A marketer's worst mistake?... "To know".

When I was in High School, I hated philosophy classes. I hated it so much that at the French baccalaureate Philosophy exam, I aimed to have one of the worst grades in the nation to make my point (to be fair, I only made a point to myself, my parents and teacher did not agree with me at all - lesson learned). I thought philosophy was a lot of BS and rhetorical non-sense. Only in college did I start to appreciate the reasoning behind some of the philosophical principles. 

One principle stuck to my mind and has become my mantra ever since: "I know that I know nothing" (Socrates). If you still think philosophy in non-sense, feel free translate this principle into the Game of Thrones language: "You know nothing Jon Snow" (Ygritte).

Many people think they know a lot, they know everything. Maybe they do. But in marketing, my experiences and lessons learned from other marketers' mistakes have taught me that if you start thinking that "you know", you get on the path of "alternative facts", of biased thinking.

I'm a huge believer in Design Thinking, the process where you are presented with a problem to solve, where you put aside your own assumptions, beliefs and "lenses",  you empathize with the targeted audience, and put yourself in their shoes, to understand what their perspective is. There is a whole lot more behind Design Thinking, but my point here is the necessity to emphasize, observe, and learn. It's not about what you know (or you think you know), it's about discovering.

When it comes to execution, there is no miracle recipe. I love the agile marketing approach, simply because it applies the same principle: you don't know if/how your targeted audience is going to react to, engage with your product or messaging. You prototype it, test it, fail it, measure it, iterate it, try it again, etc. 

When it comes to product marketing, I witnessed first hand how building a product (for that matter, a PaaS - platform as a service) based on your own assumptions of what the market wants (because you "know what they want", without any research to back it up), ends up in a complete disaster. Even if your product launches successfully (and meets market needs), at some point down the road you will still have to learn from your market in order to make improvements to say relevant, especially in the SaaS/PaaS world.

The same applies to marketing campaigns. It's all about testing your messaging, tracking how your targeted audience responds to your message, measuring the campaign's success or failure, gaining insights, iterating, testing it again. Even if you run a successful campaign, your message will have to evolve at some point: whether a new competitor comes in with a more compelling message, or your audience simply gets tired of your message, you will have to be agile and make the necessary adjustments.

What are your thoughts? What do you know?

Disclaimer: I don't pretend to say what I'm writing is right, simply because I know one thing, it's that I know nothing.

It’s time we seriously talk about employee experience

There’s been a lot of focus over the past few years on the user experience (UX) and customer experience (CX), for good reasons.

According a recent North Highland whitepaper, a Gartner research shows that in 2016, , nine out of 10 companies planned to compete primarily on the basis of customer experience. Nothing— not price, not product—is more important than the experience you provide. Organizations that deliver compelling customer experiences have a competitive edge.

However, in doing so, many organizations have failed to focus on the experiences of their most important competitive advantage: employees. It’s now time to talk about the employee experience (EX).

“Your employees are your company’s real competitive advantage. They’re the ones making the magic happen— so long as their needs are being met.”

- RICHARD BRANSON

Companies focus on reaching out to their customers wherever they are across multiple channels, but yet fail to reach out to their employees/talents wherever they are.

Companies focus on their customer journey, drawing roadmaps to better identify how their customers interact with their brands (touch points), but yet fail to understand their employee journey.

Companies design spaces to deliver unparalleled brand experiences to their customers, but yet fail to design spaces to deliver positive employee experiences.

Companies focus on customer retention but yet fail to focus on employee retention.

Companies invest time and resources in customer research/segmentation but yet fail to spend time on employee research/segmentation.

Companies offer different services/products to address the needs of different market segments, but yet fail to address the diversity of their employee groups/segments.

Companies have tools to track, monitor and analyze customer behaviors, satisfaction and engagement, but yet fail to adopt tools to measure employee behaviors, satisfaction and engagement.

 In 2015, only 21 percent of employees globally were highly engaged. In the U.S., the majority of employees—51 percent—were not engaged. And perhaps most critically, another 17 percent were actively disengaged. (Gartner)

North Highland notices that the opportunity is there. Your organization is already offering some sort of an EX, and every employee is already experiencing your brand, but how good it that experience?

That’s why I’ve founded eX Summit, a space to debate the importance and impact of the employee experience. Our first event eX Indy will take place on September 22. Many of the above topics will be discussed. Check out our event page to see which topics our thought leaders will speak about. We hope to see you there and let’s start a true discussion on EX!

WHITE PAPER: New guest experience is within proximity - the next frontier in marketing & guest engagement

INTRODUCTION
Mobile phones and tablets have become the average traveler’s essential companions, whether it is to get driving directions, flash a boarding pass, find the best places to eat nearby, make hotel/restaurant reservations, shop online, or watch movies... Mobile technology is ubiquitous; it has changed the way we live and conduct our day-to-day personal business.

By embracing this shift to mobile technology, hoteliers can better understand and address the needs of their guests and engage them in more personalized, relevant and contextual ways.

With this whitepaper, our intent is to explore new solutions for proximity-driven mobile engagement, and educate hoteliers on how these solutions can be adopted to drive direct value (engaged guests tend to spend more) as well as indirect value (through increased customer loyalty).

PICTURE THE SCENE
Melanie, a 35 year-old mother-of-two and marketing executive in a large Midwest appliance company is flying to Seattle for an industry trade show to meet with customers. She has decided for once to arrive a day early and take a “day off” to unwind before this big conference.

She is glad she was able to confirm her arrival time 24-hours ahead in the hopes that her room would be ready as she gets in. When her plane lands mid-morning in Seattle, she wonders if she will be able to get into her room that early. As she hails a taxi, she gets a text message advising her that her room is ready.

She enters the hotel lobby and notices the long check-in line at the front desk. She smiles as her hotel app automatically detects her presence and checks her in right away, allowing her to skip the front desk and go straight to her room – only using her mobile phone as a key. As she opens her room door, she feels almost at home as the lighting and temperature are set to her likings, based on her preferences she set in her app profile. Even a bottle of Perrier is waiting for her in an ice bucket, as she had requested via the app the day before. Away from home and the family, but still in a personalized setting...

After a few hours of work to prepare for the conference starting in two days, she decides to go out for dinner, starving for local seafood. Having never been to Seattle before, she checks online quickly and finds a nearby seafood chain restaurant, unaware that at the back of the hotel is a hotel-run seafood restaurant with much better food and similar prices. As she is walking through the lobby, she receives a text message from the hotel about a special offer at the in-house restaurant. She decides to give it a try. She could have missed out an experience unique to the property.

The following morning, she decides to do some shopping and heads to the nearby mall. As she browses through stores, she notices a small pop-up massage store offering a 15-minute neck massage for a good price, which reminds her of the discount the hotel’s spa extended to her earlier through the app. As she heads back to the hotel, she makes an appointment at the spa for the afternoon from her phone app.

The hospitality industry is missing out on many opportunities to better engage their guests on property through direct, simple marketing and communication channels...

To read the full white paper, click here.

The future of retail is about experiential and contextual marketing

14 years ago almost to this date, Apple changed the way retailers engage with their customers when the iconic brand opened its first two stores. Since then, successful retail brands have moved away from merely displaying lines of products on their stores’ shelves to creating show-room type experiential spaces.

The future of retail is all about the consumer. Consumers make the rules and now have total access to whatever they want, wherever and whenever they want it. The power has shifted away from retailers who long held it—and now the ball is in the consumer’s court. Brands and retailers are forced to play on the consumer’s terms to be successful. And the more brands can understand, connect and delight consumers instead of sell to them, the more long-term success and sustainability they will enjoy.

In that regards, retailers such as PIRCH have partnered with experiential design agencies like Fitch to transform the shopping experiences. PIRCH stores offer customers the opportunity to test products and enjoy using them before purchasing - 'try before you buy’ becomes something new and powerfully branded. Shoppers enjoy the opportunity to cook with a real Chef while testing the kitchen’s appliances. For other, they can reserve a time at the “store’s spa” to test showers and bathtubs. After testing products, shoppers “can enter a 'dream room' to meet with a designer and plan their homes”.

The Robin Report delicately describes what the Apple or PIRCH experience is about. “These brands are not retailers. They are neurologically addictive experiences, co-created by the brand and their dopamine-addicted consumers”. The brick-and-mortar retail business has a bright future provided that it transforms its physical space into an experiential space. The Robin Report suggests that such retail brands stimulate their visitors’ dopamine. It is almost like a sport performance-enhancing drug, except in that case dopamine is “a chemical in the brain that gets released every time we have an elevated experience. It provides feelings of euphoria, self-satisfaction, wellbeing, and can lead to addiction. The dopamine-releasing brands headlining this report (and there are others) are such because the experience they have developed requires that the customer participate in creating or shaping that experience to satisfy their own personal desire at the moment they engage with the brand”.

No matter what happens in the physical or digital shopping experience, successful brands know that the key is to build brand loyalty. The store experience is an important component, among others. But the way brands communicate across various channels with their customers is critical. Loyalty requires communicating brand values that people want to be affiliated with. Consumers today have many options, and more than ever they choose particular brands to communicate something personal about their own beliefs and priorities. The best way to establish and reinforce common values is to create content so highly specific that it defines not only the brand, but the customer.

To do so, many brands invest in original content to communicate with their customers on a more personal and emotional level... to build brand loyalty. Now that the vast majority of the population is connected 24/7/365 through their mobile devices, the solution to creating a branded content experience that delivers results lies in a centralized mobile content marketing strategy. By integrating content channels and reaching all consumer touch points, brands can maintain open access to content assets, encourage ongoing engagement, and build affinity.

“Location-based marketing is an effective new way to deliver timely and relevant messages to consumers”, states Alliance Data Retail in their report on Geofencing technology. The key is context: reaching them precisely where and when they’re most likely to engage with a brand. Content is important for brands to engage with their customers at a personal level, but content mostly remains generic of time and location. “With the mobile economy here to stay – and the cost of ignoring it unrecoverable – location-based communications are a very attractive next step in marketing. Geofencing technology enables timely, relevant and powerful messages to modern consumers at the right place, at the right time, and in the right way”, according to the report.

Apple is very well known for transforming the way we live. After all, this is Apple’s brand promise. Their latest initiative, “Proactive” is going to redefine the brand experience. This is taking location-based marketing to the next level. The augmented reality feature will allow a user to hold up her iPhone in the Maps application, and point her camera toward a particular business or an area. Pointed towards a cafe, for example, the screen could show a virtual view of menu items or daily specials. If the user points her phone toward a street, a virtual outline of local businesses, restaurants, shopping stores, or coffee shops could appear. In return, businesses will be able to communicate back to the user with a personalized offer.

Today’s technology has redefined the way brands can interact with their consumers. Content and context are intertwined, and brands’ mobility and agility are key to provide a unique and ongoing experience.

Close proximity technology redefines relationships between businesses and consumers.

This article is part of a series of posts covering innovation in Indiana.

In the recent months there’s been a lot of buzz around hotel chains adopting proximity technology to enhance their guest experience, whether the technology uses NCF, RFID or BLE.

If, like me, you’ve had your fair share of business travel, you often experience problems. Airline delays. Congested traffic. Key doesn’t work. Room not ready. Long lines. The list goes on. It can be really inconvenient to travel, and the industry is constantly searching for new ways to develop brand loyalty among consumers.

Travel brands are looking to offer their guests something new and compelling. Indiana-based y!kes delivers a differentiated way to travel.

As the creator of the first of its kind, proximity-aware technology, y!kes provides an advanced solution to ensure traveling is hassle free.

The company’s technology equips business and leisure travelers with the ability to use their smartphones to bypass the cumbersome hotel check-in process and access their room all while their phone sits in their pocket. By harnessing the power of Bluetooth, y!kes opens the doors to unlimited interactions between businesses and consumers and redefines their relationships.
The hotel guests’ process has remained unchanged and cumbersome for years. Now that the majority of visitors come equipped with a smartphone housing Bluetooth capabilities, there is room for improvement. While regular guests wait in line, friends walk in thanks to y!kes. 

According to Alan Philips, Chief Marketing Office at Morgans Hotel Group, “putting location & service aside, gone are the days when you can differentiate your hotel by spending lavishly on the buildings design & fixtures. The future customers of hotels will be less concerned with the luxury appointments of their rooms, and more concerned with the experiences you provide and how your brand services their personal needs & image”.

y!kes’ h(app)y technology, also known as its hyper app, actually attracts, retains and grows lifelong guests by offering an experience that feels unique and upgraded. With the ability to avoid the front desk and customize rooms to individual preferences, hotels are able to build long-term loyalty and leave users feeling happily surprised.

While industry adversaries attempt to mimic its sophistication with other versions of keyless entry technology, none matches the unprecedented hotel experience y!kes unleashes. Competitors’ front-desk bypass applications require guests to physically utilize their mobile device to unlock a hotel room by holding their phone up to the door handle (not much different from using a keycard). With y!kes, users can keep their phone tucked away and need only the app running in the background to unlock the door. As a result, competitors inflict a more invasive and time-consuming solution when compared to y!kes.

The company’s initial public debut was in 2012 at HITECH, the world’s largest hospitality technology tradeshow, and was recognized for its groundbreaking system when it was awarded a 2012 Indiana Innovation award. Its industry-first system unlocked a new era of proximity-aware technology, and the team has spent the last two years refining its proprietary system even further.

The Indianapolis-based company continued to innovate and grow throughout 2014, bringing in new employees and creating promising relationships with some of the world’s leading hotel brands. With keyless entry gaining momentum in the market, international brands have expressed unprecedented interest in integrating y!kes-enabled systems into their properties.

y!kes focuses on maximizing the hotel infrastructure to perfect, streamline and simplify the guest experience. By eliminating the multi-step process, the company intends to deliver the hotel stay of the future, and expand it to other markets.

y!kes serves as both a software and hardware solution, presenting the next generation of proximity-aware technology through the advancement of Bluetooth capabilities. Offering hotel properties specifically engineered y!kes devices for install in the lobby, room floors and doors, and offering consumers a customizable mobile app available for download on smartphones, these patented technologies work together to alter consumers’ experiences as soon as they step foot on the property.

y!kes’ h(app)y technology retrieves data from onsite Property Management Systems (PMS) and provides guests with room number confirmations via the app on check-in day. The company is revolutionizing the hotel industry and redefining proximity technology. It is the only company to develop the hardware and software needed for secure, seamless hotel navigation through keyless access requiring only a touch of a door handle and a tucked away smartphone.

With the hotel industry already jumping on board, there are many other vertical markets where y!kes is hoping to provide significant impact, including retail, multi-unit housing and more… Looking towards the future, y!kes will continue to utilize proximity technology to better the overall customer experience.