Covid-19 Digital Playbook

With shelter-in-place (SIP) and a likely recession due to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, now is the time to double down on digital marketing and sales!

With store closures, many retailers, such as Nike, are reporting Black Friday sales levels and conversion rates! And I've been seeing similar results for my clients.

In fact, in its recent quarterly report, Nike's CEO said it was able to engage its fans via its app and other digital channels while they were quarantined at home, and their free exercise services translated into strong digital sales that helped offset store closures.

Some brands or OEMs who previously had channel conflicts from wholesale/retail partners or their own brick-and-mortar stores suddenly see their direct-to-consumer channel as the only game in town during SIP.

That makes this a critical time to dig into your website and mobile app analytics!

See what part of the site is getting the most traffic, what's selling now that wasn't before, what is the makeup of the customers who are shopping now vs. before, where are users dropping off or hitting UX roadblocks?

For many of my clients, I've seen a spike in mobile web and mobile app traffic especially throughout the day and not just during commute hours. No surprise as people are home due to SIP. Also, historically, lots of office workers shop on their work desktops during the weekdays. It's not uncommon to see high conversions on Mon mornings before lunch as workers tackle their "to do" list after a relaxing weekend. But suddenly they don't have access to those work computers and must go online on their phones. So make sure your site is optimized for mobile, now more than ever!

Re-evaluate all your advertising

Online ad prices, especially banner, native, and video ads, that run on publisher sites are dropping as supply outstrips demand because advertisers have pulled back on spend because of SIP (e.g., travel industry can't really promote bookings), recession fears, and brand safety concerns (i.e., brands don't want their ads to show next to coronavirus content, especially on news sites). However, if you are less brand sensitive or develop a more targeted blacklisting strategy, you can make out like a bandit for your media buys. For example, Facebook CPMs have fallen to their lowest levels in 2 years.

Facebook CPM Falling (Source: Gupta Media)

It's also a good idea to assess the competitive media landscape. You may discover some competitors have pulled back on their paid advertising in search, display, social, video, or mobile apps. Time for you to grab market or mindshare, likely at lower ad prices as mentioned above. For some of my retail clients where Amazon used to compete with them on search, there's been less competition. Not that Amazon doesn't have the money to bid against them, but more likely because Amazon has more than its hands full now from organic traffic with everyone turning to the online retailer during SIP. (More on that below.) So check your Google Auction Insights reports. On the flip side, depending on your industry, you might see quite the opposite competitive pressure and everyone is getting more aggressive to capture as much demand as possible right now. Think about the fiercely competitive online video conferencing space right now where you have Zoom, GoToMeeting, Microsoft Teams, and Webex duking it out.

I expect performance media campaigns to see less budget cuts than branding campaigns.

Also, make sure your ad messaging is on target and appropriate for these times. For example, yesterday morning I heard a local radio ad that asked "Taking your kids to school? Listen to us in the car." Really? Schools have been closed for a month during SIP! Someone at the station clearly sleeping behind the wheel.

Take stock of and promote your most relevant product and service features during these times.

By now, as a consumer, every company has probably sent you an email and driving you to their Covid-19 landing pages to explain how they are reacting to the pandemic and SIP. And most importantly, what special services they are offering during these uncertain times.

So, as a brand, what are you going to promote?

If you have interest-free payment plans or "layaway" plans like Afterpay, it's time to promote that. Amazon features it prominently on higher ticket price items (see below). Some auto companies have rolled out 0% interest, 72-month auto loans even!

Amazon's interest-free payment plan

Right now consumers are very concerned about supporting small businesses who risk going under. For smaller businesses who are reaching out to their community for help, now's a good time to setup and promote online gift cards. Square, which is quite popular with small businesses, has even created a Give & Get Local site to make it easy for local merchants to promote their e-gift cards to consumers. I've seen when merchants promote this in email campaigns, consumers are buying them to keep their favorite businesses afloat, hoping to patronize them later when we get through this. Facebook is also offering small businesses grants.

Offer curbside pickup following social distancing best practices? Promote that. Are your shipping and delivery times still unaffected? If you compete with Amazon, you may have an advantage now against the Prime shipping program as Amazon is swamped with traffic and orders, forcing them to prioritize some items over others. I don't blame them. I was about to buy an item that was eligible for Prime shipping. But at checkout, it said it won't ship for 1-2 months! That's crazy. #abandoncart

Amazon delayed shipping warning

Sports retailer Sports Basement has been sending out emails that promote online events to help customers stay fit, such as live workouts with a trainer via video conference and healthy recipes to try at home (side note: there has been a spike in baking and home cooking with SIP). And of course, discounts for shopping online! Similarly, REI has 6 Ways to Mix Up Your At-Home Workday. Both are great examples of brands staying true to their brand positioning while producing relevant, engaging content for their customers.

Sports Basement workout tip

Also, make sure you are monitoring online chatter using social media tools. How are consumers reacting to your company's response? For many brands, they are dealing with significant customer service complains on social media, online chats on their sites, and of course their call centers. But also use this data to see what's trending? How do you weave your brand into the conversation? The key is to be authentic, empathetic, and not too salesy.

Get the word out!

When you've identified relevant content to share with the community, it's time to put the CRM team and tools to work! Leverage that email database you got! For small businesses using Square, Square is offering Square Marketing, its basic CRM program I previously reviewed, for free right now. Yelp is also offering some of its premium marketing services for free for small businesses. Take advantage of these tools! Most are very easy to use without a huge learning curve.

Of course, take it to social media channels. Remember when just a few weeks ago, the government and consumer privacy advocates wanted to take down Facebook and Big Tech? Now, consumers are spending more time than ever on Facebook and almost every single social network has seen engagement shoot through the roof! When you do post, do some #hashtag research to maximize visibility.

And this goes without saying, but make sure your website can handle increased traffic, especially if you're a retailer and your stores are closed. You might also consider a code freeze like most online retailers normally do Nov-Dec. Don't risk rocking the boat when it's the only sales channel you got right now!

Lock-in long-term behavior changes

Lastly, all this time at home and SIP has forced consumers and businesses to change their behavior, largely favoring online activity, and you should take advantage of making these behaviors long term habits. Just to name a few benefactors -- online video conferencing, online banking/mobile app banking, online grocery delivery, esports, virtual medical professional services like SteadyMD or Talkspace, not to mention multi-channel retailers who have struggled to get in-store shoppers to go online or use their mobile app. Post-SIP, all these industries will benefit from an injection of new users; the key will be to keep as many as they can as paying customers for years to come.

My Covid-19 Digital Playbook:

1. Dig into your web + app analytics data for insights
2. Re-evaluate your media buys and messaging
3. Develop relevant content for Covid-19 behaviors due to SIP and be useful to consumers
4. Be active on social media and email channels
5. Be prepared for how to exploit long-term behavior changes after we get through this to capitalize on your short-term wins

Now I only wish there was a digital solution for haircuts because I need one badly! =( And I don't just mean an AR filter for my video calls or socialpost!

Stay safe and sane out there...

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FIRST PEEK: Amazon 4-Star Store

This week Amazon opened a new 4-Star store (its third one ever) in Berkeley, CA, and I just had to check it out! Readers of my blog know I'm a big Amazon fan =)

The 4-Star store is located on 4th Street, a cute little commercial strip in west Berkeley that includes big retailers, such as Apple Store, Sur la Table, Z Gallerie, as well as local merchants and eateries. The 4-Star store actually replaced a Crate & Barrel Outlet I liked that closed earlier this year.

Amazon 4-Star Store, Berkeley

If you haven't heard of 4-Star stores, it's different than Amazon Go cashierless stores. 4-Star stores are manned by real people and you can check out at a normal register counter. They appear targeted towards consumers who don't want to wait for delivery, have security concerns with packages left at their doorsteps, or just want to physically see and touch a product, so they prefer to buy from a physical store.

Also, as the name implies, all the items are rated 4 stars or higher, as well as items that are new or trending based on what Amazon's website knows about shopping patterns in the surrounding area. A store employee told me inventory will constantly change based on local preferences and sales data. Yay, BIG data!!!

The store stocks hundreds, maybe 1000s, of products, ranging from books, toys & games, kitchen appliances and gadgets, home goods, consumer electronics, and of course, Amazon-branded Echo, Kindle, and Fire TV devices.

Inside Amazon 4-Star Store, Berkeley

I liked a section called Amazon Launchpad that featured products from start-ups. I actually saw the Rocketbook I bought for a friend's gift last year here.

Amazon Launchpad section

I have mixed feelings about the store layout. While it was semi-organized by department with big signage, such as "Devices and Electronics" and "Home and Kitchen," there was also lots of random stuff on tables in the middle of the store. While this created a sense of discovery, much like what has made discount stores like TJ Maxx or Ross popular, at times it felt cluttered and overwhelming.

I was really impressed by the dynamic price tags or "shelf talkers". It makes sense these are dynamic because an item's price and ratings are update regularly and I presume Amazon has to reuse these tags from the revolving inventory of items stocked in the store. The price tags are very easy to read and appear to be based on the same e-ink technology from their Kindle reader.

Dynamic Price Tag (a.k.a. "Shelf Talker")

The price tag often has 2 prices: a "regular" price and a lower price for Amazon Prime members. I was told non-Prime customers can sign up for a free 30-day trial and instantly receive the Prime price in-store.

I thought the bar codes on the left side of the price tags would allow me to scan the bar code with my Amazon mobile app to learn more about the product online, such as product details and actual reviews. But it didn't work when I tried it on a few items. So I don't think that is the intent of these bar codes, but IT SHOULD BE!

As you might expect, you can drop off Amazon returns here for free. But just know that you still have to initiate the return process online first and pick this location as a drop-off location. You can't just walk in like a traditional retail store with your receipt and expect them to process it for you in-store.

It would be cool if the Amazon site or app could check the 4-Star store's inventory and allow for store pickup if it knew I was near this store.  This would be similar to how traditional brick-and-mortar stores, such as Best Buy, Target, and Barnes & Noble, let you order online and pickup at a local store. But when I tried to do this from my Amazon app, it did not even show the new 4-Star store as a location for pickup (see below). Even if it was listed, it's not actually the same customer experience as these traditional retailers who are actually picking the product off the shelf in a specific store by searching its inventory management system. Amazon still says it will be available for pickup at your chosen pickup location in a few days, which makes me think it's still being shipped from its nearby warehouse. So much for instant gratification.

Where is the Amazon 4-Star Store on 4th Street in its App?

Overall, I liked the 4-Star store and can see myself coming back during the holidays for gift ideas because I like how it's curated. Or if I need to pop in for some cable or Amazon Essentials product. And I do like touching and feeling some products before buying. It's convenient especially for playing with the consumer electronics, which aren't just on display, but are actually connected so you can really test them out.

Happy Shopping!!!

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Local Search Has Lots of Room for Improvement

According to BIA/Kelsey Group, local digital advertising revenues will climb to $42.5 billion by 2015, almost double 2010’s $21.7 billion. While local search continues to grow, my personal local shopping experience last week shows it still has ways to go.

I had to replace 2 rear tires on my car and was trying to find a local tire shop. I knew the brand and model of the tires I needed so I simply turned to Google product search.

And what did I find? Nothing!

This surprised me, given how many auto and tire shops I've seen around San Francisco...heck, even the Bay Area. Google couldn't return one single result!

However, in another category, like computer printers, the results were more promising. For example, a search for "hp officejet 4500 printer" returned this result:

And when I click on the 25+ nearby stores - in stock link on the right, I got a Google Map with the merchants and their prices on a screen like this:

That was what I was hoping to find with my tire search. No such luck! It was frustrating that even in today's digital world, I just had to call around and ask friends for recommendations.

So, for at least the tire category, it's not that great despite the fact I was ready to buy with exact product specs. Perhaps some day it'll be as smooth a customer experience as my Barnes & Noble mobile experience from last year.

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OpenTable Dining Rewards Redemption Process is a #FAIL

Oh, OpenTable, on so many levels, you are such an innovator. But, your Dining Rewards Points Program leaves me perplexed on a few things.

First, for a born-on-the-web company, why in the world does it take 3-6 weeks to SNAIL MAIL customers a DiningCheque when they redeem reward points? In today's world of instant gratification, QR codes, and printable online coupons, why isn't this something a customer redeems on the site and instantly emailed the DiningCheque as a printable voucher?

Futhermore, a few weeks ago, I bought a Groupon-style coupon. And that just required printing out an email to bring to the restaurant after I bought it. So, if OpenTable can run Groupon-style coupons like this, how come they can't issue the same Groupon-style coupon for $0 cost and $20 value or something?

The redemption levels also confuse me. What is the incentive to save and redeem at the higher levels when it's the same one cent per point? Why wouldn't one redeem at 2000 points every time? And why would one save to 10,000 points for the same once cent per point conversion rate?

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Great Use Case for Location-based Services: Amusement Parks

Today I was at an amusement park with a bunch of friends. A bunch of friends who had a bunch of different interests and rides they wanted to go on. So, it's no surprise that the group split up a lot in multiple subgroups. And throughout the day, it was hard to regroup.

What usually happened when I tried to hook up with part of the group? I tried to call everyone on their cell. But usually they can't hear their phones ringing, probably because they are screaming their lungs out on a coaster!

I also kept losing the park map.

It would be so cool to be able to see a park map on my phone and where all the members of my group are. I know there are apps, such as Google Latitude and Loopt. But not everyone may want to download, register or can use the app on their cell phones. And the map wouldn't be detailed enough of all the venues at the amusement park. A street map would not suffice.

Imagine this: A location-aware or geo-fence service detects me and my friends have checked into the amusement park. Or if it's manual, maybe we send a special SMS code to receive a link to an app of a detailed amusement park map that also tracks my friends' whereabouts. But, it may still be a pain to sign-up for another check-in service.

This is where Facebook Places has an advantage with Facebook's huge installed base of 500 million (and growing) users. What if the amusement park had an app that leveraged the Facebook API so there is no registration to a new location-based service. This is a compelling reason for amusement parks to develop a really useful, Facebook Places-compatible app for its visitors! You here me, Six Flags?

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