Stratégie Cross Canal Videofutur (1)

Une fois n’est pas coutume, je vais écrire cette note en français. En effet, la société dont je vais parlé aujourd’hui est une société 100% française, Videofutur. J’ai la chance d’avoir à côté de chez moi le magasin Videofutur de Bourg la Reine, où j’aime bien prendre des DVDs (c’est pratique et permet de ne pas regarder la télévision).

Cette suite de note a pour objectif de mettre en évidence comment on peut :

1. Réussir une convergence entre le canal Internet et le canal magasin.


2. Trouver de nouvelles idées afin de créer un « produit unique/original », afin de retrouver la croissance.

Le profil de l’entreprise
Videofutur est une société qui s’est développée via le levier de la franchise, très intéressant car cela lui a permis de développer dans un temps très court un large réseau de distribution maillant la France, et de plus une belle notoriété.

Videofutur se définit comme un leader de la location de DVDs en France, et vient de lancer il y a très peu de temps, un nouveau service de Video On Demand, permettant à n’importe quel internaute de télécharger pour une durée limitée un film à regarder en location.


Un nouveau service
De plus, un nouveau système « à la Netflix », permet de s’abonner et de recevoir les DVDs à domicile, qui sont ensuite à renvoyer via courrier postal. Plus besoin de se déplacer + un catalogue plus large de DVDs . Ce système marche via un abonnement sans engagement de 14,99€ par mois.

Il faut bien avouer que le marché de la video on demand est porteur et plein d’avenir. En effet, de plus en plus d’acteurs se positionne sur ce créneaux, tels que les groupes de média TF1 ou Canal +, mais aussi les consoles de jeux vidéos comme la Xbox de Microsoft. Le système permet aussi d’être plus « high tech » que la location de DVD où le consommateur doit se rendre sur le point de vente pour prendre, puis rendre les films (là en quelques clicks, à la maison, on a accès au film et pas besoin de se déplacer pour rendre le film).

To be continued...

Ron Johnson Takes Over As CEO At JC Penney: Expecting Great Customer Experience

Former chief of Apple's retailing activities Ron Johnson will soon become the new CEO of JC Penney. Ron Johnson's reputation has been built on the amazing job he has accomplished at Apple as he invented a new generation of stores which stood out by its innovations, including especially the genius bar, where customers could found technical help.

JC Penney has been multiplying innovations, and is already looking for new ways to improve its stores attractivity and foot traffic.

Now I believe that Ron Johnson's task will be tough. Of course, its experience at Apple's show well its ability to think through customer experience, and to be able to innovate. But I wonder (I have no information on that point) how profitable those stores are, and how do they contribute in overall to Apple's revenues. To me, Apple's store main goal is more to present its products as a show room, even more than to actually become one of the main retail channel of the brand.

Here is one of the section of the very interesting ar

ticle I read:

"That strategy has translated into packed stores. Apple said it attracted 71.1 million visitors to its stores in its latest quarter, more than the 60 million who flocked to Walt Disney Co.'s four biggest theme parks for the entire year, according to Themed Entertainment Association."

In this paragraph, you can see that they are comparing the number of people visiting a resort park with the number of people visiting a store. The term "visitor" shows well that the goal of those Apple stores may not be in the end to sell at the first place.

Indeed, JC Penney is a pure retailer, which needs to optimize its square meters. Now, this prerogative is not in contradiction with the search for better customer relationship and better customer experience. But Johnson will be working mainly with low tech and low innocation products (clohtings), while at Apple it was only top of the line highly innovative products.

Somehow, it is a good thing for JC Penney, which will be able to benefits its creative and new mindset, in order to reinvent their concepts.

What do you think about it?

Starting Back My Blogging Activities

Hello everyone,

I know it has been a while you have not seen anything new, but I am getting back into the blogging business. The past few months have been very busy for me, between a new position as a category manager for DIA France, but also with my wedding which happened on June, 4th 2011.

Therefore I have not been writting, even though I have seen many information and things worth a post... I will get back with my routine of about 4-5 posts a week slowly.

I will probably let you know a little bit more about my job as a category manager, as I know a lot of you don't really know this position, which is specific to the retail business.

Foursquare Aiming To Influence The Next Step After The Check In: Customer Relationship Management potential

I read this very interesting article about Foursquare. I have faith that Foursquare will become one of the mainstream topic of next year. It is still a young start up, but they found out a great niche, and deliver great service.

Foursquare allows people to check in places while they visit it, which gives them points in order to get some “badges”. Then eventually, it now proposes special deals for “mayors” (people which checks in the most in a specific place) and other users.

The service is doing pretty good and I have seen a lot of French retailers starting proposing vouchers to Foursquare’s users:
o Flunch, a fast food chain proposes free coffee to checkers.
o Virgin radio has had a commercial telling they were the first French radio to be on Foursquare.

Now Foursquare announces that they will be focusing in the future on what users will do after a check in (meaning their next steps). This will imply the creation of a new “recommendation” feature.

Hence they have launched Foursquare Explore tab, which allows user to determine what kind of recommendations they want, either bars, restaurants, movie theatres and so on.

I believe this feature will become key. As a marketing manager, I can clearly see the potential for brands and companies to leverage this system to generate foot visits in their retail/restaurants.

It will be interesting to see how sharp the recommendations will become, and how users will respond to them.

One of my main idea is that it will also help Foursquare to become more social, allowing the different users to connect more between each others, which will eventually lead to higher numbers of users.

What do you think about it?

Cloud Computing Questioned As Foursquare Experienced Problems

On Thursday, April 21st, some of the hypest social media website like Foursquare and Quora were unavailable due to a failure of the Amazon’s cloud computing solution.
For those of you who have never heard about cloud computing (which I don’t think you may be a lot, as I discuss frequently about that topic on this blog), Cloud computing is a new way to approach Internet hosting: Instead of having one server hosting a website whatever its traffic is (depending on the season, on the day, and so on), cloud computing aim to propose a hosting solution which adapts itself upon the traffic of a specific website.

Thanks to cloud computing a website can:
o Adapt its bandwidth and hosting capacity depending on the traffic of its website at a specific time.
o Save money by lowering and rising its hosting needs upon the demand.

Even though cloud computing is seen by expert as the future of the Internet (which I surely agree), there are still some main disadvantage to the solution. Especially, your data is placed into a cloud which you don’t own nor are able to locate it either.

This is the issue that Foursquare experienced. The cloud system collapsed, resulting in the service not being available.

Now, these kind of issues remain rare, and now that the system is becoming popular and adopted by a lot of CTOs, then it is becoming more secured. Nevertheless, it is very important to back up these kind of initiatives as a failure is a possibility you can not ignore.

Soirée des anciens du master 206 distribution et relation client de Paris Dauphine

Un nouveau poste au sujet de mon ancien master distribution et relation client de Paris Dauphine. Comme vous le savez certainement, je suis très attaché à ce master, et essaye au maximum d'aider à construire le réseau des anciens.

Cette année, un groupe d'étudiants s'est chargé de l'organisation d'une grande soirée pour réunir les différentes promotions du master. La soirée c'est très bien passée, et m'a permis de revoir quelques uns de mes amis de promotions. Pour être vraiment honnête, je suis pas mal resté en contact avec les autres personnes de mon master, mais il est toujours intéressant de le faire dans le cadre "officiel". Cela m'a aussi permis de retrouver des anciens d'autres promotions que je connaissais, mais aussi d'autres que je ne connaissais pas.

Cet évènement a été l'occasion aussi de mesurer l'évolution du master. Il a été crée au tout départ sous le nom de master "logistique, distribution et négociation", alors que maintenant, la logistique a une part très minime dans le master, et la partie relation client a pris une importance fondamentale.

J'ai eu le plaisir de voir aussi le dynamisme de ce master, notamment qui organise maintenant des voyages d'études à l'étranger, des "sémi-neiges" pour préparer la cérémonie des SCOPS.

Bien que n'ayant pas profité de ces nouveautés, je suis très content de voir que le master, qui a été élu n°1 SMBG de la catégorie "distribution" ne se repose pas sur sa position de leader, et continue à innover.

J'espère que cet évènement sera le premier de nombreux autres, permettant toujours plus d'échanges entre les différentes promotions.

SCOPS Paris Dauphine 2011

Soirée SCOPS Dauphine Comme chaque année je me suis rendu la semaine dernière à la cérémonie de remise des trophées SCOPS à l’Université Paris Dauphine. Cette cérémonie est organisée par mon ancien master, le master 206 distribution et relation client de Dauphine, et vise à récompenser les plus belles innovations et les meilleurs nouveaux concepts de l’année.

Les notes sont attribuées aux projets pour moitié par un panel d’expert, notamment des directeurs de L’Oréal, ou du Printemps, mais aussi le rédacteur en chef de LSA, ou bien l’un des directeurs du Crédoc, et pour l’autre moitié, par l’ensemble de la salle, environ 200 personnes (voire plus, la salle Raymond Aron était pleine). Le travail de sélection et présentation est réalisé par les étudiants du master, qui ont d’ailleurs fait un excellent travail. Les Scops prouvent bien que malgré la crise il est toujours possible d’innover.

Et cette année, DIA, la société pour laquelle je travaille, était en compétition pour l’obtention de la meilleure innovation en terme de fidélisation. Malheureusement, bien que nous ayons été très bien représentés, nous n’avons pas gagné, et c’est Futuréo, une carte de crédit permettant de cumulez de l’argent sur un compte retraite, qui a gagné… Néanmoins, pour avoir discuté avec plusieurs personnes de l’assistances de la salle après la présentation, un grand nombre était très impressionné par les bons scores de notre carte.

L'un des intérêts de cette cérémonie est d'avoir une belle vision large de ce qui se passe en terme d'innovation marketing et relation client. Ainsi, pour les entreprises, on peut voir des innovations hors de son secteur d'activité et ainsi élargir le spectre de réflexion. Ce qui est sûr, c'est que les différents projets m'ont inspiré pour mon blog...

Une nouvelle fois, cela m’a aussi permis de voir des gens très intéressants tels que Laurent Bendavid du Groupe Carrefour, Serge Cogitore (s’il faut le rappeler, c’est le pionnier du category management en France)… J’y serai à coup sûr l’année prochaine. Et vous ?

En bonus, voici l’ensemble de mes tweets retraçant la soirée.

1. C'est fini. jeudi 7 avril 2011 20:38:34 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 2. #o ra nge gagne le de jeudi 7 avril 2011 20:38:17 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 3. Vraiment interessant d'un point de vue communication notamment en utilisant un nouveau media pour toucher de nouvelles cibles jeudi 7 avril 2011 20:32:25 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 4. L'idee est de montrer le carre avec de nouvelles utilisations pour toucher de nouveaux publics jeudi 7 avril 2011 20:31:38 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 5. #hermes #scops mon carre hermes (flagship product) jeudi 7 avril 2011 20:30:51 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 6. Ce qui est interessant c'est que c'est fait via Facebook. Assez interessant. jeudi 7 avril 2011 20:29:11 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 7. #orange people project permet de vous aider a créer un projet exemple humanitaire. Via notamment une application Facebook. jeudi 7 avril 2011 20:28:18 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 8. #mr bricolage lance un nouveau concept permettant de mettre les evolutions en avant des projets jeudi 7 avril 2011 20:26:01 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 9. #mr bucikage jeudi 7 avril 2011 20:25:02 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 10. #groupama utilise la table de #microsoft comme outils d'aide a la vente c'est vrai que l'outil est particulierement bien pense jeudi 7 avril 2011 20:23:45 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 11. Du parfum mais le produit serait bien interessant pour le mettre dans d'autres endroits jeudi 7 avril 2011 20:22:21 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 12. Le seul truc c'est qu'ils devrait vendre directement le parfum. C'est place dans les cinema peut etre pas le meilleur endroit pour acheter jeudi 7 avril 2011 20:21:45 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 13. #ellipse vendor machine for perfumes #scops jeudi 7 avril 2011 20:20:49 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 14. #ellipse. Sun nouveau sys jeudi 7 avril 2011 20:20:00 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 15. Je n'utilise plus #seesmic pour #blackberry car ca bug tout le temps dommage j'aimais bien maintenant c'est #twitter pour #blackberry jeudi 7 avril 2011 20:18:45 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 16. #barilla concept store ephemere du 17 sept au 31 oct 2010 pour animer les pates sur une periode plutot non saisonniere. jeudi 7 avril 2011 20:17:27 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 17. #scops a ete gagne par futureo, tres bon concept jeudi 7 avril 2011 20:16:24 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 18. On a pas gagne avec la #carteclubdia sniff 10% jeudi 7 avril 2011 20:13:41 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 19. Fidelisation pour les grands clients. Assez interessant, service a valeur ajoutee propose. jeudi 7 avril 2011 20:09:55 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 20. #platinium #airfrance #americanexpress carte premium pour les grands voyageurs csp+ jeudi 7 avril 2011 20:09:21 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 21. Un tres bon cas de upselling jeudi 7 avril 2011 20:07:09 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 22. On met en avant de vrais economie mais sfr s'y retrouve car il augmente son panier moyen. Ingenieux jeudi 7 avril 2011 20:06:53 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 23. Offres #multipack de #sfr pour les #scops interessant on voit qu'on est moins dans un marche de conquete mais surtout un marche mature jeudi 7 avril 2011 20:05:57 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 24. #bricousine innovation vraiment interressante. Logique commerciale bien construite #scops jeudi 7 avril 2011 20:05:10 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 25. #bricousine innove avec un club jeudi 7 avril 2011 20:03:09 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 26. La fidelisation multi enseigne via carte de credit n'est pas encore assez developpee pour l'instant jeudi 7 avril 2011 20:02:00 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 27. #Futureo avec la fidelisation via carte de credit en offrant des points sur un compte epargne retraite. Entre 1 et 20% jeudi 7 avril 2011 20:00:13 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 28. C'est vrai on a pas parle de cross canal... Mais c'est une tendance lourde jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:58:55 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 29. Un concept qui va loin jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:57:33 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 30. #celio polo therapie #scops jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:56:57 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 31. La fille est exellente! jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:55:29 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 32. J'espere que vous pardonnerez les fautes d'orthograpje j'essaie de tweeter on the go. #clubdia is next! jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:51:41 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 33. On voit tous les fonctionements differents notamment la geolocalisation ou bien encore de voir le produit sur soit jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:51:08 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 34. Tres belle presentation de la realite augmentee. Beaucoup de progres ont ete faite depuis 1 an sur le sujet. jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:49:17 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 35. #chocapic gagne avec la realite augmentee jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:45:58 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 36. Est plutot business cela permet de fideliser la clientelle pour d'autres momment jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:45:38 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 37. #barbie au Plaza athene #scops qui propose des chambres au couleur de barbie, permettant de communiquer sur la famille alors que le luxe jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:43:53 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 38. #renault verygoodtrip jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:39:59 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 39. Plus de 100 000 visites, 400 000 pages vues. jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:37:56 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 40. Je trouve cela pas mal. Une cuisine neuve a gagner. jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:37:07 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 41. #igena ma cuisine est trop moche #scops campagne humoristique pour montrer des cuisines moches jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:36:33 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 42. #igenan #macuisine jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:35:37 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 43. Neanmoins la demarche est interessante. jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:34:40 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 44. #lcl social gaming #scops c'est pas mal, mais bon... C'est difficile pour la banque de faire des choses interessantes en terme marketing jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:33:57 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 45. #shopswap colette et kk outlet #scops permet de pouvoir transferer des produits entre pays jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:29:12 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 46. Technologiquement c'est super. jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:27:01 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 47. #chocapic fait un jeu en realite augmentee et en 3D jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:26:13 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 48. #smartstore a gagne le #scop concept store jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:25:05 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 49. L'idee est pas mal mais peut on recreer une nouvelle experience client en ligne en recreant une boutique traditionnelle? Suis pas sur jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:21:43 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 50. #marcjacobs créer une nouvelle facon d'apprehender le e commerce. Marc Jacons a créer comme une boutique virtuelle. jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:20:47 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 51. #peugeot city la concession citadie #scops l'idee est de proposer une concession citadine. jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:18:16 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 52. Citation de #raymon aron jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:16:48 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 53. La liberte politique contribue a rendre les hommes digne d'en fait des citoyens ni conformistes ni rebelles critiques et responsables jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:16:28 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 54. Livraison en 48h c'est plutot pas mal jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:14:16 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 55. #miliboo personnalisation de mobilier. jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:13:31 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 56. Cela permet de se mettre en situation dans le bien et donc d'aider a la vente. C'est tres bien jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:12:13 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 57. #moobz permet l'aide a la vente dans le secteur de l'immobilier #scops jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:11:09 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 58. T jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:10:33 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 59. Le concept de smart store est pas mal, mais je ne sais pas s'il y a une valeur ajoutee par rapport aux magasins tests classiques #scops jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:09:38 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 60. #smartstore je peux aller dans une boutique pour prendre gratuitement dans le magasin des echantillons. Ca permet d'avoir des tests conso jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:08:50 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 61. #carrefour planet, j'y suis alle a lyon et en espagne et l'espagne est bien mieux. Mieux fini. Mais belle initiative. interessant jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:08:01 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 62. #carrefour planet jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:05:04 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 63. Maintenant concept de vente #scops jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:04:31 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 64. #axa gagne avec son appli mobile #scops jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:03:35 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 65. Les 3 mots magiques: mobilite, communaute et realite augmentee jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:01:25 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 66. J'ai vote pour #decathlon car d'un point de vu marketing c'est bien joue jeudi 7 avril 2011 19:00:08 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 67. 650 000 internautes sont alle sur le site pour voir l'offre. +50% vente en ligne. #scops jeudi 7 avril 2011 18:58:15 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 68. #burburry propose d'acheter les vetements des la fin du defile, livre sous 6 a 8 semaines jeudi 7 avril 2011 18:56:57 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 69. @scops ils ont rajoute des fonctions voip et wifi. On a acces a des services du type commande de taxi. Interessant mais rentable pur #orange jeudi 7 avril 2011 18:55:22 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 70. #orange retravaille les cabines telephoniques notamment en proposant de nouveaux services jeudi 7 avril 2011 18:53:53 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 71. On peut même supprimer les meubles déjà present.. C'est bien fait jeudi 7 avril 2011 18:52:11 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 72. #but developpe une appli en realite augmentee qui permet de voir les meubles en situation jeudi 7 avril 2011 18:51:33 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 73. Pas mal de retombee presse, et surtout ils ont ete pionniers dans un secteur interessant du mobile service jeudi 7 avril 2011 18:50:36 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 74. C'est une application permettant de gérer les incidents type accident de voiture jeudi 7 avril 2011 18:49:51 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 75. #axa service mobile pour les #scops jeudi 7 avril 2011 18:48:40 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 76. 850 000 visites en 1 mois pour #restezenforme.com #scops jeudi 7 avril 2011 18:47:54 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 77. C'est plutot pas mal car c'est en lien avec le positionnement de l'enseigne et permet de mettre en valeurs les prod avec leurs utilites jeudi 7 avril 2011 18:47:22 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 78. #restezenforme.com de #decathlon pour les #scops donne des idees pour rester en forme jeudi 7 avril 2011 18:46:36 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 79. 70 a 100 utilisations par jour... #scops jeudi 7 avril 2011 18:45:09 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 80. L'idee est de pouvoir apporter du servie en grande distribution (prêt a vendre) jeudi 7 avril 2011 18:44:34 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 81. Max le sommelier de #vinoreco , aide les clients a bien choisir le vin jeudi 7 avril 2011 18:43:34 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 82. On va commencer les tests pour voir si les boitires de votes marches #scops jeudi 7 avril 2011 18:39:07 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 83. Panel pas mal grande distribution, on espere que ca va aider pour le vote de la #carteclubdia jeudi 7 avril 2011 18:36:02 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 84. #printemps a reussi a renove le concept de gands magasins notamment en allant cherche de la clientèle etrangere jeudi 7 avril 2011 18:33:42 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 85. Il y a un dg d'unibail aussi #scops jeudi 7 avril 2011 18:29:51 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 86. Il y a une personne de GS1 pour la mobilite #scops jeudi 7 avril 2011 18:29:10 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 87. 50% des votes viennent du public, 50 % du panel d'expert #scops jeudi 7 avril 2011 18:27:56 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 88. En 2 min les etudiants doivent presenter leur projet jeudi 7 avril 2011 18:26:41 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 89. 6 secteurs alimentation, equipement de la personne, equipement de la maison, banque finance, telecom et luxe jeudi 7 avril 2011 18:24:47 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 90. 5 categories: services, concept de vente, opes promos, fidelisation, strat relation client jeudi 7 avril 2011 18:23:46 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 91. Explaining the concept of #Scops jeudi 7 avril 2011 18:22:59 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 92. Not started yet jeudi 7 avril 2011 18:16:06 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 93. Tweeting live from @dauphine #Scops jeudi 7 avril 2011 17:58:12 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 94. The new #foursquare app on #Blackberry is awesome. Great job guys! http://4sq.com/gMvJO2 samedi 2 avril 2011 14:59:32 via foursquare 95. I'm at Truffaut http://4sq.com/eqKe6t samedi 2 avril 2011 14:58:34 via foursquare depuis Châtenay-Malabry, Hauts-de-Seine 96. I'm at L'art du papier (48 Rue vavin, Bvd raspail, Paris) http://4sq.com/hUyDuJ samedi 2 avril 2011 12:55:28 via foursquare depuis Paris, Paris 97. I'm at Université Paris Dauphine (Place du Maréchal de Lattre de Tassigny, Paris) http://4sq.com/hwlFSK jeudi 31 mars 2011 19:16:43 via foursquare depuis Paris-Dauphine University, Paris

Business to Business Companies Plebiscite Direct Marketing For Lead Generation

Is direct marketing dead? Surely not. It remains a strong customer relationship management medium. Its role has evolved due to several factors:

• The rise of social media and in overall Internet activities.
• The rise of paper costs, impacted by ecological taxes, the high Chinese demand among other factors.
• The lower costs to set up those campaigns due to technology, allowing fast and cheap routing, designing and so on… This aspect resulted in an increase of mailing sent, and then it diminished the return on investment rates of mailing as a medium.
  

I found this very interesting article. http://www.influencia.net/fr/archives/check-in/marketing-direct-web-combinaison-gagnante,77,1377.html

It discusses about the results of a recent study undertaken in the UK by Pitney & Bowes.

• 50% of respondents had experienced issues to generates lead due to the complexity of multichannel campaigns.
• 53% of European companies believe that cutting down their mailing budget to transfer it in emailing would have bad consequences on their business.
• 39% of respondents combine the mailing media with the Internet in order to generate leads, and this combination seems to be very effective.
  

Some thoughts about the article:

• Multi channel is difficult to manage: This is true. It is difficult to analyze the results of a campaign as you need to see to which media one customer has been exposed. It is hence difficult to check return on investment… Moreover, it can become costly, as you constantly need to add some new media. This is the reason why social media can become costly at some point.
• Nevertheless, some strong synergies can spring up once you have an appropriate mix to deal with it. Customer relationship management is all about finding the right mix between all media to create the best responsiveness from customers.
• The mailing media is very appropriate for btob: It is high quality, you can target your customers efficiently, and actually you can be pretty creative with it. I loved to work on mailing campaign while I was a direct marketing manager at Ubifrance.
  

What do you think about it?

Social Commerce (2): Amazon’s Case Study

I wanted to go a little bit deeper in the topic of social commerce, and discuss further the article I found on how Amazon uses Facebook as a social commerce tool.

Amazon has become the leading company in the Internet retailing business thanks to its ability to adapt its commercial offer to one customer profile. Customization is a key factor, and they have been able to master it thanks to customers’ data base: They are expert in data mining.

But thanks to social commerce and Facebook data analysis (via your network of relatives), it will be able to go even further, analyzing what products your network buy and that you don’t.

One of the concrete example shown in this article, is that Amazon may give you appropriate recommendations for your friends’ birthday, and hence, having a customized offer right on time for the event…

It will be interesting to see actually how Amazon is able to leverage this new tool, and to see how both customers data and Facebook data can be combined for more efficiency.

But maybe the future of CRM and data mining will actually be to master these two very different entries of information and provide accurate analysis.

What do you think about it?

Social Commerce

A lot of initiatives have been undertaken in social commerce lately. Now that brands are more familiar with social media, they may gain an expertise in web 2.0, and therefore go beyond the simple conversation with customers to turn it into a retail channel. I read this very interesting article about it.

What makes it so interesting is that it gives you examples on how to use efficiently social commerce in an original way, not by simply plugging your e-commerce site into Facebook…

Why Social Commerce Can Be So Attractive?

I have been working in the real estate business in the United States, and one of the thing I learned and I actually loved in the customer relationship management field is the “by referral business” idea. The idea is to leverage your customers’ network of friend, family and co workers, in order to find new prospects.

I don't know if you are familliar with the concept of tribal marketing, but as humans are social creatures, they like to do things like their "social environment", and hence, if your friends buy something, you tend to buy somehow the same...

And when I see the new features developed in order to give social commerce a lift, I see a lot of the same component: Recommendation, being social and spread the word of mouth.

And I believe this is one of the key factors of success for social commerce: Being able to sell more, thanks to friends recommendations.


What Is The Purpose Of Facebook
Now there are still some unanswered questions about what would be the used of Facebook for brand management and customer relationship management. Indeed, we already know the use of Facebook for customer relationship management. A lot of companies are already using Facebook to converse with customers. This is what we can call an “emotional aspect” of the customer relationship management strategy.

But now, the goal of social commerce is to turn Facebook into a market place, and hence to have more a retail strategy, or “transactional”. Can be both accomplished? Yes, it can without any questions. We have seen that Facebook can become a very important retailing channel, and I have no doubts it may be very profitable. But can you do both?

One of the response may be that retailers could own several different accounts, in order to segment their stakeholders, and then have specific accounts for:

• Chatting with customers


• “VRM”: Having customers asking about specific products with a specific prices, and then the brand responding.


• Customer service


• Retailing
  

I believe this is probably what may happen, especially as a lot of the major actors in Facebook already have different Fan pages on it.

What do you think about it?

TV Ads Empowered With Tags : Going Beyond Mass Media

The television advertising market is going to experience huge modifications within the next few years. Some of the main change will include:
The rise of video on demand: People need the
The rise of new hardwares: TV consumption will become more and more important on mobile and computers
The rise of conversion with Internet videos: As we see, Google TV will change the way we use television, by providing a better experience in program searching, but also with the possibility to seek through several different sources (TV, Youtube, Video on Demand websites and so on).

The TV advertising market has been suffering from the spring of Internet advertising. I found an interesting article about TF1, one of the leading media agency in France and n°1 TV channel, which is launching an innovation: In certain commercials, you will have 3 different tags available in order to go further with the brand:

• Information about the products
• Bonuses, which includes making off, or games
• Coupons

TF1 conducted a survey where 77% of the respondents declared they would be to log on a specific website to get further information about a commercial they have just seen.

TF1 TAGS TV Vidéo TF1Pub sélectionnée dans Pub

Those three features are available on TF1's website. Here are some thoughts about the concept:

• It provides added value to the brand which wants to use the media. It can now become more interactive with the audience, which remains the weakness of the medium.
• It will generate traffic on the website of TF1, where TF1 will be able to sell more ads... This looks like a virtuous circle right?
• It will provide valuable metrics to brands. So far, television was the perfect mass market medium. But audiences are plumetting, due mainly to the use of the Internet. Now, television is empowered with new metrics, and it may help marketing managers to determine the return on investment they may get with TV ads. Moreover, coupons is becoming one of the hottest trend in marketing.
• Now I kind of regret the lack of technology inspiration... Couldn't we just access those information through the TV, or through a mobile phone. Indeed, logging on the website remains a hurdle. I would not leave my seat while watching TV just to get bonuses of a great app. However, if it is available at my hand, either on my TV or on my phone (via a mobile tag to flash), I believe I would do.
  Television has never been a customer relationship management medium, because of the lack of interraction you may get. Of course, the brand equity you may built with the large exposition of TV will impact your customer relationship management value... But thanks to these new tools, TV would actually provide new ways to envision how to conceive TV commercials. I believe these new features will become very popular, and it may be adopted by some other channels.

What do you think about it?

My Impressions About The Ipad

It has been a couple of months now that I own a wonderful Ipad, and I wanted to share with you my opinion with the device. While I got the Ipad, I did not expect much about the handheld. As a matter of fact, I was quite skeptical about the device, wondering what kind of benefits I could get from this new device. Nevertheless, I could clearly envision that the usage would be much different from a laptop or a smartphone.

Internet Surfing

On this part, I must say that the device is quite convenient. It is easy to surf and find information. Watching Youtube videos is just awesome, even thought the search engine of the Youtube application is not as good as the one of the Internet version.

Something which bugs me though is that you can't see flash applications. No Slidehare presentations can be seen. One of the thing I watch in the morning is the videos of the NBA.com website, to watch the highlights of the last night's game. But it is not possible on the Ipad! The website's player is in flash + the "Ipad lite version of the NBA application" only provides a 30 seconds sum up of highlights... This is a shame, because it is free on the Internet, but you need to pay to watch it on the Ipad...

Also, I must say it is quite difficult to write things on the Ipad. It is impossible to actually work on the Ipad. It must be used as a display hardware. For example, I used it to buy something on the fnac website, it was not quite a good experience, as it has been a hurdle to write a note on the package of the present I wanted to buy...

I love Flipboard. Flipboard allows me to read my Twitter feed in an awesome way. I can't replace it now, I can't see myslef not doing it every day. There are a lot of great applications of newspapers which gives a premium reading experience. You can see that we have not reached yet the full potential of the device in terms of reading experience though.

As a conclusion, I must say I love my Ipad, it is a great device, you can spend hours surfing on the Internet, but in no ways can replace a computer. And I do believe it will create a new way to enjoy news consumption, thanks to its great reading experience.

The Power Of Gifts In Customer Relationship Management

CRM programs are most of the time based on offering promotions in order to boost sales. It could be either promotions to upgrade a product, or promotions to buy complementary products. Sometimes, those promotions are even automated, as it is in loyalty reward programs, and customers clearly know they access certain discounts for a certain amount of purchases.

These principles have shown they work. No questions about it. But I always like to discuss customer relationship management on two levels:

• The transactional customer relationship management
• The emotional customer relationship management

Both of them are important. But in CRM programs, the focus has been set on the transactional aspect, as it is easy to measure, whereas emotional relationship is based on brand equity and a certain marketing work, which is difficult to link with the final act of purchasing. There is one way to link both the transaction and the emotion: The gift.

Indeed, most of the time the value of a gift is far bigger than the value of money you may give for discount. Indeed, there is an emotional value which is linked to the gift, which is very important.

There are two ways to conceive a gift to a customer:

• A clear gift, which is shown as a call-to-buy: You advertize you will give a specific gift based on a certain amount of money spent in a store. This kind of gift triggers immediate sale, and don't have much power on the next potential transactions you may get. But it may provide a high return on investment, based on the high value the customer will have of it.
• A non-expected gift which concludes a transaction, in order to strengthen the relationship and secure loyalty to the brand.

Of course, the present must be meaningful, and in connection with your positioning and offer.

Those two strategies don't really have the same outcome, but they are for sure to be considered.

What do you think about it?

Je blogue donc je suis

J'ai lu avec très grand intérêt l'article du 23 décembre 2010 du Nouvel économiste: "Je blogue donc je suis".

L'objectif de cet article est d'une part de démontrer l'intérêt du blog pour un usage professionel, et d'autre part, de démontrer que ce mode d'expression était loin d'être obsolète. Il est vrai qu'en cette période de "hype" autour des médias sociaux, notamment Facebook et Twitter, on ne parle plus guère de blogs. D'ailleurs, beaucoup de personnes ont arrêté de publier sur leurs blogs, et beaucoup se sont intérrogés sur l'intérêt de continuer l'activité de blogging.

J'ai commencé à blogger il y a près de 6 ans, au tout départ, pour avoir de la visibilité sur Internet. J'avais entendu que cela pourrait m'aider à trouver des stages lors de mes études, en démontrant mon expertise sur les sujets du marketing et de la relation client. A l'époque, je ne connaissais rien sur le blogging: C'était vraiment le début des blogs, et je n'avais jamais lu un blog avant. Puis, au fil du temps, j'ai pris goût à cette activité, et au fil des rencontres, j'ai commencé à comprendre le fonctionnement et l'intérêt du blog.

A l'heure actuelle, je vais être honnête, je ne publie plus sur ce blog pour avoir de la visibilité. J'ai déjà réussi à développer un certains réseaux autour de mes sujets, mais surtout j'ai pu démontrer mon expertise.

Mon blog reste pour moi le meilleur moyen de continuer à m'informer sur mon sujet de prédilection, et de continuer à mener des réflexions et à construire au jour le jour mon savoir faire.

Je pense que l'activité de blog reste une activité plus que saine, et je la recommande à tout ceux qui auraient une passion, et qui souhaite la développer.

J'ai par ailleurs décourt le blog de Françoise Gri, PDG de Manpower France, grâce à cet article. Il est toujours intéressant de voir des dirigeants utiliser ce média, car ces blogs restent des sources d'informations de fortes qualités.

Noël 2010 marque l'ère du multiformat pour le Ecommerce

La FEVAD a publié fin janvier les résultats du E-commerce en France durant la période de Noël. Une nouvelle fois, comme aux Etats-Unis, l'Ecommerce a connu un fort succès, puisque les français ont dépensés plus de 6 milliards € sur Internet. Mais l'un des points vraiment intéressant de ces résultats, c'est l'émergence attendue et inévitable des nouveaux formats de l'Internet. Ainsi:

• 16% des achats de Noël sur Internet se sont faits via mobiles.
• 6% des achats de Noël sur Internet se sont faits via des tablettes.

Ces chiffres montrent bien l'importances de ces nouveaux médias. Il va devenir donc important de développer des outils E-commerce qui correspondent à la consommation de ces nouveaux canaux. Il faudra ainsi prendre en compte:

• Les attributs de ces canaux: Pour le mobile, l'obligation de faire simple, et de proposer un système de check out rapide. Pour les tablettes, permettre une visualisation améliorée des produits.
• Les usages des consommateurs: certainement que ces terminaux seront utilisés à des moments spécifiques du processus d'achat, et ainsi, cela impactera la manière dont les consommateurs vont les utiliser.

Il est important de prendre ces questions sérieusement, car nul doute que la part du chiffre d'affaires réalisé sur ces formats va s'accroître très rapidement ces prochaines années, voire mois.

Facebook Launches Facebook Deals: Foursquare In Trouble?

Geolocation market is one of the hottest topic in marketing right now. The benefits you may get from it are very promising. This is the reason why Facebook has been keen to launch its service named “Facebook Place”, in order to counterattack Foursquare.

Facebook has recently released its Facebook Deals feature in Europe, which will allow companies to propose coupons and discounts when a user check in a venue. The strength of Facebook is of course its community: Facebook is far bigger than Foursquare, which remains a young start up. Also, one of the advantage of Facebook upon Foursquare is that they already generate high revenues from strong partners. Hence it will be easy for them to promote this new feature.

Now is Foursquare in trouble? I like Foursquare, and I really believe in them. Now, about geolocation, it is exactly the same than Twitter to me: I am not really bonding with the service, and I may use it from another provider if a great occasion shows up.

Foursquare now needs to innovate and fast, to keep its competitive advantage.

What do you think about it?

Promising Start Up To Take Advantage To The M-Payment hype

A lot of hope is based on m-payment in Western countries. Even though in Asia (both Japan and South Korea) mobile payment has been a reality for years, in Europe and the US, it is struggling to settle. Why? Because a lot of actors are eager to benefit from this new business:

• Mobile network companies, which provides the network needed to permit mobile transactions.
• Banks, which are experts in finance transaction and dealing with large amount of transactions.
• Mobile devices manufacturer. The next Iphone is expected to have a technology which will enable mobile payment. Also, we all know that Google is working also on M payment with Android.
• Retailers, which have strong interests in the level of commissions they may have to pay.
  Credit card company like Visa, which business model would go in limbo in case they don’t enter the market.
• Start ups, which are more flexible and that own the technology.
  
  

This is the case of a start up called Jumio. Jumio might be a young company, but its staff has very impressive resumes. Former executives of Google and Amazon are running the operations.

I believe Jumio needs to set partnerships with financial institutions to make m payment real.

It remains unknown which of these actors will win the market, but there is one main question which needs to be asked if we want to see m payment blossoming: What is the advantage for customers? A lot needs to be done to educate customers.

Jumio from Jumio Inc. on Vimeo.

What do you think about it?

Global Companies Thrive On Social Media

Social media is becoming mainstream, and global companies thrive on it. At the beginning, when the whole web 2.0 started, a lot of experts, including myself were wondering how global companies, which are control freak most of the times, could adapt to start conversing with customers thanks to these media. But it seems that actually they quite understood how to leverage those tools.

This is what is explained in a very interesting report I found, about how Fortune 100 companies use the four main social media platforms which are Facebook Twitter, Youtube and blogs, as a marketing tool.

Burson-Marsteller 2011 Global Social Media Check-up

View more presentations from Burson-Marsteller

And the results are quite impressive:

• An increase of 25% of the number of companies who are using all four social media tools versus last year.
• 25% of Fortune 100 companies combines the 4 social media in their strategies.
• 67% of companies using Twitter use the “@replies” feature to converse with users.
• An impressive 84% of those companies use at least one of the platform
• 80% of Fortune 100 companies are talked about on Twitter.This is the main reason why it is important to look after what is going on Twitter…
  

Nevertheless, there is still room for improvement:

• In Twitter, the average followers per account figure is 5 076: This is very few compare to the millions of customers those company have over the world, and compared to the millions of people using Twitter. Nevertheless, the number of followers grown in average of +241% last year.
• 84% of Facebook pages are posts in last week. It may seem a lot, but I believe that a good fan page should at least be posted 5 times a week…
  
  

Also, I liked in this report a very interesting point: Having multiple accounts allow one company to reach different stakeholder groups. I believe this is a very interesting point, because as a global company, you may have very different customer groups, but also very different products.

This is one of the basics of customer relationship management: Being able to adapt to your audience. And if you are really planning on discussing with your customers, it is way much easier to have accounts related to a specific topic.

For example, if I take as an example Microsoft:

• They have business to business activities, with their CRM products, Microsoft offices licenses, maybe we may even add in this category the Surface products.
• They are in the video game market with the Xbox
• They are in the cell phone market
• Of course they have softwares and operating systems for PC
• They are all over the world, and you may not interact the same way with US customers and Asian ones.
  

Therefore this is a great advice you should consider: Think glocal: You need to have a strong global brand, to use in the social media, but also several accounts allowing to adapt upon the typology of stakeholders you have.

How to Bond With Customers Thanks To Digital Marketing: Pepsi’s Case Study

It might not be the newest social media marketing campaign, but it is working, and it is still on. But let’s face it: Pepsi with its Pepsi Refresh Project has made a great job.
Pepsi, thanks to its website http://www.refresheverything.com/ is offering the opportunity to visitors to submit on idea. Then the community votes for the ideas it prefers, and every month, the best ones are financed by Pepsi.



The concept has two great advantages:
It boosts Pepsi’s presence in social media. It helps the company to bond with its customers. Pepsi now counts 3 millions Fans on Facebook and 60 000 followers on Twitter.
Brand equity: Pepsi acts as a responsible brand, which helps the community. I am sure that it has been very powerful.

What do you think about it?

Foursquare For Retailers: Managing The Last Mile

I am a Foursquare evangelist. I love the service and I can clearly envision what kind of usage people might have, and what interest companies might have.
I read a very interesting article about Foursquare, and how it could potentially influence shoppers.

The idea is that Foursquare is the best tool to trigger the decision of a shopper to come into a store. Foursquare has a lot of feature which helps customers making a decision:

• Of course discounts
• Tips and to-dos
  

Mobile is the only device that has ever been empowered to do so. This is the reason why it is very interesting to see the rise of Foursquare, and to see how it will work. Also, what would be very interesting would be to get data from Foursquare. I don’t know if the company has a lot of them, but it would be very interesting for a company to know how the check in process happen, and also the search approach of customers while checking in.

What do you think about it?