Wall Mart Leads The Way For Retailers Online

Laurence Faguer alerted me on her blog about Wall Mart activities online. As Wall Mart is dominating the retailing industry, they are about to dominate the Internet too.
That was pretty nice to this article because couple of weeks ago I was wondering if Wall Mart was a web 2.0 adept. What is remarkable, is that Wall Mart built its online presence whereas none of his competitors realy master this medium. Therefore, Wall Mart is way in advance compare to competition.

Wall Mart took many different initiatives online:

• Wall Mart launched its own classifieds list online service
• A blogger community for mothers: Eleven moms. "ElevenMoms, a mommy-blogger network that's already doubled to 22 bloggers and is still growing, also has become a conduit for programs from P&G's Pantene and Unilever's Suave."
• Soundcheck: an online music store
• A Microsite for the DVD release of Twilight, which led to a preorder record for the online store.

The Brand Reputation Challenge
Now one of the biggest challenge for Wall Mart is to manage its brand reputation. They have already had a lot of problems in the past dealing with their image, with different controversy emerging. New social media, and trendy service Twitter enable consumers to spread the word easilly on a large scale.

A Twitter search on "Walmart OR Wal-Mart" yields three or four new tweets every minute, many none too flattering. Walmart accepts this as part of the territory. "We do not see ourselves as trying to control what happens," Ms. Young said. You can't control what people say about you on the web, but you can be a good listener.

"The organic nature of the web means that when you are the world's largest retailer, people will talk," said Wanda Young, senior director-digital marketing at Walmart. "And we're OK with that. We believe the hallmark of a really great brand is that you are relevant. And part of the way you do that is listening to what your customers have to say."

I believe there is a lot to be done by retailers online. Grocery products might not be emotional for customers, but because grocery retails welcome frequently (once a week) its customers, they are a socialization vector, and are one of the core place of customer relationship management (of course for retailers but also for suppliers). Great example on how the leading retailer Wall Mart has used these new social media and Internet to create added value and enhance its customer relationship management strategy.

Conférence relation client avec Henri Kaufman et La Poste

J'ai assisté mercredi 29 avril au matin à la conférence d'Henri Kaufman organisée par La Poste sur le thème de la relation client.

Au programme, un état des lieux des média sociaux, de la façon dont ceux-ci façonnent les nouvelles campagnes marketing. En bonus, une présentation des 7 points clés du dernier salon web 2.0 de San Francisco.

Conférence intéressante, permettant de prendre du recul sur les nouveaux média sociaux. J'ai d'ailleurs tiré de cette conférence des idées d'articles dont je vous ferai part rapidement. Vous pouvez voir cette conférence via la vidéo ci-dessous.

Les enchères inversées dans le btoc : Bidygo.fr

Les enchères inversées est une pratique très connue dans le monde de la distribution. C'est une technique d'achat, qui permet de mettre en concurrence différents fournisseurs afin de faire baisser les prix des achats.

La première étape des enchères inversées est de définir le cahier des charges du produit à acheter. On va définir les matériaux, la qualité, les charactéristiques techniques, etc... l'objectif est d'avoir une description la plus précise possible et détaillée afin de pouvoir permettre aux fournisseurs d'avoir des produits comparables.

Ensuite, on choisit les fournisseurs, par rapport à ce cahier des charges, et on définit une date et les conditions de l'enchère inversée.

Le principe est simple. On part d'une première offre, et chaque fournisseur, au contraire d'une enchère classique, va baisser le prix d'achat, en fonction des enchères des autres. Il en résulte une course pour faire baisser le prix. Après une période donnée, les enchères sont finies, et l'acheteur choisit les fournisseurs du moins cher au plus cher et vérifie une dernière fois que la qualité du produit est bonne.

Je viens de voir sur mon compte Facebook une publicité pour un site Internet s'appellant Bidygo.fr. L'objectif est simple, faire des enchères inversées pour le consommateur.

Le concept est novateur, mais s'inspire d'un courant que j'apprécie énormément, le VRM, vendor relationship management. C'est une nouvelle vision de la relation client (CRM) où la relation est inversée, c'est à dire que le client ne va pas s'informer auprès d'une entreprise, mais c'est le client qui exprime son besoin, et l'entreprise qui doit entrer en contact avec le consommateur.

Cependant, après avoir navigué pas mal de temps sur ce site, le système reste nébuleux. Je n'ai en effet pas très bien compris comment le site marche. Pour moi, le principe de base des enchères inversées résident principalement dans l'achat groupé, qui pousse ainsi les fournisseurs à faire des concessions sur le prix. Mais là, je n'ai pas très bien compris comment cela marché concretement via la vidéo...

En tout cas, c'est une bonne initiative. Je pense que les nouveaux média sociaux et capacité de l'Internet peuvent permettre le développement du VRM, et l'adaptation du principe des enchères inversées dans le domaine du btoc. Et vous, vous en pensez quoi?

PS: un petit tour sur le site ProjectVRM Blog pour comprendre plus en détail cette nouvelle théorie.

NBA: Les nouvelles technologies aux services des présentations

Voici une vidéo qui devrait plaire à mon camarade PPC. Cette technologie s'inspire certainement des technologies vues dans le film Minority Report, mais surtout sur le nouveau projet Microsoft surface. Je trouve fascinant de voir comment les média américains sont capables de s'approprier les nouvelles technologies et les utiliser rapidement.

On peut voir que les deux présentateurs ne maitrisent pas totalement ce nouvel outil, mais on voit bien que cette nouvelle interface permet de naviguer facilement et mettre en évidence les statistiques clés du match. J'attends avec impatience une nouvelle version de PowerPoint marchant sur ce principe.

Et vous qu'en pensez vous?

French Entrepreneurs Struggling

More and more French entrepreneurs decide to migrate to the Silicon Valley. One of the main reason is the problems French entrepreneurs have with French regulations, that is not adapted to light structures (especially wages).

Failure is not tolerated in French business culture as it is in the U.S., Lescent-Giles says, and both the legal and social consequences of bankruptcy are much more dire in France. The government dominates the economy, and the business elite is almost exclusively recruited from the elite schools, the Grandes écoles.

For having lived in the Silicon Valley for a year, I must acknowledged there are many French people there, who created their own companies. That is pretty sad to see this talent exported out of France, because there are a lot of great ideas coming from French entrepreneurs. The Divx format has been created by a French engineer, Loic Lemeur is doing a great job with Seesmic, and a lot of big companies in the Valley are seeking for French engineers, considered as among the best in the world.

I believe the situation got better here, but there is still a lot of room for improvement. entre

New Evidences On Loyalty Programs Efficiency

New evidences have been found on loyalty programs efficiency. According to this new search, properly managed loyalty programs lead retailers to improve repeat customers orders by more than 20%. Customer relationship management (CRM) strategies aim to retain customers in order to generate repeated purchases, and therefore loyalty programs efforts are on the same pages. In a down economy as we are in right now, it is important to work on your best customers as there are fewer new business oportunities.

here is the article below.


Loyalty Programs Improve Bottom Line
Aberdeen Group research confirms the importance of well-run loyalty programs.

MINNEAPOLIS (April 17, 2009) - New research conducted by Aberdeen Group once again demonstrates the importance of well-planned and well-executed loyalty programs to the financial success of retail companies. The best retailers improved repeat customer orders by 21.8 percent. Best companies increased net profits 50 percent more than their peers.

The entire report – “Cutting Edge Customer Loyalty: Retail Best Practices for Acquiring, Retaining, and Re-engaging Customers” – is available free of charge on line at Complimentary Report from Aberdeen Group.

“We believe that having the capability to build relationships with customers is a critical driver of success in today’s tough business environment,” said Luc Bondar, vice president, Loyalty, Carlson Marketing. “We sponsored the report because we believe in its core message.”

During the first quarter of 2009, Aberdeen surveyed 165 retailers to discover key customer loyalty attributes in that sector.

The best companies were defined as the top 20 percent with the best financial performance. Year over year they generally increased the average sale by 19 percent, increased customer retention by 16 percent, and decreased customer attrition by 5 percent.

Key findings include:
• Ninety percent of the best companies indicated successful results from their loyalty programs compared to less than a third of other companies.
• Best companies’ compound annual growth rate is 96 percent greater than their peers (2003-2008 data).
• Best companies are 1.8 times more likely than the bottom 30 percent of companies to develop customer behavior-based promotions (that drive improved loyalty).
• Best companies are five times more likely to be tracking, storing and analyzing customer data … and creating promotions capitalizing on insights derived from the analysis.
• Best companies are 70 percent more likely to develop multi-tiered rewards plans for their most profitable customers.

While the study has different recommendations for companies at different levels of success, it recommends that for companies to achieve the “Best in Class” status, they should:
• Create a customer loyalty roadmap including multi-tier programs for the most profitable customers
• Apply rules-based and point-of-sale/service integrated customer loyalty systems
• Conduct customer wallet share and market basket analyses
• Measure the net profit margin impact of customer loyalty programs
• Upgrade loyalty infrastructure on an annual basis.

“Everyone knows that it is easier to retain customers than it is to acquire new ones,” said Bondar. “And in these tough economic times, it’s more important than ever to build relationships with your valuable customers.”

Green Marketing Controversy

Since the early age of marketing development people have expressed controversy. Marketers are sometimes assimilated to liars, because their goal is to make things shiny, even when sometimes they are not. However, marketing must remain ethic if it is willing to be efficient. Because at some points, you can't fool customers, especially nowadays with all this information running around the web.

It seems that a controversy is raising around green marketing. A new article I've found explain that A new report released last week by consulting firm TerraChoice Environmental Marketing found that just 2% of the self-proclaimed “green” products on shelves in big box stores across North America live up to their sustainable claims. As not much regulation rules the green label on products some marketers probably took advantage out of it.

Environmental concerns is probably one of the main social trend for the next few years, and green products will be a great source of revenues. But companies need to be ethical on that one. If they label products to be green, they must be, because if not, consumer won't catch up with that trend.

Le wiki de la relation client fait peau neuve

Le Wiki de la relation client est une initiative de la société Teletech, a été crée il y a un peu plus d'un an. Cherclient.com a ainsi pour objectif d'être une référence pour les professionnels de la relation client. J'ai dès le départ adhérer à cette initiative. En effet, les métiers de la relation client sont multiples et aussi parfois complexes, puisqu'ils mettent en adéquation les fonctions informatiques (développement de logiciels CRM), marketing (pour la gestion de la base de données et les opérations de marketing relationnel), mais aussi commerciales (puisque l'un des principaux objectifs et de développer la connaissance client).

Une base d'informations riche Le principal intérêt de ce wiki est qu'il permet aux professionnels de la relation client de partager leurs connaissances et expérience. Ainsi, vous pouvez trouver aussi bien des articles, des vidéos que des podcasts, de professionnels reconnus abordant les sujets du CRM et de la relation client.

Aujourd'hui le site fait peau neuve, et lance une nouvelle version. Celle-ci est un peu plus développée, et l'interface permet de se déplacer avec aisance dans le site.

Cela faisait quelques temps que je ne m'étais pas rendu sur ce site, et c'est avec un plaisir non caché que je vais explorer de nouveau ce formidable wiki de la relation client.

Social Media Return On Investment (ROI)

How could you define a social media ROI? How can a company analyse the return on investment of its social media strategy?

Safia Ouaissa is a community manager and exposes on her blog how she measures her social media ROI. For more information about Safia, here is her LinkedIn profile.

Quantitative Data	Observational Data	Comparative Data
Website traffic Number of page visited Time Spent on the ste Number of comments, or interactions Number of pertinent search results in search engines Number of brand quotes in posts Number of active members in the community Engagement rate (brand ambassador) Ration between positive and negative comments	Quality of interaction between members Search results’quality Social networks conversation Presence on the Internet Members and visitors’ feedback Articles published on Twitter and Digg Like Collaborative tools provided to the community Consumer insights	Online PR VS Adword campaigns Community management VS renting a data base Buzz marketing VS traditional advertising cost

Her vision is interesting, because she actually listed the different indicators you could use to estimate the performance of community management. I invite you to follow Safia's blog (in French).

Twitter et la NBA

Je voulais vous raconter, en tant que fan de la NBA, ce qui est en train de se passer dans cette ligue professionnel autour de l'utilisation de Twitter. En effet, ces dernières semaines, Twitter est en train de devenir le principal sujet de conversation dans la ligue.

L'affaire Villanueva J'avais déjà parlé de cette affaire sur mon blog. C'est en fait la première fois que les médias américains ont commencé à parlé de Twitter et la NBA. Charlie Villanueva, aillier fort titulaire de Milwaukee, avait utilisait Twitter à la mi-temps du match contre Boston (actuel champion NBA), en prévenant qu'il allait faire une grosse performance. Ce qui fut en effet le cas, les Bucks de Milwaukee gagnant celui-ci.

O'Neal et Twitter
Un peu dans la même idée que ce qu'avait fait Villanueva, Shaquille O'Neal, le centre de Phoenix, avait dit qu'il préparait un Tweet dans les vestiaires des Suns à la mi-temps d'un match. Cependant, l'affaire fit tellement de bruit qu'O'Neal se contenta de publier "Chut...", sûrement car le coach des Suns n'était pas d'accord sur cette tentative.

Mark Cuban et Twitter Mark Cuban est le richissime propriétaire des Dallas Mavericks. Il possède un compte Twitter, et l'utilisa après un match où il estimait l'arbitrage partialle. La NBA eut vent de ce message et décida de sanctionner financièrement Cuban pour ses propos (en NBA, il est très mal vu de critiquer les arbitres).

Cuban et O'Neal Nouvelle histoire mettant en scène Mark Cuban. En effet, une suite de Tweet entre lui et la star Shaquille O'Neal avant un match entre Dallas et Phoenix (club de Big Shaq) laissait penser que Shaquille O'Neal était favorable à un transfert dans le club de Cuban. Là encore, l'histoire fit grand bruit dans les médias sportifs américains.

Je trouve cela marrant que même dans le monde du basket, ma grande passion, on entende parler de Twitter. Ce qui montre bien que Twitter n'est plus un effet de mode, mais qu'il a contaminé le grand public.

Actualisation: Stephen A Smith annonce son départ d'ESPN via Twitter
Nouvelle usage de Twitter dans le monde NBA: le commentateur star d'ESPN a annoncé en avant première sur son Twitter le non renouvellement de son contrat avec ESPN.

Facebook Rejects Funding

In the current crisis, a lot of start up are struggling and dying because they don't have access to funds. Nevertheless, Facebook have recently rejected a funding offer worth $4 billion. The Palo Alto firm considers it doesn't need at the moment funding.

This news might seem a little bit strange, but actually it does make sense. Facebook is counting around 200 to 250 million users at the moment and is still counting as the platform is constantly growing fast.

"Facebook made under $300 million last year, was a little shy of breaking even, and at first expected to make towards $400 million in revenue this year. But the company said in late March — incidentally at the time that chief financial officer Gideon Yu left the company — that it was beating projections by 70 percent. I’ve confirmed that this run rate has the company possibly breaking half a billion in revenue by the end of the year."

Facebook seems to adapt to this current economic situation, and is eager to develop its revenues more than searching for new funds, as Facebook'operational staff has probably reached its normal size.

Twitter Job Search

Now Twitter is becoming a job search tool. Hence, a lot of recruiters are roaming around Twitter, posting job positions urls. Twitterjobsearch.com is a search engine scanning job positions on Twitter.

Twitter and search engine capabilities are providing new ways of using this social medium.

Great Outlook About Interactive Marketing

Found on Jacques Froissant's blog, Here is a great presentation about interactive marketing. It explains the great shift happening right now in the media landscape, with the Internet medium growing fast while TV and radios get less audience.

There are some great data and stats about the use of social media, and examples on how to use it. Also, I am totally agree with the 3.0 vision, the future of interactive marketing, with the use of mobile devices. I have talked a lot lately about that topic, but mobile media will become huge especially while using the web 2.0 capabilities.

Promotions 2.0 - The Future of Interactive Marketing

View more presentations from David Griffith.

5 Rules For Retailing In A Recession

The crisis is hitting bad retailers, as consumption power drives sales to go down. Found on the Retail Art blog, the Harvard Business Review exposes 5 rules for retailing in recession.

Here they are:

1) Go where the headroom is
Headroom is defined by the market share you don't have minus the market share you won't get. In short : avoid to multiply the initiatives but rather focus on protecting your most loyal customers as #1 priority.

2) Close the Needs-Offer Gap

This approach favours to expand the average basket spending rather than convincing new customers to come in. Usually you analyse what you sell but seldom have a loser investigation on what you could sell.

3) Go after bad costs

Key point is to establish a link between retailer's costs and each aspect of the offer. Drop dead the classical ABC costing for a customer-benefit costing.

4) Cluster Store

A recession inevitably will lead you to differentiate your stores. Tailoring your offer and concept will help you to stick with your local customer base. Take care of no adding too much complexity in the process that could withdraw the benefits of the clusterisation.

5) Retool Core Process

To be consistent and gain efficiency it's important to change some key process : customer research, merchandise planning, performance management and strategic planning. When a retailer is usually asking for : who is our customer ? should switch to the "why are customers shopping our stores" and "what do they buy from other retailers" questions.

Le m-paiement en France pour fin 2009

Le paiement par mobile va-t-il enfin arriver en France? En effet, ce procédé permettant d'utiliser la puce d'un téléphone portable comme moyen de paiement est très répandue au Japon, mais n'existe pas encore en France. Bien sûr, ce système existe de carte à puce sans contact pour les abonnements de métro depuis des années, mais le système a rencontré des luttes d'influence pour se propager comme mode de paiement pour la grande consommation.

En effet, le marché est exceptionnel, la technologie déjà maîtrisée, reste à savoir qui en tireront parties: les opérateurs mobiles (SFR, Orange etc...), ou bien les banques, ou encore les entreprises de cartes de crédit comme visa?

L'article commence à dater (décembre 2008), mais on nous annonce l'arrivée du m-paiement pour fin 2009.

Orange SFR et Bouygues Télécom signent aujourd’hui un partenariat avec les principales enseignes de la grande distribution (Auchan, Carrefour, Castorama, la Fnac, Intermarché, Leroy Merlin, Laser) et des intermédiaires de paiements (Finaref, Cofidis, Banque Accord).

Enjeu : rendre possible le paiement par téléphone mobile. Le principe, annoncé par Le Figaro, sera simple puisqu’il reviendra à approcher son téléphone d'une borne de paiement. Le mobile devient ainsi porte-monnaie électronique, poussant un peu plus vers la virtualisation de la monnaie. Ce paiement sans contact exigera cependant de nouveaux modèles. Ainsi, Nokia, Samsung et LG planchent dès à présent sur des appareils prêts pour l’automne 2009. Des tests sont d’ores et déjà prévus pour Noël 2009.

À terme, il sera aussi possible de connaître les caractéristiques essentielles des produits en approchant son mobile ou de collectionner les points de fidélité pour profiter de rabais ponctuels.

On se souviendra qu'au Mexique, les restaurants ou les taxis peuvent aussi se régler simplement avec son téléphone portable.

Le m-paiement permettra de découvrir de nouvelles possibilités en terme de marketing mobile (ou m-marketing). Reste à savoir si les français, encore frileux parfois pour les achats sur Internet, auront confiance dans cette technologie.

Social Media Landscape

Fred Cavazza has been for years one of the main Internet expert in France. He's providing us on his blog with a great analysis of the Social Media Landscape. As you can see it below, this is a very complex mapping as there is a lot of service/competition in the market. Thus, this is a good division by usage. It is good sometimes to see the bigger pictures to see how social media is evolving. Here is the article of Fred Herein.

Social Media Landscape (redux)

The large size version is here : Social Media Landscape (redux).

Four Main Usages

The various tools and services displayed on this landscape are listed bellow.

1. Expressing tools allow users to express themselves, discuss and aggregate their social life:

• Publicatin tools like blogs ( Blogger, Typepad, Wordpress), wikis ( Wikipedia, Wetpaint, Wikia), microblogs ( Twitter, Tumblr, Identica), citizen news ( Digg, Newsvine, AgoraVox) and livecast ( JustinTV, Ustream, BlogTV) ;
• Discussion tools like forums ( phpBB, Phorum) and video forum ( Seesmic), instant messengers ( Y! Messenger, Live Messenger, Meebo, eBuddy), comments services ( IntenseDebate, Cocomment, Disqus, BackType) and 3D chats ( IMVU, Habbo, WeeWorld, vSide) ;
• Aggregation tools ( FriendFeed, SocialThing, LifeSteam, Profilactic, Plurk...).

2. Sharing tools allow users to publish and share content:

• Content sharing for videos ( YouTube, DailyMotion, Vimeo), pictures ( FlickR, SmugMug, Picasa, Fotolog), music and playlists ( Last.fm, iLike, Deezer), links ( Delicious, Magnolia, Reddit) and documents ( Slideshare, Scrib, Slideo) ;
• Product sharing with recommendations platforms ( Crowdstorm, ThisNext, StyleHive), collaborative feedback platforms ( FeedBack 2.0, UserVoice, GetSatisfaction) or swaping platforms ( LibraryThing, Shelfari, SwapTree) ;
• Place sharing with tools based on local adresses ( BrighKite, Loopt, Whrrl, Moximity), on events ( Upcoming, Zvents, EventFul, Socializr) and on trips ( TripWolf, TripSay, Driftr, Dopplr).

3. Networking tools allow users to search, connect and interact with each other's:

• Search networks allowing users to find ex-classmates ( Classmates, MyYearBook, Alumni) or persons ( MyLife) ;
• Niche networks ( Boompa, Dogster, PatientsLikeMe, Footbo) ;
• BtoB networks ( LinkedIn, Plaxo, Xing, Viadeo) ;
• Mobile networks ( Groovr, MocoSpace, ItsMy, Zannel) ;
• Tools to build an online network ( Ning, KickApps, CrowdVine, CollectiveX).

4. Playing services that now integrate strong social features:

• Casual games portals ( Pogo, Cafe, Doof, Kongregate, PlayFirst, PopCap, BigFish, Prizee) ;
• Social games portals ( Zynga, SGN, ThreeRings, PlayFish, CasualCafe, ChallengeGames) ;
• MMORPGs ( World of Warcraft, EverQuest, Lord of the Rings Online, EVE Online, Lineage, Dofus, Runescape) ;
• MMOs ( Drift City, Kart Rider, Maple Story, Audition, Combat Arms, Quake Live) ;
• Casual MMOs ( Puzzle Pirates, Club Penguin, Neopets, Gaia Online, SmallWorlds, OurWorld).

From Social Networks to social Platform

At the center of this landscape we will find former social networks, which have evolved to progressively integrate more and more functionalities and morphed themselves into social platforms. The notion of 'platform' is particularly relevant since those network have the ability to host applications (mostly the one you find on the four main usages).

We can split social platforms into two groups: The First Generation which have been existing since more then 5 years and gather between 50 and 200 millions of users ( Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, Bebo, Orkut, Skyrock, Hi5, Windows Live...) and The New Wave of social players which have a similar offering and a fast growing audience (between 20 and 50 millions users - Netlog, Imeem, Piczo, Lexode, Hyves, Buzznet, Xanga, Zorpia...).

I won't enter in the debate to foresight which platform will grow faster or which will appeal the most to youth audience but I anticipate a rough competition for Facebook which is stile experiencing cash flow problem by sticking to the advertising model while those new social players have integrated micro-transactions and premium membership in their business model.

Google and Yahoo! are still absent from the social scene (wait, maybe not...)

You will also notice in this landscape the discretion of Google and Yahoo! which are 'only' represented by services that did not managed to break through the social scene (while being strong references, Blogger, YouTube, FlickR cannot be considered has dominant social platforms). Let's be honest: MySpace and Facebook decently steal the spotlight from Google and Yahoo!.

Wait... maybe not if you consider Google as a being in a much more favorable situation with lower-level services like Gmail (one needs an email to register Facebook, right?) or Google Maps (can you count the number of social services relying on Google mapping tool?). Add to this there current cash situation and it leaves them plenty of time to sharpen their social strategy (Maybe by buying Twitter or FriendFeed, or booth!).

The same is true for Yahoo! which can rely on a massive user base (still outnumbering Facebook's one) and essential social bricks like Delicious, Yahoo! Pipes, MyBlogLog and the promising Fire Eagle.

Did I mention Microsoft? Yes, Microsoft, those guys behind Hotmail, MSN and Windows Live. Ignoring them would be a big mistake and Mark Z. was more than happy to welcome them in FB's capital.

From this pint of view, I expect a very thought battle around authentication services ( Facebook Connect, Google Accounts...) allowing social platforms to exist outside of their boundaries and to export their members' social graph. Big players like Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft have to emphasis their legitimacy as historical web players to keep control over their users.

I strongly recommend you to pay attention to those different services (yes, there is a life outside Facebook) and I shall meet you next year for a third version!

Microsoft and Google Fight For Twitter's Search Engine

Microsoft and Google are becoming the best enemies lately. We all know that Google is way ahead in terms of advertising revenues from its search engine, which is driving Microsoft to seek for a partnership with Yahoo. Google got onto Microsoft's market when developing some Powerpoint and Word-like softwares. They even got into the mobile business, where Microsoft is also struggling to stay in the competition.

Now, Twitter, one of the most trendy social media, has recently launched a search engine to look through Tweets. However, Twitter engineers don't have the Google's nor Microsoft's expertise, and both companies are fighting to provide a new advanced search engine.

This article is even thinking about a bid for Twitter, but I don't think we are going towards this. I'd rather think that Google and Microsoft could develop specific search engines to help Twitter users find interesting tweets. Now if Google and Microsoft are working on a search engine, that could be pretty bad for Twitter. Indeed, one of the most blossoming business in the Internet is advertising coming through search engines. Google might get a huge potential business out of Twitter's hands if so. Since Twitter is still struggling to get a business model... Nevertheless, Microsoft could get back in the social media competition if it succeed in creating a great search engine for Twitter, because I don't see them getting near Google's one...

@the_gman, thanks for sharing the info!

Mobile Marketing: M Couponing To Become More Popular

Marketers are seeking for more efficient marketing techniques and it might benefit to marketing campaigns using mobile phones. Mobile marketing could benefit to customer relationship management (CRM) programs, because they could allow you to reach customers on one of their most personal device.
Advantages of M coupons
M couponing provides great analytics capabilities as you can measure numbers of contact reached, number of messages read, and number of coupons used (thanks to a track code). That sort of looks like emailing capacities. M coupons owns also the great advantage that the customer has it on his phone, meaning it has it on him at all time, allowing him to use it whenever he wants, and hence it doesn't need to be printed.




Juniper Research forecasts for 2010 an increase of the use of mobile coupons of 30%.

Some techniques still need to be improved to raise the advantages of the coupons, especially couponing while visiting the retail (thanks to geolocalisation). But their are some other concerns that can be raised by the use of mobile marketing. As mobile phone is so personnal, the intrusion issues will eventually appear. That is the reason why I believe mobile marketing hasn't been able to spring up yet as it was supposed to. The crisis turns marketer to seek for new medium with a high return on investment and limited budgets. Therefore, I think mobile coupons will get more comon for 2010.

Thoughts About Mobile Marketing

Work is still under progress about mobile marketing. Even though everybody is agree on the fact that marketing on mobile devices will probably one of the hottest trend in a near future, there is still room for innovation. Christopher Carfi exposes his view on the subject in this article.

Christopher is an expert in customer relationship management (CRM), and is pointing out interesting things. First of all, he's discussing about how marketers approach mobile marketing.

Here are couple of great examples of mobile marketing given by the article:
Lake Tahoe’s Heavenly Mountain resort is using mobile to provide its customers research information with up-to-the-minute webcams and video from the mountain, as well as condition, traffic, and pricing information (http://www.skiheavenly.com/mobile).

Domain registrar Network Solutions created a mobile shopping guide for holiday season “Black Friday” sales (http://www.bffeed.com).

Cable giant Comcast is using services such as Twitter, which has an inherent mobile component, to support customers using its “@comcastcares” presence (http://twitter.com/comcastcares).

Online community giant BlogHer has created mobile pocket guides for both connection and conversation for everything from politics to parenting to personal finance (http://tinyurl.com/bhpolitics).

Mobile marketing is still new and fresh, and there is a lot to be done with it. Great article.

Twitter Funny Video

Found on Loic Lemeur's blog. This is a very funny cartoon which criticizes Twitter. I believe this is refreshing to see that as there is a lot of buzz around Twitter, and no one seems to really be able to take advantage out of it. Enjoy it.

Facebook Reaches 200 million Users

Facebook has just reached 200 million users. This is a symbolic barrier and shows a little bit more the fascinating growth this social media experienced. Now Facebook has for the past year reshaped first to adapt to the social media evolution (with more feeds coming from different social media platform) and secondly to attract advertisers. They have also been structuring their business departments for that matters. If Facebook is still struggling to compete with Google in terms of adword campaigns, brands express much interest in how to leverage communities.

“Learn about real or perceived problems relating to your product or customer service—and unleash the wisdom of the user,” said Geoff Ramsey, eMarketer CEO. “By looking, listening and lounging, marketers can gain valuable insights concerning online and offline campaigns.”

L'IPAG classé 7ème école de commerce visé Bac+5

Le Point vient de sortir son palmarès 2009 des grandes écoles de commerce. L'Ipag, mon ancienne école de commerce avec Paris Dauphine où j'ai reçu un master 2, y a été classé 7ème. l’IPAG compte aussi parmi les 15 meilleures formations pour la finance et parmi les 10 meilleures formations en culture-communication.

Voici un florilège d'articles concernant l'Ipag et ses récents succès dans la presse.

Les Trophées SCOPS 2009

Lundi 6 avril avait lieu la remise des trophées SCOPS 2009. Cet événement est organisé par le master distribution et relation client de l'Université Paris Dauphine.

C'est la première fois que je me rends à cet événement, puisque l'année dernière je me trouvais aux Etats-Unis à cette période. C'est l'occasion de faire un tour d'horizon des innovations commerciales qui auront marquées l'année 2009.

Les innovations étaient classées par catégories, et pour chacune de celle-ci, le public, ainsi qu'un jury de professionnel et d'universitaire, étaient amenés à voter pour les différents projets.

Voici, en exclusivité, le palmarès de cette édition. Sachez d'ailleurs que certaines de ces idées feront l'objet d'une suite d'article ultérieurement.

Catégorie concepts:

• Hojo, la boutique consacrée aux séniors
• EDF, les boutiques Bleu Ciel
• Idmacif.fr, le distributeur automatique d'assurance auto en ligne
• Renault, le Showroom virtuel en 3D
• Comptior de l'Homme, une boutique dédiée à la beauté de l'homme
• Lecointre Paris, le street vending à la française

Vainqueur: Lecointre Paris

Catégorie services d'aide à la vente:

• Auchan, le Keyshopping
• Telfrance, le showroom Internet Plus belle la vie
• Castorama, le Coach Studio de La Défense
• Virgile, Maif: la géosécurisation
• SNCF, le TER e-service sur mobile
• BioStick: le dossier de santé sur clé USB

Vainqueur: BioStick

Catégorie opérations:

• Surfcouf et Finaref, opération Flashmob
• BNP Paribas, les retraits gagnants Gabi à tout prix
• Kia et Meetic, le Rallye Dating Picanto
• Boots, les espaces Sérum 7
• Géant Casino, le prospectus interactif
• Sarenza, la course en escarpins

Vainqueur: Géant Casino

Catégorie programmes de fidélisation

• Visa Renault, la Carte Bleue 4 en 1
• Point S, du côté des femmes
• Yves Rocher, la carte fidélité réinscriptible
• Les Mousquetaires, la carte banquaire tout en 1
• APC, les Butler Worn Out Series
• Amazon, le Programme Premium

Vainqueur: APC

Catégorie stratégies client

• SNCF, les trains de nuit iDNIGHT
• Orange, la visioconférence en ambulance
• Monoprix: le site marchand urbain
• My Major Company, les internautes producteurs d'artistes
• SFR, L'atelier dans la Blogophère
• LCL, l'option Systèm'Epargne

Vainqueur: My Major Company

Très bonne soirée, qui m'a permis de renouer contact avec d'anciens camarades de promo et professeurs, mes aussi de retrouver les nouveaux étudiants.

New Pepsi's logo creation

Have you ever thought about how global brands like Pepsi have created their logos? What are their signification. I found this pdf file on the Retail Art Blog. It shows you the work behind the creation of the new logo of Pepsi.

This document shows you the whole symbolic and story about the evolution of the packages of Pepsi's bottle, or the font used. What is great, it is to see the evolution and the path the logo is taking to keep the roots of the brand, and to innovate and stay in the move.

I have already talked in this blgo about the new packaging of Tropicana, and also how the New York Times defined its icon for the Iphone. For marketers this is fascinating.

Twitter For Coupons And Promotion

You know I am currently working on how to leverage web 2.0 tools for grocery retailers. I am thinking about the use of Twitter for such a purpose.

Twitter enables you to communicate quick and fast through the community. A lot of people have already tried to use it, but how to use it for prmotions?

Twitter For Flash Sales
We could imagine using Twitter for flash sales. Indeed, as an instant messaging system, you could reach people through Twitter to propose flash sales, whether online, or even maybe in store.

Twitter For Coupons And Discounts
You could post on Twitter some codes and links to get coupons, usable in stores.

Do you have any other ideas? Let's share

When Companies Fire Customers

As the financial crisis is still going on, a lot of companies are making radical decisions in order to stop the bleeding. Hence, a fundamental issue is raising among marketing and CRM departments.

Even though it is important to keep your customers loyal right now, there is still a part of your clientele that you might not want to keep. Indeed, these clients are costing more money to manage than they are spending. Therefore, it is very important to part with these people to focus on profitable customers.

Airlines Company
Airlines companies are champions in loyalty programs including free miles. I don't know any companies that don't have this system.
Actually, it is now becoming problematic, as customers pile up miles without taking it, which creates treasury issues: if tomorrow all customers of a company decide to take all their miles at the same date, it will probably go bankruptcy.

UK airlines companies have decided to close the account of customers that failed to collect any of their Airmiles over the past two years. "The loyalty program, which has eight million customers in the UK, has distributed 1.7 million letters to customers threatening to end their affiliation if they do not use their existing miles or fail to assemble any new ones."

American Express Offers $300 For Customers To Close Accounts
American Express offers $300 to its non profitable customers to close their accounts. That shows well that this profile of customers is really making the company losing money.
Ethic and Customer Relationship Management
Now, are those strategies ethical? The company is deciding to change its CRM approach, there is no doubt about that, but still, these people earned their miles/money.
I believe these facts are just evidences that this crisis is forcing companies to cut their budgets and expenses to remain viable, and it shows out well that customer relationship programs might become costly if not taken care properly.



Now you all know this pyramid. It shows that customer relationship management (CRM) programs are aiming to retain customers and help up selling. But when they fail, then you need to take actions...

A Great Example Of Twitter Use For Customer Service

Loic Lemeur is providing us in his blog with a great example on how companies could use Twitter for customer service purposes.

"A good case study: Robert Scoble yesterday saw me saying on Twitter that our web host for Seesmic, Servepath, went down for more than 5 minutes and took some of its customers sites down entirely. Robert follows me but probably also follows Rackspace his new employer. Robert took this opportunity to write a blog post and we got into a conversation on Twitter and his blog.
In a matter of minutes, representatives from both Servepath (our host) and Rackspace (Robert's company interested in getting our business) started to get in the conversation with many customers of both commenting at the same time. It was priceless information about their services but also competitive information for the companies themselves. All in public, that is very new.
I have insisted that I was not dissatisfied in general by Servepath but of course annoyed that we went down entirely for a significant time given the budget allocated to our hosting. Now Amazon went down a few times too and I take it Rackspace has its problems too, but this is not my point here.
Brands who are not listening will fail but listening is not enough. Very few of them actually start getting immediately in the conversation. I saw an article and that was explaining the popular shoe brand Crocs was going out of business and in a matter of minutes their community manager answered saying that as any business they were going through tough times but that they were safe."

Twitter is a great tool to listen to your customers. Especially since they havec added up the new search features. Of course, this is still applicable to Robert Scoble, and probably not to the average Joe yet, but customer relationship management (CRM tools) will probably enable the use of such techniques to a larger number of people. What is great is that have been looking for ways to use Twitter as a customer relationship management tool for about a year, and lately I have seen a bunch of new ideas on the topic emerging.

Seesmic Shows

I have always liked the Seesmic concept even though I don't really use it. Thanks to Loic Lemeur's blog I have been following the company's debuts thanks to its daily videos. I remember also he hired at some point French blogging celebrity Vinvin in order to develop content in Seesmic.



I believe the purpose was to propose on Seesmic a combination of both professional and amateur content.



In fact a part of Youtube's success has been based on the different online shows it can propose. The Internet has been able to become a true medium of content. Thanks to new technologies it is easy for an individual to create high quality video content.



Unfortunately, it didn't seem to work and I believe the project has gone in limbo.



Nevertheless I deeply believe that Seesmic could create a great way to develop professional content, especially based on the sport shows concept.



On the radio and TV there are a lot of talk shows where the audience can speak up and give their opinion about a topic. That sort of looks like the kind of interaction you could get on Seesmic. I think that it could be interesting to create that kind of show on Seesmic and then propose it on another public platform (itunes? Youtube? Emule? Espn.com??) To consume it.



On Seesmic's point of view that could have many interest. First it could be a great way to advertise the service. It could also help Seesmic to launch its advertising platform (as Robert Scoble says, and as previously shown on this blog, professional edited videos remain more attractive to Internet users).



I think this type of "professional content" concept should be seen more in details, but it should probably come from the users more than the company. Or maybe a TV channel like Espn would be interested in adding such a show.





Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Mitsukoshi Is Using Blogs For CRM Purposes

We all know blogs can become a powerful customer relationship management (CRM) tool when used properly. Many years ago, in 2006, Mitsukoshi, a Japanese department store, experimented the use of blogs for CRM purposes.

Mitsukoshi proposed to 50 of its best customers to open some blogs, and become the reporters of the store. The idea was to create some user based content, where customers talk about the news of the store.

The company provided to the participants some USB keys with RFID chips. The more they posted articles on the blogs the bigger the prize they received.

Was it a success? Did it develop a strong customer relationship? There is very few articles discussing about the results, and I would like to know what it was about. Anyways, this was an initiative taken at the early stage of the blogging boom. I believe this is a good example on how to use blogs for retails, as a CRM tool.

That will probably feed my thoughts on how to use web 2.0 for grocery retails.

Wall Mart 2.0

Is Wall Mart an adept of web 2.0? I am currently seeking for ways to use web 2.0 for a grocery retail, and as I am prospecting some experimentations, I was wondering what Wall Mart, the king of retail, did.

I didn't find much actually. The only true web 2.0 application Wall Mart has on his website is a feature to rank products. This is kind of deceiving actually. I believe that web 2.0 tools could still be used to enhance the customer relationship management (CRM) strategy.