Yaffe Tidbits

Better use of your transactional emails can better your business.

I had a great customer experience last week. My windshield was cracked and needed to be replaced. I called my friendly insurance rep at Progressive Insurance and was told the deductible was higher than the cost of replacement so payment would be at my expense. Would I be interested in being referred to their preferred supplier, Safelite AutoGlass and get the preferred discounted pricing? Doh!

I made arrangements with Safelite Autoglass to replace the windshield later that week. So far, so good, and no big deal. Here’s where they really shined.  Shortly after the phone call I received an email from them confirming my order. I had made arrangements to have the work done in the parking lot of my office building. It’s a big building with a huge parking lot and only moderately patrolled. What if these people weren’t on the up and up? What if somehow a scam artist impersonated the real installer and stole my car after I gave them the Keys? I know, you say, a little off the wall here. But I think you get my point about just the general over-all level of concern. As if on cue, another email arrived. It was branded with the company logos and information. It confirmed the appointment, price and all the details needed about my vehicle. It also had sections on Security and Safety along with a picture of Charles and a brief biography about him. My gosh, instant reassurance. I knew these people were legit and I knew my installer by his first and last name and more importantly what he looked like. The day after the installation SafeLite send a follow-up email to confirm my satisfaction and ask if I would take a survey about the experience. I’m sure you can tell how I responded to the survey.

The point of this story is; the act of confirming a business transaction can be so much more than just a simple confirmation. It is an opportunity for a company to reinforce their Brand awareness, garner customer satisfaction, develop customer loyalty and gain insight into their customers’ experiences. The only step in the process that Safelite missed was the opportunity to cross-sell or up-sell other services they offer. But hey, I’ll overlook that because they’re so much farther ahead than most other retailers/service companies already. It's part of a growing trend, where smart retailers are finding more ways to connect with their customers through online and digital formats.

Mike Morawski, Chief Development Officer & Satisfied Customer

Social Media – All Grown Up & Marketable

  MySpace, Facebook and the rest of the social media world tends to conjure up visions of teens, tweens and hipsters exchanging nonsense and silliness after school and late at night. Right? Well, maybe once upon a time. But just earlier this week WIReD, a web intelligence division of J.D. Powers was in our office showing us some very sophisticated methodologies using social media and blogs to do all kinds of consumer research. It was impressive and I think our research division, Yaffe/Deutser, will be able to take J.D. Powers  ideas and what we’re already doing and put together some exciting new programs that give our clients new insights.

Social Media isn’t just for kids any more. According to a recent report, over 50% of bloggers are over 30. And there are social media sites strictly for professional networking and problem solving. LinkedIn is probably one of the most popular. You can use the “Ask Questions” feature to get ideas and solutions to whatever you’re trying to work out. And make new contacts in the process. I myself am almost 50 and I have a LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook and Twitter account that I’m active in daily. We plan to roll out social media pages for our company soon. And in today’s world it just makes sense. Take a look at my earlier post on Twitter for one example.

Marketers have taken notice of these trends. At Yaffe we’re working on a number of projects that take advantage new social media marketing opportunities. Of course, some of those are still targeted at the younger set. One program we’ve developed puts viral videos we’ve developed on social media pages where high school students are to attract them to the community colleges or universities we’re marketing.

So, how about you? What are you doing personally in social media? What are you doing to market yourself, your company or your clients?

Mike McClure, Executive Creative Director

Geolocation knows where you've been.

Imagine walking into the Ace Hardware in Atlanta and a clerk greets you saying “Hello Ms. Smith. Denver sure is a long way to drive to get to our store”. You’d be really amazed that they knew you had come from Denver. In the real world that generally couldn’t happen unless the clerk was psychic. In the online world it can happen all the time with geolocation software.

Geolocation software utilizes a computer’s IP address to determine the visitor’s location. IP (Internet Protocol) is a computer’s version of the city/state of your home address. In other words, it can tell what city/state you’re from but not what street you live on. Ace Hardware can tell that you’re from Denver and they can serve you a completely different landing page than someone say, from Atlanta. This is a win-win for everybody involved. Visitors can get much more relevant information and websites can much better segment those visitors.

The software isn’t 100% accurate. Some Internet Service Providers, like AOL, use the location of their headquarters for all users IP addresses. Some users mask their own addresses. Even considering this, the accuracy is still in the low 90% range.

Mike Morawski, Chief Development Officer

Reach your customers online

Tap into their Lifestyle.

Now that advertisers are realizing that most everyone actually is online at some point in their daily routines it’s time to figure out how to make your web presence more enticing and inviting to the consumer.  It’s time to figure out how to use your website to heighten awareness of your brand and better service your customers.

Now that the web offers the consumer everything they could ever dream of and the ability to comparison shop with a click of the mouse, it’s time to figure out what your distinction is and how to make your consumer more dedicated to your brand.  How can you make your website bookmarked in your customer’s mail box as “favorites”.  The answer to this is all about the experience the customer has when he visits your brand online.

Traditional advertisers, especially regional retailers, really don’t have the advantage of location anymore-especially for big ticket items.  If a competitor is price competitive and really stands out in the consumer’s mind they will drive the distance to get the desired items.  So the issue becomes how to create that sense of desire around your brand.

The retailer’s website has the ability to communicate with the customer much more personally than traditional marketing.  You can address issues that relate to the customer’s habits and interests when communicating with them online.  By tapping into your customer’s lifestyle through online promotions and events you become more engaging to the consumer, more in tune with the issues that are important to them and the sense of trust becomes much more bonded in the consumer’s mind.

To offer aspirational, non competitive products and information makes the consumer more knowledgeable in their areas of interest. You can use your online environment to better service your customer’s needs by partnering with elements, individuals and non competitive brands that enhance the perception of you as a merchant in your customer’s eyes. This gives the consumer the feeling that you enhance their lifestyle as the imprimatur of style, or taste, or cool.

This idea of lifestyle marketing is what distinguishes one brand from another.  It’s all about creative thinking on how you can enrich the lives of your customers, not just sell a product.  As a merchant you have to try harder and dig deeper into the customer’s lifestyle to serve them better because the technology is available for your competitors to do so.  And sooner or later they will.

In my mind this puts the fun back into retailing.  In expanding how you service your customers through appealing to their lifestyles, you become more engaged in them personally.  And this takes new creative ways of doing business.  The more tuned in you are, the more turned on your customers will be.  At The Yaffe group we believe this is important. That’s why we’re creating programs/plans to show clients how to use the online environment to get “closer” to their customers. It’s something I am passionate about and that makes now a very fun time to be a marketer. What do you think?

Joan Abraham, online & lifestyle marketing