Fine-Tune Your Social Couponing

“Social couponing” is a promotion tactic in which a substantial discount is offered to consumers who are told the offer is activated only when a certain number of people sign up for it online. Restaurants, educational services, and salons/spas have been the most frequent users of social couponing.
     The logic of social couponing is that, even if the retailer loses money on each coupon transaction, users of the coupon will be working to get loads of their friends to give the retailer a try. The profitability from social couponing depends on convincing the right kinds of coupon users to come back soon and often.
     Rice University researchers report that about 40% of retailers who have used social couponing during the past year say they would not do it again. The major complaints were that coupon users too often failed to buy anything beyond the face value of the coupon on their visit and/or didn’t come back to make a purchase at regular prices.
     Still, this leaves the majority who said their results were positive enough that they might give social couponing a try in the future. Here are shopper psychology tips on fine-tuning social couponing so that you profit:

• Establish reasonable expectations. Social couponing draws bargain hunters. If discount prices are a marketing point for your store, fine. If your criterion of success is that people spend more than the face value of the coupon, make that a condition of the coupon use.
• On the bill you present, state the discounted price, but state the undiscounted price more prominently. There are a few reasons for this: It builds appreciation in the customer for the value they’ve received. It reduces expectations that the service they’ve received is worth less than the price you’ll expect them to pay next time they come. And in a restaurant or spa, it encourages the customer to give a tip based on the undiscounted price. This keeps your staff supportive of the coupon program. In turn, supportive staff make the coupon redeemer’s experience memorable so they’ll want to return and bring along other people.
• Be sure your services to your current customers aren’t compromised by services to the coupon customers. Tell your current customers about the coupon offer and encourage them to enroll online for their next visit. Have sufficient staff, which often means increasing your staffing.

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Keep Discount Conditions Strict Enough
Customize Your Discount Coupons
Give Coupons Early and Proudly
Offer Exclusive Price Discounts Cautiously
Have Unannounced Discounts on Common Purchases

Romance the Customer, But Professionally

Compared to ecommerce retailing, bricks-and-mortar retailers have an easier time in two ways:

• Developing person-to-person relationships between the salesperson and the customers
• Creating a multifaceted entertainment experience

     But if you’re a B&M retailer, these relative advantages will pay off for you only if you use them in ways that build an entertaining personal relationship with your store. Sort of what happens when we love a movie because we identify with the actors.
     So let’s enter the realm of the cinema. Researchers at Roma Tre University and Columbia University analyzed audience ratings of 440 movies nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award. The researchers asked, “What’s the relationship between a movie viewer identifying with an actor in the movie and the viewer rating the movie as excellent?”
     The researchers predicted that the viewer’s identification with a leading star who is about the same age as the viewer and the same gender would carry a lot of weight. But after analyzing the data, the researchers had to admit they were wrong. What did make a difference was the viewer’s identification with relating to opposite-gender stars who were somewhat younger than the viewer. When the movie romanced the viewer, the viewer liked the movie.
     Okay, everybody out of the theatre and back to the store. Does this mean that each time a customer enters, you should flirt shamelessly or at least invite them to dance to your store’s background music? No, but it does mean you should romance the customer.
     Keep the interactions professional. Be ready for a mix of what University of Geneva researchers call “secure business attachment” and “close business attachment.” In the first, the customer wants to rely on you for quick answers to questions about purchases made and for quick solutions to problems with purchases. In the second, the customer wants to exchange information about family and friends.
     The Geneva researchers recommend that when a business-to-business retailer invites a customer to dinner, the customer’s romantic partner be invited as well: B2B customers who demonstrate secure attachment with a romantic partner experience higher satisfaction, trust, and repurchase intentions when doing business with a retailer.
     With all sorts of customers, romance through entertainment. Hey, you’re competing for the customer’s dollar. Each hour a person is sitting in front of the movie screen fantasizing is an hour they’re not shopping with you.

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Learn the Relationship B2B Customers Want

Give Customers Assurance They Belong

In the old TV series “Cheers,” the draw of the bar was that, as the theme song said, “…everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came.” People select hairdressers and even hardware stores on the same basis.
     You might be unable to recall the name of each customer. But you can let every customer know they belong.
     Consumer researchers showed how the opposite of warm acceptance—cold rejection—motivates people to buy. Participants in a study at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, Florida State University, Southern Utah University, University of British Columbia, and University of Minnesota were placed in pairs. Then one of the pair would resign from the team. In some cases, the remaining partner was led to believe this happened because the departing teammate disliked their partner. In these cases, the remaining partner became more likely to buy relatively useless products and spend premium amounts on foods they themselves disliked, but thought their partner would like.
     The power of this escape-from-rejection means it is easy for a retailer to use it unethically. Don’t. But with those exceptions, use welcoming acceptance as a sales tool:

• If you learn that a customer is experiencing feelings of rejection, guide them toward products carrying a feeling of nostalgia. Hey, offer them a nostalgic cookie brand. Researchers at Netherland’s Erasmus University and at Arizona State University had study participants play a computer game. The game was rigged such that some of the participants were quickly excluded. Those excluded participants became more likely to prefer older—rather than the latest—versions of items ranging from food brands to shower gel. In the study, rejected participants reported feeling better after eating a cookie carrying a brand name popular in the past. This didn’t happen nearly as often with new brand cookies.
• Shoppers going through significant life changes, like divorce or college graduation, become more open to your recommendations to try out product upgrades and less familiar brands.
• To the degree that it is socially appropriate, gently touch the customer. Researchers at Tel Aviv University assessed the results of a retail employee touching customers in settings that included a supermarket, a restaurant, and a bookstore. There, a brief touch on the arm of a customer led to the customer feeling more positive about the retailer. And positive feelings toward a retailer increase the potential for financial profitability.

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Use Customer Life Changes to Switch Brands
Touch Customers

Refine Your Psychographics

When retailers talk about psychographics, they’re referring to personal values and the shopper habits affected by those values. Demographics (age, gender, income level) and psychographics are often two ways of looking at the same thing. For instance, women generally have different personal values and shopping habits than do men. But the psychographic approach gives the retailer more focused hints for making sales.
     Except when the analysis is insufficiently refined, that is. A recent Bloomberg Businessweek article describes how Toyota dealers suffered from this happening: Figuring that Toyota is America’s largest producer of cars, the company—along with a number of influential industry analysts—expected Toyota to swipe sales of large pickup trucks from GM, Ford, and Chrysler as the market for pickups picked up.
     But the psychographics of buyers of large trucks are different from the psychographics of car buyers. A more refined analysis using data from Nielsen Claritas indicated that compared to Toyota large truck prospects, the GM and Ford prospects are more likely to dine at Cracker Barrel restaurants, have dial-up Internet, and use the paper Yellow Pages. The Toyota prospects were more likely to dine at steakhouses, shop online, own golf clubs, and subscribe to Runner's World.
     This sort of focus gives specifics to be used in merchandising, marketing, and selling. Psychographic analysis for the PowerBar sports nutrition line produced a recommendation that the products be displayed alongside personal grooming items. The focus from refinement also protects against you being buried in trivial findings, while staying open to being surprised. A collaboration of researchers at Columbia University, Advertising Age, and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune found that people most interested in buying fishing equipment also enjoy listening to Christian rock music and reading Southern Living.
     Whether contracting with a market research firm to provide you psychographic information or gathering and analyzing your own data, always be angling for further refinement.
     At the same time, recognize there will be individual exceptions to the overall refined findings. A comment posted to the online version of the Bloomberg Businessweek article reads, “I've built several computers, use an htpc to watch the internet on my plasma, use voip instead of telco, never owned a gun, but have several bikes. I own 3 F150's and no toytas [sic].”

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Recalibrate for Shopper Gender Trends
Help Customers Show Off New Products

Provide Portability for Your Shoppers

Chances are your target customers want portability, so give it to them.
     In a recent interview with Bloomberg Television’s “InBusiness,” Susan Lyne, CEO of Gilt Groupe, Inc. and former CEO of Martha Stewart Living, said, “People expect to be able to shop where and when they want…. [B]eing able to have your iPhone, pull it out,… shop at that moment.”
     Gilt Groupe is a “flash retailer,” at which a product is offered at a substantial discount for a limited number of hours. Ms. Lyne reports that although the percentage of online transactions with Gilt Groupe made via mobile devices is still less than 10%, she expects that percentage to grow rapidly.

• If you sell any sort of mobile devices, select your merchandise on the basis of long battery lives. Although we might remember the Apple iPod as having been an instant success, the truth is that first-generation models frustrated purchasers because they needed such frequent recharges. Micromax, which took on cell phone giant Nokia in India, made initial gains in market share by equipping the phone with a large battery.
• Accommodate the drive to portability for each stage of consumer behavior. Think of ways you can enable your customers and potential customers to be flexible in when and where they seek out information about you and your products; complete a purchase; use the product; and dispose of the product, such as making a return or exchange.
• Be ready for the appeal of portability to stay especially high for as long as our current era of economic and social uncertainty lasts. It’s not just improved mobile technology that’s motivating the trend. Research at University of South Carolina finds that during times of stress and upheaval, we become more anxious to wander to different possibilities.
• Because it’s getting harder to pin down your target markets in their purchasing habits, assess for changes regularly. Where and how they’ll be shopping next month has a fair chance of being at least a bit different from where and how they shopped last month. Don’t overreact to small changes. But do assess.

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Use Customer Life Changes to Switch Brands
Slow Switching By Asking About Prior Choices
Know Your Potential Customers’ Intentions
Be Creative, But Only Sometimes

Engage Future Customers

A Wall Street Journal article reports that cemeteries across America are holding band concerts, barbeques, and sky-diving exhibitions. The main objective, say the funeral directors interviewed for the article, is to position cemeteries and mortuaries as pleasant places that are able to be of service in the future. “Meet us before you need us.”
     Whether or not your line of retailing is in the funeral industry, here are some consumer psychology tips inspired by what these cemeteries are doing:

• Always be building interest in your business among future customers. The nature of a cemetery is to stay in business for a long time. The people attending the special events might choose to buy burial plots or make cremation arrangements for use years from now. And even the young people attending these special events have parents and grandparents, some of whom might need funeral arrangements in the nearer future. What is the length of time of your retail business’s planning horizon, and what steps will you take to cultivate prospects for all points out to that horizon?
• Hold a continuing series of special events for prospective customers. The cemeteries featured in the WSJ article don’t conduct just one event. For years, Hollywood Forever in Los Angeles has held movie nights in which the film is projected onto the mausoleum walls. Even a single special event gives you the opportunity to educate your target markets about the value you can offer them. But an ongoing series of events increases sales by maintaining in your current and potential customers the habit of regularly coming to your site. How will you allocate your special events budget so that you’ll produce a continuing series of events rather than spend it all on a few events?
• Leave prospects with the right impressions of your business. The challenge for the cemeteries in producing special events is balancing fun and respect, excitement and dignity. Management of Fairmount Cemetery in Denver applies that to acceptable movie titles: “Arsenic and Old Lace” would be okay, they’ve decided. “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” would not. What criteria will you use in selecting the special events?

     A comment posted to the WSJ article does give some guidance for the cemeteries: “Anything but clowns. The cemetery doesn't need to be any creepier than it already is.”

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

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Stage Special Events to Build Sales
Hold Monthly Clinics
Cultivate Kids as Future Customers
Project Your Store’s Personality

Offer Neatness to Creative Shoppers

Last week, I hung around the Lululemon Athletica store in Corte Madera, California. Lulu, as some have nicknamed the chain, has fully stocked stores and limited selection showrooms in Canada, the U.S., Australia, and Hong Kong. They also sell their branded merchandise through other retailers, and they have an ecommerce site. The company has gained attention for friendly store design.
     I wanted to observe that friendliness for myself. One impression that came through to me was a handmade look. Another was neatness. Research at University of Colorado suggests that a handmade look might not appeal to all types of consumers, but would be attractive to shoppers who see themselves as creative or aspire to be more creative. Findings from surveys conducted by the Boston Consulting Group indicate that women shoppers—the major target audience for Lululemon—like their creativity combined with practicality.
     Here are two lessons about creativity and practicality from Lululemon:

• Although the stores carry a range of apparel, the company home page says they sell “technical yoga clothes.” The store I visited had large full-color photo posters on the walls, each poster featuring a yoga instructor affiliated with that store. Yoga is a disciplined art. Are you doing ustrasana? Hey, there’s only one right way and many wrong ways to channel the spirit of the camel when posing as one. At the same time, yoga practices are designed to relax constraints on creative thought. Which of your lines of merchandise and services would appeal to creative shoppers? For those lines, what words, phrases, and images can you use in ads, signage, and personal selling to project your technical approach to relaxing constraints on creativity?
• On a main window outside the store was what looked like a hand-painted calendar of special in-store and area events to be held during the month. It was done neatly, so it was easy to read. Inside the store, the shelves and racks were well-stocked with merchandise neatly arranged. Large shelf tags describing the different types of merchandise were done in a handwriting font. On the website and in the store, the Lululemon Manifesto resembles a collage, with mottos facing in a variety of directions, but everything printed neatly. What presentation styles, including standards for employee dress, can you use to portray a blend of creativity and neatness that your shoppers will find appealing?

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Help Shoppers Use Their Imagination
Exercise Cultural Sensitivity in Color Use
Manage Store Clutter Strategically
Train Staff About Dress Standards

Take Individual Responsibility for Customers

In his 2009 book, The Mom and Pop Store, Robert Spector quotes Bill Kodilla, who was among the most prized employees in the butcher shop owned by Robert’s dad: “You never waited on somebody else’s regular customer…. I would never work on your father’s customer or Sid’s customer.”
     I don’t support the idea of refusing to serve a shopper or making them hang around for a long time to be served. But Bill’s approach is a nice reminder of the research-backed advice to honor relationships between a salesperson and a customer.

• Coach employees to use “I” instead of “we” when addressing customer questions and problems. “How can I make this right?” instead of “How can the store make this right?”
• Post photos of staff along with their names. You might choose to use just first names or names in the format “Ms. Jones.”
• Encourage employees to thank customers by name, using a credit card imprint, completed special order form, or bank check for information about the name.
• Provide business cards for employees to hand out to customers.

     All this is a quite different approach than that taken by Citibank when sending out customer service letters to credit card customers. A Wall Street Journal piece titled “Mystery Writer: Does Citibank's S. Larson Really Exist?” points out how for years all those letters have been signed in the neat hand of S. Larson, but with no more about S. Larson’s identity or role at Citibank.
     In my opinion, it’s okay that there’s no first name. I’ve consulted with retailers in the hospitality sector and in complaint resolution who find employees are concerned about security risks in revealing the employee’s full name. But with S. Larson, you can’t even get her on the phone when you call.
     The WSJ article was whimsical. Still, at least some recipients of letters from S. Larson seem far from amused by the lack of person-to-person communication. Here’s my adaptation of a comment posted on the WSJ article: “If you’re a disgruntled Citibank customer, you surely won’t get satisfaction by telephoning and asking for S. Larson. If you want to know why this is, consider that S. Larson’s supervisor is Mrs. Helen Louise Waite. Yes, if you expect Citibank to solve a credit card problem for you, go to Helen Waite.”

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Use Your Employees’ Favorite Words
Use Psychology for Shopper Crowd Management
Announce Commonalities with Shoppers

Manage Store Clutter Strategically

Is store clutter bad? A Practical eCommerce article this week recommends that online retailers cut down the clutter. Keep the site neat and simple, so goes the advice. Supporting this idea, researchers at Nielsen Norman Group in Northern California found in their eye-tracking studies that people look at about 50% of online ads that contain just text, but only about 35% when text is superimposed on an image. If there’s animation to muddle up the ad further, the figure drops to 30%.
     I agree that sales can be lost because of excess messiness—not only on ecommerce pages, but also with in-store sales. Still, on the other hand, we do need sufficient complexity—what some retailing consultants might call clutter—to engage the shopper. A classic and repeated finding in consumer psychology is that we want to introduce enough incongruity, enough surprise, so that the shopper slows down for a moment to appreciate the sales message. If the layout is overly sterile, the viewer processes it all immediately and then moves on—beyond the range of a possible add-on or upgrade that would benefit both the shopper and the retailer.
     Interpreted simplistically, the Nielsen Norman Group findings mean we should have advertising and sales messages composed solely of text. No graphics. No animation. My guess is such advice doesn’t ring true for professional retailers, and when advice from a retailing consultant to a retailer doesn’t ring true, it’s a signal to consider the advice with suspicion.
     A broader scope of research indicates the suspiciousness is justified. Researchers at University of Florida-Gainesville find that messages we see out of the corner of our eyes still influence us. For instance, when a customer walks briskly into your store, eyes straight ahead, any displays of featured product packages off to the left and, off to the right, brief statements of the featured products’ benefits increase the motivation to buy. In this case, the clutter helps keep the shopper’s mind from devising reasons not to buy.
     And too little mess restrains purchases in another way as well: Retailing consultant Paco Underhill tells a story about an Einstein Bros. Bagels prototype store in Utah. The problem was the bags of bagel chips were being shelved with such precision that customers hesitated touching the bags, let alone buying one. The solution? Regularly checking that the shelves were sufficiently cluttered.

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Introduce Featured Products as Customers Enter
Interpret Brain Science Advice Cautiously

Accent Values of Your Hispanic Target Markets

U.S. retailers have been advised by many experts to shape their marketing, advertising, and selling to Hispanic markets. An Advertising Age feature this week uses demographic evidence to buttress that advice and confirm what you’ve probably noticed on your own: According to 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data, the Hispanic population has grown about 40% over the past decade, while the non-Hispanic population has grown only about 5%. You’ve increasing numbers of customers and potential customers who identify themselves as Hispanic.
     Because you’ve already noticed, you’ve also probably made some changes to appeal to the Hispanic market. Continue doing that, but don’t overdo it. The adjustments should be a change in accent rather than dramatic alterations in what’s been working for you up to now. Here’s why:

• The distribution of Hispanics in America is not uniform. About half the number of Hispanic consumers live in California and Texas. And within any city, Hispanic-Americans are more likely than Asian-Americans, for example, to live in primarily Hispanic-American communities. While American retailers overall will see their target markets include mushrooming numbers of Hispanic-Americans, this might not be the case for your store.
• Overall, there are still about four times as many white non-Hispanics as Hispanics in America. You succeed as a retailer by appealing to consumers’ values. There are some differences between those who identify with Hispanic culture and those who do not. You’ll not want to ignore the majority values system. You’ll want to gracefully accommodate both.
• American consumers with a Hispanic ancestry are over time becoming assimilated into mainstream American society and, in the process, are embracing the mainstream’s values.
• There are substantial differences in values among groups of consumers who identify themselves as Hispanic. That’s not at all surprising, since there is not one monolithic Hispanic culture.

     So once we realize we’re talking about tendencies, not boxes, accent values of the Hispanic market:

• Family. Retailers like La Curacao design around family in ways ranging from store merchandising and layout to in-store entertainment.
• Color. Researchers at St. Joseph’s University say that Hispanic-Americans generally prefer brighter colors than do non-Hispanics.
• Adventuresomeness. In the U.S., about 35% of Hispanics are under age 18, as compared to about a 20% rate for non-Hispanics. The result is relatively more emphasis among Hispanic-Americans on the adventuresomeness associated with youth.

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Have Bilingual Staff for Bilingual Shoppers
Notice Customers’ Cultural Aspirations
Show Commitment to the Underserved

Keep Ecommerce Product Returns Pleasant

In a survey of 2,000 United Kingdom ecommerce shoppers, 60% of them said they'd completely stop doing business with an online retailer who handles deliveries or returns badly. The survey was commissioned by Collect+, a parcel service that provides over 3,500 UK locations to which customers can have packages delivered or can return merchandise to the retailer. The survey was conducted by YouGov, an independent consumer research company.
     Smart in-store retailers long ago recognized the profitability which comes from making product returns pleasant. Customers become more willing to buy when they know they can receive a refund or exchange if things don’t work out. Use the same approach with your ecommerce business.

• Keep the policy clear and announce the policy clearly. At the store, when customers are waiting in line at a returns desk, can they easily see the policy? On your website, is the policy easy to access? In the Collect+ survey, about 50% of respondents said they always check the return policy before making an ecommerce purchase.
• Ask the reason for the return and use an analysis of the reasons to improve your merchandising. When someone comes to the returns counter in-store or is completing the form for a return to be shipped, ask them to tell you the reasons for the return, and then record those reasons along with the person’s identification information. Never make this procedure a prolonged inquisition, and always have in mind that it is more important to keep a customer than to keep to a policy. And tell your customers the advantages to them of sharing those reasons. Your staff and the screen message might say something like, “I know it’s a bother to you to have to return merchandise you’ve bought from us. I want to be sure we deal with suppliers who will provide you, your family, and your friends with reliable products the first time, every time.”
• Encourage ecommerce customers to make returns at your store. Then once a dissatisfied consumer is in the store, transform them into a curious shopper. This is especially useful when the person making the return received the item as a gift. People returning a gift may not know your store. Here’s a wonderful opportunity to introduce to them all the products and services you offer.

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

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Simplify Item Returns for Customers
Ask for Specifics on Merchandise Returns

Reexamine Retail Redlining Temptations

“Retail redlining” occurs when disenfranchised groups of consumers systematically receive lower quality goods and/or are charged higher prices for equivalent merchandise than is true for other groups. Researchers at Howard University and University of Texas-Austin give examples like these:

• Refusing to set up stores in poor neighborhoods whose residents would buy what the store offered
• Maintaining different pricing structures for outlets in areas having certain ethnicities
• Habitually showing African American customers merchandise inferior to what is shown to white customers

     It’s not that these businesses are saying, “You, black people, get out of my establishment.” They’re saying, “Come on in so we can rip you off.”
     As a retailer, you might possess justified business reasons for practices that some would call retail redlining: Doing business in certain areas costs more because of high shoplifting rates. Business insurance is harder to get because no fire stations are nearby. Certain groups of customers habitually ask to see the good merchandise because they can’t afford the excellent merchandise.
     But regularly reexamine any such assumptions to be sure it isn’t subconscious prejudice. Being a retailer, you’re continually bombarded with information, much of it carrying conflicting implications. As abundant amounts of information cascade toward you, you probably could find support for almost any opinion you choose to have. If we want to see reasons for retail redlining, we’ll be able to pick out the data to build our case to ourselves.
     In addition, once we consciously or subconsciously retail redline, our brains start working to selectively interpret new information we receive. The more aware we become of engaging in this controversial practice, the greater our drive to pull out data we can twist around to prove to ourselves we’re making the right decisions.
     So straighten out what’s twisted. In his book The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, C.K. Prahalad of the University of Michigan pointed out how serving the socioeconomically disadvantaged could build profitability.

• Smaller package sizes can make quality products accessible.
• Delivery services can build sales among those without private transportation.
• Talking signage and gracious sales staff can influence shoppers who have limited literacy.

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Give Low-Income Customers Dignity

Attend to Face-to-Face Word-of-Mouth

Even in these days of raging social networking, word-of-mouth (WOM) about your store is most likely to be passed on via face-to-face conversations. That finding was described in an Online Media Daily article and comes from a study carried out by New Jersey-based WOM consultants Keller Fay in partnership with Yahoo.
     So here are two tactics for improving retailer profitability:

• Encourage customers to shop with you in groups so you can benefit from what you hear them talking about. Hold special events. Carry enough of a range of items to appeal to different family members. Then while they’re shopping, listen to the group members’ chatter. Have sales staff ask customers for specifics about what they like and areas for improvement. Listening in to group shopping can work for the ecommerce retailer by using tools like ShopTogether Crowd.
• Give shoppers materials they can take away with them as conversation starters to share with family and friends. This is especially useful for newly introduced products and items for which the purchaser incurs monetary and/or self-concept risk. With ecommerce customers, make it easy for the purchaser to send on a URL to others to show off what they’ve bought.

     The Keller Fay/Yahoo study concluded that about 76% of WOM conversations occur face-to-face. The Internet does play a role in these conversations, to be sure, and that role is expected to increase as more members of the millennial generation—the first cohort to have grown up with the Internet—become adult consumers. But for now, the role of the Internet is somewhat limited, with only 15% of the analyzed WOM conversations from 18,500 consumers including information the consumer got online.
     The study findings do reinforce the importance to you of cultivating the influence of market mavens. According to consumer researchers at University of Mannheim and University of Texas-Austin, market mavens are a special type of opinion leader. Rather than considering themselves expert advisors on only certain retail products and services, market mavens counsel others about the whole shopping experience and recommend specific stores. Because market mavens generally belong to many social groups, they could be called “Conversation Catalysts.” That’s the name the Keller Fay/Yahoo people coined.

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Encourage Group Shopping
Gather Comments from Your Customers
Encourage Specifics & Criticism in Word-of-Mouth
Satisfy Each Customer’s Self-Concept
Have Post-Sale Product Literature
Build Buzz with Market Mavens

Appeal to Pride of Distinctive Consumers

In advertising products and services intended for plus-size women, should you show images of plus-size women?

      Some retailing consultants say no, you should not. Their argument goes like this: People buy things to help them become what they aspire to be. Most plus-size women aspire to be thinner, so when your target market is plus-size women, show models that are thinner than the members of your target market.

      There are consumer psychology findings supporting the “No, you should not.” Researchers at Tilburg University and Arizona State University found that when female study participants looked at moderately heavy models, the study participants began having unpleasant thoughts about their own weight. On the other hand, when the researchers showed images of moderately thin women, the viewers’ self-esteem improved. Better self-esteem generated by an ad makes people more likely to absorb and act on the advertising message.

      But maybe that conclusion is misguided. Consider that the study participants represented a cross-section of body builds. The conclusions might be different if we included just plus-size women. The argument here is that plus-size women are a distinctive underserved market. According to a New York Times article, about 65% of American women would be classified as overweight by U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention standards, yet women’s plus-size clothing makes up less than 20% of the women’s apparel market.

      Also consider that the Tilburg/Arizona State data were gathered prior to major initiatives to have women accept their less-than-ideal bodies as beautiful. Perhaps the best known of these initiatives is the Dove soap Campaign for Real Beauty. Perhaps the most recent is in last week’s announcement that Debenhams—the UK department store chain—won’t be using software to improve the “natural beauty” of images of models in Debenhams swim suit ads.

      Showing images of well-groomed plus-size women in advertising targeted to plus-size women is analogous to including Spanish text in advertising, store signage, and ecommerce screens targeted to Hispanic populations. It’s like having special sales days for senior citizens. The recipient of your message thinks, “This retailer recognizes my distinctive characteristics. I like the pride in myself this gives me, so I’ll want to give them my business.”

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Have Bilingual Staff for Bilingual Shoppers 

Target Customer Segments with Cultural Events 

Market to Seniors, not to Elderly

Overcome Weaknesses in Business Name

If you treasure alpine hiking, are you more likely to stay at the Grand Pines Lodge or at the Soft Soap Spa? Probably, you’d opt for the Grand Pines Lodge. It’s because a business is rated more highly when its name is descriptive of the characteristics sought by customers.
     That finding could be useful if you’re starting up your business or if you’re ready to go through a name change. But how do you overcome a weak association in a business name you want to keep? Here are some tactics based on what research finds to be helpful:

• Repeatedly advertise and publicize the characteristics you want people to associate with your operations.
• Point out the similarities of your business to a business that has the features shoppers are looking for.
• Use customer testimonials to document your benefits that match shopper preferences.

     If your business is a local institution, you might not realize there’s some misleading image being portrayed to out-of-towners. Here’s another hotel example: A number of years ago, I was invited to be a guest on Cleveland, Ohio’s WEWS, Channel 5. A producer there wanted me to talk about my work as a consulting psychologist. After I accepted the invitation, I was told reservations had been made for me to stay the night before at a hotel called Swingos. Having never heard of Swingos, my first reaction was negative. I wasn’t sure whether to pack the ear plugs so I’d get a good night’s sleep, practice my dance steps, or be sure to bring the wife along with me on the trip.
     As it turned out, there was no need for me to do any swinging at Swingos. I learned that Swingos Celebrity Inn was begun in the 1960s by Nick Swingos and his son Jim. After my stay, my mental associations with Swingos became positive ones.
     Actually, there was more about names during my visit: When I arrived at the studio the next day, the producer brought me to the set to meet my interviewers for the program segment. She introduced me to Fred Griffith. He introduced me to his co-host, Wilma Smith.
     “Fred and Wilma,” I rehearsed to myself. No negatives or weaknesses in those names. I’d always liked “The Flintstones.”

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

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Make Your Business Name Easy to Say
Project Your Brand Positively
Compare Unknown Brands to Best-Known Brands

Tiptoe to International Markets via Ecommerce

Store-based retailers can use ecommerce to introduce themselves into markets beyond their national borders and to gather market research information to shape their next moves. Nordstrom is one among many retailers choosing to do this. Urban Outfitters unveiled anthropologie.eu in order to assess the European interest in that upscale, teen-focused brand.

      Here are some tips from the perspective of business and shopper psychology:

• Prepare yourself and your business colleagues to handle the psychological stress of high uncertainty. Global retailing has been reeling the past few years from the economic freefall, and things seem to have turned even uglier in recent weeks with the debt crises in Greece and then in Hungary. Research findings from University of Pennsylvania indicate that your best approach for tiptoeing into international markets via ecommerce is to focus on the long-term: Enter with an optimistic approach. Gather data objectively. Analyze the results with a critical eye.
• Keep up with developments in ecommerce channels. The devices available for ecommerce are expanding in form and capabilities. Mobile phones have become smart phones. Amazon’s Kindle appears destined to take grocery orders as well as sell book contents. For some time now, Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs has been predicting that the personal computer—and even the notebook computer—will fade away as viable ecommerce platforms. At The Wall Street Journal’s “D: All Things Digital” conference last week, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer responded by saying the new devices will augment, not replace, the personal computer and notebook computer.
• When marketing internationally, use translations strategically. Researchers at University of Michigan and University of Minnesota explored the choice of language in advertising to consumers in India. The researchers found that the home language—Hindi, in this case—worked best when selling necessities, such as detergent. English worked best when selling luxury items, such as gourmet chocolates. Evidence is also accumulating that consumers prefer to have prices set in the local currency which stays stable even in the face of fluctuating exchange rates. This makes pricing more challenging for you—the retailer. But if it leads to increased profitability, isn’t it worth the bother?

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Have Bilingual Staff for Bilingual Shoppers

Customize Your Discount Coupons

Sam’s Club is rolling out a program in which a shopper is issued discount coupons customized to that shopper’s likely purchasing interests. The program, called eValues, requires data collection and analysis that might be beyond the scope of what your store is able or willing to do. Still, there’s a trend here to learn from.
     Actually, it's a confluence of two trends: A recent Harris Interactive survey found that coupon use is spreading to the point where many shoppers hesitate going to a store unless they have coupons to apply to at least part of their planned purchases. And a great deal of research indicates shoppers are increasingly expecting retailers to customize. The combination of these two means you can benefit from customizing your discount coupons.

• You’ll increase effectiveness when you get customized coupons into the hands of the customer before they start their product selection. For instance, researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that coupons presented at the store entrance drive up sales much more than do coupons available in the aisles of stores. The Sam’s Club eValues coupons are provided by a machine at the store entrance. The shopper inserts an identification card, which allows the customizing. Many grocery store chains issue discount coupons, good for future purchases, on the back of the customer’s receipt, again allowing for offering the discount before the shopping starts and for customizing, in this case based on the nature of the customer’s prior purchases. What would work for you to make each customer feel special by getting the right coupons before they start their shopping?
• With customized coupons, it does become especially important to protect your business against coupon fraud. Develop a coding mark or system to allow staff and/or cash registers to distinguish genuine from counterfeit. Train sales and cash/wrap staff to screen for evidence of fraud. Also train staff to treat customers with the utmost courtesy if fraud is suspected. The customer might believe they are using a valid coupon. If they learn they are not, they’ll be upset enough at not getting money off. Don’t add to the upset by accusing them of dishonesty.

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Give Coupons Early and Proudly
Have Staff Carry Copies of Store Ads

Be Provocative, But Don’t Offend

Hey, how about posting photos of naked women? Maybe that’ll draw shoppers’ attention.
     Would your decision about putting up the photos in your store be different if I told you I’d like them to be in the baby department? That’s because the photos are intended to help you sell Britax baby strollers and bassinets.
     What if you saw that the photos featured a naked woman holding one or two naked babies, and that the objective announced by Britax was to show how their baby holders are designed to duplicate the loving hugs by a mother of her child. Click here to see for yourself. Click here for a video.
     Does nudity that provokes useful attention on TV or YouTube cross over the line to blatant offensiveness when those images are shown in a store? The erotic images in Calvin Klein media advertising shocked lots of people. Retailers might decide that such ads are fine in magazines—shocking lots of people means consumers are noticing the brand—but those retailers might decide not to have the images on their walls.
     What if your store is in Saudi Arabia, where female mannequins must never show the heads, arms, or bodily curves? Does it seem clear that posters showing naked women would be highly offensive? What if your store is in Australia? Research from Griffith University, University of Canterbury (New Zealand), and University of Queensland indicates that Australian women are more likely to take socially responsible actions—such as ensuring that their infant is in a proper stroller—when ads and signage feature mildly erotic imagery? But would your shoppers consider the Britax ads to be even mildly erotic?
     Think now about how to use your advertising and merchandising to provoke attention while never offending too many of your customers and potential customers.

Integrate Multiple Shopping Channels

Give your customers multiple channels to use to buy your product and service offerings: Brochures with order forms. Catalogs. Telephone orders. A booth at community events. All those might work for you. One key to successful use of multiple channels, though, is that they are integrated. For example, information about pending orders is available via all the channels.
     The most popular channel to augment store-based retailing is a website. A well-integrated website makes money for you. Retailing consultants report that Saks Fifth Avenue customers who shopped at both Saks.com and at a Saks store spent five times as much as did customers who used just one or the other.
     Retailers who maintain the online channel do worry about what they call “shopping cart abandoners.” These are people who put items into the online shopping cart and then leave the website before completing the purchase. But for the multichannel retailer, shopping cart abandonment can sometimes be great news: Studies have found that about one-fourth of the customers of hybrid store/website retailers like to do their browsing online, but prefer to make their purchases in the store.
     So it is not online shopping cart abandonment as much as it is having purchase-ready customers arriving at your store where you can show them other items they can use. When an REI.com customer comes into the REI store to pick up the items they ordered online, as more than one-third of them choose to do, those customers, on average, buy an additional $75 in merchandise.
     Do you encourage your online shoppers to surf on into your store? Are there easy-to-follow driving directions on the website along with store hours and phone numbers? When I go to your website, will I see photos of your friendly salespeople just waiting to enthusiastically welcome the arriving me?

Sell to Fit Story Product Placement

Have Dr Pepper soda on your store shelves? Then you might be noticing an uptick in sales lately. Preparing to stock the LC Ally smartphone? Then get ready for a big sales kickoff. The reason is that Dr Pepper and the LC Ally are two products seen in the current hit movie “Iron Man 2.” When consumers encounter a product in an entertaining story, their usual defenses against advertising are relaxed. The result is that they become more likely to seek out and buy the product.

      Researchers at Griffith University in Australia analyzed product placements in James Bond movies. They concluded that there were major image types, depending on what character in the story used the product and how the character used it. These researchers along with others at Coastal Carolina University and Boston College fit the image types into a framework based on the work of psychoanalyst Carl Jung.

      Stay up-to-date on product placements for items your store carries. Notice not only what product is used, but also the personality of the character using the product and the nature of the use. Then in your advertising and personal selling, reinforce the image. That builds sales even further.

      Here are the five major image types, using my adaptation of the language of Jungian theory:

• Superheroes take responsibility for rescuing us. Ads and personal selling should promise to go above and beyond.
• Coaches reassure us. Shoppers want to be encouraged to buy the product.
• Gurus bring experience and a sharp mind. The customer expects the ads and salespersons to magically identify the customer’s needs.
• Playmates love fun. Place more emphasis on how the shopping experience feels than in how the product or service works.
• Rascals help the customer take advantage of the good will of others.