Gilt's Founder Answers 4 Questions for Marketing Innovators

We are launching a new feature of our widely read blog Ernan’s Insights on Marketing Best Practices. It is called: 4 Questions for Marketing Innovators. The goal is to provide a quick read filled with meaningful insights from marketing thought leaders. Each column will feature one innovator who will address 4 questions;

1. What is one marketing topic that is most important to you as an innovator?
2. Why is this so important?
3. How will concentrating on this help improve the customer experience?
4. How will concentrating on this help improve the overall effectiveness of marketing?

The 4 Questions for Marketing Innovators feature will be a periodic blog. Please send your feedback and ideas for people you would us to interview to ernan@erdm.com This inaugural blog will focus on Alexis Maybank, Founder and Strategic Advisor of Gilt.

In 2007, Alexis and a founding team conceived of and built Gilt, and in doing so, revolutionized the landscape of luxury ecommerce and the way millions of people shop online. Alexis also serves as Director for National Audubon Society and for Girls Who Code. Alexis, together with Gilt co-founder Alexandra Wilkis Wilson, is the author of The New York Times bestseller book, By Invitation Only: How We Built Gilt and Changed the Way Millions Shop. Gilt is an innovative online shopping destination offering its more than 9 million members access to top designer labels, at significant discounts and exclusive local services and experiences.

We caught up with Alexis at the recent DMA Annual Conference, where she was inducted into the DMA Hall of Fame. Here are her marketing insights;

  1. What is one marketing topic that is most important to you as an innovator?

Adding a "face" in the faceless world of the Internet.

2. Why is this so important?

Online we think about how we create a differentiated look or fulfill a unique promise to a customer.

However, it’s equally as important to consider how we make our business relatable and identifiable to the consumer.

Technology can be intimidating, sites with a blur of offerings and pages upon pages of content can be overwhelming.

Customer loyalty is generated not just through an excellently executed customer experience, but also through a deeper connection to what the customer feels personally for your business.

At Gilt, here’s how we approached it. As we set out to build this deeper personal relationship with our customers, my cofounder Alexandra Wilson and I put ourselves out there and made sure we interacted directly with our base on many fronts.

Firstly, each city we visited for personal or business travel we'd meet our 10-20 top customers. We heard first hand what they loved about Gilt, what they would like to improve.

The conversations soon turned to recommendations on travel destinations, favorite restaurants and even to our families or common passions. We realized that by having the two of us engage directly and frequently with our members, we started building a recurring dialogue with our customers, or in other words that “Face" we needed to emerge from that anonymous world of the internet.

We began to foster that dialogue in both small ways and in large ways. Smaller ways included series of local events in key cities where we could speak to hundreds at a time; we inserted personally signed thank you notes in all outbound boxes; and we made sure we too answered customer support calls and emails regularly.

At scale, we kept the conversation consistent across our social footprint, speaking to followers and friends alike about the same topics our customers enjoyed discussing in person. And importantly our customer support voice and tone also had the same cadence. We established a consistent voice and put in place key policies that sustained these practices, like having no time limits on customer calls or giving advice on any topic our customer wanted, regardless if it entailed an imminent site purchase or a hotel recommendation in a new city.

Our customer accommodation practices were geared to this same empathic, friendly relationship. These and many other examples of the touch points with the customer were carefully thought out and consistent with who we were as a founders. We built a relatable "face" to the business, one that the customers could relate to, define and ultimately root for due to their deeper sense of connection to our brand.

3. How will concentrating on this help improve the customer experience?

By creating that recognized, trusted brand, the customer feels they have someone in their corner.

The right policies, advice and friendly person on the other side of an email and phone call builds confidence in the service and offerings the customer can expect.

Now it’s not always possible to have a couple of senior members of the team that can be out there and really embodying and shaping your company's brand.

If that’s not feasible, I have given the following advice;

1) Have you taken the time to solidify your company’s values, or even it’s mission and vision? What drives the operating principles of your organization? Having these understood, documented and shared broadly help unify an employee base and lead to greater consistency in how your clients and customers interact with you, the company.

2) Secondly, if you think of your brand, what type of person would s/he be? How would s/he present herself, what characteristics would she have, and what would she care about? To me, these, and others, are useful exercises that inform many of your key practices and policies that are critical to bringing your brand to life in trusted, animated and consistent manner. They can help create a relatable face.

4. How will concentrating on this help improve the overall effectiveness of marketing?

It's difficult to engender loyalty and a personal connection from customers in a strictly online world, however it's critically important to try. With all the noise and distractions online, and without the benefit of that personal handshake or eye contact, it's harder to create a relatable, lasting bond with a person. If you can achieve it, you can establish a truly original brand, a sense of personal connection. Through the relationship we at Gilt established with our customers, we could confidently, empathetically and personally open a window to the fantastic for our customers each and every day.

Oreo; Twitter Based Custom Cookies and CX Innovation

Challenge: Consumers have more avenues and channels to connect with brands than ever before. Therefore marketers need to embrace new ways to influence customer opinion and improve engagement across channels.

Influence marketing in social media has taken on a vital role in customer engagement strategies. In order to be one step ahead in terms of presenting a positive opinion and generating buzz marketers need to be in a position to influence conversations and experiences at every turn.

Influence marketing is important because it can:
* Mobilize opinion and create reactions.
* Increase exposure to a very large audience.
* Generate broad based conversations on a given subject.

A company that can teach us a lot about customer engagement, social media marketing and consumer opinion marketing is Oreo. They understand how to connect with customers through innovative engagement strategies.

As an international brand, Oreo enabled fans to send greetings to friends and family during the holidays via a single click and application. The program strengthened the emotional bond between customers and the Oreo brand. There have been more than 1 million impressions for the viral video and 31 million Facebook impressions. A total of 40,000 people used the application and of those, more than 40% shared their Oreo moment.

They have engaged with fans through emotional ads that let existing customers remember why they love the brand and influence new customers through viral ads that are viewed and shared tens of thousands of times through social media. As a result, Oreo has an enormous following on Social Media;

• Facebook – 35 Million+ fans

• Twitter – 301K+ followers

• YouTube – 20 Million+ views

• Instagram – 95K+ followers

• Pinterest – 3K+ followers.

Additionally, in a recent social media promotion at the SXSW Interactive Festival, Oreo custom-made vending machines enabled attendees to create and eat 3D-printed custom Oreo cookies based on trending Twitter conversations.

Users accessed the machines, located in an Oreo Trending Vending Lounge, to browse a selection of trending flavors displayed on a large touchscreen panel on the front of the machine. They choose from flavors and colors of creme that were trending. They then watched as their cookies were custom built, in under two minutes. Consumers everywhere were able to follow the conversation using the Twitter hashtag #eatthetweet

5 Key Takeaways to Improve Engagement

1. Develop innovative means of keeping both new and existing customers engaged with your brand. Give customers a reason to be involved and a reason to purchase your product. Per Oreo, think way out of the box!

2. Stay engaged at all times and on all channels with customers in order to influence opinions associated with your brand. Monitor conversations and interact in order to keep customers actively involved.

3. Develop promotions and new avenues that expand the audience exposed to your brand message across multiple channels.

4. Engage in active listening in order to understand what customers want and how they want to be engaged. In this way you can develop influence and engagement strategies that are relevant and impactful.

5. Don’t be afraid of customer input and customer opinion. Create response tactics that enable customers to feel a part of the brand and a member of a customer community.

Honoring Brand Promises Is Critical To Your Survival

The Challenge: Companies have always made promises to customers and prospects. But with today's socially empowered consumers, companies are made or broken based on how well they keep their promises. Is your company trustworthy enough?

Historically, companies have always over promised and under delivered.

But will that behavior fly with today’s savvy consumer? “The dirty laundry is out there because of social media,” says Loni Kao Stark, director of product marketing at Adobe’s Digital Marketing Solutions.

As a result, companies now have a greater responsibility to deliver on promises and live up to expectations.

This doesn't just affect existing customers, but corporate reputations, thus, their continued viability. As Stark says, "In the world of social media and digitally connected customers, only authentic brands will survive."

One company that consistently delivers on brand promises is the high-end men’s retailer Harry Rosen. The company consistently maintains brand promises by utilizing a three-point strategy involving observation, feedback, and training. Associates contact customers, use feedback to establish customer needs, and then respond to those needs throughout the customer lifecycle.

The retailer then strengthens its customer relationships by informing them of events relevant to their interests – such as shipments from their favorite designer – and trains associates to provide great service at every touchpoint. To ensure promises are maintained, Rosen also contacts customers within 30 days of purchase to ensure their satisfaction.

Key Takeaways

1. Understand customer expectations.
Organizations should realize customers no longer compare them only to their competition. Customer experience is also measured against online customer service dynamos like Zappos. In order to compete, brands must maintain ongoing dialogues with customers to gather feedback, and use that feedback to keep improving the customer experience. This dialogue should take place via surveys, CSR conversations, social media, and follow-up e-mails after purchases.

2. Keep promises throughout the customer life cycle.
Every experience that customers have with a company is a reflection of that company’s brand promise. Ensure that staff at every touchpoint in your customer lifecycle are trained to respond to customer feedback appropriately. Customer service reps should be knowledgeable and helpful. Sales associates should be attentive and aware of customer needs. And management should ensure that high levels of performance are being maintained. This applies to people and processes!

3. Ensure your brand promise is consistent across all channels.
Today’s consumer sends and receives information across multiple channels on a daily basis. If you promise one thing in TV ads and another on your social media feed, customers will notice. And that inconsistency can quickly paint you as an organization not to be trusted. Establish what specifically you want your brand promise to be, build your campaigns around that promise, and ensure that messages and experiences are consistent across your multi-channel mix.