E-Newsletter : Don’t leave your brand behind

I received an email newsletter from a really fantastic brand this week that featured special offers, new products, deal bundles and suggestions for Father’s Day gifts.

Visually it was executed well as I have come to expect from the brand, with superb photography that showcased the quality product range perfectly, clearly placing it the very “premium” category, which it most certainly is in.

However, there was one huge, but very simple thing missing from the e-newsletter.

They left a big part of their brand behind, and in the “click of an email campaign” they managed to relegate who they were to a lower league and they became another commodity retailer.

Even though they have my name there was no personalised “Hi Greg” and there was no attempt anywhere to start the communication with a friendly on brand message, nor any attempt to briefly update me on the recent exciting developments (things relevant to the reader) in their business.

The view might be that people have no time for any of that when they are online and it should be “BOOM” lets get straight down to business, but the crazy thing is that this company is the total opposite of this – they pride themselves on customer service and the relationship with their customers, and in person there is no one better but for some reason on this occasion they left so much of what makes them special outside the door!

The big lesson in this ….don’t leave who you are outside the door just because it is an online e-commerce transaction.

Greg

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications, a full service PR and Marketing agency with offices in Dublin and Cork

Social Media and Punk Sanitiser in the time of Coronavirus

For years, we have been encouraging small businesses to build a social media presence through our training sessions, client meetings and even networking events.

This is now that time where having that online presence can be really useful for your business. We’re being encouraged to socially distance, which all of our team are doing by working from home, but if you’re a retail or hospitality business who relies on face to face customer interactions these coming weeks are going to be hard to manage.

Here are a couple of simple tips that might help you:

Don’t Hide!

Up until now you might be afraid of saying the wrong thing, so you’ve been keeping your head down – now is the perfect time to make the most of your social media presence. Your audience want to hear from you so they can understand what’s happening with your business at this time.

Engage

Engage with your customer base by communicating your messages but also listening to their queries and empathising where possible. Let your customers know what your business and your team are going through and even share the positive things that you are witnessing in your community – we need hope! 

What you can say?

Spend a bit of time to figure out what the messages are that you want to share online, whether it’s that you can offer an online service, deliveries or a call & collect service.  Your audience at this time are looking for authenticity so don’t be afraid to share a message that might be personal, it will help humanise you and your business.

Tip: We always advise before jumping in that it is best to do an exercise with your team to decide what the key messages of the business are – your content should deliver on these key messages, which is a great way of keeping you on track.

Empathise

Before posting always try to put yourself in the mindset of the reader – people are in unusual circumstances, many of them are worried and try to take this into account when you post.

Is there a way you can help?

Your business may not feel like it’s relevant at the moment but is there anything else you can offer your followers or your community?

A fantastic example of this is many of the distilleries across Ireland and the UK who are now making much needed hand sanitiser to provide to the HSE and the NHS.

Is there any way we can help?

If you need a hand to get up and running let us know and we can get you trained up with a training session online.

For more social media advice keep an eye on our channels over the coming weeks, as I’m sure to have much more to say now that I’m trapped indoors!

Be safe..

Alma

Alma Brosnan is a social media consultant with Fuzion Communications who operate from offices in Dublin and Cork and sometimes from home!

Snapchat and Amazon connect for “snap” online shopping

We all love to shop!!

It’s an industry that has grown online and is only getting bigger.

Now social media platforms are getting in on the action; Facebook were one of the first platforms to encourage shopping from the platform linking up with Shopify, Pinterest were next capitalising on the fact that their site inspired people to shop and introduced shopping ads and this year even Instagram introduced shoppable tags.

It’s the next frontier for social media sites and is a clever way to stay relevant when their audience’s attention spans are so short lived.

Imagine my surprise when Snapchat, the platform we all thought was on the way out, released an update saying they are now working with Amazon testing a new way to search for products using the Snapchat camera. This could really change how people shop online!

All you will have to do is point your camera at the product as if you’re taking a picture and then press & hold on the screen like you do when you use Snapchat filters. Once the product has been recognised by the app, a pop-up card with a link to the product page on Amazon will appear and then you follow that to purchase the item on Amazon.

So simple and a genius move by the two companies!!

Many people have said Snapchat is in decline but they’ve managed to hold on to their younger user base quite well. There may not be growth but they’re not losing users. If you look at the Ipsos MRBI Social Media Messaging Report from March 2018, you can see that even though only 31% of the Irish audience have Snapchat, 64% use it daily.

Snapchat knowing that their demographic want everything instantaneously and by creating this link with Amazon who are king of snap purchasing decisions (anyone else bought something random from Amazon at 3am?!!), they could very well be guaranteeing their survival.

Looking forward to seeing how Facebook react to this!

Alma

Alma Brosnan is part of the Social Media Consultancy team at Fuzion Communications who have offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

Never, ever write a cheque to make yourself look bad!

I was doing a review of the marketing activities with a new home improvement client a few years back.

In the previous year, they had spent €15,000 on Google Adwords in the UK bringing the right search traffic to the website of their UK operation.

They weren’t convinced about how successful this investment was and they asked me to review the campaign.

The lack of success was simple to figure out because the €15,000 was being used to drive traffic to their website, which was outdated and made them look like an old fashioned, backwards operation. You could easily understand how this traffic was not converting because, like me, I am fairly sure that the people who looked at the website were not inclined to do business.

Not only were they wasting money but they were damaging their brand – an important and very simple SEO tip is to make sure you have a website that makes people want to do business with you!

My simple recommendation to them was to stop the campaign immediately, upgrade the website and then, and only then, start up the Google campaign again.

I was told that there was no budget for a new website and instead they decided to increase their Google Adwords budget in the hope that bringing, even more traffic would somehow improve the results they were getting from the previous campaign.

Whether it is..

– Advertising when your store is a mess
– Putting a cheap sign over your premises
– Paying for an advert and not designing it properly
– Getting cheap business cards
– Bringing traffic to an outdated website

..the message is always the same.

Never, ever, write a cheque to make yourself look bad.

Greg Canty 

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion Communications, a full-service agency that offers Marketing, PR and Graphic Design services from our offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

Big Supermarket brands and the Shopping Bag test

We pop the boot open and the usual process of fishing out a bag or two to do our shopping starts.

I really hate having to do a big ‘weekly shop‘ so most of our shopping is done as required. The store we normally find ourselves at is Quish’s SuperValu where the staff are really friendly and it is the closest one to our home. While the selection of stock isn’t always too hectic it is a handy store for us and shopping there never feels like a chore.

When I pop the boot open I have to quickly grab a bag or two and I’m surprised how this simple exercise shows me how I feel about the different retailer brands and the ones I align with most.

My first choice is the SuperValu bag – after all, thats the shop I am going into and I feel its a good thing to bring a bag from the same store with you. It must drive a store manager nuts to see shoppers entering or leaving their store carrying a competitors shopping bag with them. I know it would really irritate me if a client came to us with some POS or other material from a competitor.

I also love the SuperValu franchise model and I feel this owner operator ethos leads to friendly community orientated stores often including a support and buy local agenda.

My next choice is the Marks & Spencer bag. This surprises me as I always like to support Irish but I do admire their dedication to quality food and I guess I am happy for that to be part of ‘my personal brand‘ as I do my shopping.

The M&S choice probably makes me look like a snob but my next bag choice would be either Aldi or Lidl. To be honest I can’t differentiate between either of these brands and regularly get them mixed up. I really don’t enjoy the shopping experience in these stores but I admire the simple value proposition and huge strides seem to have been made with quality and there seems to be a genuine effort to buy Irish. The adverts are working!

My next choice is Tesco. As a brand it still leaves me cold, with no stand out proposition but I do admire their Irish producers programme in conjunction with Bord Bia. Even though their share performance has been suffering they seem to believe that the Irish producers strategy will play a big role in winning in Ireland.

They are doing some great work with Irish producers improving their operations so they can do more business with Tesco.

My very last choice is the Dunnes Stores bag. Why is an Irish company, the one I should logically have an allegiance to, be the one that I connect with least? I really don’t get their brand proposition, I don’t understand it, I don’t see them connecting locally like SuperValu and nationally I don’t see any noise about supporting Irish – they could be the best at this but if they are I don’t know about it.

I know this is just my view and that my simple ‘picking a bag from the boot‘ analysis isn’t very scientific but then I look at the latest market shares in Ireland published in May 2014 and reported in the Irish Independent and see how closely aligned the reality is to my feelings.

“German retailers Aldi and Lidl have continued to snap at the heels of Dunnes Stores, with the pair now commanding a combined 17.1pc share of Ireland’s multi-billion euro grocery market”

“Tesco retained its top ranking, but remains under pressure. Its market share fell 4.1pc to 26.3pc in the latest period, while Dunnes Stores also saw its position further weakened. Its share slipped 1.3pc to 21.6pc”

“SuperValu the chain controlled by the Cork-based Musgrave group – continues to snap at Tesco’s heels. Its share of the market, which includes its now rebranded Superquinn chain, rose 0.5pc to 25.1pc, confirming its second place in the supermarket wars”

“Industry insiders said the latest figures will be another wake-up call for both Tesco and Dunnes Stores in particular”

Maybe Tesco and Dunnes Stores should do the shopping bag test?

How do customers feel when they pick up a bag from your store?

Greg Canty

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion who offer Marketing, PR and Graphic Design services from our offices in Dublin and Cork

 

 

 

Big Brands and the Shopping Centre Test

We pop the boot open and the usual process of fishing out a bag or two to do our shopping starts.

I really hate having to do a big ‘weekly shop‘ so most of our shopping is done as required. The store we normally find ourselves at is Quish’s SuperValu where the staff are really friendly and it is the closest one to our home. While the selection of stock isn’t always too hectic it is a handy store for us and shopping there never feels like a chore.

When I pop the boot open I have to quickly grab a bag or two and I’m surprised how this simple exercise shows me how I feel about the different retailer brands and the ones I align with most.

My first choice is the SuperValu bag – after all, thats the shop I am going into and I feel its a good thing to bring a bag from the same store with you. It must drive a store manager nuts to see shoppers entering or leaving their store carrying a competitors shopping bag with them. I know it would really irritate me if a client came to us with some POS or other material from a competitor.

I also love the SuperValu franchise model and I feel this owner operator ethos leads to friendly community orientated stores often including a support and buy local agenda.

My next choice is the Marks & Spencer bag. This surprises me as I always like to support Irish but I do admire their dedication to quality food and I guess I am happy for that to be part of ‘my personal brand‘ as I do my shopping.

The M&S choice probably makes me look like a snob but my next bag choice would be either Aldi or Lidl. To be honest I can’t differentiate between either of these brands and regularly get them mixed up. I really don’t enjoy the shopping experience in these stores but I admire the simple value proposition and huge strides seem to have been made with quality and there seems to be a genuine effort to buy Irish. The adverts are working!

My next choice is Tesco. As a brand it still leaves me cold, with no stand out proposition but I do admire their Irish producers programme in conjunction with Bord Bia. Even though their share performance has been suffering they seem to believe that the Irish producers strategy will play a big role in winning in Ireland.

They are doing some great work with Irish producers improving their operations so they can do more business with Tesco.

My very last choice is the Dunnes Stores bag. Why is an Irish company, the one I should logically have an allegiance to, be the one that I connect with least? I really don’t get their brand proposition, I don’t understand it, I don’t see them connecting locally like SuperValu and nationally I don’t see any noise about supporting Irish – they could be the best at this but if they are I don’t know about it.

I know this is just my view and that my simple ‘picking a bag from the boot‘ analysis isn’t very scientific but then I look at the latest market shares in Ireland published in May 2014 and reported in the Irish Independent and see how closely aligned the reality is to my feelings.

“German retailers Aldi and Lidl have continued to snap at the heels of Dunnes Stores, with the pair now commanding a combined 17.1pc share of Ireland’s multi-billion euro grocery market”

“Tesco retained its top ranking, but remains under pressure. Its market share fell 4.1pc to 26.3pc in the latest period, while Dunnes Stores also saw its position further weakened. Its share slipped 1.3pc to 21.6pc”

“SuperValu the chain controlled by the Cork-based Musgrave group – continues to snap at Tesco’s heels. Its share of the market, which includes its now rebranded Superquinn chain, rose 0.5pc to 25.1pc, confirming its second place in the supermarket wars”

“Industry insiders said the latest figures will be another wake-up call for both Tesco and Dunnes Stores in particular”

Maybe Tesco and Dunnes Stores should do the shopping bag test?

How do customers feel when they pick up a bag from your store?

Greg Canty

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion who offer Marketing, PR and Graphic Design services from our offices in Dublin and Cork

 

 

 

Amazon – Lessons in knowing your customer

It’s Friday afternoon, I’m  up the walls after a really busy but great week.

Before the afternoon closes out I’m determined to clear down my emails..

There is an email from Amazon in the middle of all my other emails …before I hit “delete” the nice image catches my attention and I give the contents of the email a quick glance:

“Reprave: Volcano Choir – BON IVER, new 2013 album from his collaborative side-project with fellow Wisconsin crew..”

hmmm… I love Bon Iver, which of course Amazon will know from my previous transactions.

Click …it’s a new album

Click …the reviews are good

Click …buy (they have my credit card and delivery address already)

Bought in under 30 seconds!

I’ll avoid clicking or looking any more because they have recommendations for me, which are always so spot on that I end up buying more. They also show me some of the other music people have purchased who also bought this album – even more temptation.

Amazon must have the best, most intelligent database management system for e-commerce ever – ask my credit card!

Know your customer, understand what they like, write to them and remind them you exist, make recommendations,  make it easy for them to buy, update your database and start the cycle all over again.

Where was I?… Back to my emails

Note in diary: Send out an email to my database on Monday

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing, PR and Graphic Design firm in Ireland with offices in Cork and Dublin

Are you throwing away the “Wow”?

We were excited as we pulled into the drive after a long day – after work we had to attend an event and eventually we were on the way home ..after midnight!

That day we knew the new carpets that we had ordered were laid and we were nervously looking forward to seeing our home transformed – the old carpets had been there for over 12 years and it was time for a change ..

After picking the carpets in the showroom you can never be quite sure if what you picked out actually does in fact work with the colours in the house – we were nervous but we were hoping that the little investment would be worth it and our home would be transformed for the better.

We opened the front door and switched on the hall lights ….

A wall of upset hit both of us as we saw the mess everywhere – the carpets were installed but the fitters had left the place like a bomb hit it. There were carpet cuttings everywhere, loose pieces of carpet, nails, broken grips. The fitters had stormed through the house moving furniture from one room to the other and returning them randomly, there was a pile of rubbish in the corner of the bedroom and the bedside lockers were stacked in the bathroom.

We couldn’t close the bedroom door because the carpet was a deeper pile – who would leave it without being able to close the door? We felt like the place had been violated, people had been in our home who didn’t give a damn how they left the place – nearly as if robbers had been through the place.

We were raging and really very upset. I wanted to just return all of the carpets  – Dee just wanted to go to bed but I knew I couldn’t face the mess in the morning and carry this horrible feeling into another day.

I started tidying, gathering up the nails, the loose pieces of carpet and I hoovered the whole place with Dee’s help. Miraculously after about 40 minutes the place transformed and we were able to see that the carpet was in fact gorgeous and despite our initial feelings it looked like the carpets were fitted really well!

We didn’t want this crew back in our home so we agreed to ask a friend in the morning to sort the door problem.

With just a little bit of extra care and attention and a quick tidy up, the carpet fitters could have easily delivered us a huge “Wow” but instead they carelessly threw this away and destroyed a great customer experience.

Sometimes when we are operating to tight budgets do we end up throwing away the valuable “wow” that ends up costing us a lot more in real terms?

The “wow” is the most important part of the whole transaction – don’t throw it away? 

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing & PR firm with offices in Cork and Dublin

It’s finding the right fit that counts!

“The Shoes”

I’ll admit it, I’m a bit of a snob when it comes to shopping. For me, quality rather than quantity is the important thing, and I would prefer to spend €100 on one great item than €100 on 20 cheaper bits and pieces!

I recently bought an expensive-ish pair of shoes in Brown Thomas (got them in the sale you see!) and was happy out leaving the shop with my new purchase. So off I went to work in them on Monday morning, and by lunchtime my feet were killing me.

Now I’m persistent, and felt I could break them in, and continued to hobble around for the next few days….

The same week I came across an Irish Independent article by Peter Flanagan entitled “Mad Men shake off the downturn and discreetly pursue new clients” which addresses the changes in the PR industry in recent times, including the issue of charging clients. Reading this got me thinking about my poor feet and my new shoes….again!

Flanagan wrote “The most common rate is in the region of €210 for a senior account manager or account director. Those sorts of rates may seem exorbitant to the outsider, but for a big company it is a price worth paying if it maintains its reputation. Inevitably cost has become a bigger consideration than ever before, and that has forced prices and margins lower and lower — close to the point where the rates are unsustainable for the industry.” He adds “…Anecdotal evidence shows some agencies charging as little as €110 an hour for an account director.”

So is he saying that paying less means their service won’t be as good? That by paying the higher rate, you’re guaranteed better results? While I may have agreed with this at some point, my “shoe experience” has reinforced a recent change of opinion on my part.

It’s been almost three weeks now and they’re a little better (my persistence may be paying off), but they’re just not as good as I thought they would be. In the past I’ve bought items that have cost significantly less than “the shoes”, and are comfortable, work for me, and still serve me well. This got me thinking about how business isn’t all that different… surely it’s finding the right fit that counts!

It’s finding the right fit that counts!

Alison O’Brien is an Account Manager with Fuzion

When Great Products mask over Poor Service

Great Products - Poor Service?

I found myself in the queue of Butlers Chocolate Coffee Shop for about the fifth time in the week for our ritual morning treat and we just had to leave and search the streets of Cork for another outlet that might serve coffee as good (Cork Coffee Roasters on Bridge Street is a little too far away).

Unfortunately we didn’t find a better cup of coffee anywhere so I just have to try to solve my dilemma by blogging about it in the hope that they might notice.

Butlers Chocolate Coffee Shops do great coffee but at times the customer service is just appalling (my social media contacts will have seen a zillion posts about this from me). Some of the staff are very friendly and some are really quite the opposite. I find this incredible – I go in there at least three or four times a week, I buy a few coffees each time and some of the regular staff would neither smile or make eye contact.

There is also a very definite policy of preparing the coffee for the customer and leaving it on the counter and then “shouting” out the order until the customer hears and collects. You could be in there on a quiet day, sitting having a chat while waiting for your coffee , just feet from the counter and the staff will still “shout” your order instead of popping it over to you – I must admit it drives me nuts!

This must be how the staff are trained and I feel it also probably creates a culture whereby a “no smile” scenario is acceptable as well. I can see the logic around staff overhead but this policy needs to be applied with some intelligence and “cop on”.

Hilariously they recently introduced a new electronic loyalty card system called a “happiness” card and for the few weeks around it’s introduction all the staff had t-shirts with “happiness” written boldly across them. With the card you earn your usual one in ten coffees free but you also earn loyalty points – all designed to have you coming back. Now there’s a good idea!

This week I witnessed the very worst customer service incident, which motivated me to eventually write – A woman with a young kid and a new born baby around her neck in a little sling ordered a low fat latte. She seemed under pressure as she sat down while waiting for her coffee – the “shout” duly followed: “low fat latte” to be followed by an even louder and more impatient “low fat latte”.

The poor lady who was sitting down and a little under pressure with her toddler and baby responded “I’ll get it when I am ready“. At this stage practically every customer in the coffee shop had heard the awful interaction and were trying to figure out why none of the three staff on duty could make an exception and walk the few feet over to the woman with her coffee.

I was chatting with a buddy of mine and I was about to collect the coffee from the counter and bring it over to the woman only to be beaten to the punch by another customer.

Incredible!

The product is great so we keep going back but at some point a new coffee shop will open that will know the value of smiling and the even greater value of bringing coffee down to a customer in extreme or not so extreme situations .. I look forward to it.

If you have a great product don’t let it create an opportunity for poor service to creep in.

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion