ImaginativePRO Blog

HOW BRANDS CAN SUCCEED ON SNAPCHAT: KNOW THE SNAPCHAT AUDIENCE AND USE SIX SIMPLE MARKETING APPROACHES

If your brand is thinking of marketing itself on Snapchat, marketers must understand who is using Snapchat and use the right marketing approaches with that audience. 

First, Brands Should Know The Snapchat Audience

Here are a few of the most significant stats really helpful in understanding where Snapchat is as a platform.

• Snapchat currently has over 200 million monthly active users (or MAUs). Compare that to Twitter with 316 million MAUs and Instagram with 300 million MAUs and we see Snapchat is clearly becoming a massive platform for social marketers to consider.
• 70% of Snapchat users are women.  That makes Snapchat only 2nd to Pinterest (79% female) when it comes to female user gender trends on major social networks.
• 71% are under the age of 25.
• 18% of US social media users are on Snapchat.
• According to a recent ComScore study, millennials make up 71% of active users.  30% of millennial internet users access regularly.  This is impressive when you consider that it currently tops Facebook (38%), Twitter (41%) and Tumblr (53%) as this age group’s preferred social media platform.
• According to Photo World, Snapchat users now share 8,796 photos per second, more than any other messaging services and photo sharing platforms including Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, Flickr.
• According to the Financial Times, Snapchat is quickly gaining ground in the battle for dominance in video on social networks: it now claims a whopping six billion daily views, or triple the traffic it got in May.

What Is Snapchat and Who Uses It?

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Trying to attract Millennials? Snapchat should be your go to marketing tool.  Share photos and videos on the go. That is what users are there for. Understanding Snapchat as the middle part of life

Second, Apply Six Simple Snapchat Marketing Approaches

If brands are to succeed in resonating with Snapchat's largely Generation Z audience, they must pay attention to these three simple marketing approaches. 

1. Create unpolished content

According to an interview conducted by UK-based business insights agency Firebrand with US frozen yogurt perveyor 16 Handles, who has been active on Snapchat since 2013, Snapchat users have always been an early adopters of new social networks.  Lara Nicotra, Marketing Manager, 16 handles said.

"Your fans want you to be fun and authentic [on Snapchat]. It’s okay if the message isn’t polished – that’s the whole point!"

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This “unpolished” mindset on Snapchat is something important for brands to consider. Waiting for the right moment or sending all your creative through a design team are not ideal habits for Snapchat content.

People share stuff on Snapchat that might never make it to the cutting room floor or Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. They take random photos, draw silly pictures, and – in general – capture the details of their life that tell you more than a Facebook highlight reel.

Brands can do this too. And those unpolished moments have the potential to create big loyalty and engagement.

2. Provide exclusive, rarely seen content

Building on the idea of offering the “unpolished” style of content and thinking more about the subject of your content, includes providing Snapchat fans original, behind-the-scenes, brand-generated content that cannot be found anywhere else.

Fashion lifestyle blog Refinery29. was also interviewed by Firebrand and this is what Neha Gandhi, Vice-President, Editorial Strategy at Refinery29 had to say. 

“Snapchat allows you to experience something that feels exclusive and inaccessible in a really accessible way… it disappears after 24 hours, so you sort of get a clean slate and can do anything you think is working and resonating with your audience.”

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There are two ways to think about this.

1. Behind-The Scenes - The nature of Snapchat as a channel is behind the scenes and exclusive content. The photos, videos, and art users share on Snapchat is not organic on other social channels.   If brands want to fit in on Snapchat they would be well served to try and capture their own behind the scenes content.
2. Keep Content Fresh and Original - Snapchat users have a lot of content to engage.  If you are sharing the same old content that they see on Facebook and Instagram already, there is less of a reason for them to keep coming back and choosing to view your brand’s content.

The nature of Snapchat’s user interface is not a stream, but a list of options to click on. They do have to CHOOSE to see your content.

And, beyond that, they have to choose to keep watching your content. Like a video. So it needs to be unique. As Neha say, try to help your fans “experience something that feels exclusive and inaccessible.”

3.  Tell A Compelling and Cohesive Story

Too many brands post snaps that are disconnected from each other and hours apart. Most of your followers are going to be watching your story all at once so regardless of what time you post each snap, you need to tell one cohesive story when played beginning to end.  

• Continuing Story Snapchats - If you’re snapchatting from an event or throughout your day, watch your story as you add to it and put yourself in the position of a follower who has no context of who you are, where you are or what you’re doing.
• Single Story Snapchats - If you’re posting all at once, make sure that you close out the story with an ending that includes a Call To Action that directs followers to one of your other social media profiles or let’s them know when they can expect more content from you on Snapchat. This invites them to engage with your brand elsewhere online and serves as an opportunity to tease upcoming content or events.

4.  Use Video

We’re living in a video centric world in case you’ve been asleep for the past 3 years or don’t have access to YouTube, Vine or Facebook. Video lets you show instead of tell.  It will show off your brand’s character more than any character limit or staged photo.  It allows you to do things like include music or conduct a 10 second interview. It allows your followers to connect with you because you’re appealing to another one of their senses. Use video on your Snapchat story often and you will learn to use it well.

 

My roommate Lawrence is a health nut.  Here he is making healthy smoothies

5. Partner With Influencers

Firebrand also reached out to Delmondo who specialize in connecting brands with influencers on platforms like Snapchat.  Delmondo said.

“Headphone maker JBL is an example of a brand that has gotten creative with its use of Snapchat. The brand commissioned Snapchat marketing firm Delmondo to identify Snapchat tastemakers to share messages with their followers during the NBA All-Star Game weekend. An influencer campaign in the same vein costs as little as $50,000, and has the potential to generate hundreds of thousands of views.”

Catch emgarber on Snapchat as he snaps his #NBAAllStarNYC weekend with us! What could be next? #JBLAllStar pic.twitter.com/TfXgrjrB3X

— JBL (@JBLaudio) February 15, 2015 

Influencers on Snapchat afford a brand two very important benefits:

1. Audience. If you want to gain followers and fans, paying to work with influencers or partnering with them on some level is a shortcut to building that audience.
2. Platform Education. Secondarily, working with an influencer or group of influencers can do wonders for learning what works on a platform, what doesn’t work, and the intricacies of how that social network lives and breathes.

Frankie Greek, social strategist and the host of WWW offers this bit of advice on how to identify the righ influencers:

"The fastest way to grow your brand’s Snapchat following is to partner with influencers. This means working with someone who has a large following on social media, preferably on Snapchat, and having them create and promote stories for your brand. Identify influencers in your field that your audience will like and be able to relate to. Do your due diligence to find the right influencer, not just the cheapest or the first one that shows interest in your brand. Does their personal brand align with your brand’s values? Do they believe in your mission?

Now forget that you work in marketing and talk to that person like a human and figure out a mutually beneficial arrangement that ends in them telling powerful stories for your brand and your brand being exposed to their fans."

6.  Leverage Your Audience

As you get traction on Snapchat, direct those followers to your other social media profiles. Announce a giveaway on Snapchat that followers can enter by commenting on an Instagram post. Create a poll that they can participate in by screenshotting their vote and tweeting it to your account with a branded hashtag. Tease YouTube videos by showing shorter clips with a caption that tells them where to go to find it and asks them to subscribe.

COMMENTARY:  Launched in 2011, Snapchat has become so much more than a place for sending ten-second-selfies (although there’s still a lot of that going on!) It has become a very credible platform for brands to market themselves to a large audience – Snapchat boasts over 200 million monthly active users; 71% of which are under 25.

With social media being a great way to reach out to customers and potential customers, and inject personality into a brand, Snapchat is certainly a channel that companies should be looking at.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Burberry – who are pioneers in combining technology and digital aspects with fashion – have been using Snapchat to create a buzz around their brand. Take for instance, the preview of their SS16 collection 24 hours prior to their runway show at London Fashion Week. It was a great move, appealing to Snapchat’s largely Generation Z audience, who have come to expect the consumption of fresh content immediately. Plus, it generated a huge buzz for the actual show… which was certainly no bad thing!

Click Image To View Burberry's Prosum SS16 Collection runway show during New York Fashion Week

Not only that, but Burberry launched their own Live Story: available for 24 hours from the morning of their fashion show, it showcased Burberry show-related images and videos straight from Snapchat. Allowing fans to take part in their marketing campaign – pretty smart, don’t you think?

Snapchat became increasingly aware of the potential opportunities for brands through the social media site; and launched Snapchat Discover at the beginning of 2015. An exclusive channel available to a mere 15 companies (this has grown from 12 since its launch), it enables the selected few to release content to the 100 million active Snapchat users. Cosmo, CNN and Mashable all use Discover; with Cosmo enjoying 3 million readers on Snapchat a day!

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Those on Discover need to ensure they get it right though – Snapchat booted Yahoo off after they failed to resonate with their younger audience – the broadcast-type videos just didn’t cut it. In a world where breaking news is readily available; the announcement itself needs to be innovative, otherwise users will look to other companies for their updates instead.

OK, so maybe you shouldn’t hold your breath on getting an invite to Snapchat Discover any time soon – but you can rest assured that the channel itself is still a valuable marketing tool for your business. You could consider running your own Live Story – a user-generated video collage of a special event. Cosmo hosted one for their 50th anniversary, featuring the Kardashians on the front cover of their magazine, as well as in the video; which was sponsored by Covergirl. With 6 billion video views in Snapchat since May 2015, brands can be sure that their content is being viewed.

Taco Bell has also been a hugely successful user of Snapchat. Back in 2013 in a bid to build their number of followers, they encouraged users to add them in exchange for a “secret announcement”, with snippets of the new menu revealed.

Essentially, Snapchat – the fastest growing social media platform – should certainly not be overlooked as part of your social media strategy. At 400 million snaps a day from the 100 million daily active members, if you can reach out to the younger market successfully, then you’ll achieve great exposure for your brand, which is most definitely a good thing!

Top 10 Brands on Snapchat

As of January 2015, these are the Top 10 brands on Snapchat.  

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Snapchat Adds Slow-Mo, Fast-Forward, And Rewind Video Filters

Teenagers have short attention spans, but Snapchat’s latest feature could keep them tuned in.  On October 28, 2015, Snapchat introduced a new set of filters called “Speed Modifiers” for videos you shoot on iOS or Android. They let you add slow motion, fast-forward, or rewind effects to your video. Just swipe sideways after shooting a video and you’ll eventually see them applied to your snap.

Click Image To View Animation

What you see above is actually two videos stitched together. First, a clip in fast-forward, and then in rewind. Normally the Snapchat videos only go forward or backward, not both like Instagram Boomerang.

Snapchat is also adding 3D Touch capability for the iPhone 6S and 6S+ today. You can strong tap on your Snapchat homescreen icon to quickly reach options for sending a snap or adding a new friend. The features come in an update for iOS and Android that should be out soon if you don’t see it yet.

Courtesy of an article dated August 4, 2015 appearing in SocialFresh, an article dated October 23, 2015 appearing in Delmondo Blog, an article appearing in LinkedIn Pulse, an article dated November 13, 2015 appearing in MediaPost Social Media & Marketing Daily, and an article dated August 17, 2015 appearing in Likeable Social Media

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STUDY FINDS TOP B2B MARKETERS USING PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS OUTPERFORM COUNTERPARTS USING TRADITIONAL DATA ANALYTICS

As the cold weather starts to roll in for many of us, it’s easy to get curious about what the near future has in store, temperature-wise. The Farmer’s Almanac claims that it can predict the weather with 80% accuracy months in advance, based on a top-secret mathematical formula that takes into account tidal and sunspot activity. In reality, their predictions fall pretty short of perfect most of the time. Modern meteorologists fare a little better, looking at atmospheric conditions in the present and the past to make their predictions. It’s all about the tools that you use.

So what tools can you use in business to help you figure out the temperature of your market? Predictive analytics are the hot new trend helping marketers to identify risks and opportunities by looking at existing data, but how well do they really work? Enough to justify your investment? This infographic was created through a partnership between CustomerThink and Forrester, and is based on surveys and conversations with the CMOs of over 100 B2B companies over the course of 3 months. They talked about their experiences with using (or not using!) this marketing approach, and the sort of impact it made on their businesses. Let’s take a look at what they had to say.

The CustomerThink and Forrester survey revealed the following findings.

• 2% of those polled denied having any interest in predictive analytics.
• 61% had already adopted the technology or were already expanding their investment in it.
• 37% were interested in implementing predictive analytics at their company.

It’s pretty easy to see why this interest is justified – 83% of users see a significant impact on their business, with twice the annual revenue growth, market share, and likelihood to exceed marketing value contribution goals than non-users! Use of predictive analytics, not surprisingly, predicts a more modern approach to marketing by the companies that use it.

• They are most likely than non-users to have a standardized marketing platform (79% v. 34%).
• They are most likely to implement analytics solutions in under 2 weeks (36% v. 21%).
• They track their conversation rates (55% v. 36%).

Predictive analytics can be used to address tough challenges faced by B2B businesses. Those polled named limited visibility into addressable markets as the #1 hurdle they face, and 86% agreed that predictive analytics helped them to see where their companies could fit in these new markets. Predictive analytics helps marketers understand not only markets, but also customers. 97% said that it helped them see how and why their best customers buy, 89% said it helped them identify new leads, and 92% said it helped them adjust their marketing mix to best reach new buyers.

With all of this new information about predictive analytics in front of you, I wager that you’re starting to seriously think about adding this tool to your marketing strategy. That’s my prediction, anyway. Have you already been looking into or using this technology? Let me know in the comments.

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COMMENTARY:  Radius, the B2B predictive marketing software company, commissioned Forrester Consulting to survey 106 B2B marketing executives and CMOs in the U.S. The findings revealed predictive analytics is going mainstream, with a majority of marketers (61 percent) using predictive analytics today, allowing them to anticipate outcomes with a significant probability of accuracy.

Published in September 2015, the study, “From Insight To Action: How Predictive Analytics Improves B2B Marketing Outcomes,” yielded three key findings:

• B2B marketers who use predictive analytics outperform their
  counterparts who do not.
• Predictive analytics users are twice as likely to outperform non-users on several key business metrics, including the following:
  • Exceeding revenue growth target;
  • Exceeding marketing goals for revenue contribution;
  • Commanding a higher market share than competitors.
• Predictive analytics helps B2B marketers identify and address new
  markets.
  • According to the study, marketers’ top challenge is limited visibility into addressable markets, but:
    • 86 percent agree that predictive analytics help them evaluate new market opportunities;
    • 84 percent say that insights from these marketing-focused analytics have become the primary driver in their go-to-market strategies.
• Predictive analytics impacts the entire customer lifecycle, not just pre-sales acquisition.
  • While most marketers (89 percent) see value in using predictive analytics to identify new opportunities and to better qualify leads, the more advanced users also realize upstream and downstream benefits:
    • 97 percent of predictive analytics users analyze their best customers and understand how/why they buy;
    • 92 percent of predictive analytics users optimize the marketing mix to reach the right types of buyers.

Radius Director of Product Marketing John Hurley said.

“As the findings of this study prove, the best B2B marketers are predictive analytics users.  This is because they can pursue new market opportunities and attract, analyze and engage customers with insights backed by data science, not guesswork. Given our goal for this study was to evaluate the use of predictive analytics among B2B marketers, we were excited to find the majority of companies have already incorporated these systems into their marketing arsenals and are actively driving business growth. We’ve entered an age where technology and data science can deliver the power of analytics to marketers.”

Courtesy of an article dated October 21, 2015 appearing in Online Sales Guide Tips and an article dated September 29, 2015 appearing in Radius

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HALLOWEEN 2015: 157 MIL AMERICANS WILL CELEBRATE, 68 MIL WILL WEAR COSTUMES, MILLENNIALS AND THEIR PETS PARTICIPATE

WASHINGTON, September 23, 2015 – Ready to embrace cooler weather, fall traditions and spirited celebrations, more than 157 million Americans plan to celebrate Halloween this year, according to the National Retail Federation’s Halloween Consumer Spending Survey conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics. The average person celebrating will spend $74.34, compared with $77.52 last year. Total spending on Halloween is expected to reach $6.9 billion.*  

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NRF president and CEO Matthew Shay said.

“After a long summer, consumers are eager to embrace fall and all of the celebrations that come with it.  We expect those celebrating Halloween this year will look for several different activities to do with their family and friends. Consumers are ready to take advantage of promotions on candy, decorations and costumes, and retailers are ready to serve them.” 

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Consumers celebrating Halloween plan to spend an average of $27.33 on costumes for the whole family, and a total of $2.5 billion on store-bought, homemade, large and small costumes. Those celebrating will spend the most on adult costumes ($1.2 billion), and will spend a total of $950 million on children’s costumes and $350 million on fashionable and fun costumes for their furry friends. It’s estimated that 68 million Americans will dress up this Halloween and another 20 million pet owners will dress up their pet. 

Nine in 10 (93.7%) Halloween shoppers will buy candy, spending a total of $2.1 billion, and an additional 33.5 percent will buy greeting cards, spending a total of $330 million. Two in five celebrants (44.8%) plan to decorate their home or yard, meaning there’s no question consumers will see their fair share of pumpkins, hay bales and even life-size Minions and black cats strewn across their neighborhoods. The average person planning to buy decorations will spend $20.34 with total spending expected to reach $1.9 billion.

 

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When it comes to how consumers plan to celebrate, most will hand out candy (67.8%), or dress in costume (43.5%), though there will be no shortage of jack-o-lanterns lighting up windows this year with 41 percent of people planning to carve pumpkins. Nearly one-third of consumers (31.5%) plan to throw or attend a party with friends and family.

 

More consumers have decided to head to stores or shop online early to pick out costumes and decorations. More than one-third of consumers (34.1%) will start their Halloween shopping before the first of October, up slightly from 32.1 percent last year, while 40.9 percent will get started in the first half of the month and one-quarter (25%) of celebrants will wait for the final weeks of October.

Prosper Insights Principal Analyst Pam Goodfellow said.

“People shouldn’t be too surprised when they see Halloween candy and decorations available in stores as early as September first.  Given that more than a third of Americans enjoy taking advantage of early-bird deals to kick off their fall celebrations, it seems there’s plenty of appetite among consumers to enjoy a perfectly ‘frightful’ Halloween.”

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Similar to past years, the majority of consumers will find inspiration for their costumes online (31.4%) or will head to costume shops and retail stores (26.8%) before they make a final decision.. Pinterest continues to grow in popularity among those looking for costume inspiration (13.3%), as this year’s percentage is nearly double the amount who used the site for inspiration just three years ago (7.1%).

Millennials remain the drivers of Pinterest traffic around Halloween though with 24.9 percent of 18-24 year olds and 23.7 percent of 25-34 year olds using the site for costume inspiration.

About the survey

NRF’s 2015 Halloween Consumer Spending Survey was designed to gauge consumer behavior and shopping trends related to Halloween spending. The survey was conducted for NRF by Prosper Insights & Analytics. The poll of 6,754 consumers was conducted September 1-8, 2015. The consumer poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.2 percentage points.

Prosper Insights and Analytics delivers executives timely, consumer-centric insights from multiple sources. As a comprehensive resource of information, Prosper represents the voice of the consumer and provides knowledge to marketers regarding consumer views on the economy, personal finance, retail, lifestyle, media and domestic and world issues. www.ProsperDiscovery.com

Courtesy of an article dated September 23, 2015 appearing in National Retail Federation

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THE STATE OF DATA-DRIVEN MARKETING, MARKETING BENEFITS, KEY GROWTH DRIVERS AND THE 15 ESSENTIAL MARKETING METRICS

Data-driven marketing, in theory, is about better using the flood of customer-related data to integrate and optimize marketing efforts in the age of an empowered consumer and Big Data.

What matters most is the optimization of the customer experience, relevance and (perceived) customer value as a driver of business value. Data-driven marketing certainly is not (just) about advertising and programmatic ad buying as some believe. Nor is it just about campaigns. On the contrary: if done well, data-driven marketing is part of digital marketing transformations whereby connecting around the customer across the customer life cycle is key.

The Role and Evolution of Data-Driven Marketing

One of the pioneers and leading voices is data analytics and marketing software vendor Teradata. A while ago, the company recently released the results of its Teradata 2015 Global Data-Driven Marketing Survey. According to Teradata, marketers who adopt an integrated and data-driven marketing approach become more empowered across all areas including the various stages of “engagement” as described in the illustration below from the page of the 2013 survey the company conducted.

The Various Stages of Customer Engagement - Teradata (Click Image To Enlarge)

At the occasion of the launch of the 2015 edition of the survey, Teradata said it saw some “dramatic shifts in how companies and marketers are deriving business value from data, integrated marketing platforms, and customer-centric data-driven marketing strategies” as compared with its 2013 report.

Among the key findings of the Teradata 2015 Global Data-Driven Marketing Survey:

• A large majority of marketers (90%) wants to move beyond segmentation towards one-to-one personalization in a real-time interaction context.
• Faster decisions and more accurate decisions are reported as key benefits of using data in this real-time economy. Two-thirds of respondents cite speed and accuracy in decisions as key benefit.
• For 38% of respondents the major challenge is improving both customer acquisition and customer retention.
• 78% of marketers in the survey claim to use data systematically. In 2013 this was only 36%.

Omni-channel consistency and silos remain hurdles

Respondents see data-driven marketing as a means to an end and for several an integrated marketing cloud approach seems like the way forward from a platform perspective. Of course, Teradata is one of several major providers of such a marketing cloud (like Adobe, Oracle, Salesforce.com, IBM, Microsoft etc.).

Obviously there is a gap between what marketers would like to achieve with data-driven marketing and what they actually achieve. Many hurdles remain, among others regarding consistency in an omni-channel marketing context whereby silos are the eternal challenge, also from a campaign marketing perspective.

More about the evolutions, challenges, customer data issues (privacy, regulation, ownership) etc. in the press release, the report and the infographic below.

Given the huge attention for data-driven marketing (and, admittedly, the big marketing cloud wars we see happening), there is of course more research looking at the state of data-driven marketing and the drivers of it. In a second infographic below the one from Teradata, we’ll take a closer look at more research – with a second infographic.

Data-driven marketing: customer-centricity and customer experience first?

It’s not just the vendors and marketing cloud providers such as Teradata who come up with research.

Recently, the GlobalDMA, “an organisation that represents, supports and unites marketing associations from around the globe that focus on data-driven marketing”, looked at the state of data-driven marketing and data-driven marketing practices in 17 global markets.

It did so in collaborations with strategic consultancy for the advertising and marketing industry, Winterberry Group.

You can access the report for free on the website of the GlobalDMA (registration required). Just like Teradata, the report found that marketers – obviously – increasingly see the importance of a smart use of data in marketing, customer experience and advertising (the whole programmatic advertising concept).

In an infographic on AdWeek, infographist Carlos Monteiro summarized some of the key takeaways from that research (and from Teradata’s 2015 Global Data-Driven Marketing Survey).

How Data-Driven Marketers Outperform Their Competition - Adweek by Carlos Monteiro (Click Image To Enlarge)

Data-driven marketers outperform their competitors according to The State of Marketing 2013 by IBM – another contender in the marketing cloud wars – source: presentation by Jason Heller of McKinsey at Integrated Marketing Week 2013

Among the key takeaways of the data-driven marketing report by the GlobalDMA:

• 77% of marketers are confident in the data-driven approach and 74% expect to increase data marketing budgets this year.
• Data efforts by far focus on offers, messages and content (marketing) first (69% of respondents). Second ranks a data-driven strategy or data-driven product development. Customer experience optimization unfortunately only ranks third with 49% of respondents.
• Among the key drivers of increased data marketing: first of all a need to be more customer-centric (reported by 53% of respondents). Maximizing efficiency and return ranks second followed by gaining more knowledge of customers and prospects.

The question is what will be done with this knowledge. And here we see that 20% reports a need to align with digital consumer preferences.

So, it seems the digital customer experience does matter as it’s essential for a more customer-centric approach and the – for many in practice – extremely urgent need to align with (digital) consumer preferences or, maybe better, catch up with the changed customer reality, in the end the essence of what digital marketing transformation is all about in the first place.

Infographic – via AdWeek and made by Carlos Monteiro – below. You can download the Winterberry Group/ GlobalDMA report here.

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COMMENTARY:  Customers today expect—and demand—a seamless and relevant experience. They have grown accustomed to marketers’ knowledge of their preferences and anticipation of their needs. Fractured or conflicting messages from a brand make marketers seem unorganized and annoy customers, sometimes even driving them away.

For marketers, the only solution is data-driven marketing for individualized insights. Teradata defines data-driven marketing as

"the process of collecting and connecting large amounts of online data with traditional offline data, rapidly analyzing and gaining cross-channel insights about customers, and then bringing that insight to market via a highly personalized marketing campaign tailored to the customer at his/her point of need."

Data-driven marketing is the means that leads to the end of individualized insights: moving beyond segmentation to true one-to-one personalization in a real-time context— achieving the capability to distill insights at the individual level, and the ability to target known customers in a digital marketing ecosystem that often settles for “close enough.” 

A well-integrated data-driven marketing program that provides a single view of the customer is the path to such individualization, and can result in business benefits that are just waiting to be tapped. The data in this report is based on a survey of 1,506 marketing and communications executives worldwide, representing all major industries. The survey was conducted in the fall of 2014, and follows a similar survey conducted in 2013.

According to Mark Jeffrey, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, and author of "Data Driven Marketing," there are 15 essential marketing metrics that all marketers should know.

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People-Centric Targeting Across All Screens

What is it: Media consumption habits are more fragmented and diverse than ever, as consumers engage with multiple screens and devices. And in this multi-channel world, isolated, one-off marketing strategies and closed technologies no longer make sense. Advertisers don’t need a social plan or a mobile plan; they need to take full advantage of all available data to develop a people-centric plan that zeroes in on customers wherever they are and when they are most likely to engage. This requires platforms that can integrate data across channels and provide transparent, objective analysis of performance across every marketing touch point.

In the following schematic, Mark Jeffrey illustrates the process of gathering customer data from multiple sources, the flow of that data through the processes of validation, cleaning, transformation, aggregation and loading that data into a centralized data warehouse for business intelligence purposes.   

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Why it’s important: People-centric marketing is even reaching the world of linear TV, where new streams of data from set-top boxes and connected televisions are making it possible for advertisers to programmatically buy specific audience segments rather than focusing only on shows and time slots, which is how TV has traditionally been bought and sold.

Data will continue to blur the lines between TV and digital, between mobile and display, and even between direct response and branding. It all comes down to the person — whether the screen they are looking at is on their wall, at their desk or in the palm of their hand.

Why it’s hard: Cross-channel engagement is the cornerstone of people-centric marketing. The challenge, though, lies in evaluating attribution — an understanding of how well channels performed in engaging targets. Several years ago, this degree of accountability was impossible to achieve because data analysis tools hadn’t yet innovated to the point of granular attribution. Today, however, multi-touch attribution platforms, driven by more recent advances in machine learning and predictive analytics, have made this a reality.

Courtesy of an article appearing in i-scoop, an exerpt from the Teradata's 2015 Data-Driven Marketing Survey and an article dated August 28, 2015 appearing in VentureBeat

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THE ULTIMATE HOW-TO GUIDE FOR PLANNING A PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS PROJECT AND RESULTS FROM AN ACTUAL CASE STUDY

The explosion of interest in predictive analytics and in particular sophisticated  predictive analytics has led to renewed interest in the topic of how to plan for an predictive analytics project.

The topic is hardly new but anyone involved in planning for, or conducting a serious analysis project needs to cognizant of the fundamentals. Here we abstract from insights and ideas from two classic discussions, the 1996 paper by Fayyad, Piatetsky-Shapiro, and Smyth "From Data Mining to Knowledge Discovery in Databases,” and the 1999 “Cross-Industry Standard Process (CRISP) for Data Mining” developed by analytical practitioners at Daimler-Chrysler, ISL (later acquired by SPSS and now part of IBM) and NCR (Teradata). While these first-generation discussions clearly date from an earlier technological era the principle ideas are still relevant and are being rediscovered and translated into modern terminology daily. Here we offer a summary of the essentials viewed from our perspective of 20 years of experience in the world of data mining and predictive analytics.

Stage #1: Business Understanding (Specification of an Objective)

To successfully conduct an analytics project it is first necessary to have a notion of what is hoped to be accomplished, described in the practical language of business or decision-making. Often the objective can be clearly stated. Examples include:

• In an election campaign, identify the swing voters most likely to ultimately vote for a specific candidate (precisely what the Obama campaign undertook in 2012).
• Rank the offers you might provide to a website visitor by the probability of acceptance or expected value of the response (something Salford Systems undertook on behalf of a client).

Not all projects have such a clear and focused objective and may be more generic:

How can I make my overall grocery store operation more efficient logistically? 

In this discussion we have in mind the more clearly defined, and thus more narrowly scoped, projects. The CRISP approach calls this first prerequisite “Business Understanding” which as Fayyad et. al. point out, includes the identification of the objective from the point of view of the client.

Stage #2: Data Inventory and Understanding

Getting a good grasp of exactly what data is available for analysis is critical and involves canvassing both internal (proprietary) and external (publicly available or purchasable) data sources. Identifying, locating, and gaining access to potentially useful data within an organization can be challenging, and a project may be forced to proceed using less data than actually exists due to institutional constraints isolating data silos. An effort to identify all sources of potentially useful data is generally worthwhile as many large organizations have a myriad of data stores, some of which are generally unknown outside the department that collected it.  External data is increasingly available via the Internet and can come from government sources and/or private organizations.  Such external data can be extremely helpful in improving the predictive performance of a model and refining of the analytical insights it can yield. Examples of such data include:

• Popularity of certain Internet search terms
• Stock market index movements
• Snowfall in Fairbanks, Alaska

Supplemental data can be of enormous value in providing the relevant context for what is tracked from the perspective of a single enterprise. For example, supplemental data may include prices charged by competitors for the same or similar products offered by a retailer.

In our consulting experience for financial services enterprises, we have generally found that the data such enterprises amass on their own customers is far more valuable than anything that could be collected or purchased about those same customers externally, but the added value of such data could still justify the cost of the acquisition of this data.

 

Stage #3: Assessment of Data for Suitability

Having identified objectives and located potential data the next step involves an assessment of the data with the objective of determining whether the available data can in fact support the original objective or perhaps some modified and even scaled-back objectives. One may discover that the available data is missing essential details (descriptors for the ad actually shown to a web site visitor) or that data is available only for a subpopulation (e.g. only data for the clicks was retained and all non-click information was discarded). Such data omissions make the job of predictive analytics vastly more difficult if not impossible. The topic of mishandled or mismanaged data is a large one and all experienced analysts have their own catalog of horror stories. Our point here is simply that we have to allow for the possibility that data problems may complicate the project if not stop it in its tracks. 

The data may also offer too small a sample size for meaningful analysis. This may appear to be a thing of the past, something that will never occur again in the brave new world of big data.  But even with huge data stores the fraction that is relevant to a specific analysis may be small. 

If you need to build a click model for an ad that has only been clicked on a 15 times you are short of data even if you have one billion impressions for that ad.  In sum, we need both a sufficient quality and a sufficient quantity of data.

Stage #3: Assessment of Data for Suitability

Having identified objectives and located potential data the next step involves an assessment of the data with the objective of determining whether the available data can in fact support the original objective or perhaps some modified and even scaled-back objectives. One may discover that the available data is missing essential details (descriptors for the ad actually shown to a web site visitor) or that data is available only for a subpopulation (e.g. only data for the clicks was retained and all non-click information was discarded). Such data omissions make the job of predictive analytics vastly more difficult if not impossible. The topic of mishandled or mismanaged data is a large one and all experienced analysts have their own catalog of horror stories. Our point here is simply that we have to allow for the possibility that data problems may complicate the project if not stop it in its tracks. 

The data may also offer too small a sample size for meaningful analysis. This may appear to be a thing of the past, something that will never occur again in the brave new world of big data.  But even with huge data stores the fraction that is relevant to a specific analysis may be small. 

If you need to build a click model for an ad that has only been clicked on a 15 times you are short of data even if you have one billion impressions for that ad.  In sum, we need both a sufficient quality and a sufficient quantity of data.

Stage #4: Pilot Project 

During the last five years or so, all of our consulting projects have begun with a significantly scaled-down dry run or pilot project; one major year-long project we conducted in 1996 began with a 3-month scaled down trial. This is something of an innovation in the practice of advanced analytics even though the notions are anything but new. Engineers and architects build scale models, jet engines are tested in stationary mounts on the ground long before they are placed on an airplane, and new web pages and marketing campaigns are typically first exposed to just tiny fractions of a major web site’s traffic. Obvious or not, the notion that data analysts should consciously opt for a trial run may be new to some practitioners and is well worth considering.  At the very least, analytics could be conducted on a radically slimmed down version of the data set to accelerate modeling run times.

Real-World Example: In a project to predict the sales of individual promoted products in a chain of large grocery stores we started with data for a few dozen products for one department, and then expanded with further selected products from other departments. When done with the pilot project we moved on to making the system work for 122,000 products.

Stage #5: Prepare (and Explore) Data 

From a manager’s point of view the important point here is that the preparation of the data (“beating it into shape”) so that it can be successfully modeled may require considerable time and resources.  David Vogel et. al. were the winner’s of the first (and second) round progress prizes in the $3 million Heritage Provider Network predictive modeling competition. In their paper explaining their approach and methods, about one third of the paper is devoted to documenting their preparation of the data. While some data mining and predictive analytics tools can work remarkably effectively with unprepared data (TreeNet is clearly one such tool), careful data preparation invariably leads to better, and often substantially better, performance.

Much of the data preparation is guided by rather straightforward examination of the main components of the data expected to be relevant to modeling.

Routine first Steps:

1. Ensuring that the data display appropriate values
2. Scanning for extreme values and/or invalid values
3. Locating oddities in the data such as unexpected gaps

Often special care needs to be devoted to handling of missing information, which might be encoded in different ways in different parts of the data. Data that has been collected over a fairly lengthy period of time may also suffer from changes in data coding conventions over time rendering the overall inconsistent. A simple example would be post codes initially stored as 9 digit zip codes and then later stored always in the ZIP+4 format. Without paying attention to such details certain aspects of the analysis will suffer.

There is nothing especially glamorous about data preparation and perhaps for this reason there are very few books or courses devoted specifically to this topic. The data cleaning process is crucial for achieving the best possible results, however, and we expect to offer a series of blog entries on this topic in the future.

Stage #6: Modeling

For the professional data analyst, modeling is the most enjoyable and stimulating part of the project.  It s here that we get to show off our skills and the magic of modern technology, delivering results with modern analytical tools that were simply unthinkable using only standard statistical methods. In SPM 7.0 we offer CART, MARS, TreeNet, RandomForests, GPS Generalized Pathseeker (Lasso style regression, logistic regression, and the extended elastic net), ISLE model compression, and conventional regression which gives the modeler a fair of options to choose from.

Although modelers enjoy building and assessing models, the process of moving from first drafts to final versions can involve a fair bit of experimentation and trial and error. To accelerate this search process we recommend making use of Modeling Automation such as embedded in the SPM BATTERY feature.

By modeling automation we do not mean letting the machine do all the work, but in allowing the machine the assist the modeler by automatically running and summarizing a series of experiments in which variations on a theme, tailored by the modeler, are run. This allows the modeler to keep analytical servers running 24 hours a day, building model variations that can be quickly reviewed in graphical summaries.

Stage #7: Evaluation, Interpretation, Understanding

Although any model can be treated as a black box prediction machine there are usually valuable insights that can be extracted from the model and it is worthwhile spending the time to secure them. We might learn for example that certain subpopulations of customers are unusually favorable or unfavorable for our objectives or we might learn that we can shift selling effort from one segment to another. Evaluation, interpretation, and insight are by definition the domain of the thoughtful and informed reviewer and we do not expect this stage of the project to be automated any time soon (with or without Watson).

The traditional large consulting companies have always understood this very well and have typically devoted the lion’s share of their efforts to telling the story unveiled by the technical analysis in any project. When analytics are undertaken in house the responsible department should take pains to perfect this portion of the project as well.

Stage #8: Full Project

The pilot project may yield results good enough to justify moving forward with the resulting models and insights.  In this case, we would move immediately to “Deployment” below and then consider expansion of the pilot.

If the pilot is successful but the business requires the full project before deployment can be considered, then the steps above must be repeated but in the context of a much larger scope. While much should have been learned from the pilot the full project may reveal a host of new problems and challenges and several conclusions derived form the pilot may need to be revised.

Pilot projects often benefit from the luxury of allowing detailed study of a narrowly defined set of data, supporting very high quality results. A risk for the expansion of the project is that insufficient resources are allocated under the mistaken understanding that the simple scaling up of the project is routine. Salford Systems has been part of several projects in which we thought the pilot was of far higher quality than the full project in all aspects of its execution due to resource allocation.

Stage #9: Deployment

Unless a model is intended to guide only strategic thinking its real payoff comes only when it is deployed in some real-world process. Our retail sales prediction models are used to guide the logistics of a grocery store chain, dictating the number of cans of tuna fish to ship to each store in the network next week. Our ad optimization system recommends which of possibly many thousands should be displayed right now for a given visitor of a given web page. Our lifetime customer value model scores credit card applicants on the basis of their likelihood to have nonzero balances on their card 12 months from now. These models all needed to be embedded in business processes to speed and improve the quality of decisions. Without deployment, models become little more than academic exercises or illustrations of what might be accomplished.

Deployment is a complex topic deserving of an extended discussion all of its own. The only point here is that a modeling system should support easy deployment, by, for example, allowing export of models into reusable code such as Java, C, or PMML. (SPM offers all three and more).

Conclusion

Here are the stages we described once again:

1. Business Understanding  (Specification of an Objective)
2. Data Inventory and Understanding
3. Assessment of Data for Suitability
4. Pilot Project
5. Prepare (and Explore) Data
6. Modeling (Build Predictive Models)
7. Evaluation, Interpretation, Understanding
8. Full Project
9. Deployment

We might also add a final stage: Extract lessons learned and refine “best practices” documents to guide future projects. 

COMMENTARY:     As consultant I often discover that my business clients have only a very general and superficial understanding of who their customers are.  Many claimed they know their customers, but they are only seeing the first layer or veneer of their core customers.  They lack a deeper understanding of their customers.  They are surprised when they discover that their are many different layers of customers that makeup their core customers.

It is no longer sufficient to target customers based solely on demographics. Targeting has become a lot more complicated and difficult than in the past because customers are found both online and offline.   They read less newspapers for their news, listen to less radio broadcasts for their music, watch less television programs than in the past and don't go to movie theaters like your parents did. We are living in the "digital age" and the internet has changed everything.  Customers are spending more time online now, consuming more online content and spending more time sharing and engaging with friends and brands on social networks.   Customers are shifting from the desktop to mobile devices like smartphones, tablets and wearable devices adding an additional layer of complexity in targeting them.  Finally, your customers must not only be targeted demographically but by customer segments and lifestyles -- in short, how they spend their time and money.       

I cannot stress the importance of gaining a deeper understanding and knowledge of your customers in order to effectively target them.  Customer data is no longer homogenous, but originates from many different sources and comes in different formats, and this data must be captured, stored, validated, cleaned, transformed and aggregated, then it must be procesed through a business intelligence system for data mining purposes, online analytical processing (OLAP), data visualization, reports and management dashboards.

Data Sources and Data Flows Essential For an Efficient Business Intelligence System (Click Image To Enlarge)

As a former CFO for Solar Planet, a very successful indoor tanning salon franchise headquartered in San Francisco, I speared the effort to gain a deeper understanding and knowledge of the tanning customers of our tanning salon franchisees located across the U.S.  This required esablishing a data warehouse, then going through numerous steps (see above schematic) to get our customer data in a format that could be used for business intelligence analysis and reporting purposes.  

When we began this effort, we had a pre-conceived notion of what we thought our tanning salon customers were like, but when we analyzed the customer data through our business intelligence system, we discovered that our customers were not all the same.  True, they enjoyed tanning for different reasons, but they were different as night and day, and this deeper understanding, valuable insights and knowledge allowed us to more accurately target them while using the most efficient media channels to reach them.  Armed with this information we were able to provide our existing Solar Planet franchisees with better service and marketing advice and information, and identify the best locations for future Solar Plant franchise locations.  Solar Planet was able to customize the advertising and promotions campaigns for each franchisee based on the knowledge we gained about their customers.  Our franchisees were able to gain measureable improvements in new customers, increases in revenues and lower marketing expenses, and the results of each marketing campaign became much more predicable.  Below is a presentation that I prepared for our management team and potential investors.   I hope you find it valuable.

Solar Planet Company Owned Salon Presentation 3 from Tommy Toy

Courtesy of Salford Systems how-to guide titled, "The Ultimate How-To Guide For Planning A Predictive Analytics Project." 

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ITS A MISTAKE FOR BRANDS TO TREAT GEN Z LIKE MILLENNIALS, GIVE THEM CONTENT THAT IS WEIRD, OFFBEAT, QUIRKY AND RAW

Marketers need to look closer at the differences between this generation and millennials to find insights with significant meaning.

As the millennial marketing craze reaches saturation, a new obsession is making the rounds among brand marketers: Gen Z. Roughly defined as anyone currently 12 to 20 years old, this group is now falling victim to many of the same vague platitudes and insights that characterized "Who Are Millennials?" articles for years.

The same conclusions about Gen Z are drawn again and again. They’re digitally savvy, because they were raised with technology. They’re either entrepreneurial souls looking to redefine the workplace or old-souled pragmatists resigned to climbing the corporate ladder. They inspire words like collaborative, optimistic, and transparent.

But most of these observations are not just banal—they’re also completely wrong. That’s because much of the generational data we see suffers from either poor survey design or misleading conclusions. Whenever we talk with teens face-to-face, it’s telling that many of the "truisms" that surveys conclude don’t hold water. And the insights that are true ("Gen Z loves tech") are too broad to construe any significant meaning.

What really separates Gen Z isn’t that they use technology, or what their values and dreams are—it’s how they choose to live their lives in digital. And after studying this group in closer detail, we’ve identified a few key ways they stand out from millennials.

To gain a perspective of the differences between Gen Z and Millennials in the workplace, this infographic based on a survey conducted by Adecco provides some very interesting insights.

Click Image To Enlarge

WE'VE GONE FROM CLEVER TO OFFBEAT

All generational differences are driven by environment. So when we talk about environmental changes for Gen Z, the first and most obvious shift is the native nature of technology in their lives. Yes, they do have more screen-time than any other demographic, but it isn’t their frequency of tech usage that’s interesting. Rather, it’s how that usage changes what resonates with them.

On the whole, millennials are attracted to the clever and witty: the sharp, biting commentary of Jon Stewart and Seth MacFarlane, content from Someecards and The Oatmeal, ads like the Old Spice guy, Messin With Sasquatch and Dos Equis’ Most Interesting Man in the World.

 

All generational differences are driven by environment. So when we talk about environmental changes for Gen Z, the first and most obvious shift is the native nature of technology in their lives. Yes, they do have more screen-time than any other demographic, but it isn’t their frequency of tech usage that’s interesting. Rather, it’s how that usage changes what resonates with them.

On the whole, millennials are attracted to the clever and witty: the sharp, biting commentary of Jon Stewart and Seth MacFarlane, content from Someecards and The Oatmeal, ads like the Old Spice guy and Dos Equis’ Most Interesting Man in the World.

But Gen Z connects to something completely different: the offbeat and raw. When we talk to teens today, a lot of what they love has a weird, unhinged sensibility to it. The media figures they look up to—people like Pewdiepie and Jerome Jarre—are embraced more for their absurdist humor than for clever witticisms. The content they share tends to mirror this as well: self-deprecating Snapchats and memes, or Vines centered around making people think you’re offbeat or quirky. This is not millennial behavior; it’s rare for a 20-something to post anything on social that makes them look strange. But for a generation that’s spent their entire lives online—mostly in the unfiltered lens of Skype, webcams, live streams and vlogs—an intimate exhibitionism has emerged in a way that older generations simply don’t have.

 

THERE ARE NO MORE SUBCULTURES, EVERYTHING IS A SUBCULTURE

When we speak to clients about their consumers, it’s generally positioned through layers. Depending on the industry, at the core are hardcore or niche users; above that, casual dabblers; and outside of that, the disinterested mainstream. But increasingly, when we talk about younger audiences, that last mainstream layer is going away.

This is another outcome of being connected to the Internet throughout one’s entire childhood. For Gen Z, niche communities and interests were facilitated at a much younger age than they were for older generations. Twenty years ago,kids were absorbed into specific subcultures over time—jocks, theater nerds, band geeks,or prepsters, to name a few. These groups were defined by shared tastes, in clothes, music, slang, and other patterns that could be easily sorted into a singular group. But for today’s teens, there’s no uniformity among hobbies, and because of that, group distinctions are falling away.

For example, we recently talked to a group of gamers who told us they don’t like being called gamers, despite the fact that it’s their favorite hobby. Privately, some of them said that even though they love gaming, they’re involved in so many other communities—rap message boards, sneaker blogs, and skating—that the label ‘gamer’ feels limiting. We don’t see this as much with millennials, who tend to use their passions and identity interchangeably.

ONLINE "LEISURE" ISN'T JUST FUN, ITS CRUCIAL TO A HEALTHY AND HAPPY LIFE

One of the biggest assumptions about the increase in time spent on digital is that it’s merely entertainment and largely a waste of time. But for teens, that entertainment is proving to be a vital component in the creation and maintenance of friendships.

A Pew study last month found that,

"More than half of teens have made new friends online, and a third of them (36%) say they met their new friend or friends while playing video games…Playing games can [also] have the effect of reinforcing a sense of friendship and connectedness."

Other types of online communities have also gone from hobbyist chats to real outlets for connection and support. Nearly a fifth of all teens go on message boards regularly, as problems that were once isolating or suppressed now have a connected community behind them. It’s important to note that without the inherent vulnerability we talked about earlier, we wouldn’t see stats like this. But because of Gen Z’s willingness to open up online, the Internet has a much greater impact on their lives.

Generation Z have been dubbed "digital natives" because of their love for sharing their activities with their friends online (Click Image To Enlarge)

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR MARKETERS?

Ultimately, vague platitudes and clichés serve no one. It's important to understand the digital culture that Gen Z lives in today if we wish to connect with them beyond a surface level. With that in mind, here are three points to think about when targeting them.

First, give them the tools to mess with anything you make, because they’ll do it anyway. Tightly controlled messages aren’t possible anymore. Gen Z is going to draw stuff on your creative, tweak it, and do whatever else they want, regardless of your intentions. Don’t fight it.

Second, build stuff for the communities they’re a part of instead of injecting messages into them. For specific product launches messages can still work fine, but when it comes to general brand building, it’s much better to think about the communities your target lives in and build things that make that community more fun or easier to navigate.

And third, take out a position that not everyone agrees with.This one is somewhat counterintuitive, as the logical thing to do would be appealing to as many people as possible. But for Gen Z, the honesty and exposure that a brand takes when doing something potentially polarizing often strengthens the connection they have with that brand.

Click Image To Enlarge

COMMENTARY:  They want to drive to their jobs, head into their private offices and meet face-to-face with colleagues before calling it a day – hopefully, not too late, since work-life balance is their primary career concern. Sound like a baby boomer, or even Gen X? On the contrary, these are the work preferences expressed by more than 770 members of Generation Z (those born between 1990 and 1999) surveyed recently by Robert Half and Enactus. 

Paul McDonald, senior executive director of Robert Half said. 

"Gen Z employees bring unique values, expectations and perspectives to their jobs.  They've grown up in economically turbulent times, and many of their characteristics and motivations reflect that."

Following are five surprising insights based on the research:

1. Open floor plans? Hot start-ups? Nah, this group's tastes skew more Mad Men than Silicon Valley.

• Forty-one percent described midsize organizations as the ideal work environment, followed by large organizations (38 percent). Only 14 percent cited start-ups.
• Forty-five percent of respondents prefer to work in a private office, and face-to-face communication is the method of choice for 74 percent.

2. They're not exactly bubbling over with youthful optimism. Meet the 'reality-check' generation.

• Seventy-seven percent believe they will need to work harder compared to those in past generations to have a satisfying and fulfilling professional life.
• Balancing work and personal obligations was the top future career concern for 28 percent of respondents, followed by making enough money (26 percent) and finding a stable job (23 percent).

3. A gold watch marking decades of service may not be in the cards, but they do plan to stay a while at their jobs -- and move quickly up the ladder.

• Gen Zers expect to work for an average of four companies throughout their lifetimes.
• Thirty-two percent believe they will be managing employees in a corporate environment within the next five years.
• One in three would like to retire by the age of 60, but only 17 percent think it will be possible.

4. Forget fancy job titles -- they mainly want more responsibIlity and an honest boss.

• Opportunity for career growth was the most commonly cited career priority, with 64 percent of respondents ranking it among their top three. An impressive job title was only cited as a priority by three percent.
• Honesty/integrity was the top quality sought in a boss, cited by 38 percent of respondents; this was followed by mentoring ability (21 percent).

5. Collaboration shouldn't be a problem, say Gen Zers, except with those baby boomers.

• Forty-five percent cited potential challenges working with baby boomers, compared to 17 percent who anticipate difficulties with Gen X and five percent with Gen Yers.

Bev Graham, Ph.D., vice president of Enactus USA programs, said, "Gen Z professionals are full of potential, but these young adults will need support in honing their skills and harnessing their enthusiasm to address real-world employment situations, such as the need to communicate more formally in certain situations."

Added McDonald, "This group of professionals has grown up with technology available to them around the clock and is accustomed to constant learning. Companies with a solid understanding of this generation's values and preferences will be well prepared to create work environments that attract a new generation of employees and maximize their potential." 

Visit roberthalf.com/generation-z to view infographics, learn more about the research and download the white paper.

Courtesy of an article dated October 1, 2015 appearing in Fast Company Create and an article dated July 15, 2015 appearing in Robert Half, and an analysis of a survey about the differences between Gen Z and Millennials conducted by employment staffing firm Adecco 

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THE DEATH OF GOLF: TIGER WOODS HAS LOST HIS MOJO, MILLENNIALS ARE NOT GOLFING, BABY BOOMERS NOT FILLING THE VOID

It's expensive, difficult, and demands the kind of time most people get only when they go on vacation — or retire. From the dried up fairways of Southern California to the vacant course-side condos on the Carolina coast, we survey the sport's demise — and the entrepreneurs hoping to reinvent it for a new, less patient generation. 

One night last September, my 15-year-old daughter, Esmee, told me her plan to try out for the girls golf team here in Pacific Palisades, California. While I was pleased with her interest in golf — which I'd played semiseriously, along with seemingly every other man under 40 in the Tiger-dominated late '90s — I felt I had to prepare her for the inevitable letdown. She lacked the requisite power and the repeating, compact swing I assumed were required of a varsity golfer. Do your best, I told her, but be prepared for the possibility that you might not make the team.

When she texted me a week later to say she'd made the cut, I was stunned. In the years I'd gone to the school, the golf team was a bunch of country club regulars whose swings were nice right-path whips, golfers who'd been playing for a half-decade by the time they got to high school. I asked the coach, James Paleno, what had changed.

Paleno says.  

"There just isn't the interest we used to have 14, 15 years ago.  Now I have kids showing up who have never hit a golf ball before. Kids are just less aware of golf. They have too many other options. And then when they find out it takes five and a half hours to play 18 holes, they're just not interested."

Click Image To Enlarge

By any measure, participation in the game is way off, from a high of 30.6 million golfers in 2003 to 24.7 million in 2014, according to the National Golf Foundation (NGF). The long-term trends are also troubling, with the number of golfers ages 18 to 34 showing a 30 percent decline over the last 20 years. Nearly every metric — TV ratings, rounds played, golf-equipment sales, golf courses constructed — shows a drop-off.  Oliver "Chip" Brewer, president and CEO of Callaway. says.  

"I look forward to a time when we've got the wind at our back, but that's not what we're expecting.  This is a demographic challenge."

During the boom, most of those 20-somethings who were out hacking every weekend were out there because of one man: Tiger Woods. Golf's heyday coincided neatly with Tiger's run of 14 major golf championships between 1997 and 2008. If you listen to golf insiders, he's the individual most to blame for those thousands of Craigs­list ads for used clubs. When Tiger triple-bogeyed his marriage, dallied with porn stars, and seemingly misplaced his swing all at once, the game not only lost its best player; it also lost its leading salesman. The most common answer given by golf industry types when asked what would return the game to its former popularity is "Find another Tiger."

         Golf's fortunes seem to rise and fall with Tiger Woods' play. He hasn't won a major since 2008.  Photograph by Robyn Beck-AFP-Getty Images (Click Image To Enlarge)

But you can't blame one man's wandering libido for the demise of an entire sport. The challenges golf faces are myriad, from millennials lacking the requisite attention span for a five-hour round, to an increasingly environmentally conscious public that's reluctant to take up a resource-intensive game played on nonnative grass requiring an almond farm's worth of water, to the recent economic crisis that curtailed discretionary spending. Brewer says.  

"Golf is an expensive, aspirational game, and a lot of millennials are struggling with debt and jobs. If you don't have a job, golf doesn't really fit you very well."

Combine the game's cost with the fact that golf is perceived as stubbornly alienating to everyone but white males — Augusta National, home of the Masters and perhaps the most famous golf club in the world, didn't accept black members until 1990 and women until 2012 — and it's no wonder young people aren't flocking to it.  Greg Nathan, senior vice president of the NGF, says.

"One of the major reasons golf hasn't been growing is because historically, it has not been welcoming enough.  We need to make people feel more comfortable."

Not long ago, the game could count on young fathers to hide out on the links, and weekend tee slots are still filled with plenty of off-duty dads. But it takes two to properly helicopter-parent a family these days, and that means parents are spending more of their weekends at the playground than at the country club.

During the Tiger boom, everything about the game seemed to expand, from the length of the putters to the size of driver heads to the scale of the courses themselves.  Gary Player, the only non-American to win a career Grand Slam, notes.  

"When I won the U.S. Open at Bellerive in 1965, the course measured 7,191 yards. It was a monster. Now, 7,500-yard courses are everywhere."

And those courses have raised their greens fees. Pebble Beach may be able to charge $495 for a round, but when your local public course wants $150, it gets steep. And many of those golf courses weren't designed merely for golf; they were the lure for tens of thousands of homes that aimed to deliver one version of the American dream: golf course frontage.

COMMENTARY:     

The symptoms of golfings decline are evident everywhere and can be found in many forms.

Decline in Golf Equipment Sales

Slow golf equipment sales over the past two years have created a glut of inventory at wholesale and retail outlets, forcing them to slash prices. Dick’s Sporting Goods(DKS) was selling some drivers, priced at $299 just a few months earlier, for $99, Chief Executive Officer Ed Stack said on an investor call on May 20, 2014.  That day, Dick’s reported it missed its golf gear sales target by about $34 million in the first quarter of 2014.  The news helped send the retail chain’s stock down 18 percent, its worst one-day tumble since the company went public in 2002.  Stack said.  

“We don’t feel we’ve found the bottom yet in the golf sales number.”

TaylorMade, a golf equipment maker owned by Adidas (ADS:GR), reported a 34 percent drop in sales in the first quarter 2014. And Callaway Golf (ELY), maker of the Big Bertha driver, delivered its own dim forecast in April 2014, warning that full-year profit could come in at the low end of its previous estimate.  CEO Chip Brewer told investors. 

“We anticipate a heavy promotional environment while the industry works through excess inventory.”

Callaway hasn’t reported an annual profit since 2008.

Industry insiders point to last year’s double bogey by sports retail giant Dick’s that crimped revenue and margins industry-wide. Dick’s, which is reportedly in talks to go private, last summer fired more than 400 PGA professionals at its namesake stores (the sporting goods retailer also owns the Golf Galaxy chain) and slashed prices on golf equipment as there wasn’t enough demand to meet the supply stuffed into the market; lower prices obviously mean less overall revenue.

TaylorMade’s Sharpe is mindful of that oversupply as the company has released new equipment and he prepares for his first spring on the job. Sharpe says the company will be “more deliberate” in its distribution to avoid an inventory glut, “which causes deflation and compromises the launch of the next generation.”

This deflation is training consumers to hold off on new purchases and weighing on equipment sales, says Tom Stine, co-founder of Golf Datatech. Stine says.  

“Overall golf sales are down, but that doesn’t mean they’re down because golf is going out of business.  Golfers are not going away, they’re more cautious in spending money and trying to get a better deal.”

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Economic Impact of Golf

The U.S. golf industry has an estimated direct economic impact of around 70 million U.S. dollars annually. This figure is based on several segments such as golf course capital investment, golf facility operations, golfer supplies, charities and tournaments and associations. 

It includes for example around 20 billion U.S. dollars from green fees and consumer purchases of golf equipment to the value of 3.4 billion U.S. dollars. These equipment purchases include items such as golf clubs (woods, irons, hybrids and putters), golf bags and balls. The average price for a set of golf clubs was at 40 U.S. dollars in 2011, golf shoes sold for an average of 66 U.S. dollars at the retail level. The wholesale sales of golf equipment had a value of around 2.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2011. 

Among the leading golf equipment companies in the world is Callaway Golf with revenues of 834 million U.S. dollars in 2012. Its drivers, fairway woods and hybrid segment contributed 24 percent to the total revenue. Irons (20%), putters (11%), golf balls (17%) and accessories (28%) are the other reported segments of Callaway Golf. Callaway’s main market is the U.S. where the company generated almost 50 percent of its revenue. 

Around 26 million people play golf in the U.S., at least occasionally, at approximately 15,600 golf facilities. Among the leading golf club operating businesses is ClubCorp. The company operates 102 golf and country clubs and 49 business, sports and alumni clubs mostly in the U.S. Overall the company has approximately 145,000 memberships and 350,000 individual members with total revenues of almost 755 million U.S. dollars in 2012. 

Consumer spending on golf equipment in the U.S. from 2007 to 2015 (in million U.S. dollars)

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The Generational Shift 

Although an especially cold winter and the sluggish economy are no doubt part of golf’s problem, a generational shift is a bigger cause for concern.  Jim Koppenhaver, president of Pellucid, says.

"The baby boomers were supposed to be the salvation of golf.  We’ve got to find a way to stem the decline in the golfer base.”

Millennials have left golf in droves, but the baby boomers have yet to take up the slack.  His company’s research shows the number of golfers today is lower than in 1990, even though the U.S. population is 27 percent greater.  

Changing Lifestyles

Koppenhaver calls the traditional 18-hole round “an anachronism,” requiring about six hours “door-to-door,” including more than four on the course.  Nor does the pastime have the social currency it once held. Explains Gerald Celente, publisher of marketing magazine Trends Journal:

“Everybody’s hooked up to their handhelds, so [today] it’s social networking instead of sports.”

Golf Courses Closing And Golfers Playing Fewer Rounds

Overbuilding in the 1990s led to a surfeit of courses as the growth that operators anticipated never materialized. Only 14 new courses were built in the U.S. in 2013, while almost 160 shut down, the National Golf Foundation reports. Last year marked the eighth straight year that more courses closed than opened.

Those sticking with the sport are playing fewer rounds. U.S. golfers played a total of 462 million rounds last year, according to researcher Golf Datatech. That was the fewest since 1995. Says Morelli:

“All the people under 35 are leaving the game.”

Marketing of Golf Changing

To attract more casual players and expand revenue, particularly among younger people, clubs are rethinking some of the sport’s tenets. The U.S. Golf Association, the PGA of America, and Golf Digest have launched a “Time for Nine” campaign to counter complaints that the traditional 18-hole game takes too much time. And some clubs are adding attractions such as yoga and hovercraft rides.

Then there’s Hack Golf, a movement to identify the parts of golf that aren’t fun and fix them. A standard cup is 4.25 inches in diameter, often making even short putts difficult to sink. Some courses have added wider holes to make the sport faster and easier, with a Golf.com story in April asking, “Could a 15-inch hole be the answer to golf’s growth problem?” TaylorMade in April sponsored a 15-inch cup tournament. The brand also co-sponsors a website with the PGA, hackgolf.org, with the goal of “crowdsourcing the future of golf.” The site has elicited 1,471 ideas. A recent suggestion: smartphone apps to reserve tee times, pay for services, and communicate with the pro shop.

Clubs in more than 30 states, including the PGA Country Club in Port St. Lucie, Fla., are even trying FootGolf, a combination of golf and soccer designed to capitalize on the growing popularity of the latter. The game is played with a regulation No. 5 soccer ball on a course with shortened holes and 21-inch cups. Wearing knee-high argyle socks is recommended.

The professional and marital decline of Tiger Woods, once the public face of golf, hasn’t helped. With neither Woods nor Phil Mickelson playing at the 2014 Masters, only 7.8 percent of U.S. television households tuned in—the tournament’s lowest TV rating since 2004, according to Nielsen. That was a 24 percent decline from the 2013 finale, when Woods and Mickelson played and 10.2 percent watched.

Courtesy of an article in the August 2015 issue of Men's Journal, an article dated June 19, 2014 appearing in Bloomberg Business, an article dated January 22, 2015 appearing in Fox Business, and an article titled, "The Economic Impact of Golf" appearing Statista

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WHY DEVELOPING BUYER PERSONAS IS CRUCIAL TO YOUR MARKETING AND BUSINESS SUCCESS

Buyer personas (sometimes referred to as marketing personas) are fictional, generalized representations of your ideal customers. Personas help us all -- in marketing, sales, product, and services -- internalize the ideal customer we're trying to attract, and relate to our customers as real humans. Having a deep understanding of your buyer persona(s) is critical to driving content creation, product development, sales follow up, and really anything that relates to customer acquisition and retention.

"Okay, so personas are really important to my business. But ... how do I actually make one?"

Ahh ... the million dollar question. The good news is, they aren't that difficult to create. You just need to ask the right questions to the right people, and present that information in a helpful way so the people in your business can get to know your persona(s) better than the backs of their hands.

Now for the even better news: Hubspot put together an interview guide and a free template for creating buyer personas, so it's easy as pie to do your persona research and compile it all into a beautiful, presentable, palatable format. So follow along with this interview guide, and download the persona template so you can start plugging in your research. Before you know it, you'll have complete, well thought-out buyer personas to show off to your entire company!

Why Exactly Are Buyer Personas So Important To Your Business?

Buyer personas help you understand your customers (and prospective customers) better. This makes it easier for you to tailor your content, messaging, product development, and services to the specific needs, behaviors, and concerns of different groups. In other words, you may know your target buyers are caregivers, but do you know what their specific needs and interests are? What is the typical background of your ideal buyer? In order to get a full understanding of what makes your best customers tick, it's critical to develop detailed personas for your business.

The strongest buyer personas are based on market research as well as insights you gather from your actual customer base (through surveys, interviews, etc.). Depending on your business, you could have as few as one or two personas, or as many as 10 or 20. But if you’re new to personas, start small! You can always develop more personas later if needed.

What About "Negative" Personas?

Whereas a buyer persona is a representation of your ideal customer, a negative -- or “exclusionary” -- persona is a representation of who you don’t want as a customer.

For example, this could include professionals who are too advanced for your product or service, students who are only engaging with your content for research/knowledge, or potential customers who are just too expensive to acquire (because of a low average sale price, their propensity to churn, or their unlikeliness to purchase again from your company).

How Can Personas Be Used in Marketing?

At the most basic level, developing personas allows you to create content and messaging that appeals to your target audience. It also enables you to target or personalize your marketing for different segments of your audience. For example, instead of sending the same lead nurturing emails to everyone in your database, you can segment by buyer persona and tailor your messaging according to what you know about those different personas.

Furthermore, when combined with lifecycle stage (i.e. how far along someone is in your sales cycle), buyer personas also allow you to map out and create highly targeted content. You can learn more about how to do that by downloading our Content Mapping Template. 

And if you take the time to also create negative personas, you’ll have the added advantage of being able to segment out the “bad apples” from the rest of your contacts, which can help you achieve a lower cost-per-lead and cost-per-customer -- and see higher sales productivity.

Now, are you ready to start creating your buyer personas?

How To Create Buyer Personas

Buyer personas can be created through research, surveys, and interviews of your target audience. That includes a mix of customers, prospects, and those outside your contacts database who might align with your target audience.

Here are some practical methods for gathering the information you need to develop personas:

• Look through your contacts database to uncover trends about how certain leads or customers find and consume your content. 
• When creating forms to use on your website, use form fields that capture important persona information. For example, if all of your personas vary based on company size, ask each lead for information about company size on your forms.
• Take into consideration your sales team's feedback on the leads they're interacting with most. What generalizations can they make about the different types of customers you serve best?
• Interview customers and prospects, either in person or over the phone, to discover what they like about your product or service. This is one of the most important steps, so let's discuss it in greater detail ...

How To Find Interviewees For Researching Buyer Personas

One of the most critical steps to establishing your buyer persona(s) is finding some people to speak with to suss out, well, who your buyer persona is. That means you'll have to conduct some interviews to get to know what drives your target audience. But how do you find those interviewees? There are a few sources you should tap into:

1) Customers

Your existing customer base is the perfect place to start with your interviews, because they've already purchased your product and engaged with your company. At least some of them are likely to exemplify your target persona(s).

Reach out to both "good" and "bad" customers. You don't just want to talk to people who love your product and want to spend an hour gushing about you (as good as that feels). Customers who are unhappy with your product will show other patterns that will help you form a solid understanding of your personas. For example, you might find that some of these "bad" customers have bigger teams and thus need a collaboration element to the product. Or you may find that "bad" customers find your product too technical and difficult to use. In both cases, you learn something about your product and what your customers' challenges are.

Another benefit to interviewing customers is that you may not need to offer them an incentive like a gift card (a typical incentive for participating in surveys or interviews). Customers usually like being heard, and interviewing them gives them a chance to tell you about their world, their challenges, and what they think of your product. Customers also like to have an impact on the products they use, so you may find that, as you involve them in interviews like this, they become even more loyal to your company. When you reach out to customers, be clear that your goal is to get their feedback and that it's highly valued by your team.

2) Prospects

Be sure to balance out your interviews with people who have not purchased your product or know much about your company. Your current prospects and leads are a great option here because you already have their contact information. Use the data you do have about them (i.e. anything you've collected through lead generation forms or website analytics) to figure out who might fit into your target personas.

3) Referrals

You'll probably also need to rely on some referrals to talk to people who may fit into your target personas, particularly if you're heading into new markets or don't have any leads or customers yet. Reach out to your network -- co-workers, existing customers, social media contacts -- to find people you'd like to interview and get introduced to. It may be tough to get a large volume of people this way, but you'll likely get some very high-quality interviews out of it. If you don't know where to start, try searching on LinkedIn for people who may fit into your target personas and see which results have any connections in common with you. Then reach out to your common connections for introductions.

4) Third-Party Networks

For interviewees who are completely removed from your company, there are a few third-party networks you can recruit from. Craigslist allows you to post ads for people interested in any kind of job, and UserTesting.com allows you to run remote user testing (with some follow-up questions). You'll have less control over sessions run through UserTesting.com, but it's a great resource for quick user testing recruiting.

Tips For Recruiting Interviewees

As you reach out to potential interviewees, here are a few tips for getting a better response rate:

1) Use incentives. While you may not need them in all scenarios (e.g. customers who already want to talk to you), incentives give people a reason to participate in an interview if they don't have a relationship with you. A simple gift card (like an Amazon or Visa credit card) is an easy option.

2) Be clear this isn't a sales call. This is especially important when dealing with non-customers. Be clear that you're doing research and that you just want to learn from them. You are not getting them to commit to a one-hour sales call; you're getting them to commit to telling you about their lives, jobs, and challenges.

3) Make it easy to say yes. Take care of everything for your potential interviewee. Suggest times, but be flexible; allow them to pick a time right off the bat; and send a calendar invitation with a reminder to block off their time.

How Many People Do You Need To Interview?

Unfortunately the answer is, it depends. Start with at least 3-5 interviews for each persona you're creating. If you already know a lot about your persona, then that may be enough. You may need to do 3-5 interviews in each category of interviewees (customers, prospects, people who don't know your company).

The rule of thumb is, when you start accurately predicting what your interviewee is going to say, it's probably time to stop. Through these interviews, you'll naturally start to notice patterns. Once you start expecting and predicting what your interviewee is going to say, that means you've interviewed enough people to find and internalize these patterns.

20 Questions to Ask in Persona Interviews

It's time to conduct the interview! After the normal small talk and thank-you's, it's time to jump into your questions. There are several different categories of questions you'll want to ask in order to create a complete persona profile. The following questions are organized into those categories, but feel free to customize this list and remove or add more questions that may be appropriate for your target customers.

Role

• What is your job role? Your title?
• How is your job measured?
• What does a typical day look like?
• What skills are required to do your job?
• What knowledge and tools do you use in your job?
• Who do you report to? Who reports to you?

Company

• In which industry or industries does your company work?
• What is the size of your company (revenue, employees)?

Goals

• What are you responsible for?
• What does it mean to be successful in your role?

Challenges

• What are your biggest challenges?

Watering Holes

• How do you learn about new information for your job?
• What publications or blogs do you read?
• What associations and social networks do you participate in?

Personal Background

• Describe your personal demographics (if appropriate, ask their age, whether they're married, if they have children).
• Describe your educational background. What level of education did you complete, which schools did you attend, and what did you study?
• Describe your career path. How did you end up where you are today?

Shopping Preferences

• How do you prefer to interact with vendors (e.g. email, phone, in person)?
• Do you use the internet to research vendors or products? If yes, how do you search for information?
• Describe a recent purchase. Why did you consider a purchase, what was the evaluation process, and how did you decide to purchase that product or service?

The #1 Tip for a Successful Persona Interview: Ask "Why"

The follow up question to pretty much every question in the above list should be "why?"

Through these interviews, you're trying to understand your customers' or potential customers' goals, behaviors, and what drives them. But keep in mind that people are not always great at reflecting on their own behaviors to tell you what drives them at their core. You don't care that they measure the number of visits to their website, for example. What you care about is that they measure that because they need a number they control to show their boss they're doing a good job.

Start with a simple question -- one of our favorites is, "What is your biggest challenge?" Then spend a good amount of time diving deeper into that one question to learn more about that person. You learn more by asking "why?" than by asking more superficial questions.

How To Use Your Research To Create Your Persona

Once you've gone through the research process, you'll have a lot of meaty, raw data about your potential and current customers. But what do you do with it? How do you distill all of that so it's easy for everyone to understand all the information you've gathered?

The next step is to use your research to identify patterns and commonalities from the answers to your interview questions, develop at least one primary persona, and share that persona with the rest of the company.

Use Hubspots free, downloadable persona template to organize the information you've gathered about your persona(s). Then share these slides with the rest of your company so everyone can benefit from the research you've done and develop an in-depth understanding of the person (or people) they're targeting every day at work.

Here's how to use the template to do it ...

Fill In Your Persona's Basic Demographic Information

If you didn't feel comfortable asking some of these demographic-based questions on the phone or in person, you can also conduct online surveys to gather this information. Some people are more comfortable disclosing things like this through a survey rather than verbal communication.

It's also helpful to include some descriptive buzzwords and mannerisms of your persona that you may have picked up on during your conversations to make it easier for people in your sales department to identify certain personas when they're talking to prospects.

Here's an example of how you might complete Section 1 in your template for one of your personas:

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Share What You've Learned About Your Persona's Motivations

This is where you'll distill the information you learned from asking "Why" so much during those interviews. What keeps your persona up at night? Who do they want to be? Most importantly, tie that all together by telling people how your company can help them.

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Help Your Sales Team Prepare for Conversations With Your Persona

Include some real quotes from your interviews that exemplify what your personas are concerned about, who they are, and what they want. Then create a list of the objections they might raise so your sales team is prepared to address those during their conversations with prospects.

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Help Craft Messaging For Your Persona

Tell people how to talk about your products/services with your persona. This includes the nitty gritty vernacular you should use, as well as a more general elevator pitch that positions your solution in a way that resonates with your persona. This will help you ensure everyone in your company is speaking the same language when they're having conversations with leads and customers.

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Finally, make sure you give your persona a name (like Finance Manager Margie, IT Ian, or Landscaper Larry), and include a real-life image of your persona so everyone can truly envision what he or she looks like. Purchase an image from a stock photograph site like Thinkstock, or download one of our royalty-free images. It may seem silly, but it really helps to put a name to a face, so to speak!

COMMENTARY:   

Customer Profiles vs Customer Personas 

Most business owners have an ideal customer in mind. However, far too many of them fail to do more than scratch the surface when describing that person. Their customer profiles contain generic, basic information: age range, geographic location, household income, whether they have children or pets, rent or own their homes, etc. In the B2B environment, the customer profile may focus on business information, such as number of years in business, the market served, annual sales and length of time in operation. Taken together, the customer profile provides a marketing starting point.

The first step in developing customer personas is to develop the ideal customer profile. Again, the profile is different from the persona; the profile is generic, overarching information. You can cull this information from your customer data, as well as based on the market research you’ve done to determine who your product appeals to. As you develop the profile, it should include:

B2C:

• Age
• Gender
• Marital status (if applicable)
• Geographic data (country, region, ZIP code)
• Household income
• Household size
• Homeowner status
• Education
• Special characteristics (children, pets, hobbies, interests, political affiliations, etc.)

B2B:

• Industry
• Products
• Geographic data (country, region, ZIP code)
• Number of employees
• Number of locations
• Length of time in business
• Annual revenue

Once you have a customer profile, you can move on to creating a persona. The first rule of creating buyer personas is that you cannot make them up, based on assumptions, your existing customer data, and anecdotes from your sales and marketing staff. You can’t base personas on what you glean from the social media profiles of the people who engage with your company online. That information may be useful in creating a customer profile in that it provides some general demographic insights, but it doesn’t give you what is referred to as the “customer archetype.”

The Science Behind Creating Buyer Personas

To help you get started developing your customer personas, I found this very helpful infographic titled, "The Science Behind Creating Buyer Personas," which encapsulates much of the above information into a concise format that walks you through the process of creating buyer personas.

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To know today’s B2B buyers more deeply involves the use of qualitative contextual inquiry. Contextual inquiry has served the fields of social science, qualitative research, and journalism very well.  It can serve B2B Marketing and Sales very well also.

Strategic Management

Buyer persona development is an exercise in formulating customer and buyer strategies.  To formulate strategies requires informed knowledge about your customers and buyers.  One way to characterize buyer persona development is to call it a strategic modeling initiative.  An initiative every level of management should go through to make informed decisions.  One piece of advice Zambito can give after being at this for a dozen years – do not skip strategy and jump to tactics.  You are going to miss out on plenty about your buyers.

Strategic Modeling Tool: The Buyer Persona Canvas™

Zambito utilizes a strategic modeling tool designed for buyer persona development: the Buyer Persona Canvas™.  (Zambito drew inspiration for the canvas from Alex Osterwalder’s, founder of Business Model Generation, wonderful creation of the BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS  commonly used in start-ups. NOTE: But should be a key element for developing business models for any company regardless of its stage of development)   It is designed to serve as a strategic guide for understanding your buyers more deeply.  The model highlights ten (10) areas where we need in-depth knowledge about buyers to make informed strategy decisions.

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I have actually been involved in the process of creating buyer personas.  However, instead of calling them personas we called them lifestyles.  Lifestyles is a pseudonym used in marketing that describes how customers spend their time and money.   To determine the lifestyles of our customer database, which numbered almost 100,000 customers spread over 17 national geographic areas, we used the services of a professional marketing analytics firm.  This was an expensive process which took over three months to complete.  I don't recommend this for everyone.  The lifestyle analysis that we compiled utilizes demographic data, consumer credit data, census data, and behavioral tendencies about consumers by specific geographic locations.

Courtesy of an article dated May 28, 2015 appearing in Hubspot Blog and an article dated June 30, 2014 appearing in Digital Currents and an article dated September 2013 appearing in Tony Zambito Blog and an article dated May 20, 2014 appearing in WSI Blog

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TOP 10 BRANDS THAT MILLENNIALS LOVE FOR 2015 -- NIKE, APPLE, SAMSUNG, SONY AND WHAT?!! WALMART

 

Walmart, Target, Coca-Cola and Pepsi are among the top 10 most beloved brands of Millennials, according to the 2015 Top 50 Millennial Brand Ranking Report released this week by Moosylvania, an independent digital advertising agency. The brand comparison study was conducted with Millennials in two separate surveys over the course of nine months.

The latest rankings, based on panel studies of 1,500 Millennials—defined as age 14 to 35—not only ranks which Top 50 brands continue to earn Millennial love, but why these brands are connecting so strongly with them. Participants in each survey were asked to rank their top three brands unaided—32 of the 50 brands mentioned were repeats. Eighteen new brands edged their way into the latest list.

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The 2015 top five “most beloved” brands are Nike, Apple, Samsung, Sony and Walmart. A few of the newcomers to the list included Pizza Hut (21), Chevrolet (23), Honda (31), Oreo (33), Sprint (42) and Chanel (43), among others. In spite of last holiday season’s security breach, Target rose from 27th to sixth in the 2015 rankings. Facebook, PlayStation and Old Navy were among 11 brands that lost favor with Millennials and dropped from the Top 50 list. Absent from either list were alcohol and spirit brands.

In addition to their favorite brands, Millennials participating in the latest study identified key media traits that transform a high-awareness brand into a beloved brand. Important brand characteristics that matter most to Millennials include High-Quality Products (75 percent), Would Recommend This Brand (61 percent), Fits Their Personality (53 percent), Social Responsibility (40 percent), Shares Similar Interests (39 percent) and Says Important Things (31 percent).

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Norty Cohen, founder and CEO of Moosylvania said. 

“What these two back-to-back studies reveal is that a form of personalized communication has to be involved before a brand can get recognized. Make me look good, make me feel good and entertain me—mass communication has been supplanted with friendship marketing, 'Millennials’ curation skills allow them to consider new entities. Consider that in one year’s time 18 brands went from not one mention to placing in the Top 50, proving that Millennials will adopt brands that get into their zone.”

Cohen describes Millennial consumers as their own brand managers.

“This generation is looking for brands that help them become something more than their regular selves. Provide a high-quality product or service that helps them look cool, and Millennials will return the favor with their recommendations and purchasing power.  They care about what’s happening on their street, in their neighborhood and beyond—and so should marketers. Brands that market with a strong, positive message and display a sense of social responsibility show they care about what Millennials care about.”

For example, Ralph Lauren, who went from 104th to 30th in the rankings, and Wendy’s (47), a newcomer to the 2015 Top 50 list, both created campaigns that included participatory TV commercials and music videos. The companies then micro-targeted consumers by speaking directly to them through their various social media platforms, Cohen says.

“Millennials are not just consumers—they’re friends. They trust friends who listen to them, are open and honest, remember their names, are consistent and stay true to who they are. Marketers who connect with them as friends on that level have an opportunity to break into the favorites list.”

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COMMENTARY:   Wal-Mart's popularity among young people may come as a surprise to many marketing analysts who say millennials prefer convenient, smaller-format stores and online shopping over the big-box retailers where their parents shopped.

Even Wal-Mart executives have admitted they were surprised by the data. 

Matt Kistler, Walmart senior VP-consumer insights and analytics, told Ad Age.

"Millennials now, as a generation, like Walmart the best, more so than Generation X, more so than boomers," 

Wal-mart Chief Marketing Officer Stephen Quinn said to Ad Age.

"That kind of shocks a lot of people, including inside the company." 

But Wal-Mart's cheap prices are a big draw for cash-strapped millennials, many of whom are underemployed and working multiple jobs to pay off student loan debt.   NOTE: Millennials also happen to be biggest users of discount coupons, even more than their parents.

The class of 2015 has the highest level of college debt in US history, according to CNBC. On average, students graduating this year will owe $35,051 in student loans, CNBC reports based on data from Mark Kantrowitz, a student financial aid policy expert and publisher of Edvisors.com.

Millennials are also spending more on technology and food than previous generations, leaving them with less discretionary income.

Kistler told Ad Age. 

"The millennial customer grew up with a lot of hardship.  They see Walmart as a place where they can save money."

Courtesy of Moosylvania.com's A Labor of Like: Millennials 2015 - Favorite Brands Ranking Report and an article dated June 16, 2015 appearing in Business Insider

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ASPIRATIONAL LUXURY CONSUMERS: THE EXPANDING LAP OF LUXURY AMONG U.S. CONSUMERS

 

In the U.S. retail market, the word luxury doesn’t have the same connotation that it once did. Or perhaps it’s just that the consumers who shop for luxury goods aren’t who they used to be. Either way you look at it, defining luxury today is no easy task—and neither is identifying how people view the term.

For many consumers, luxury is a way to signal that they’ve “made it,” but the ways they choose to showcase or express their status can be as varied as the consumers themselves. For example, some convey it subtly through the scarcity and heritage of the products they purchase. Others take a more forthright approach by purchasing eye-catching products they want to showcase for everyone to admire and covet.

Regardless of how consumers choose to bring luxury into their lives, the U.S. has the deepest pockets when it comes to luxury retail spending. In fact, management consulting firm Bain and Co. estimates that Americans spent $73.3 billion on luxury goods last year—more than consumers in Japan, Italy, France and China combined.

Despite the breadth of the U.S. luxury goods market, however, retailers have plenty of untapped potential to explore. In fact, a closer look at the luxury goods arena shows that the households that want to buy luxury goods outnumber those that already do by 8%.

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In order to engage with luxury-buying and aspirational buyers, retailers need key insight into the specific differences among these consumers. While no two consumers are exactly alike, Nielsen has identified five distinct perspectives around the meaning and value of the term “luxury,” and has categorized them into specific consumer segments. Three of them value luxury and make luxury retail purchases. The other two value and aspire to buy luxury items, but are less likely to actually make the purchases.

The aspirational consumer market is vital for luxury brands looking to achieve volume and growth. Both younger and older aspirational consumers place value on luxury products, but they haven’t traditionally been luxury consumers themselves. Lower-priced offerings and partnerships with mass merchandisers give these consumers access to the brand and build loyalty.

A luxury purchase should feel like an indulgence and a reward for aspirational consumers. Aspirationals under the age of 55 tend to live in college towns like College Station, Texas, and Lafayette, Ind., and they often shop at retailers like Burlington Coat Factory, Express and Old Navy. Aspirationals over 55 tend to shop at retailers Stein Mart and Chico’s, and live in Florida locales like Homosassa Springs, Punta Gorda and Sebring.

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In order to engage with luxury-buying and aspirational buyers, retailers need key insight into the specific differences among these consumers. While no two consumers are exactly alike, Nielsen has identified five distinct perspectives around the meaning and value of the term “luxury,” and has categorized them into specific consumer segments. Three of them value luxury and make luxury retail purchases. The other two value and aspire to buy luxury items, but are less likely to actually make the purchases.

The aspirational consumer market is vital for luxury brands looking to achieve volume and growth. Both younger and older aspirational consumers place value on luxury products, but they haven’t traditionally been luxury consumers themselves. Lower-priced offerings and partnerships with mass merchandisers give these consumers access to the brand and build loyalty.

A luxury purchase should feel like an indulgence and a reward for aspirational consumers. Aspirationals under the age of 55 tend to live in college towns like College Station, Texas, and Lafayette, Ind., and they often shop at retailers like Burlington Coat Factory, Express and Old Navy. Aspirationals over 55 tend to shop at retailers Stein Mart and Chico’s, and live in Florida locales like Homosassa Springs, Punta Gorda and Sebring.

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COMMENTARY:  When it comes to luxury products, 73 percent of luxury consumers consider quality to be the most important attribute, according to a study by the Luxury Institute and Epsilon.

“The new face of luxury: Breaking down the myths and stereotypes of the luxury shopper” aims to better understand the luxury shopper. The research study was conducted by Epsilon in partnership with the Luxury Institute.

The report focuses on defining the different tiers of luxury consumers, focusing on those who are true luxe customers and those who are aspiring to that level. By understanding their consumers, luxury brands will be able to adjust their marketing tactics based on the individual’s level of consumption.

Milton Pedraza, CEO of the Luxury Institute, New York said. 

“The only way you can have a good understanding of a human being is to have honest dialogue with them.  You have to treat people as an individual and you have to have an honest and open dialogue with them,” 

Deeper understanding

Interacting with consumers in a relevant and personal manner is key for brands looking to make a connection, especially since 50 percent of luxury brands lose their top clients every year. Also, since 47 percent of consumers say it is the customer service that defines a luxury brand, understanding and catering to the top customers is vital.

The study breaks down the luxury consumers into four categories:

• Aspirational shoppers are individual who want to own luxury items, but cannot afford to on a regular basis.  They typically shop at outlet stores or on discount Web sites and purchase low-ticket designer brand items.
• Moments of wealth shoppers may save for a specific piece from a specific luxury brand, but they are not a regular consumer of the brand.
• Dressed for the part shoppers purchase luxury items to present themselves as someone living a luxurious lifestyle, but do not have the finances to be true luxe shoppers.
• True luxe shoppers do not have any financial concerns when purchasing and buy from luxury brands on a frequent basis.

Understanding where individuals lay in the scheme of luxury shopping and where they may jump to is important for brands. With a degree or a job change, consumers can move up a level of luxury shopping.

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True luxe shoppers are:

• Predominantly Male.
• Between the ages of 25 and 44.
• 52% are single.
• 42% are college graduates.
• Their net worth is more than $500,000.
• Annual incomes between $125,000 and $250,000.

Online shopping is less than 25 percent of sales for luxury brands, since consumers are still shopping in-person, leaving an opportunity for brands to offer more traditional white glove experiences.

However, this does not mean that luxe consumers are not actively online. Here are some stats that prove this point.  

• 98% regularly use the Internet and more than 50 percent research products before purchasing.
• 75% compare prices on their mobile devices.
• 75% of these consumers are on social media, but less than 25 percent engage with brands on Facebook. 

The digital nature of these consumers allows brands to have an online presence and attract consumers online, but offer customer service in-person.

The report suggests that brands organize and analyze housefile information to best understand their consumer’s habits and purchasing history.

Big data for personal results

Luxury brands are delving into more bespoke options and marketing, according to Wealth-X’s president at Luxury Retail Summit: Holiday Focus 2014.

Mr. Friedman spoke about the necessity among brands to understand their consumer, who they are, what they do and who their friends and family are in order to gain a full understanding of these individuals in order to effectively market. Luxury brands can learn from Wealth-X’s research on the ultra-high-net-worth individuals to create specific marketing strategy for the ultra-affluent (see story).

Some brands are adopting data trackers to attempt to understand in-store sales and trends.

For instance, Italian lingerie maker La Perla has teamed with a software platform to create a platform that will be implemented for all La Perla boutiques and fashion stores where its products are sold.

La Perla worked with MicroStrategy Mobile to analyze sales and other company data points through key performance indicators. This new technology will allow La Perla to be aware of information in all its stores and make necessary alterations to tactics without too much delay (see story).

Taking these opportunities to learn about and understand clients is vital for brands looking to engage and maintain a relationship with individuals.

Mr. Pedraza said.

“I think from the targeted marketing perspective if they understand who their clients are deeply they can really target those individuals and make it personal,  People will be excited about the human approach.  It gives you a wonderful opportunity to connect with [them] in a truly unique and personal way.”

The Wealthiest Consumers Hold Positions of Power, Prestige, and Influence

After tracking trends among the wealthy for over 35 years, we know how and where to uncover the ultra-affluent. It’s not only where they live that’s important; it’s their possessions, positions and proclivities that matter in determining an accurate definition of what it is to be a member of the top 1%.

Traditional sources for identifying affluence for marketing are insufficient

• Many wealthy individuals do not live in the most affluent census tracts
• Many affluent individuals do not have typical sources of income
• Many people of means are not found in public directories

The wealthy engage in activities indicative of their status

• Exclusive association memberships      
• Luxury travel
• Golf & country club membership      
• Major gift giving/philanthropy
• Gourmet food and wine appreciation      
• Power spending
• Green awarenes                                         
• Private equity investing

Courtesy of an article dated May 26, 2015 appearing in Nielsen Newswire, an article dated December 31, 2014 appearing in LuxuryDaily and an article appearing in ALC Wealth Window