Last year in the run-up to CES, Jonathan Dalton, CEO and co-founder of product development and strategy firm Thrive, wrote, “These pivotal few days each January serve as a lighthouse, illuminating the trends we’ll see throughout the year ahead. Further, the ‘C’ in CES has become less about the ‘consumer’ and more about ‘convergence.’ As such, we predict this year you’ll see a lot of mashups: electronics and media, electronics and fashion, electronics and cars, software and hardware, home and security. But what’s most fascinating is that all this coming together also belies another convergence — one that hits pretty close to home: a reduction of the functional gap between devices and the humans that use them.”
Once again this coming January, CES promises to be all about convergence. With “the functional gap between devices and the humans that use them” closing still further over the past year, signs of the indivisible partnership between “devices and the humans that use them” will be everywhere. There on the exhibit floor will be the tangible fruit of the convergence and coalescing of nerves and synapses and 1’s and 0’s.
Convergence is a particularly meaningful term at Toluna these days. In fact, the new paradigm that is transforming our business—and the consumer insights industry/ market research —is literally synonymous with convergence. We saw this especially with the launch of Insights on Demand (IoD) this year.
Insights on Demand is best defined as the tight integration between technology and people to provide real-time insights to organizations – no matter their size or timeliness of need, with the ultimate vision of democratizing research as we know it. In fact, Insights on Demand is the amalgamation of the most advanced knowledge technologies, research methodologies and consumer insights expertise into one powerful force driving consumer insights and business-at large into the future. The definition of convergence. And our work in developing and refining the concept of IoD has led to convergence of another kind. We have brought together in the Insights on Demand Consortium senior brand marketers and consumer insight professionals from a wide variety of companies, industries, and geographies. They are working together to create a consumer insights framework for the future—one that will give businesses of every kind the tools they need to thrive in the global marketplace.
Finally, we are excited about “converging” at CES with professionals from the organizations and industries that make up our world. Each year, the event offers an unprecedented chance to share ideas with the people who—all year long—look to us for the insights that drive their businesses. What better way to start a new year?
Hope to see you in Vegas!
#CES2019 #InsightsOnDemand #Convergence
When Einstein wrote about time being relative, he could have been writing about the new product development process (NPD). Nowhere has the very concept of time changed more than in the NPD cycle; while it was once acceptable to run a product through years of testing, a typical NPD cycle from ideation to launch is now just two months long!
Of course business cycles have contracted across the business universe, but the change is particularly striking in the realm of NPD, as companies scramble to beat whole new cadres of competitors to market with new products.
Here’s an example of just how dramatically the process has changed:
During my agency career, one of our clients wanted to introduce a new, updated product to its product family. So the company embarked on a process to test consumers’ responses to the idea, and especially their responses to a new ingredient in the product. We needed answers to the following questions:
Is it believable?
Is it different?
Do you like it?
(And of course) Would you buy it?
And there was another factor involved. The company already had two older versions of the product on the market. Would the new product open up a whole new market segment or simply draw market share from the existing products? Would the company simply be moving product from one side of the warehouse to another?
The product launch was seven years in the making, and in the end it quickly became clear that consumers were already attached to the existing products and not about to switch. Think about: If they’d been adhering to today’s NPD time cycle, the company could have tested 42 products in that time!
The New Watchword: Fast-fail
Here’s what product development teams have learned from experiences like the one above: It’s not important (or even possible) to be 100 percent sure a product concept and execution is viable. Rather, teams need to gather as much information as they can in a reasonable amount of time (months not years), then either move on to the next stage in the cycle or abandon the concept. Fast-fail.
But it’s important to note that it’s not enough to be fast and conform to today’s tight product development cycles. It’s still critical to have a deep understanding of how your brand is received in the marketplace. That means you still have to answer the nuts-and-bolts questions about the concept and packaging (Is it believable, likable and different, and will consumers buy it.) That’s where new automated programs like Toluna’s suite of agile New Product Development (NPD) solutions come in. The platforms enable product teams to gain deep understanding of concept and packaging viability in times never before dreamed possible. And when combined with PowerShelf, which offers real-world testing of the effectiveness of shelf placement, teams have a complete picture of a concept’s impact on the marketplace. The products also allow teams to create benchmarks, to ensure their projects are on-time and on-target.
It seems clear that the NPD cycle will continue to shrink, as companies feel unexpected competitors nipping at their heels. New, automated solutions will help them not only survive but thrive in an environment that demands answers at the speed of light.
Today Packaging Digest published an article on consumer sentiment in the UK regarding recycling grocery packing.
The article featured exclusive data from a Toluna survey of 1,000+ respondents collected August 2018. In light of the signing of the UK Plastics Pact earlier this year with plans to remove single-use plastic from the supply chain, Toluna launched a survey in the UK to gauge consumer attitudes and behavior towards recycling product packaging from supermarkets.
In this article, Packaging Digest cited Toluna as a company whose expertise is invaluable for brands seeking to obtain perspective on how consumers in any region feel about a certain topic. Notably, Packaging Digest lauded Toluna’s Insights on Demand for enabling businesses to attain awareness and understand constantly shifting consumer sentiment and taste in the on-demand economy. James Pickles, Director of Corporate Client Sales at Toluna, responded to Packaging Digest’s questions about the survey conducted last month. According to Pickles, the main takeaway from the survey was that “recycling and eco-friendly choices are important to consumers and that these can drive purchase decisions, and encourage people to shop differently.” In addition, he said, “most feel that companies/brands make recycling easy, but there is opportunity to stress eco-friendly packaging and differentiate.”
The full survey results can be found here: http://tolu.na/l/Zp63GaJ
The article, which originally appeared in Packaging Digest, can be found here: https://www.packagingdigest.com/sustainable-packaging/how-uk-consumers-feel-about-grocery-pkg-recycling-1809
CPG needs to adopt agile, “fast fail” approaches to new product development used by the software industry.
Digital disruption comes in many flavors. We’re used to hearing about blue-chip household names upended by upstarts. We are also accustomed to stories of startups who “get” digital and mobile commandeering new touch points with consumers.
But there’s another, more subtle form of digital disruption that’s plaguing the consumer packaged goods industry: the metaphor of technology.
While CPGs, of course, need to embrace the latest technology, they also need to internalize the startup ethos of “fast fail.” Rushing out a minimum viable product runs counter to how CPG firms have done things over the past 100 years or so, but the change is warranted since consumer insights and data have never been as accessible as they are now.
Why today demands a new approach
About 20 years ago, when Napster was blazing a trail for future disruptors by rattling the music industry, the need for digital transformation in this segment wasn’t as acute. Since then though, quick-ship online retailers mounted a potent challenge to traditional distribution. Amazon, for example, doesn’t market paper towels under its AmazonBasics house brand, but it’s easy to imagine it adding a line. (The Walmart-owned Jet sells paper towels under its house brand, UniquelyJ.)
If that wasn’t enough, a wave of digitally native vertical brands (DNVBs) is also encouraging consumers to put repeat purchases like razors, feminine products, and coffee, among other items, on subscription.
The upshot is that while CPGs have had the luxury of a high barrier to entry, that’s no longer the case. If one of the e-commerce giants comes up with a great idea for a household product, then that’s an existential threat. The same could be said for a VC-funded DNVB.
The agile versus waterfall approaches
None of this is to imply that the CPG giants have been resting on their laurels all of these years. Everyone knows that even when they enjoyed structural advances both were known as hothouses of innovation. Bright Ivy League grads were happy to spend much of their careers finding ways to bring incremental improvements to toothpaste or laundry detergent and the standards for such innovation were formidable.
But since these companies are not just competing with like-sized brands anymore, they need a new approach to market research and obtaining consumer insights. The traditional lifecycle for consumer products lasts years. Since it is rooted in an age when real-time data wasn’t available, by necessity a lot of the company’s resources are invested in it before it launched a product. It’s hard enough to reiterate products once they’re launch, but the psychological investment also makes it hard for teams to admit they were wrong or that they overlooked something during the research phase.
This has been an issue in software development as well. The traditional or waterfall approach employs rigidly set phases for each development phase. Once you’re done with one, you move on to the next. By contrast, in agile development, consumers weigh in at each stage about what’s working and what’s not and cross-functional teams constantly address those concerns to improve the product.
With an agile framework, CPG brands can get feedback on everything from product design and packaging to shelf product placement in a retail environment. Such data-driven insights delivered in real time can give such brands the freedom to test ideas while limiting their chances of a major new product disaster.
While each has its pros and cons, one advantage of the agile approach is that when the product gets an “official” release there should be no surprises about how it will perform. Agile is also a better model to stay on top of consumers’ ever-changing expectations.
Why real-time data is a game changer
The agile approach hasn’t been an option until recently. But analysis of real-time data and machine learning can identify usage patterns and criticisms that allow for more constant iteration.
Along with a “fast-fail” mindset, such agile development will help CPG companies keep pace with nimble startups and spot opportunities. In the long run, embracing this type of digital disruption may have the most long-lasting effects.
Tell us about your role at Toluna and how you got here? What galvanized you to join Toluna?
I joined Toluna in 2009 when ITWP acquired the company with the aim of expanding into a new category of market research. At that point in time, I’d experienced the best of what the consumer insights industry had to offer but was open-minded about a change. When I met Frederic-Charles Petit, Toluna’s Founder and CEO, I became inspired due to his commitment to successful acquisitions and vision for the consumer insights industry. Frederic is the kind of person who explores possibilities beyond the confines of a certain industry and isn’t bound by the way things have been done in the past. He is a pioneer who is truly looking towards the future and inspires others to do the same.
How does Toluna fit into a modern CMO’s tech stack? How do you differentiate Toluna from the competition?
Toluna provides on-demand insights that empower marketers to make more informed decisions. The company’s platform-based approach to accessing consumer insights connects brands and consumers in real-time and showcases Toluna’s conscious decision to invest in technology ahead of the curve. The real-time nature of Toluna’s end-to-end platform, the richness of data it can provide, as well as the ease with which data can be interpreted and reported, have made it possible for us to broaden our conversations. Not only has Toluna become relevant to consumer insights professionals, but also to marketing professionals who can now access insights directly.
How are marketing research platforms different today from when you first started?
Today’s marketing research platforms have evolved to provide a better quality of insights. This innovation has totally disqualified the idea that DIY surveys and direct-access approaches only serve as ‘quick gut check’ research. Our research expertise, coupled with our understanding of sampling, consumer populations, and data analysis, are legitimately backed into the solutions we offer.
What is your “Ideal Customer Profile”? Which markets and geographies are you currently targeting?
Our ideal targets are consumer insights professionals who work in agencies, however, we consider brand managers, innovation teams, and strategists to be part of our core audience as well. With our consumer panel consisting of more than 21 million influencers spanning 68 countries/regions and with offices in 24 markets, Toluna truly targets a global audience.
What are the major pain points for Global Marketing teams in delivering meaningful and conversational omnichannel messages to audiences?
I’d say that at this point, we always want to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time. That’s the goal of any marketer. In some cases, your strategy is bound by your channel, and you need to think creatively about how to optimize your tools. Although this isn’t ideal, we acknowledge that it is a reality in this business and that’s why we’re working deliberately to provide consumer insights that can inform the best way to engage with consumers across all channels.
How do you measure your Sales Fitness? What tools would you recommend to CEOs and CMOs as a Sales Hack in 2018?
Using marketing automation systems that are integrated with our sales systems have allowed us to measure our Sales Fitness more efficiently. For CEOs and CMOs, I would recommend automation technologies that provide rich intelligence and help ensure full cohesion across marketing and sales campaigns. This has been a critical element for our organization.
Which startups in the martech and adtech industries are you keenly following?
Smartling is an interesting company that is helping international brands expand by translating marketing materials and websites into local languages. Influential is another company doing interesting things. They use predictive analytics and machine learning to help brands find qualified personalities for influencer marketing campaigns based on a target audience.
What marketing and sales automation technologies do you use?
We’re very experimental, and given our global nature, we often find that there are things that you can do in a certain market that are niche that may not be available in another market. Innovation always starts in pockets, and we’ve actually found vendors who do very cool things that aren’t yet inclusive. I’d say that the global nature of our team gives us the ability to try many new and innovative approaches before we digest them as best practices universally.
Tell us about the new standards of tech integrations that you find very interesting. How do you steer clear of data chaos?
We’re very fortunate as a consumer insights firm. We’re all data geeks here and always have our eyes on how data can be integrated to better inform our decision-making. That being said, we also know things can get out of hand quickly, so we’re extremely proactive. Our mantra is to integrate what you need and can ultimately act on, and we apply this to clients as well.
Elaborate on your best digital transformation campaign. How did you measure the performance among your audience?
One of the major components of our success was the perception among professionals in this business. While we have our own internal systems for measuring exposure and attribution, we also have a series of external sources and studies afforded by our industry. For example, after our most recent re-brand, we were able to understand impact very quickly post-launch due to digital making campaigning and message delivery virtually instantaneous.
How do you prepare for an AI-centric ecosystem as a global marketing leader?
AI is something we study very closely and is something that has the potential to change the way marketers can make sense of, and garner insights from, massive amounts of data. However, consumer insights are about the ‘why’ behind the ‘what’ and so I don’t see that going away. The need for qualitative insights will only increase as the level of AI-powered quantitative insights increases.
How do you inspire your people to work with technology?
We’re by nature a technology-driven company, and my entire marketing team is naturally inclined to embrace and use technology. It’s built into the work we do for clients and to advance our own B2B marketing initiatives.
How do you consume information on marketing and sales technologies?
In addition to ongoing training and certification, I personally encourage my team to take 1 – 2 technology vendor meetings a week. That’s the approach we take for learning about what’s out there and what competitors are doing in order to stay ahead of the game.
What apps/software/tools can’t you live without?
I am a big proponent of organization and I think I’ve used my Amazon Echo Show to its fullest capacity. Productivity tools that can be applied to both work and home help to blur the lines between work life and home life in a non-intrusive way.
What’s your smartest work related shortcut or productivity hack?
At Toluna, we use a lot of our own data for content creation, and I realize how lucky we are as we’re in the position to do that. Our platform and analytic tools make it easy to create something once and use it many times, while also managing translations – it saves us loads of time, and also provides us with the ability to collaborate. Also, managing global marketing calendars can be time-consuming without adding immediate business value. I’m in the process of evaluating several new platforms, though we’ve not yet landed on one that meets our business need – stay tuned!
What are you currently reading? (What do you read, and how do you consume information?)
I’m reading ‘How Brands Grow’ by Daniel May and recently finished ‘Contagious,’ which was awesome.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
“Make time to be your own advocate.” Marketers often devote so much less time to developing their own personal brand. It’s important. I received this advice from a former boss of mine who had a background in PR and journalism.
Tag the one person in the industry whose answers to these questions you would love to read.
Jonah Berger
Capturing a mobile respondent’s attention for longer by accommodating mobile users with smaller grids and shorter, well-targeted questionnaires.
For a while, it was the drumbeat: mobile, mobile, mobile. It was THE topic of interest across the industry, with fear and uncertainty swirling about at the mention of the word. Would mobile studies really take root? Would these new, often shorter studies yield good data? The answers to those questions now seem eminently clear.
First, mobile is here to stay—just as it is in the population-at-large. If anything, it’s becoming old hat, with clients well ready and waiting for effective mobile studies. And as for the quality of data, there’s no reason for fear; as long as studies are properly designed for a mobile audience they should result in good quality data. (Think about it: When we switched gears from in-person to phone, then from phone to online studies we worried about data quality—without cause.) In fact, the most effective design of these studies was the topic of a key panel discussion at a recent Market Research Society B2B research conference. Toluna was one of the presenters at the panel, which yielded a range of recommendations for designing and mounting effective mobile studies. Here’s a look at some of the major conclusions of the panel.
Refining Mobile as It Matures
As we said at the outset, there’s nothing really new about mobile, with 40 percent of respondents saying they have participated in a mobile survey, and 10 percent of respondents participating in mobile surveys of their own accord. That means surveys should be designed to be mobile-compatible across-the-board. Things to remember include:
PC users have large screens, so they can accommodate studies built on large grids. Obviously, mobile screens are smaller, making it harder for users to work with large grids. It’s much more effective to design surveys with drop-down menus so mobile users can navigate easily, which helps avoid frustration based abandonment. Note that some platform-based solutions like TolunaInsights are device-agnostic, completely avoiding the issue of ineffective design. This, of course, is the most forward-looking approach to the continuing growth of the mobile market. (In 2016 mobile survey participation stood at 30 percent, and has now grown to 40 percent.)
Size matters. Generally speaking, mobile users have less tolerance for long surveys. This may be partly due to the fact that they tend to skew slightly younger, with the impatience of youth a well-established fact. And the mobile environment is, of course, rife with distractions; generally, younger respondents tend to be big media consumers and favored targets of advertisers. To compete effectively with all these distractions, it’s usually important to keep studies to around 15 minutes long. This can be achieved by applying different design guidelines. For example, if testing 100 concepts, don’t ask one person to test all of them. Rather, ask one respondent to test five against just three variables, so 15 questions in 7.5 minutes.
Zero-in with the right questions. In the high-traffic mobile environment, it’s more important than ever before to design an effective questionnaire. In the few minutes, you have a respondent’s attention, you can’t afford to ask questions to which you already have the answers. It’s critical to quickly move to questions that will yield new and actionable data. Research has shown that, with a well-designed, interesting study, you can actually capture a mobile respondent’s attention for longer.
When you think about it, there’s nothing really hard about creating effective mobile studies. It’s really just a matter of “thinking small,” remembering to accommodate mobile users with smaller grids and shorter, well-targeted questionnaires. And with mobile such a major part of our lives, it’s about time we changed the way we’ve been doing surveys for the last 50 or 60 years and really reflect the way the world has changed.
If the Market Research industry is to continue in its role as an invaluable partner to global business, it must offer businesses cover from the storms raging in the marketplace, with real-time insights that provide a foundation for fast decision-making.
Over the past few years, the global marketplace has seen a number of dramatic changes that—taken together—have created a perfect storm impacting the way companies do business. And, as the pace of change continues to accelerate, it has become increasingly clear that businesses need a tool in their back pockets that will give them insight into their most important customers’ constantly changing needs.
More Speed and Agility
Businesses are now competing with counterparts down the street and half a world away, making it critical that they gain consumer insights faster than ever before, in order to have the security they need to move forward with a whole range of business decisions. In fact, executives everywhere now virtually equate speed-of-decision-making with success. In a recent article in Fast Company, Upstart founder Dave Girouard writes, “Too many people believe that speed is the enemy of quality. To an extent they’re right—you can’t force innovation and sometimes genius needs time and freedom to bloom. But in my experience, that’s the rare case. There’s not always a stark tradeoff between something done fast and done well.”
The urgency Girouard describes—which is literally permeating the marketplace—has been coupled with ever-tightening budgets and streamlined internal processes as companies seek to stay ahead of a growing field of competitors. That means businesses can no longer dedicate unlimited time and resources to market research studies; they need insights right now and for the right price in order for those insights to have any competitive value. Expensive and lengthy studies that guarantee 100 percent certainty are a thing of the past. In fact, these days insight teams are often asked to deliver product insights in a day’s time or less to support critical and timely strategy decisions. That demand is driving teams to often lean toward a more iterative research approach, for instance fielding short surveys to a limited number of participants as trial balloons, then quickly fielding another survey to follow up on results.
Clearly, the Market Research industry should provide the engine behind driving business’s need-for-speed.
Technology as Centerpiece of Change
Not surprisingly, researchers, both in-house teams and at Market Research firms, have turned to technology as a great enabler. Advanced technologies are making it possible for even small companies to develop deep profiles of their most important customers. Technologies like digital tracking provide clear roadmaps of consumers’ online behavior, while digital assistants and AI jump to the future tense—allowing companies a view of customer intent. More than ever before, technology is allowing researchers and marketers to get to the vital information they need in record-time, making it possible for them to respond to the shifting sands in the marketplace.
Changes in technology are of course a huge factor in promoting change in the global marketplace, driving both businesses and consumers to expect almost instantaneous delivery on the promise of “better, faster, cheaper.” And if one source for goods and services can’t deliver on the promise, they are more than willing to look elsewhere. Think about it: If a consumer can’t find exactly the shade of lipstick she wants on a site like JC Penney, or Walgreen’s, there are plenty of other places she can go. This kind of disruption of the once-static competitive marketplace means companies find themselves in competitive trysts with businesses that were never before on their radar screens. This is clearly a complex situation requiring constant vigilance and a consistent flow of actionable information from insight teams.
Market Research needs to constantly stay ahead of the technology curve, in order to remain an invaluable counselor to its business partners
Demand for Increased Efficiency Through Automation
One way companies are dealing with the intense cost and competitive pressure is by bringing more and more research and media planning functions in-house. A perfect example is Proctor and Gamble, the world’s biggest ad purchaser. In recent years the company has brought an ever-increasing number of functions in-house, with Chief Financial Officer Joe Moeller announcing in January, “We’ll automate more media planning, production and distribution, bringing more of it in-house,” he said. That is a continuation of an effort that has already cut the company’s agency and production costs by $750 million annually in recent years.
Note that P&G’s CFO specifically credited automation in the company’s ability to bring functions in-house. More and more—thanks to advanced technology–companies are able to put research projects in the hands of in-house insight professionals, saving valuable time and resources.
To remain viable, Market Research must provide companies with the tools and expertise they need to effectively automate some research functions, while ensuring accurate results.
Shelter from the Perfect Storm
Like never before, the Market Research industry has come together to provide global business with the tools and expertise it needs to compete effectively in the On Demand universe. The perfect example of this is the newly formed Insights on Demand Consortium, an industry group that brings research professionals together to serve as the vanguard of a new Market Research industry, addressing the next-generation need of business for dynamic insights. In other words, the new Market Research industry will be the shelter from the storm raging in global business.
For a more detailed look at the work of the consortium, go to https://www.insightsondemand.org/
The old way of conducting market research is no longer viable in today’s world where marketing and advertising professionals need to execute campaigns at 10x the speed as they were done in the past. We see the need not simply for the incremental improvement of market research or data collection – but a new way of obtaining insight – enter an entirely new business practice – Insights on Demand. This democratized vision for market research makes insights into consumer intent accessible and achievable for all business professionals in companies of all sizes.
Why Change? Consumers Have.
Today’s consumers are more savvy than ever about the choices available to them in the marketplace. They expect brands to deliver personally tailored content, products and services, in real-time and on-demand. These “always on” consumers use mobile devices equipped with a wide range of tools that empower them to deflect or reject irrelevant content, and opt-in to receive only the most relevant messages from their favorite brands.
Many of today’s consumers also increasingly engage with brands across multiple channels and devices – from smartphones to tablets to laptops – to shop and make purchasing decisions. When brands attempt to grab the attention and dollars of multi-tasking consumers by delivering the right content, speed and accuracy are critical.
Today’s marketers who can stay one step ahead of consumer demands stand to gain a significant competitive advantage. But the only way to achieve that edge is by having access to real-time consumer insights that accurately reflect these new realities, provide a complete picture of consumer sentiment, and are driven by cost-effective technology that automates the delivery of those insights to speed up the decision-making process. Additionally, today’s speed of information creates constant and rapid shifts in consumer sentiment.
Brands Have Changed Too.
Agile and innovative companies of all sizes – not just giants like Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google – will continue to find new ways of providing real-time, on-demand value to consumers, and in the meantime seek new ways to obtain dynamic insights and move past the old way of static, rearview-focused market research data.
Incremental improvements in market research and data collection have in many cases become insufficient to address these realities, which now demand an entirely new way of obtaining consumer insight.
Based on our prediction of what’s coming, and my continued sense that the market research industry is ultimately to be democratized, we’ve taken a leadership position by creating a new market category called Insights on Demand.
The MRx Industry is at an Inflection Point – Insights on Demand is Born
Today’s businesses need access to insights that are deep and dynamic, always available, and tuned into constantly changing market sentiment. So where does it leave those of us in the market research industry?
Insights on Demand is a new, transformational market category, based on business needs for fully integrated approaches to understanding constantly shifting consumer sentiment and taste. Insights on Demand promotes the tight integration between technology and companies to provide real-time insights to organizations – no matter their size, or timeliness of need. This democratized vision for market research makes insights into consumer intent accessible and achievable for all business professionals in companies of all sizes. At the core, the market research industry faces challenges adapting to this new world order. It’s not just about adopting technology, the need is deeper.
Insights on Demand is not just going to be bigger than market research because it’s better. It will be bigger than market research because it’s broader. It can be scary and difficult to change, but when you are part of an industry that is being disrupted, transformation is the only solution.
Neste artigo, além de apresentar os 12 motivos para sua Indústria usar o E-mail Marketing Automatizado, também vamos falar sobre a importância da comunicação eficiente da sua indústria com seus clientes e o que esse relacionamento constante e efetivo impacta nos resultados dos seus negócios.
É fato que uma comunicação interna eficiente e regular com seus colaboradores melhora toda a estrutura e organização da sua empresa. A eficiência e regularidade na comunicação interna de uma empresa traz enormes benefícios, aumentando a produtividade e diminuindo mau-entendidos e retrabalho.
Mas porquê, muitas vezes, negligenciamos a importância dessa comunicação eficiente e regular com nossos próprios clientes? Porque só investimos nessa comunicação quando estamos próximos de feiras ou algum outro evento do setor?
Há um ditado que diz: “Quem não é visto, não é lembrado!”
Nesse caso, ser “visto” não precisa necessariamente ser pessoalmente. Afinal, na correria que vivemos, visitas regulares e constantes podem até incomodar nossos clientes, além dos custos de deslocamento, por parte dos representantes.
No atual mundo digital que vivemos e com nossos clientes cada vez mais conectados, sermos vistos e lembrados pode ser facilmente substituído por uma comunicação online eficiente e regular.
Dessa forma, somos menos invasivos e nossos clientes sentem-se mais à vontade de ler nossas mensagens quando melhor lhes convier.
Mas, como já dito, para trazer resultados efetivos à empresa, a comunicação online com clientes deve ser frequente e regular e, nesse caso, umas das ferramentas mais utilizadas pelas indústrias em todo o mundo é o E-mail Marketing B2B. Se você tem dúvidas quanto a eficiência do e-mail marketing B2B, continue lendo esse artigo e assista ao vídeo que está no final.
Claro, como toda boa comunicação, é importante que haja bom senso e timing na freqüência desses envios. A empresa deve identificar o padrão de comportamento de seus clientes e definir a periodicidade de envios adequada.
Porém, no caso de envios de e-mail marketing B2B (para clientes da base de uma indústria) não há problema em haver certa regularidade nesses envios, afinal esses clientes já conhecem a indústria, já compraram ou compram regularmente e, portanto, terão interesse na comunicação e, consequentemente, abrirão os e-mails.
Para se ter uma ideia da importância do uso do e-mail marketing pelas empresas, vamos ver alguns números abaixo.
1 – 92% dos adultos presentes online utilizam e-mail, sendo que 61% deles utilizam diariamente. – Pew Research
2 – Funcionários de empresas passam, em média, 13 horas da sua jornada semanal de trabalho verificando sua caixa de entrada – McKinsey & Company
3 – 72% dos consumidores escolhem e-mail como o melhor canal para receber comunicações de empresas e marcas. – MarketingSherpa
4 – Um e-mail é 40 vezes mais efetivo para aquisição de novos clientes do que redes sociais como Facebook e Twitter – CampaignMonitor
5 – Quando se trata de compras realizadas como resultado direto de uma mensagem de marketing, o email possui maior taxa de conversão (69%) que redes sociais e outros canais offline – DMA
6 – Os contatos na sua lista de email possuem uma probabilidade 3x maior de compartilhar seus conteúdos nas redes sociais que visitantes de outras fontes. – QuickSprout
7 – 72% das pessoas preferem receber conteúdos promocionais por email do que via redes sociais. – MarketingSherpa
8 – Uma mensagem é 5x mais provável de ser vista no email do que em redes sociais. – Radicati
9 – 59% dos profissionais de marketing B2B afirmam que email é o canal mais eficaz para gerar receita. – BtoB Magazine
10 – 49% dos profissionais de marketing B2B investem mais tempo e recursos em email marketing que em outros canais. – BtoB Magazine
11- Ferramentas de automatização de email são utilizadas por 82% das empresas B2B e B2C – Regalix
12 – Mais de 75% da receita gerada por email tem sua origem em emails automatizados. – DMA
Não adianta apenas ter uma excelente plataforma de vendas online se não atrair e incentivar seus clientes a usá-la.
Mais do que uma plataforma de vendas B2B, o Pedido Digitais é uma máquina automática de atração de clientes através da sua automatização de E-mail Marketing B2B.
Com a automatização de e-mail marketing do Pedidos Digitais, seu cliente é atraído pela eficácia e assiduidade da sua comunicação e assim, acessa a plataforma com maior freqüência, aumentando enormemente as chances de compras.
Isso é E-mail Marketing que realmente trás resultados para sua empresa, sem precisar contratar agências, ferramentas extras ou treinar seus funcionários para utilizá-las.
Tudo é automatizado pela Sellentt com apenas um clique. Ative este recurso na plataforma e deixe que o Pedidos Digitais faça todo o resto!
Veja no vídeo abaixo a importância da sua indústria adotar o E-mail Marketing Automatizado do Pedidos Digitais.
Catálogos digitais não são verdadeiramente uma novidade. Mas, apesar disso, muitas indústrias desconhecem ou ainda não se atentaram aos benefícios e vantagens que catálogos digitais podem trazer às suas ações comerciais.
Normalmente, o representante carrega consigo um mostruário dos produtos e lançamentos, se desloca até o cliente, apresenta os produtos e efetua o pedido.
Os custos com a produção e manutenção destes mostruários estão se tornando cada vez maiores e inviáveis.
Tem que se produzir centenas, às vezes milhares de peças para, na maioria das vezes, vender menos da metade dos modelos da coleção.
Tem que se organizar esses mostruários em bandejas ou qualquer outra forma de apresentação e emitir NF para o transporte legal, e isso gera um enorme fluxo de trabalho interno.
Além disso, em alguns casos há custos com o seguro destes mostruários, manutenção e troca de etiquetas. Isso, quando não há perda ou desuso por descontinuidade dos modelos na próxima coleção.
Outra forma tradicional de apresentação e venda dos produtos da indústria são os catálogos impressos.
Os custos com catálogos impressos também estão se tornando cada dia mais altos. Além dos custos com a arte na criação desses catálogos, a impressão e o papel tem se tornado cada vez mais caros.
Nem vou entrar no mérito da sustentabilidade aqui, pois não é o objetivo deste artigo, mas também deveria ser levado em conta, diante da escassez ambiental que o mundo está passando.
Além destes custos, existe a demora na produção de novos catálogos impressos, quando são lançados novos produtos ou alguma nova campanha de vendas, em datas comemorativas ou de padrões do comércio, como dia dos Namorados, dia das Mães, dia dos Pais e Natal. Além de tudo isso, ainda existe a impossibilidade de se atualizar catálogos impressos!
É comum também a dificuldade e demora no envio desses catálogos aos representantes e clientes e, consequentemente, um atraso nas compras.
Enfim, são muitas as desvantagens de um tradicional catálogo impresso.
Uma das vantagens de um catálogo digital é a sua praticidade. É possível produzir um catálogo digital em minutos numa plataforma como o Pedidos Digitais, por exemplo. É possível criar um catálogo digital para cada data comemorativa do comercio, como por exemplo Dia das Mães, Dia dos Namorados, Dia dos Pais e Natal.
A navegação em um catálogo digital, conduz o cliente a conhecer outros produtos da marca, incentiva a compra de mais produtos relacionados e a reposição de itens que ele ainda não estava considerando comprar.
Também é possível incluir recursos extras como vídeos com demonstrações dos produtos e depoimentos de clientes, links para seu site ou a opção de curtir as redes sociais. Também é possível emitir pedidos de compra, por meio do próprio catálogo digital.
Caso você precise corrigir ou atualizar algum informação, preço ou descrição de algum produto no catálogo digital, isso é totalmente possível e muito rápido de se fazer. O que é impossível em um catálogo impresso.
CLIQUE AQUI PARA SABER MAIS SOBRE OS CATÁLOGOS DIGITAIS
Outra grande vantagem é poder medir o sucesso de um catálogo digital. Não há como analisar a eficiência de catálogos impressos. Já nos catálogos digitais, conseguimos mensurar com precisão, quais clientes acessaram, quantas vezes acessaram, quais produtos são mais visualizados e quais são mais vendidos.
Com isso, é possível criar relatórios precisos que mostram os produtos que mais agradam, mas não vendem e os que mais vendem efetivamente e, assim, estabelecer critérios assertivos para desenhar a próxima coleção.
Todas essas funcionalidades proporcionam uma experiência positiva do cliente com a sua marca e opções de interatividade que não são possíveis de oferecer sem o uso da tecnologia.
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