Significant marketing opportunities remain during the final shopping days of 2009.
Using this year’s performance data, including clicks, conversions and sales, combined with the current demand run rate versus forecasts, I anticipate a rapidly accelerating online growth curve beginning on December 16th and 17th and growing through that weekend. And, the last-minute burst on the 21st to beat the shipping cutoff is going to be unprecedented. There’s a big opportunity to get ahead of this with promotions, search copy and even bid management so retailers can capture the demand and take a little pressure off the order influx.
There have been significant buying pattern shifts all Holiday season, particularly during the Black Friday to Cyber Monday run-up. Consumers who have been waiting it out for better promotions will be rewarded as they have been now for the past two seasons. We believe we’re going to see progressive growth starting this weekend, and that this year’s high-water mark could surpass CyberMonday.
Don’t be held captive to short-term ROI. Free your brand.
Late last week, I was fortunate enough to be in the lobbies of each of these four institutions: Harvard Business Review, The Salvation Army, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Liberty Medical. Each is a stalwart business and their missions smack you in the face when you walk in the door. In their lobbies, I could feel the energy. Better said, lobbies are where the brand meets the customer, real and prospective. These four are amongst the most successful brand direct marketers in their categories because they intuitively and actively drive growth through discipline and iteration. But, more, they believe that brand direct marketing is the ‘Engine that Could’ (and does): it drives and shapes perception based on how people respond and buy. Offers, creative, pricing, terms, messaging evolve as performance reveals. Brand awareness and a brand’s performance are directly connected.
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Job security and a disconnect between consumer confidence and consumer spending loom unpredictably over year-end holiday sales, but significant opportunities remain for marketers to optimize ROI and grow demand.
After months behind doors with our analysts and technology group building out potential new bid management algorithms and rules, this is the time of year when we start testing and tweaking our hypotheses for Holiday. This annual rite is both a quantitative and emotional climb to Black Friday where we can better forecast Holiday sales demand. August and September’s economic data is a head-spinner when comparatively evaluating it versus 2008. Historically, post-recession economic indicators are more predictable relative to buying behavior than times that are in rapid decline as were August and September 2008.
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Retailers’ customer relationships have changed, permanently. The price, the offer, the goody-bag, so to speak, all matter. They open the relationship and might cinch a sale but don’t close the deal, suggesting the long-term customer today is not just demanding more, but requiring it. In its latest quarterly analysts call, J. Crew’s CEO, Mickey Drexler, said it even more bluntly:
“It ain’t inventory that drives profit: it is the right inventory that drives profit. You can buy all day long today, and if you aren’t buying the right stock, the right inventory, the right fashion, it ain’t getting you the sales except at second and third markdowns and on promotions.”
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After a week’s worth of intense scanning, reading, searching and analyzing performance data, it seems Moms, Dads and kids are swiping their cards, so to speak. Click and conversion rates look to be steady to last year. Bad news: units look like they’ll be down. No shock. What we’re not seeing so far is a deluge of last-gasp, 50% off, get it now-or-never offers. There are lots of free shipping pricing experiments, but no game-changers.
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ACMA? NEMOA? Who are they and why should we care about them? They represent the catalog industry which is a major driver of retail demand, spurring intrigue in all kinds of products that consumers and businesses wouldn’t consider otherwise. Without them, internet sales would be substantially less.
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Posted in Offline Marketing
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Tagged Abercrombie & Fitch, ACMA, Day-Timer, Eastwood, Green Mountain Coffee, L.L. Bean, NEMOA, Patagonia, Staples, USPS, Victoria's Secret
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PM Digital’s CEO Chris Paradysz and President Suzy Sandberg tackle five questions surrounding the Microsoft-Yahoo partnership:
- Will Microsoft-Yahoo be competition for Google?
- Will this be a positive deal for advertisers?
- Will this be a positive deal for consumers?
- What does the combination bring that’s unique?
- What are the challenges of the Microsoft-Yahoo combination?
Below is a lively discussion – with occasional disagreement — regarding this groundbreaking news.
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My déjà vu senses are tingling again. There’s an intriguing confluence of events going on that reminds me of an earlier and painful dot.com era. While the need for greater sophistication in search marketing is accelerating, and consumer demand for non-essentials has become more fickle, search-related technology and the number of companies supplying it, is rapidly increasing. The skills of the players in the channel, including those with in-house capabilities, are becoming commoditized by this same technology.
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