Their app,  iCircular, is a newspaper-specific tool enabling local newspapers to reach consumers looking for local deals on their mobile devices (via an app or mobile website), while also allowing retailers to target customers by zip code. For clarification, this is not a stand-alone app, but a module of a newspaper app/mobile website. The benefit is that consumers read the news and see the weekly ads, an advantage over individual retailers’ apps that many times are downloaded and then forgotten. 

The many articles I read state that iCircular will have similar content to the printed version, as well as offer shopping list creation, deals sharing, product details/specs viewing, nearest location mapping, and social media functions (including Facebook and Twitter). For consumers, this means convenience! News, circulars and functional capabilities in one centralized place.  For retailers, it means they can target the 28.4 million readers who already access news via their mobile devices and yet may not be newspaper subscribers.

I would love to hear what you think about iCircular as a consumer – based on the idea, would you utilize it?  As a retailer, do you like the concept?  Would you be willing to pay “regular” CPM or do you think this should be a value add of your distribution contract?  What other features would you like to see? 

FYI – Target, Kohl’s, Radio Shack and K-Mart are testing iCircular. I will update this post once a screen shot of what it looks like is released. I’m very curious!

Market Research in the Grocery Industry

This article was written by Jean Brown, Senior Marketing Communications Specialist at TopSource LLC., in an effort to help our readers choose which services and suppliers can help them gauge what their customers think about them and their products.

Which market research services should I consider?

We recommend several services to get a balanced report of customer opinion, and to keep the sample large enough to make informed marketing decisions as a result of these opinions. Here is a quick list and summary of each component:

Mystery shopping … automated Web based reports should be available to you 24/7 from a supplier that employs professional staff
Customer satisfaction surveys … Customers appreciate the opportunity to provide feedback – this tool gives you the ability to collect valuable customer feedback and trend the data over time, providing a customer loyalty index. The data then helps you determine clear priorities that lead to profitable growth.
Employee surveys … you gain valuable feedback by monitoring the job satisfaction level of your associates which empowers you to retain satisfied employees.
Needs gap analysis … this key data tool allows you to use the powerful information you’ve gathered, to gain clarity around your customers, employees, and your operations – and improve your business. Needs Gap Analysis helps you determine the most critical customer touch-points that drive consumer loyalty, and incorporate them into a Mystery Shopping program that validates and monitors operational success. It’s the tool that drives your strategy.
Employee Ambassadorship … how do your employees influence customer satisfaction? This component is distinctive from employee satisfaction … it links employee attitudes and beliefs to customer loyalty behavior. Employee Ambassadorship identifies the most active level of employee commitment to the company’s product and service brand promise, to the company itself, and to optimizing the customer experience. This is the tool that empowers you to tell your customers that they truly are the most important part of your business, and allows them to experience that promise.

How do I choose a market research firm – what criteria should I use?
TopSource believes that a best-in-class market research firm can be judged by their strategic approach. Below are several tools to use as a benchmark when considering a company to conduct your market research (TopSource members: The Marketing  & Advertising team at TopSource used this approach to select our current Market Research partner supplier.  If you would like more information about our partner supplier, please contact me directly.)

Online focus groups … individuals should be recruited based upon the demographics you choose, should be customized to your specifications, should allow additional feedback which is Web based, have the ability to conduct quick online studies through surveys in a given timeframe (providing opinions on a subject for five minutes once the survey begins).
Customer intercepts … conducted by a trained and tested staff based upon each project, to ensure their understanding of the task at hand, conducted at locations you choose, with the results available to you immediately on a private Web portal (password protected) for an indefinite period of time.
Shop-alongs … a shopper asks specific questions of the customer to gain feedback and perception of the store and products. This is a sensitive area but a professional company with experience can make it invaluable to you. You will choose the stores and edit or create the questions. The data should be available on a private Web portal.
Telephone in-depth interviews … personal interviews with customers, recorded if desired and given to you in MP3 format so you may listen to actual customer comments. You may create or edit the questions to be asked. The data should be available on a private Web portal.
Customer tracking studies … customers appreciate the opportunity to provide feedback. With this information, you can trend the data over time, providing a customer loyalty index. As this data needs to be actionable, you may want an instant notification system that can automatically send an email to someone you designate if scores come in below or above a certain level.
Mystery Shopping … this should be completely customized to your needs, with professional trained staff conducting the service. Look for a company that has complete control of receipts and reports, and can provide detailed accounting. Request recorded (MP3 or other technology) telephone shops that are transmitted electronically – you can then read the on-site report while listening to the actual telephone call. Ask for immediate feedback from the service through a private web portal.

Please feel free to add any suggestions or comments regarding grocery-related market research programs.

Social Media becomes (even) more relevant to Retailers

While it might be considered a cliché, it still does happen: The marketing analyst/manager walks into the office of the VP of Marketing, and tries to sell him on social media. The seasoned VP takes a minute to review the information provided, and decides to cautiously test the waters. Unfortunately, due to the lack of commitment, the social media initiative receives little attention and thus fails to show any tangible results.
On Monday December 7th, Google released its new real-time search feature. This new addition puts posts from Twitter, Facebook and other social media tools at the top of a user’s search results. That way, the user can examine this new content before going into the more “established” search results. For a complete description, please see Google’s video:

So what is the marketing analyst/manager to do?

If following the principles outlined here by Chris Brogan have not worked, now you can simply state the following: “Google has just unveiled a new addition to its search engine that will soon provide real-time results next to the traditional search results.” After the marketing executive gives the up-and-comer a long blank stare, he/she can follow with the following: “we can make sure that our newest offers are displayed first in people’s Google search results” (see how Hubspot has used this capability here.

So what are some of the implications this new tool will have on the grocery industry (or other major retailers)? Initially, probably not many. Not all search terms trigger this capability, and thus enough news about a specific company (artificially created or not) would have to occur for this to happen. But eventually, a tweet such as “the long lines at retailer C in Somerville, MA” might be enough to keep some (or many) of your customer at home that day (or worse yet, have them go to another supermarket to purchase their weekly groceries).

What are some other implications that this new tool will have?

Reputation Management Tools are only part of the Social Media equation

During the past two weeks, I have been researching different products and services that can help businesses manage their reputations online. These tools, which range in prices from free to several thousand dollars per month, offer a wide range of capabilities. The most common features are the ability to track twitter updates, blogs and other social media tools where customer might be communicating about your brand. Additionally, they provide different levels of analytics to track changes in customer attitude over time.

While it is encouraging to see that more and more companies are looking into incorporating social media as part of their marketing efforts, it seems that most are simply missing the point. Social media is about building communities. Solely tracking consumers’ conversations so you can intervene if it turns negative is like having your best player in the sidelines, and putting him in only when your team is losing. By the time a company addresses the issue, most consumers have already formed a negative opinion about their products and/or services, and the company is forced to constantly play defense.

Companies need to devote more time and effort to become a part of the conversation. They should discontinue their practice of blasting off emails and twitter updates, and simply focus on helping one customer at a time. The power of social media comes in when others see these conversations, and immediately form a positive opinion (whether consciously or subconsciously) about the brand. In addition, if a customer is asking a question about a company, chances are other customers have similar questions/concerns.

Social Media Monitoring and Reputation Management tools SHOULD be a part of your social media strategy. But they should not be your only strategy. Companies should adopt social media monitoring or reputation management tools only to make sure that no questions or concerns are left unanswered. In the next few months, TopSource will evaluate some of the different tools in order to create an offering for our members. If you are familiar with these tools, please submit your recommendations as a comment to this post.
I will get the list started with:

http://www.trackur.com/

http://www.visibletechnologies.com/

http://socialmention.com/

http://www.radian6.com/

http://www.scoutlabs.com/

TopSource Summit Video

Dear Readers,

Here is a video that outlines some of the benefits of the upcoming TopSource Summit.

Grocery Iphone Applications

October has been a fascinating month for Apple. Earlier today, Apple reported an increase in their quarterly profits of 47%. The increase was attributed to higher than expected iphone 3GS sales, as well as robust laptop sales. Additionally, the company is launching the iphone in China on the 30th, which will further increase the market share the iphone enjoys in the Smartphone market. However, perhaps the most pertinent information to U.S. grocery retailers coming from Apple is that the exclusivity contract between AT&T and Apple ends on 2010. Analysts almost unanimously agree that Apple will win big if they chose not to renew it. When the contract between the French mobile service provider Orange and Apple ended, the iphone market share in France increased from 15 to 40%.

So in what ways is the grocery retail industry getting involved with the iphone and its many applications?

Currently, there are many applications out there, which provide different services for customers. However, none of them are overly impressive, which is great news for retailers who might want to venture into store-branded applications.

Some of the most notable ones are:

Wallet Zero and CardStar– These applications allow users to scan their loyalty card bar codes directly from their iphones. User must first enter the loyalty information from their favorite retailer store into the application, and then they are able to leave all those cards at home! Unfortunately, both applications have poor reviews, as they do not seem to work with most barcode scanners. Most common comment: “great idea but poor execution.”

Grocery IQ – From all the applications that offer grocery lists, Grocery IQ seems to stand out. Whether that is because of their marketing efforts or its usability remains to be seen. They do have over 6,000 reviews and an average of 3/5 stars.

CompareMe – This application allows users to basically compare prices among products that come in different sizes. That way, consumers can determine whether the 2 gallon private label liquid detergent for $6 is a better deal than the 1.5 gallon national brand for $5. However, it seems that a good number of retailers already have this information posted on their price labels.

Epicurious Iphone App – This free application provides users with over 25,000 recipes. The searching feature is fairly intuitive, and users can add recipe ingredients directly to a shopping list. While the application might not be perfect, it seems to be a good stepping stone for other recipe application yet to come.

Do you have an application worth mentioning? Please let us know.

Customer Service as a Marketing Tool – Part 1

“Management’s constant need for measureable, fair and objective goals, destroy the very fabric of a customer-focused organization. When managers try to instill detailed (and often superficial) customer service procedures to an often demoralized work force, you create an environment were customer service is nothing more than a chore.”

Take a moment and think about your last visit to your local grocery store. Did the cashier make small talk with you? Did he/she comment on the wine that you were buying? Or were you instead asked if you had tried the Mahi-Mahi that was on your cart? If the local grocery store you visited was a Trader Joe’s, this was likely your experience.

Now think of the last visit to your local traditional supermarket. Didn’t the “Hi Sir, how are you this evening?” seem forced? Did the cashier even attempt to make eye contact, or did he/she just utter the words as he/she is supposed to? Did he/she seem at all genuinely interested or engaged?

While these experiences are common and quite apparent, we seldom take the time to think about them. And if we do, we usually just shrug off the thought by concluding “it’s just the difference in culture.” In this series of articles, instead of trying to understand why customer service “works” at Trader Joe’s, we will examine what makes customer service at traditional business fall flat.

Traditional organizations constantly strive to measure every aspect of the business. In this constant pursue for metrics and process control, businesses sometimes forget about the human aspects of their organizations. From Enterprise Rent-A-Car’s “make sure you answer the phone before it rings three times,” to Wal-Mart’s “make sure you greet every customer that walks in the door,” businesses are constantly aiming at creating the illusion of customer service. Meanwhile, they are destroying the very culture necessary to support it.

In the next article, we will discuss other myths about “superior” customer service, and present some alternative approaches.

“Listening” to your Customers Online

Social media tools can help grocery retailers “listen’ to customers comments online.The following article outlines 13 essential tools that every grocery retailer should be using.

http://www.marketingprofs.com/9/essential-social-media-listening-tools-mcdaniel.asp?sp=1

Should Supermarkets use Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

As I mentioned on my previous post, website content is king. Because if a grocery retailer fails to provide value through its website content, consumers will simply not visit the website with any regularity. But what if you have created killer content, yet the number of visits to your website does not seem to be increasing?

The first step toward fixing this problem is to go to www.websitegrader.com and determine how well your website ranks in ‘organic’ Google search results. If your website ranks high, then revise your content and make sure it is really what people are looking for. If your website ranks low, your website is clearly not optimized to be easily found on Google.

So if that is the case, your next question will naturally be: Is it worth it to optimize my website to rank higher in Google? And what sort of resources I need to do optimize it?

When thinking about this question, there are many things you should probably consider. For starters, what segments of the population are looking for supermarkets online and what specifically are they looking to find? In order to better answer this question, divide your website in its different components (i.e. Sunday circular, recipes, store information, etc) and determine who is searching for what component, and what they would search for if they were using Google Search.

Let’s take the “store information” section of your website as an example. Who would be looking for this information? It might be someone who is unaware of the store hours, or someone new to the area, or someone who is looking to buy something after-hours. If it is a current customer who is simply unaware of your store hours, then you shouldn’t worry. They will probably search for your supermarket by name, and add “store hours” in the search. However, if it’s not, then it is probably a customer “up for grabs” that might be looking for a retailer that is close to him or for a retailer that is currently open (assuming it is late at night). His search might be “24 hour supermarket Boston” or “supermarkets 02115.”

By now, you should already start to see the value of SEO.

The next step would be to go through this exercise with every page in your website. After you are done, then you will have a better idea of whether or not SEO is right for your company. I personally think that every company should be performing SEO. While it might be more effective in other industries, it can still provide value to supermarkets.  To learn more about SEO, I recommend visiting HubSpot’s website. They are one of the industry leaders of SEO, and provide affordable, yet robust packages.

As far as time, if you want to create a successful internet marketing campaign using SEO, social media, etc, expect someone in your team to spend at least an hour daily using the different tools available.

Re-Tooling Newspapers

Interesting article about the state of the newspaper industry:

http://blog.tippingpointlabs.com/2009/05/retooling-newspapers-for-a-new-generation-part-1-of-4/

Does you supermarket have a contingency plan in case your local newspaper goes out of business?