Marketing is like cricket.

Business Standard's Strategist is carrying one of my articles today. I had written this note (over two months of the IPL fever) on the similarities on the evolution of the game of cricket and the evolution of the behavior of the consumer.

You can read the article here.

The note is why a smart marketer has to evolve to stay relevant to the changed consumer and that you either play by the rules of the audience or you perish.

Do let me know your views.

SHOP FLOOR; THE NEW PRIME TIME. Trend No 6

6. BRAND DECISION ARE MADE IN THE LAST MILE;

As many as 70% of brand decisions are made in the “last mile”. 70% and growing.

This research finding was 1st published by POPAI, and has been substantiated over years by a number of other studies including our own research using some of our last mile tools into various product categories. What is interesting is that in a lot of cases the percentage is higher.

What this indicates however is alarming. This percentage effectively indicates spillage (even gross wastage) of media buying costs which are not being successful or effective in generating real sales.

I am sure we have all experienced the magic of the last mile, whenever we have stepped out to pick up something like a washing machine, or a TV or a refrigerator – we leave our homes with a fair understanding of the product category, the top five brands in the category and our intended brand purchase, however, magically most of us come back with a different product – 70% of us do it time and time again.

Reasons why shoppers switch brands are multiple however almost all of them are centered on effective usage of last-mile consumer touch-points by some brand when compared to others.

Last-mile touch points are multiple & diverse ranging from product pricing, POSM quality, share of display, quality of experience, quality of salesmanship to basic issues like brand presence. All these combined create a last-mile experience which ensures brand switches.

On a number of brands our studies show us a significant “intent of purchase” of the brand amongst consumers when they walk in to the store – thereby indicating obvious good work done on the awareness & interest creation front by the advertising, however, significant negative shift in the actual purchase.

The fact that an in-effective last mile can be a bleed on the success is well understood, however, not all brand managers seem to understand how to address the issue in effective and measureable ways.

My A to Z list of tools contd. (IJKLM)

I.

This is a great tool that’s helps you generate heat maps of what and where people clicked on your site. This tells you what’s hot and what’s not, so you can make changes that matter.




J.
Good ol' good ol'. Basics of SEO. This one and about 10 others are mandatory.


K.
Another great tool which generates heat maps of useage patterns of the website.


L.
This tool allows you to compare feed subscribers across various sites. Great way to look at competitions effectiveness.


M.
A very effective tool for one to stay informed and updated about latest & relevant news, queries and topics / content pertaining to the website.

Read more about digital tools on my A to Z list of digital tools; Click here

The last mile just got longer! Contd..5

5. The customer’s experience with the brand throughout its lifetime will drive the future. Marketers increasingly need to look at extending their roles throughout the lifecycle of the product to ensure future purchases.

Cute brand messaging will need to be extended to laborious number crunching and analysis. Customer relationship management will be important not only in the high value B2B businesses scenario but also in the low product value (read low brand switching costs) B2C scenario. Re-purchase has become the new and critical benchmark to monitor brand marketing success.

The role of the marketer is growing and is going to be far more revenue-led than in the past. No longer is it considered enough to create fantastic brand experiences pre-purchase, or even to ensure conversion at the purchase point. In fact, that is just the beginning. The last mile just got a lot longer.

Go to the main post