Webinar2.Content.V4 Final

Editor's Notes

• #4: SCOTT D. DOES THIS SLIDE – NEED TO UPDATE STATS
• #5: Notes for Scott D.Introduce One Pica – an independent marketing & technology agencyOne Pica has worked successfully with a variety of client business models and opportunities – from established traditionalretailers seeking to grow their business through an online channel; all the way to successful e-tailers looking to take that next step up to “Amazon” level by adding more products, more promotions, more stores and more brands to their online offering.One Pica is also an award-winning creative agency that helps clients approach e-commerce from an overall integrated marketing and communications perspective - from concept through execution to market impact using Strategic insights and positioning Brand Identity Creative Vision & Design and Analytics and Performance TrackingGreg Segall Bio - _______________________________Clients include:
• #6: Handoff from Scott to Greg:GREG:Thank you Scott, we’re delighted to participate with you in this seriesAnd thank you to everyone who is joining us todayAnyone who knows me knows that I love to talk about what we do at One Pica – we call it our total company approach A unified front-end tied to a streamlined, efficient back-endVisibility into every part of the channel so events in the back-end are informing what happens on the front end While the front end informs the back-end–a dynamic system that adapts to market conditions And it’s all seamless from the customer’s perspectiveWe don’t just look at the front of the house; we look at every department in your organization where technology improves business results by providing service to, or capturing information about, your customers. Our total company approach to design and development links the people, platforms and processes that support everything from marketing, product development and pricing, to sales strategy, customer service, fulfillment and billing.This is a philosophy we believe will be the future of all companies and drive their success – not only for e-commerce, but for all divisions of a company.
• #7: Going Live:A master plan for organizing, integrating and designing the key elements of a successful e-commerce site and help you think like your customers.More specifically we are going to show you how to:- Establish a product and merchandising plan to present your lines to your best possible advantage- Think beyond the sale to total operations (fulfillment, returns, customer service, wish lists and more)Probably the most important thing we want to cover is how, during this process, it is imperative to build a brand – which in turn - drives conversion and increase average order value. We will get to that a little further into the webinar.
• #8: We are going to relate ecommerce to building a house.If you want to think about this series of webinars in that fashion, this first one is the most important and lays the groundwork for everything you are going to be doing for the life of your e-business. Plan- You need to plan the house before building a solid foundation in order to ensure you don’t outgrow it and can comfortably add on.Build- Going live entails a whole number of factors including who you use to build the house, where you get your materials, how you decorate it, etc.Invite your friends- This is the fun part. Once the house is built, you can invite your friends over. If you build it they will come, doesn’t exist in this world. You have to work at it and know the best methods to get your specific friend’s to your house.
• #9: Build- Going live entails a whole number of factors including who you use to build the house, where you get your materials, how you decorate it, etc.- A holistic approach to merchandising, product marketing & e-commerce sales. - Where and when to capture key performance data throughout the shopping experience. - How to evaluate your current operations and e-commerce capabilities. - How your agency partner can help you align your organization for e-commerce and spot the operational "gotcha's" you might not think of.
• #10: At the end of this phase you have a strategic master plan:- Create linkages between marketing, sales and operations through your online channel- Define requirements and understand the complexity of the project at every level before implementation begins- Evaluate the current technology environment and successfully integrate it with a new e-commerce platform - Establish goals, objectives, metrics and a realistic project plan and how to recognize opportunities at every step
• #11: So let’s get right into it….We think as much about Brand as we do the transaction. We went over that thoroughly in the previous webinar on how to strategically pinpoint your customer personas as well as figure out the key customer touch points. Having that information allows you to really build a solid house that keeps your guests there – meaning that you are able to understand and control your end customer and craft an exceptional experience.There are three things you should keep in mind as we go through this webinar:- First you need a Replicable Process – a process to both to get and to allow your organization to be as efficient as possible.- A Creative Approach – we are always looking for opportunities to improve and bring innovation to every customer touch point.- A Collaborative Engagement – It has to be a partnership between your agency and organization. As mentioned in the previous webinar, this is not about strictly building it. You need a partner who also can help you get people there…- A holistic approach to merchandising, product marketing & e-commerce sales. - Where and when to capture key performance data throughout the shopping experience. - How to evaluate your current operations and e-commerce capabilities.
• #12: BRAND:“Typical on-line brand-building efforts require stand-out creativity to differentiate a product or service from its competitors.”E-Commerce:“Typical e-commerce initiatives concentrate on maximizing conversion rates and minimizing service costs.”
• #14: A disciplined approach to linking your company’s current products and capabilities to the needs and preferences of your current and prospective customers.
• #15: At the same time the main One Pica e-commerce process is going on, key parallel efforts on the clients end needs to take place. Having these coordinated with the rest of the ecommerce process are the “mini” keys to a successful launch.Align the organization – Everyone in the organization needs to be on the same page and understand the full ramifications of the changes taking place. The biggest challenge usually takes place between marketing and technology departments/divisions. Successful E-Commerce affects every department.Link Existing Platforms+ Processes – Understanding how external channels affect more than just sales. You have to point out the opportunities [from the previous webinar] and implement the tactics to take advantage of these. Internal IT must know all system integrations and be able to help the rest of the company understand the effects.Map + Gather Site Assets – You’d be surprised at how much the actual physical product assets/attributes can determine how the overall experience plays out.Train Everyone – While we are going through the initial usability, we train the operational teams on the platform and get them accustomed to the impact. Again, it is surprising how many holes are plugged and opportunities are uncovered during this phase. The earlier the better which means that everyone in the organization is on the same page.Start Selling! – Again, having defined the KPIs/key success factors in the previous webinar allows us to both act and react and put all of the systems in place to be able to sell and sell amazingly well.
• #16: Think about operations as more than picker and packers. Here are some key points of success we find when starting the “go live” or “build it” process.- Total Branded Experience – again mapping brand experience to transaction- Multiple Touch Points – Understanding every touch point and how it affects the customer- Expect the Unexpected – Make sure you have a plan B and think through every possible scenario. Again this will play handly into your experience. The more prepared you are, the less impact it will have across the board. [inventory]- Internal AND External Work Flows – Operations is not all about internal work flows, you have to think about….
• #17: The first thing is to remember operations is BOTH the front of the house AND the back of the house. In the previous webinar this is what we consider the “Secret Sauce” and the key to success. The front of the house informs the back of the house and visa-versa - and together they need to work in sync, like gears.Marketing + Promotions – awareness – in a nutshell -> understanding how you sell and what is happening at all points in the purchase lifecycle.The front-end informs the back office… Just-in-time manufacturing,Fulfillment & shipping logistics,Channel support,Finance and accountingBusiness Process – execution – in a nutshell -> making sure every step of the process is understood and how that effects the customer experienceThe back-end informs the front… use data to refine and optimize marketing and sales effortsReal-time sales results, Customer service metrics, Inventory turn-over,Media spend & efficiency
• #18: The key here is “end-to-end” fulfillment process and understanding that what happens after the sale can often take the most time to build, and build right… The first thing you need to do identify all the legacy systems and existing infrastructure and make sure that completely maps to a replicable process.
• #19: The second thing we do ismapping all of these points in the process to eachcustomer touch point. For example, on the back-end you have to think about how your processes for things like warehousing, production or billing can affect the customer experience. This, in our mind needs to be as important as the front end marketing and promotions. If a customer can’t track their order, contact anyone, or repeatedly come back to a site with no inventory, you have an issue. Doing this can really help you point out opportunities and help you avoid“gotchas” that can be overlooked until very late in the game. Here are 2 examples:
• #20: - Born out of us really looking at the end-to-end fulfillment. Order is not fulfilled unless you’ve thought of end-to-end fulfillment. You are not done once someone has put the item in the cart.Our client realized that they weren’t equipped to calculate the appropriate sales tax for every state and town.Efficiency – taking a load off of finance and accounting- A new national e-commerce channel meant additional work for Finance & Accounting- We developed a custom Magento Extension to replace existing Magento-based, zipcode tax calculation with the more complex and centralized rules AvaTax provides. Avatax also synced up with the same tax calculations their store POS systems did which helped simplify accounting.Examples of how the platform is so extensible that you can build efficiencies directly into the transaction model that make existing processes easier and more intelligent (Crumbs) Or integrate with other software you’re already using (Avalara)
• #21: Crumbs bake list exampleNeed: build efficiencies to help the bakery know exact number of ingredients for the next days orders.We developed a custom reports and workflows to calculate the ingredients required based on multiple variables - # of orders, ship date and product attributes.No waste.It allows more control over the products and builds scalability.Same experience as in the store… this can be fresh all the time and not need to have prepackaged inventory. It also meant that the orders are much faster…Everyone thinks it’s all fun picking cupcakes, but it wouldn’t be possible without this type of efficiency.
• #22: You’ll know where all the customer touch points are – and all the opportunities to use them to strengthen your brand.At the end of the operations review you have:- Identified all the external customer touch-points that drive people to your site - Outlined current processes and mapped the internal flow of activities after the sale- Inventoried existing software and integration points- Established a set of “standard operating procedures” to manage transactions that will ultimately define how you build the userexperience.
• #23: You can’t do this – build an ecommerce channel - in a vacuum. Success comes from the need to look at all of your channels to see how your customer shops across all of your other channels. Here are some quick tips as to the things that we look to when looking through the channel strategy
• #24: The big thing to note is that consumer behavior is changing rapidly… According to Forrester.Prevailing Wisdom: Consumers are Multi-Channel“If retailers want to thrive they will have to take and win the multi-channel challenge.” “eBusiness professionals must…facilitate a multi-channel strategy that addresses consumers’ expectations, focusing on their need to move between offline and online channels and their increasing mobile and social behaviors.”Forrester U.S. Online Retail Forecast 2009 - 2014U.S. online retails sales projected to grow at 10% CAGR through 2014 (Forrester Research)Growth opportunities for customized/personalized products – “design your own” I-pad as ultimate e-retail appliance
• #25: E-Commerce is the only channel that has all of these capabilities.Requiresa high-level 360 degree view of all marketing + sales activitiesE-Commerce not just another distribution channel, it’s a marketing channel (no other channel can do this) – meaning you can sell, gather information and recontact all at the same time on the customers own terms. A branded environment that might drive to a sale offline oran online interaction with a lead to be closed at a future timeAbility to track promotions and capture data across channels Ability to track customer accounts and shopping habits across channels
• #26: Strategic Thought startersDo all my customers use all my channels equally?Do my preferred customers want more personal attention and face time, or do they want more convenience to shop anywhere, anytime?Should I offer “web-only” promotions and pricing? What does that do to my inventory management plan and financial goals? How do I create a consistent brand experience when customers move between retail and online environments? What’s the best way to follow up with leads that come through my online channel?
• #27: Here is another way to think about it in a real world example. A true CMO/organization needs to think about the 4Ps.Example [S&S]: Our client does a significant amount of business through a major big-box retailer – don’t want to cannibalize that business, but need to co-exist with the brick-and-mortar channel AND the retailer’s web siteKeep the all the channels happy and balanced but keep some differentiation Include certain products on the branded website that are exclusive and not sold anywhere else Pricing: need to consider margins, profitability and value proposition for each channel In previous webinar (the “blueprint” strategy phase) we talked about making sure you’re covering these issues before you get to the buildProduct, pricing, placement, promotions
• #28: At the end of the day you need to be able to look across all of the channels and understand what are the most costly channels, leastly costly. Ecommerce is among the cheapest so maybe that affords you luxury to play with pricing. Remember: Not every sale is created equal, but every sale is a good sale.Your deliverable at the end of the channel strategy phase is an understanding of how each channel fulfills unique strategic business goals and a plan for how e-commerce delivers the ultimate unified shopping experienceAnd you are off to the races…. Different horses, different colors represent each channel, but all are trying to get to the same place – the sale.
• #29: Going deeper into the details brings you to the actual products and how you should merchandise them. We, at One Pica feel that this part of the process is the most closely linked to the brand presentation. This is the phase that links the foundation and infrastructure to the exterior. This is what drives the experience.------------------------NOPoorly managed inventory, costly deliveries and a high number of product returns can quickly turn profits into losses, yet so many companies focus on their direct sales to the virtual exclusion of fulfillment and channel connections.
• #30: “Cross merchandising is the practice of marketing, or displaying products from different categories (or store departments) together, in order to generate additional revenue, known sometimes as add-on sales, or incremental purchase. This can often be done in conjunction with customer-centric strategies, aimed at improving the overall customer experience.”- www.allbusiness.comIn our mind, there are three pillars to constructing a merchandising plan, and we consider it an interdependency rather than a linear process. In most cases, you begin with Product Inventory which informs the Merchandising Plan, which informs the IA. We find that a big deficiency or break down in the process happens because a company’s merchandising plan is decoupled from the IA and/or product inventory and thought of alone and considerations for IA aren’t reflected. We believe each pillar needs to stand on it’s own and equally inform each other.
• #31: Let’s start with how product inventory informs your merchandising plan. How you actually sell your products needs to be defined by which products are available. Seems obvious, but the details of your products should lead this question. For example:What product categories will be featured?Is it likely that product lines will extend?Will I adopt a “sales rack” strategy?
• #32: Second, how product inventory affects IA. There is a big difference between how you craft an experience to present 500 SKUs vs. 500,000. You have to ask yourself:How and what products will I have at launch? How are they related?How often will I be adding productsin the future?How many products can I show at once?
• #33: The final = How your merchandising plan affects IA and visa-versa. Understanding the following can really help you understand what priority of information you should be presenting to your customers. A couple of quick example questions:How do my customersshop?What are their decision criteria for purchasing – price vs selection vs combinations?What product information do they need before purchase?
• #34: Let’s get into a little more detail and put humanistic question to each pillar:Product Inventory: What am I selling?- List all your products and all of their attributes- The more attributes you list, the better off you are creating a targeted purchase flow now and in the long termUse pivot tables to draw conclusions as to how many products fulfill more than one criteriaIt’s not just about the product line it’s aboutwhat you have in stock – and when you have it in stock.
• #35: Merchandising: How Should I Present Items?Goals: What you should be thinking about when you display your products online- Not just selling products, building the brand- Be as precise as possible about how you display and describe your products- like IKEA price tag- Complement the selling experience with non-product information to reinforce the brand message- Consistent brand experience all the way through the entire commerce process- Create shared experiences-------------------- NO What is the typical purchase occasion? (Gifts? Holidays? Personal consumption?) How should products be grouped? What products do I want to promote? How do I call attention to them? What’s in the display window to bring them into the site/shopping experience? How is the site laid out to “manage the flow” – from the front door through the aisles to the checkoutRatings, reviews, special features and promotions
• #36: IA: How Will the Experience Affect my customers decision ? Your objective is to build a relationship and serve the customer, not push the productSite MapStarts with the products I have to sell and the way people want to shop for themShopping categories - have to be in line with your industry and your customer’s mindsetSupporting “other” contentHome page (the store window)Navigation & filteringProduct detail pages How are they most likely to search (by feature? By price? By size?) What it the most likely path from homepage to product page to check-out?-------------NO What details do customers need to know before they purchase?
• #37: If you haven’t been paying attention, you probably will now…We are showing you this because it is one of our most recent Enterprise launches:Establish the brand imageMain product categoriesConsumer-specific decision/filtering criteriaTied directly to primary sales goalsCTA – Pushing product
• #38: Filtering layered according to shopper behavior hierarchySupport content readily accessibleNot only pushing product - also providing value in the shopping experience
• #39: Merchandising in intermediate behaviors (roll-overs)You want to see what you are about to purchase before clicking – informing the customer.
• #40: Product information and product category extensive info (tabs)Padding, care instructions, and reviewsVisual clues and iconography Immediate feedback on product availability
• #41: Extended content creates further brand connections with visitorsAdditional opportunities to cross-sell and gather customer data
• #42: At the end of this phase: Content plan: is the deliverable at the end of the merchandising phase. It’s both a complete page-by-page description of all the content required to describe your products and inspire purchase, as well as all the features and calls-to-action that lead to products ending up in shopping carts. In simple terms, it describes exactly what needs to be on the page and how it fits within a branded experience… this in our mind is the precursor to the wireframes and gets everyone on the same page. What you sell and how people prefer to shop for it informs the site design & functionality (Invitationist v. Trolley Cards)** Should we have something here about the product inventory spreadsheet?
• #43: 3 out of 5 are thinking about constructing it – this is where you are actually crafting the experience… This is the creative side.We aren’t goingto walk you through the design process, but rather give you a couple of quick points for success… Think about the things clients usually skip (or are sacrificed) – i.e. how to map experience to user personas (types of customers) while keeping the overall brand experience intact------------------------------- NOTechnology team is involved in strategy to determine what’s possible and what’s notGeneral process: content plan to wireframe to design – NOW YOU’RE DIFFERENTIATING AND CREATING THAT UNIQUE EXPERIENCEBuilding in analytics and metrics to measure successEXAMPLES: Crumbs 6-pack configurator and scheduling – the cupcake in the calendar, the brand detailsDESIGN DETAILS – how rollovers function, how to show color swatches
• #44: In the previous webinar, we showed you how to map the features to functionality.Understanding the capabilities of the platform – Magento “out of the box” v. custom
• #45: Brand opportunities - Look for the little details to help build the brand experience.Content plan maps out where the main brand opportunities are...
• #46: Simply gathering opinions on an object or document is market research rather than usability testing. Usability testing usually involves systematic observation under controlled conditions to determine how well people can use the product.[4]Rather than showing users a rough draft and asking, "Do you understand this?", usability testing involves watching people trying to use something for its intended purpose. For example, when testing instructions for assembling a toy, the test subjects should be given the instructions and a box of parts. Instruction phrasing, illustration quality, and the toy's design all affect the assembly process.Usability testing is a black-box testing technique. The aim is to observe people using the product to discover errors and areas of improvement. Usability testing generally involves measuring how well test subjects respond in four areas: efficiency, accuracy, recall, and emotional response. The results of the first test can be treated as a baseline or control measurement; all subsequent tests can then be compared to the baseline to indicate improvement.Performance -- How much time, and how many steps, are required for people to complete basic tasks? (For example, find something to buy, create a new account, and order the item.)Accuracy -- How many mistakes did people make? (And were they fatal or recoverable with the right information?)Recall -- How much does the person remember afterwards or after periods of non-use?Emotional response -- How does the person feel about the tasks completed? Is the person confident, stressed? Would the user recommend this system to a friend?cross-section of end users, 
• #47: For the sake of time, we will skip through the development process and get to some of the main points of differentiation in the deployment phase. - Tech team in the beginning, as important as the strategy and UX teams through to the end.- Like to have at least 2-3 weeks to fully test.- Get all analytics in place and make sure you are looking 360 at your analytics. It’s not just about sales.By now you know what features you need, know what your products are…MAKE SURE THAT EVERYONE IN THE SUPPLY CHAIN IS ON BOARD, KNOWS WHAT’S COMING, KNOWS WHAT THEY NEED TO DOApprovals, testing, training – leave time to do a few dry runs (place orders, fulfill)Crumbs, SAS, How info from Magento gets into order management systems etc., who’s responsibility is it?
• #48: As we had talked in the prior webinar about bringing the technology experts into the room in the beginning, it is as important to set key points in the process to repeatedly bring usability and strategy experts back into the mix the ensure the experience is spot on.------------------------- NOInclude the technology experts at the beginningPut the merchants and the IT team in the same roomProbe for what’s desirable and what’s possibleThen send the developers out to the warehouse and the factory floorInclude them in strategy + design meetings about user experienceFully comprehend and map out the integration points you’ll need to accomplish all e-commerce objectivesLook for opportunities to bring in technology partners
• #49: One of the keys is making sure that you actually deliver on the experience – specifically let’s talk about hosting and performance. It’s critical that the 8 seconds you have to capture is not taken up by page load time. And this can be very tricky when you are dealing with traffic spikes – for example we are working on a Private Sales site, similar to RueLaLa or Gilt. So here are a few things to consider: Many people ask us about cloud based environments vs. load balanced/clustered. ImageCDN – offload the multimedia so the application servers can do what they need to do.Magento – as a resource hog. Enterprise 1.7 has made significant improvements.
• #50: Analytics can be broken up into 5 main categories:Reaching new customers How do people not only find your site but compelled to purchase?How to turn a browser into a buyer?Increasing customer loyaltyIs your offering (products and procurement) and experience the bestDo they feel they have a sense of community with you and with their colleagues?Increasing revenueCross-sells/up-sells? Did they find what they are looking for?Does your marketing campaigns target intelligently?Or as simple as: Did your customer find what they were looking for?Improve serviceDo you deal with cancellations and changes easily and effectively?Do you offer enough flexibility in payment options?Improve customer communicationIs your communication personal, targeted, relevant and timely?Does your customer communicate with other customers? Do they share successes, ideas and comments?Mobile?------------------------ NOSome of the keys to what we measure:Path to purchase/CTAs, EventsSegmentation = matching directly against your customers that you defined in the strategy phase.Sales funnel, Social, MobileOrder – SKU, # of items
• #51: Now that you understand the process, this is the way we approach it and deliver on it.We go deeper = It’s part of our DNA to immerse ourselves into our client’s, not only to be able to provide the utmost expert guidance, but to build a truly long-term trusting relationship.Strategic /Creative Brand – Brand first – positioning and messaging and how the customer experience effects the brand at every touchpoint.Complete Control – We feel that it is extremely important to educate and give our clients complete control over their business and have an extremely tight procedural model that allows us to do this.Technology – With SaaS we have noticed the trend that each department uses it’s own technology and it breaks up companies, and with openness and APIs, we feel strategic integration is key. This goes for e-commerce as well.-------------- NO Founded in 2002Began as a design firm, but quickly realized that it’s not enough to look at just the front of the houseExpanded our vision to look at the people, platforms and processes that link every part of the company, internally and externallyWe’re not an IT firm, but we look for every possible technical application to support a better customer experienceWe find tools and partners to solve specific challenges across the entire value chain
• #52: Enterprise allows us to deliver on our total company approach SLA with Varien – they’re sharing responsibility for fixing bugs, full support for the end client (outside of the agency relationship) – protects your interests and investment And we can take advantage of the community and collective wisdom to get any answers we need as quickly as possible Other systems lock you in to proprietary feature sets – having access to the OS code is the key to knowing what’s possible and what’s not – so we can handle virtually any challenge or situation even if we have to build the right answer ourselvesReward Points – This is probably the biggest feature add to 1.7 in our mind. It allows you to associate rewards to specific actions customers take on the ecommerce site. So for example you can reward customers for purchases, reviews, or even more creative rewards for social interactions through Facebook Connect.
• #53: Join us for the next webinar:“E-Commerce Advantage: Stay One Step Ahead”External marketing tactics + promotional strategiesBuild profitable communities by linking traditional, online and social media through your ecommerce channelLeverage Magento’s Rich Merchandising Suite and other third-party applications to increase up-sells & cross-sells and drive sales.AnalyticsWe’re happy to take your questions