M-bossed Print Media Blog

Create Short and Simple

2013-05-14T02:16:15Z

Seth Godin writes like he talks — to the point. Somewhere along the way, through a blog or podcast, I heard Seth Godin say that it is much harder to convey your message in a short book than the typical 300 page novel. Godin’s brevity might not be the only reason for his success, but I believe it is an important one.

Software that is short and simple is more successful too. According to Nielsen, the average smartphone user has 41 apps on their phone. These apps serve a single purpose, do not require a manual to use, and are mostly free. What’s not to love? Ironically, the limitation of the mobile ecosystem from screen size to limited bandwidth force software designers to focus on delivering the minimal functionality to get the job done. Enterprise software, for the most part, has not been designed in a framework of limitations. Maybe this explains why their are features in Microsoft Office, SAP, and the like that most users will never use.

Chuck Gehman has a solid list of what print industry vendors should and could accomplish in a Software Renaissance, but what is needed most is for all products to become short and simple. Sure, this is a tremendous challenge for software categories with baked-in complexity such as MIS but the same argument could be made for CRM software which Salesforce has made simpler.

It remains to be seen whether this kind of innovation will come from within the industry but Printstagr.am or VineFlip may be good indicators.

The short and simple treatment isn’t just for books or software.

photo: Lisa Padilla

Learning with Google

2013-05-05T22:51:14Z

Google is continuing its “Learn with Google” series of education webinars over the next two months. The company has even offered “certifications” in search and analytics for completing some of its online learning courses. In exchange for you learning about technology, much of it Google related, Google also gets the opportunity to collect more Analytics data for those who opt-in. From this point Google can repackage and share insights from its big data treasure troves as it did recently with “The Customer Journey to Online Purchase” benchmarking tool.

Here are a few webinars that will probably be of benefit to service providers in print eCommerce:

Getting Started with Google Analytics (via YouTube)
New Research: How US Shoppers use Smartphones in Stores (sign-up here)
Reaching the Right Audience with Remarketing (sign-up here)

photo: brionv

Pre-commerce, 3D Printing, and Packaging

2013-05-05T22:49:52Z

Since 2009, a 2.8 billion dollar economy has existed from products that did not even exist. Jump over to Kickstarter to see thousands of hypothetical products that are waiting for you to crowdsource them into existence like a magicians conjures a rabbit from his hat. Lisa Gansky describes this pre-commerce economy in a FastCompany article as follows:

This model is scrappy and sensible. It reduces waste, encourages innovation, gives smaller players a shot at the marketplace, and ensures a built-in community of customers who will support entrepreneurs from the start. If proposed projects or products do not secure a minimal level of support, that insight alone is highly valuable–both financially and for brand equity.

That’s exactly what happened to entrepreneurs of the smart watch called Pebble. The watch collected over $10 million in funding from over 85,000 people. When Pebble did ship, it mostly lived up to its initial hype. But crowdsourced funding is just one part of the technology enabling the pre-commerce product driven economy.

Silicon Valley created a mystique around the entrepreneurial inventor churning out brilliant products in his garage. 3D printing has the potential to make every garage a replica of Silicon Valley type innovation which may play an even bigger role in the pre-commerce economy. The falling price points of 3D printers along with the free software to drive them has empowered curiosity seekers, tinkerers, enthusiasts, and academics to create new things. Most of the objects are created by jetting layer upon layer of plastic or metals to create a gun, a car, and even a house. The medical community has shown, with a little modification of the printhead and materials, all sorts of objects can be fabricated such as kidneys and ears.

The same underpinning process in 3D printing finishes the pre-commerce economy for products. Most products, maybe with the exception of those body parts, will require some element of packaging. Here again, printheads are used to put ink on materials to form a box or flexible package or a label.

When your next killer idea strikes, simply post it on Kickstarter, make and refine it on a 3D printer at your neighborhood Staples, prototype some eye-catching packaging, send the plans overseas for manufacturing, and watch the media hype you as the next kid-in-a-garge turned billionaire. While it may not be that easy, technology is making it more accessible for the masses.

photo: kakissel

Physical is the advantage, not mobile

2013-04-21T18:56:48Z

Wendy Bergh, the vice president at Walmart Global eCommerce, discussed Wal-mart’s mobile strategy during a panel at the recent ad:tech conference. There strategy is to have the ability for their customers to engage with Wal-mart anytime from anywhere. Wal-mart accomplishes this by supporting the customer through each step of AIDA.

Customers can use either mobile apps for iOS and Android or research product information or pricing on Wal-mart’s mobile optimized site. While useful, this is now expected from retailers. Through these apps, Wal-mart has implemented two other features to support the customer’s buying process. One is an “in-store mode” available when customers walk into their stores that will deliver the local ad and then access their shopping list or the second feature, Scan and Go. With Scan and Go, shoppers can scan any products barcode in the store and then checkout with the app which then delivers an electronic receipt.

The features and functionality of the mobile apps appear to be a larger attempt to prevent showrooming, the practice of viewing the product in a physical store only to buy in from an online retailer like Amazon. While Wal-mart has great technology infrastructure for logistics, the company has faltered compared to its competition in eCommerce. Instead of trying to out-do Amazon and others in technology, Wal-mart should take advantage of what its online competitors do not have – a huge network of physical stores.

Wal-Mart Locations on Google Maps

Wal-mart’s eCommerce initiatives should offer things like side-by-side price comparisons from Amazon with an option to purchase and pickup at their nearest store. The online shopping list should have an option to purchase and have one of Wal-mart’s in-store staff members pick, pull, and package it. The customer would simply have to pickup and verify their order in-store. If an item is out of stock in-store, the mobile app should allow the customer to scan the barcode add it to their in-store purchase but have it shipped to their house for free.

Brick and mortar retail needs to have a cohesive strategy to exploit their offline advantages with the flexibility and impulse nature of eCommerce. Only then will they be able to combat the convenience of online shopping and the negative effects of showrooming. While many, including Wal-mart, have made strides, they aren’t quite there yet.

[Side note: This symbiotic effect of on and offline would also apply to print franchises too.]

photo: Google Maps

Facebook Partner Categories – A Threat to Print Marketing

2013-04-21T18:56:09Z

Facebook knows a lot about what its users do within the walls of Facebook. The company can easily track your associations (friends), things you like, brands you mention, and more. Go outside of the Facebook ecosystem, however, and the company knows little about your behavior. That is until now.

Facebook announced on April 10th a new option for marketers to more specifically target users on Facebook called Partner Categories. Buyers of Facebook ads could already target ads with demographic information such as “18-to-24 year old male who lives in X zipcode.” Through Partner Categories, Facebook can mesh its user data with data from the major data houses of Datalogix, Axciom, and Epsilon. All three represent a wealth of big data on consumer behavior. Here are a few snippets of how each describe themselves:

Datalogix:
Our data includes almost every U.S. household and more than $1 trillion in consumer transactions.
Axciom:
With more than 32 billion data records updated each month, Acxiom is the industry leader in compiling, managing and applying consumer and business data for marketing, privacy and security.
Epsilon:
300 million loyalty members worldwide. Information on 130 million households representing 250 million consumers in the U.S. market, and 22 million businesses.

If you make a purchase online or offline, odds are, at least one of these companies knows about it. What this means is that marketers can now be even more specific in how they could create their Facebook ads. Evelyn Rusli summarized it well in a Wall Street Journal article, “As it broadens its network of data partners, Facebook is creating an increasingly detailed composite of their behavior, from what products they’re buying at the drugstore to sexual preferences and predicting what big purchases they may be contemplating.”

Marketers are interested in these new possibilities. GM is returning to Facebook after the very public divorce last year with a campaign for the Sonic compact car. GM is not alone as several global brands are indicating a more significant spend with Facebook thanks to the new targeting methods. Shiv Singh, the head of digital for PepsiCo’s beverages, stated that the company’s new targeting methods now reach 18-20 million people per month versus 3 million a year ago. With the new data from the Partner Categories, the company can even distinguish between Pepsi loyalists versus bargain oriented brand switchers.

As more companies use the additional layers of data for Facebook ads, a more accurate picture of its effectiveness will unfold. More opportunities and challenges will also present themselves. One opportunity not yet tapped would be the ability for marketers to overlap their own data sets with that of Facebook’s and the Partner Categories which is not possible today. Consumer and privacy advocates are presenting a challenge as they are already sounding the alarm bells.

Whatever the future holds for marketing on Facebook, one conclusion can already be drawn. No other channel can offer marketers such a holistic picture of the consumer from the convergence of big data from both online and offline behavior.

photo: Sean MacEntee