A complete different view on innovation.
Google is showing the way with 20% engineer work-time used for own projects.
I had great inspiration viewing and listening to Eric from Google telling about space, information age, public affairs and the vision for tomorrow and tomorrows economies.
I'm writing on a larger post about multi-channel marketing and it's strategic impact on retail.
Kim
Tuesday, 23 September 2008
Tuesday, 16 September 2008
The Space of Management – by Anders Ibsen
The Space of Management – by Anders Ibsen
When Kristoffer Ewald and I were producing The Milk in the early spring of 2005 we were considering a few metaphors of doing the strategic placement of elements on a website. We knew that a lot of traffic didn’t equal a lot of conversions and therefore we needed to rethink the analogy of the supermarket or even better – IKEA.
We all know that going to IKEA means that we buy a little more than we expected when entering the shop. Why? Because they master the discipline of Space Management. When you walk around inside an IKEA shop you will be lead around by the aisles and arrows that are painted on the floor. Have you ever considered what happens if they change the direction of a floor-arrow? Does the behaviour change? Yes, it does. People actually follow the direction of the arrow and if IKEA need to sell more bed linen all they should do is to point an arrow towards the bed linen section. Simple? - And then not.
The picture is clear when considering physical shops – The Milk is always at the very back of the supermarket because most people are willing to walk all the way to the end of the store to get the milk. On their way they will pass all the special offers at the end of the aisles and the impulse stuff at the checkout.
Our theory was that we could do the same at the internet – not placing the most important stuff at the end of the store – but doing the strategic placement. We call it Online Space Management and we invented the term – just for the record. That’s why we called our web analytics and usability company The Milk – to tell the story that no one forgets.
Think about it – if you can increase your sales by 5-10% by placing your elements strategically, what is the impact on a yearly basis? Online sales are exactly as sensitive to optimization as offline sales. Online Space Management is exactly as important as the offline twin – the difference is that you can measure the efficiency almost instantly and that makes you able to do the changes almost constantly. But remember the old saying – “if it works don’t fix it”. Do not make changes without knowing your usability or for that sake your goal.
We have examples of increasing sales up to 281% in average throughout a 6 months period. Doing the design of the pages meant that we needed to align them with the company’s strategy and considering which products that made high profit margins. Optimizing for products that didn’t paid off was meaningless – but how should we know if we didn’t analyzed the business and aligned the usability for with the business strategy. Just as you do in Space Management. Although this discipline is very far from the daily work of a web designer, you will need to get aligned with the economy of online sales to keep up the good work. Aesthetics is just not enough these days. Online Space Management is the key and a rock solid way of structuring your website.
When Kristoffer Ewald and I were producing The Milk in the early spring of 2005 we were considering a few metaphors of doing the strategic placement of elements on a website. We knew that a lot of traffic didn’t equal a lot of conversions and therefore we needed to rethink the analogy of the supermarket or even better – IKEA.
We all know that going to IKEA means that we buy a little more than we expected when entering the shop. Why? Because they master the discipline of Space Management. When you walk around inside an IKEA shop you will be lead around by the aisles and arrows that are painted on the floor. Have you ever considered what happens if they change the direction of a floor-arrow? Does the behaviour change? Yes, it does. People actually follow the direction of the arrow and if IKEA need to sell more bed linen all they should do is to point an arrow towards the bed linen section. Simple? - And then not.
The picture is clear when considering physical shops – The Milk is always at the very back of the supermarket because most people are willing to walk all the way to the end of the store to get the milk. On their way they will pass all the special offers at the end of the aisles and the impulse stuff at the checkout.
Our theory was that we could do the same at the internet – not placing the most important stuff at the end of the store – but doing the strategic placement. We call it Online Space Management and we invented the term – just for the record. That’s why we called our web analytics and usability company The Milk – to tell the story that no one forgets.
Think about it – if you can increase your sales by 5-10% by placing your elements strategically, what is the impact on a yearly basis? Online sales are exactly as sensitive to optimization as offline sales. Online Space Management is exactly as important as the offline twin – the difference is that you can measure the efficiency almost instantly and that makes you able to do the changes almost constantly. But remember the old saying – “if it works don’t fix it”. Do not make changes without knowing your usability or for that sake your goal.
We have examples of increasing sales up to 281% in average throughout a 6 months period. Doing the design of the pages meant that we needed to align them with the company’s strategy and considering which products that made high profit margins. Optimizing for products that didn’t paid off was meaningless – but how should we know if we didn’t analyzed the business and aligned the usability for with the business strategy. Just as you do in Space Management. Although this discipline is very far from the daily work of a web designer, you will need to get aligned with the economy of online sales to keep up the good work. Aesthetics is just not enough these days. Online Space Management is the key and a rock solid way of structuring your website.
Monday, 8 September 2008
Know your customers and give them what they want is the fundamental principle of marketing and retail
The old marketing theories are still valid online - but how to achieve the principles and goals have changed.
How do you anticipate what the customer may need or want tomorrow?
Offline you could do surveys and marketing analysis. But you would always be three steps behind the customer. The marketing campaign needs to be relatively large if corrections should be possible while the campaign is affected. In the online world everything is measurable in real time. You could correct and adjust even tiny campaigns in every aspect from creative’s, landing pages and even the order flow/action flows.
But things were not easier in the good old times. It was just different.
Tomorrow’s challenges require analytical skills and knowledge about marketing research, customer insights and retail talent in combination with a ‘nose’ for customer service excellence. The needs for different department functions to work closely together are increasing. I believe that business’ need to create ad-hoc or matrix organizations working from a customer perspective outside and in. It’s not enough anymore to by management led in how we built or organizations. When the book closes nobody doubts that the real boss is the customer. That’s why we in Bestseller are creating online organizations within every brand unified in one team with brand only people working in our function department, Bestseller Online. And the functions within every brand online team are linked with group functions where the brand organization keeps focus on the customer and the group on the supporting tools and dedicated knowledge.
Changes are not easy to fulfill. Definitely not when you’re taking already established areas and turning then upside down. When a colleague is moved from one department to another – simply because a specific area is being prioritized. But that’s a way of changing the organization from being product led and retailer dictating and leading towards real customer led internal business- and retail rules (set by the customer or customer group). If the organization and it’s structure isn’t supporting the new marketing rules – it’s indeed difficult to deliver the expected results.
A classical good marketer of the 21st century is a person with explicit knowledge about multi-channel marketing and good communication. Subsidiaries are niche functions like print specialists, PR managers, online affiliate managers, PPC specialists and many similar.
And customers of the 21st century want dialogue and control. They want to shop whenever and wherever they want. From handheld devices, catalogue businesses over traditional retail stores and eKiosks – and even combine them all if that brings more convenience and/or a richer selection of goods.
How do you anticipate what the customer may need or want tomorrow?
Offline you could do surveys and marketing analysis. But you would always be three steps behind the customer. The marketing campaign needs to be relatively large if corrections should be possible while the campaign is affected. In the online world everything is measurable in real time. You could correct and adjust even tiny campaigns in every aspect from creative’s, landing pages and even the order flow/action flows.
But things were not easier in the good old times. It was just different.
Tomorrow’s challenges require analytical skills and knowledge about marketing research, customer insights and retail talent in combination with a ‘nose’ for customer service excellence. The needs for different department functions to work closely together are increasing. I believe that business’ need to create ad-hoc or matrix organizations working from a customer perspective outside and in. It’s not enough anymore to by management led in how we built or organizations. When the book closes nobody doubts that the real boss is the customer. That’s why we in Bestseller are creating online organizations within every brand unified in one team with brand only people working in our function department, Bestseller Online. And the functions within every brand online team are linked with group functions where the brand organization keeps focus on the customer and the group on the supporting tools and dedicated knowledge.
Changes are not easy to fulfill. Definitely not when you’re taking already established areas and turning then upside down. When a colleague is moved from one department to another – simply because a specific area is being prioritized. But that’s a way of changing the organization from being product led and retailer dictating and leading towards real customer led internal business- and retail rules (set by the customer or customer group). If the organization and it’s structure isn’t supporting the new marketing rules – it’s indeed difficult to deliver the expected results.
A classical good marketer of the 21st century is a person with explicit knowledge about multi-channel marketing and good communication. Subsidiaries are niche functions like print specialists, PR managers, online affiliate managers, PPC specialists and many similar.
And customers of the 21st century want dialogue and control. They want to shop whenever and wherever they want. From handheld devices, catalogue businesses over traditional retail stores and eKiosks – and even combine them all if that brings more convenience and/or a richer selection of goods.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
