It's the new financial year, I know a lot of you are now reviewing marketing budgets for FY2019 and putting strategies in place, which is why I wanted to share some relevant information with you. This stuff is sure to provoke some well needed 'out of the box' thinking about what your next moves might include.
You know how we are all looking at sales figures and targets for this year and wondering what to do to crush them? Well, I help 4wd business owners and marketers get that 'punch the air feeling' when they smash the sales goals by simply making their customer's dreams come true!
The change I want to see in our industry is one that makes it easier for people to buy the correct 4wd parts and accessories first time round.
It makes my heart sing when I see my clients blow their customer's minds with great advice and delivery of products that fit their needs EXACTLY. It is a process that should be seamless each and every time, but with an ever changing landscape of sales technology and customer's needs it's tricky to know how to get it right and keep people coming back.
Here's some food for thought:
A couple of weeks ago in a session on board its M/Y Accama yacht, Accenture-owned Fjord’s General Manager for Europe, Africa, Latin America, Thomas Mueller, led a presentation on current retail trends via an interactive experimental food tasting experience. Swanky much?
He opened the session by stating some current figures around bricks and mortar retail and how it's not all doom and gloom. He said 'While the headlines told us that 10,168 brick and mortar stores closed in the US in 2017, what they neglect to say, in fact, is that 14,248 opened.
Physical retail is not dying, as 67% of eCommerce stores have now opened physical stores. And physical retail is also providing 30% uplift in conversion. More importantly, digital natives have also expressed a preference for physical stores.'
He then went on to pair the seven current retail trends with a seven-course menu, each designed to demonstrate the trend at hand.
Note: I have no idea what the guests actually ate, so 'ill try and demonstrate how each trend could look from our industry's perspective.
1. Shrinking the thinking – the ruthless route to ultimate convenience
This trend is about taking out the friction of every part of the retail journey in order to eliminate barriers to purchase. Case studies like Amazon Go, eBay and Rebecca Minkoff were used to demonstrate that retail is now a time and effort saving business.
How are you using technology to take this friction out of the retail journey for the customer? I have seen some positive movement in the right direction, with vehicle weight calculators and wish list generation tools, but nothing that provides a complete, end to end, smooth sales process for someone buying 4wd accessories.
2. Personal curator – knowing you better than you know yourself
Personalisation in retail is now done via informed data sets. Companies, such as VITL, is now creating personalised products based on their clientele’s DNA sample, lifestyle and personal preference. Retail is now in the filtering business, where what you know about your customer is more valuable than what you sell.
Surely by now, we would know what works for someone who uses their 4wd for towing a boat as opposed to someone who takes the family to Fraser Island each year. How do they differ from the 4wd park, rock crawler type? Why aren't we collecting this data and putting it in the one place for everyone to access? As an industry, wouldn't this help to guide our customer's purchasing decisions and get things right for them the first time round?
3. Indulgent dwell – savouring time for slow shopping
When it comes to physical retail, customers are now choosing to spend the time in exchange for a unique experience. Jeans store Dish & DU/ER allows customers to watch their jeans being produced in-store, as well as offering them to test the durability of its products via an in-store playground. Another example is the Adidas ‘Knit for You’ offer, which sees customers fork out nearly $300 for a bespoke sweater, which is created in-store while you wait.
By finding out what fascinates customers about your products and offering unique experiences, retail has become an education business. How can we include 'education' into our sales process without coming across as pushy or condescending? Our customers enjoy the discovery process more than most, let's face it, we sell adventure, yet when it comes to 4wd accessories, more often than not, a certain product is touted as the best and no other option is given to a customer - where is the discovery in that??? How can we guide our customers in the right direction yet make them feel like they discovered the best solution! Are you using gamification in your marketing and can that be done in your showroom?
4. Theatre – telling astonishing stories that provoke the senses
Brands are now producing entertaining experience for customers to tell their brand story, rather than only to transact. By making customers feel something, Fjord argues that retail is moving towards in becoming an entertainment business.
This should be easy for us! We love to spin a yarn around the campfire, so why don't more of us get out there and tell our story? There are so many mediums out there for getting video content out to our audience - don't be shy! The guys at Patriot Campers are leading the way in my opinion, with their online series 'Patriot Games'. They really sold the Aussie offroad adventure experience through this series in an authentic and entertaining way. It must have helped push their brand to new heights since they've now launched their product in the USA and Europe. Not bad for a metal fabrication company who needed a proper 4x4 camper trailer, so they made their own!
5. Me & we – elevated collective experiences powered by fans
Co-creating and the building of communities is proving to be a success model for brands. Take Lego Ideas for example, a pilot product which invites Lego aficionados to submit new design ideas for Lego sets. Those ideas are then voted on by its community, leading to a winning design being manufactured for market.
Imagine having the data to see what customers actually liked and didn't like without having to make them fill out a survey? Imagine being able to reach millions of customers in one hit to get feedback on a new product. I'll give you a hint, look in everyone's hand, what are they holding?
Do you have a mobile strategy? Most businesses don't, in-fact, I'm still seeing a ton of 4wd businesses who's websites aren't even mobile responsive, it's definitely time to work this stuff out! Even the use of social media is still a complete mystery to some of you out there (it's not going to go away).
6. The decoy – adjacent offers that fuel the shopping experience
Using the example of Amazon Prime, Muller demonstrated that businesses are now creating adjacent businesses that, not only provide a second revenue stream, but are also designed to keep customers coming back for more. Or Costco, with its free samples now reaching legendary status – adjacent offerings can distract customers from their original intent and create demand for them to buy more.
This is an interesting one, but it means that we need to be playing nicer with each other as far as collaborative marketing goes. Remember, not every person with a 4wd will go to one place and buy everything they need at once. How can you align your brand with another in a way that is both mutually beneficial and creates an unforgettable experience for your customers?
7. The challenger – leapfrogging expectations with a new paradigm
This is the crazy group of new concepts that are purposely designed to surprise customers. Examples include the Moby Mart – a mobile grocery store that roams the street to look for customers to visit. And the Alibaba and Ford vehicle vending machine – the name says it all. Not surprisingly, both examples came from the Chinese market, where new ideas are often embraced.
And here is the cruncher! The My Ultimate 4wd mobile app has been designed to completely nail every one of these trends!
- It has the ability to provide a seamless friction less sales flow from the customer's vision right through to purchase and delivery of a product.
- The data we collect from our users, just like every other app in the market, except ours is specific to buying trends across the 4wd aftermarket industry (not just one single brand).
- Being mobile, you can have your customers using the app in the comfort of your retail space, trying your products on their vehicle while they sip on a cool drink or a hot coffee, learning and discovering themselves what looks best for them. Surely this is better than having them stand in the carpark while one of the boys holds a wheel next to their truck...
- The mobile app directly links to the user's social media account, so they can quickly and easily share their vision with their friends and start telling their story. the bonus with this is it gets ALL of our products and branding out there in the world - free influencer marketing of sorts.
- Having a mobile app as part of your total retail marketing strategy is essential to a brand's success these days. If you haven't already started planning out what this looks like, i can help!
- My biggest challenge has been enabling brands that wouldn't normally align themselves with other brands, come together on one platform for the greater good of the industry. Lets do this and bring something to the market that even the biggest players in the world don't have!
- My Ultimate 4wd is a new paradigm, no one has done this before in our industry, but you can clearly see this is the way that retail is already headed. My Ultimate 4wd has a 5 year head start on anyone else in this area and it's about to go live. Once it does, it is guaranteed to change the way people go about modifying their 4wds.
I hope that has given you some food for thought on your own digital strategy for the next 12 months. It's a tough gig and we have only just scratched the surface.
If i can be of any assistance at all or you would like more information on My Ultimate 4wd please contact Chris Clark of My Ultimate 4WD on 0424 671 940, email chris [at] myultimate4wd.com or visit www.myultimate4wd.com
Cheers Chris
Information for this article was pulled from a write up on bandt.com.au about retail trends 21/06/2018.