The future of multichannel retail in Europe in 2020

The future of multichannel retail in Europe in 2020





The future of multichannel retail in Europe in 2020



By Robert Allen



New research shows retail predictions for the importance of different channels.



A new research report from PAC reveals what major European retailers think will be the key trends in digital and physical channels in the next 3-5 years. They asked 200 CxOs working in European retail businesses with over 500 employees to give their view on the future of omnichannel retail. The survey was conducted in May 2015, and the findings make for interesting reading since they reveal significant differences between European countries.





Diversity across Europe



Trends vary significantly between countries, so marketers should not mistakenly treat Europe as a homogenous market. Embracing digital technologies varies significantly by region. In the Nordic countries two-thirds already are selling through mobile channels, whilst in Italy less than a quarter of major retailers think mobile is important. Similarly in Germany 85% of retailers thought the physical branch will become more important, where as in Britain only 23% believed it would retain its position as number one channel.



Online and physical more important





A considerable majority thought that online shopping would become increasingly important as a channel for their retail business in the next 5 years, whilst only a tiny 4% thought it would be less important. An obvious trend perhaps. But interestingly a whopping 73% also thought that the physical branch would become more important- It can be easy to forget as digital marketers that the bricks and mortar store remains extremely important for most retailers, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. New tech trends such as beacons may serve to increase the importance of the physical store as they can improve the shopping experience and give personalised offers that could be extremely effective at encouraging purchases.



Half thought mobile will become more important, which is highly likely given over half of web traffic now comes from mobile.





Obstacles to creating an ominchannel strategy



When asked about the biggest challenge to the development of their omnichannel strategy, European retailers gave an interesting mix of answers. Developing a long-term channel integration strategy came top of the list, which reflects the difficulty of developing such a strategy, especially when the rapid pace of change in digital may mean that the skills of the department are behind where the market is already at.



Making changes to the organisations structure was also rated as a major challenge. Again this is a tricky area, and our recent research into digital skills discovered that many marketing departments are weak in some areas of digital marketing, and recruiting for the right digital skills is frequently a challenge for managers. Our managing digital transformation guide can help by offering useful advice on how to increase the impact of digital marketing with your organisation.





Key trends in the next 5 years



When asked about their plans for omnichannel investments in the next five years, European retailers revealed an interesting set of priorities. When it came to investments they were planning for this year, webshop solutions and online payment solutions came top, highlighting the growing importance of ecommerce for retailers. A big trend for 2020 is the increasing importance of big data in the long term. Although only 7% had already invested in dig data analytics, over half (55%) planned to invest in big data in either the next 2 years or the next 2-5 years. So expect to big data to be a big trend in the next 5 years, with increasing investment and retailers using their data ever more effectively.





If you are a retailer looking to assess your omnichannel strategy see our Multichannel retail proposition audit and competitor-benchmarking template from multichannel retail strategy specialist Chris Jones.



http://www.smartinsights.com/online-brand-strategy/multichannel-strategies/the-future-of-multichannel-retail-in-europe-in-2020/

The Future of Retail is the End of Wholesale | Opinion, Op Ed | BoF

The Future of Retail is the End of Wholesale | Opinion, Op Ed | BoF

TORONTO, Canada — Retail is facing a monumental problem that no one seems to want to talk about. It’s that the entire economic model of revenue and profitability for retailers and the suppliers they do business with is collapsing under its own weight and soon will no longer function.

Part of the problem stems from the continued pervasiveness of online retail. Global e-commerce increased by 19 percent in 2013 alone, a figure that was likely equaled or bettered in 2014. With those sorts of multiples, it’s entirely likely that upwards of 30 percent or more of the total retail economy will be transacted online by 2025.

Our dependence on stores to serve as distribution points for products is rapidly diminishing as digital media, in all forms, becomes remarkably effective at serving our basic shopping and distribution needs which, until recently, could only be fulfilled by physical stores. Now, just about anything we buy can be on our doorstep in a matter of days, if not hours, via a myriad of online shopping options.

The physical store has the potential to be the most powerful and effective form of media available to a brand.

The End of Wholesale

This historic transition raises a few critical questions: How can the financial models for retail revenue and profit, which haven’t changed significantly since the industrial revolution, sustain if the core purpose and definition of a “retail store” itself is being completely reinvented? How can retailers continue to buy products in mass quantity at wholesale, ship them, inventory them, merchandise them, train their staff on them, manage them and attempt to sell them, when the consumer has a growing myriad of options, channels and brands through which to buy those very same products? How many of today’s retailers will simply stand by and watch an ever-increasing percentage of their sales cleave off to an expanding mosaic of online competitors — which, by the way, may include many of their own suppliers who are now selling direct to consumers?

It seems inevitable that retailers will have to define a new model; one better suited to the fragmented market they find themselves in.

The Store As Media

This does not, however, mean an end to physical retail stores but rather a re-purposing. Given their innately live, sensorial and experiential quality, physical stores have the potential to become powerful media points from which retailers can articulate their brand story, excite consumers about products and then funnel their purchase to any number of channels, devices and distributors. In fact, as I’ve often argued, the physical store has the potential to be the most powerful and effective form of media available to a brand because it offers an experience, which if crafted properly, cannot be replicated online.

The Experience Is The Product

With all this in mind, I foresee a not-so-distant future where the retailer/vendor relationship will begin to look a lot more like a media buy than the wholesale product purchase agreement of today.

Part media outlet, part sales agent — a new breed of experiential retailers will use their physical stores to perfect the consumer experience across categories of products. They will define the ideal experiential journey, employ expert “product ambassadors” and technology to deliver something truly unique, remarkable and memorable. So memorable in fact, that it leaves a lasting experiential imprint on the shopper. The solitary aim of these new-era retailers will be to drive significant sales for their vendors’ products across multiple channels including, at least to some extent, their own. But unlike stores of today that are single-mindedly focused on keeping sales in-house, stores of the future will position themselves as true omnichannel hubs, serving customers through multiple channels of fulfillment, which will ultimately include their vendors and competitors — yes, even their competitors. Attribution for these sales will matter less than delivering the powerful shopping experience responsible for generating them, regardless of how, when or through whom they occur.

Skids of products and rows of shelving will give way to more gallery-esque store designs and artful merchandising, allowing space for in-store media and interactivity with product. Social media will be infused into the experience offering at-the-shelf reviews, ratings and comparisons of products. The store in essence will become an immersive and experiential advertisement for the products it represents and a direct portal to the entire universe of distribution channels available.

A New Revenue Model

As for revenue; Retailers who can design and execute these sorts of outstanding customer experiences will likely charge an upfront fee or “card rate” to their product vendors based on the volume of positive exposure they bring to the products they represent in store.

If this seems implausible, consider that just as musicians now makes significantly less from record sales than they do from live performances, so too will great retailers build more of their economic model around delivering a live in-store experience around their products, than relying solely on the margin from individual product sales.

Metrics Beyond Sales

This new model will, however, require retailers to qualify and quantify the experience they deliver, the traffic they generate and the consequent downstream sales impact they influence. To that end, an array of new technologies will enable a 360-degree understanding of the experience in both stores and the centres in which they sit. Anonymous facial recognition, video analytics, mobile ID tracking, beacon technology, radio frequency identification and other systems will transform stores into living websites. Using these and other technologies, store chains will be able to understand the profile and behaviour of the customers in their spaces and gather new insight into the level of engagement being created and eventually, even its causal impact on downstream purchases. In other words, the ability to understand what kind of customers came into the store, how many were repeat versus unique visitors, where they went within the store, what and with whom they engaged and ultimately what they bought while in the store and even after leaving the store.

New Era. No Rules.

My hope is that retailers accept this historic shift as a call to action – a heads-up that, to invoke Sam Walton, the days of stacking it high and watching it fly, are gone forever. Retailers that succeed in the digital age, will be those that begin now to redefine the value they bring to the equation and dare to defy what is fast becoming old industry math.

Doug Stephens is a retail industry futurist and the founder of Retail Prophet.

The views expressed in Op-Ed pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Business of Fashion.

How to submit an Op-Ed: The Business of Fashion accepts opinion articles on a wide range of topics. Submissions must be exclusive to The Business of Fashion and suggested length is 700-800 words, though submissions of any length will be considered. Please send submissions to contributors@businessoffashion.com and include ‘Op-Ed’ in the subject line. Given the volume of submissions we receive, we regret that we are unable to respond in the event that an article is not selected for publication.

Post-Launch Advertising and Marketing

The Post-Launch Fail: Don't Stop Promoting Your Business After It Opens

Advertising and marketing your business before it launches is one of the most effective way to create an anticipatory buzz and build your customer base...

One UAE-based business that has managed to execute a great pre-launch campaign is No. FiftySeven Boutique Cafe. For over a year or so before the café’s launch in Abu Dhabi, the founders threw by-invitation-only lavish dinners at interesting locales known as “The Dinner Club 57.” The staging was interesting and different every single time, and the events were held in collaboration with several luxury brands, including Louis Vuitton and Ralph Lauren. Soon enough, people hoped to be added to the invitation list, and waited eagerly for the café’s opening.

When it did open at the end of 2014, it had a packed house; everyone in town wanted to try it out! But did they stop organizing Dinner Club events after the opening of their café? Not at all.  There is always PR coverage about the different events organized either at the café or regarding the Dinner Clubs. Even when I’m not really paying attention, I somehow stumble upon news coverage about the latest café offering, or hear about an event that is being hosted there, or see them as part of a festival around town. This is a great textbook example of how businesses should operate pre and post launch.

As a branding and marketing consultant, I often meet clients who only want to develop a pre-launch and/or launch campaign. These types of one-off campaigns last for the first three months of the business launch, and then you cease to hear about the outlet. Initially, the business is introduced to media and social media influencers as part of their contract, but they do not think it is very important to continue this after the three-month period. When I advise that they should build on their PR coverage from time to time, they assume that they’ve done more than enough.

Some of my media acquaintances often ask me what happened to business X or Y, because they never got in touch with them about new products or services after the opening buzz. The sad thing about this is that some business owners expect that after the initial introduction with the media, they would continue to follow up with fresh product/services.

While this may be the case for some lucky few, if a business owner doesn’t build on PR efforts, soon enough, the media usually will quickly forget about them. The same thing can be said about advertising: many businesses invest a lot of effort and money on this initially, but not so much afterward. Here are my two cents about how this should be done:

Before you launch a product/service, create a buzz around it.

With social media, you do not need to invest so much money, just some time and effort. Start by following your target audience, and ask them to follow you back. Share some creative teaser videos/photos about your business through your social media accounts. I recommend investing in a good digital content creator who can work on highly effective content that would encourage sharing. You do not want just to post a photo- you want it to be shared.

You want your target audience to share your mediums and talk about it with their circles; never underestimate good word of mouth! The Mother of the Nation Festival that took place end of March in Abu Dhabi created a great teaser video. It included behind-the-scenes footage, a couple of words from the entertainers, and a list of participating businesses. Almost every one of my friends wanted to attend, and they did, as a result of the great content shared on their social media pages.  Another tip is to work with brand affiliates, or compensate social media influencers who your target market follows- both of these tactics help to advertise your upcoming business launch or product release.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/275858

Global Entrepreneurship Support Network 1776 Chooses Dubai For Its First International Campus

Global Entrepreneurship Support Network 1776 Chooses Dubai For Its First International


What follows from this article is that, in this digital age of Information Technology and the Internet, it turns out that the great region of the Middle East and North Africa, which is often referred to as MENA, has received a tremendous amount of attention lately from various economic development groups from around the globe. It resulted in the area’s phenomenal present-day economic momentum, especially in the digital space. One of the vehicles driving the profound change there is the modern-day information technology that presents unique opportunities for successful entrepreneurship. Despite the mess that the region in general currently is, modern technology-based entrepreneurship there is said to be expansive and compelling.

Modern technology is rightly regarded as a multi-leveled avenue for innovation all over the world these days. Serving both as a platform and a commodity, modern computer and Internet-based technology offers a wide range of options both in terms of consumer market and private corporate enterprise. Social media, mobile, cloud, and data analytics have created opportunities for small and medium business entrepreneurship all across the globe. Around 85% of the traffic on Facebook alone is said to come from users outside North America.

Thanks to technology, product innovation and development have become easier and more rapid and accessible to entrepreneurs in any region in the world. These days, if you decided to bring economic and entrepreneurial activity in any target area in the world to a certain level of maturity and infrastructural integrity, all you have to do is to introduce modern technology into that region to determine local economic drivers and then innovate around those.

Modern Internet-based technology in the business-to-business (B2B) realm, can help you develop more rapidly your customer relations to help you shape your product. Likewise, in the business-to-consumer (B2C) market, modern technology allows you to more closely follow and anticipate your consumer behavior patterns. Moreover, modern technology is evolving and new technology startups pop up every day. Regardless of their whereabouts, technology startups have an vantage over more tech-entrenched areas when it comes to launching a well researched, creatively imagined, intelligently funded company, in that such a company stands out all along.

That’s why developing local and regional economic and social infrastructure has become much easier. Targeting specific regions and even separate nations for innovative and technological development has become a matter of political decisions rather than organic grass root economic efforts alone. All it takes is introducing modern technology to local enthusiastic entrepreneurs and small businesses to have them start on the path of integrating their economic activities into a global economic infrastructure.

Such technology trends as cloud, social media, mobile, and the sharing economy are taking place globally. They are being driven both east-to-west and west-to-east. However, one of the regions that have been particularly targeted for such innovative technology-based economic revival and deeper integration into the economy of the developed nations is the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

The MENA region is apparently at the crossroads of the old and new economies. Its rapid integration into the economies of European Union and North America has become one of priorities of those global economic forces that have been driving the process of globalization for the last two decades. And the struggle for that region, which has been still ravished by wars and refugee crisis, has just started picking up pace.

From now on, the whole region is probably going to be viewed both as a geographic stepping stone of regional economic development located between European Union and Africa and as a single economic area that is targeted for integration and infrastructural realignment with major global economic communities in the European Union and the US. This process has been pushed using modern information technology to find local economic drives and to spur entrepreneurial activity across all its nations:

1. Algeria
2. Bahrain
3. Egypt
4. Iran
5. Iraq
6. Jordan
7. Kuwait
8. Lebanon
9. Yemen
10. United Arab Emirates
11. Libya
12. Morocco
13. Oman
14. Palestine
15. Israel
16. Qatar
17. Saudi Arabia
18. Syria
19. Tunisia

This technology-based economic activity is going to be centered around one geographic center of the MENA disruptive economic revolution. This center is apparently in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The geography alone of this MENA economic capital creates tremendous opportunities for development. Dubai International Airport is among the top three in the world in total passengers. Its proximity to developing economies in Africa and Southeast Asia gives it a significant strategic advantage over other countries.

The fact that the Washington DC-headquartered global entrepreneurship support network 1776 has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Dubai Foundation of the Future (DFF) to launch a MENA-focused campus in Dubai, its first international unit outside the United States, means that the MENA has been slated to be integrated into global digital infrastructure as fast as possible! And this feat can be accomplished pretty easily through technology-based disruptive economic and entrepreneurial activity. Especially if it is done under the direct guidance and supervision of the US-based support agencies.



It appears that the US is actively using modern technology to induce MENA entrepreneurial activity in order to hook the region up to the US-centered global economy. It also appears that the MENA region is being viewed as one entity by Washington. It remains to be seem how soon and if such efforts by the US will lead to a general consolidation of the regional infrastructure and its integration into the global digital economic community, though. The MENA region has yet to be freed from all the terrorist groups that have inundated the area.Campus

Why LinkedIn's Financials Worry Me -- The Motley Fool

Why LinkedIn's Financials Worry Me -- The Motley Fool





Why LinkedIn's Financials Worry Me



After dropping 50% in February, this social-media staple for business people is surely a bargain. Right?



After getting obliterated early in the year, shares of LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD) have only begun to recover from where they were at the end of 2015. Despite strong year-over-year revenue growth in the fourth quarter, investors were disappointed in the outlook company management gave for the coming year.



Shares have begun to rebound after upbeat first quarter results were reported on April 28. While LinkedIn still has a long way to go to get back to end of 2015 valuations, I believe there are fundamental financial problems with the company investors should be aware of.



Where is all the money going?

The first concern I have is the relationship between revenue and earnings. Revenue has been growing at an astounding pace. Five years ago, total annual revenue was about $500 million. For the 2015 fiscal year, that had ballooned to nearly $3 billion. Over the same time period, bottom-line earnings have gotten worse.



I understand that the company is investing to drive further growth. For example, last April LinkedIn announced it would be purchasing online learning business Lynda.com for $1.5 billion, which contributed over $100 million in new revenue during the year. My concern, however, is how these ongoing expenses are affecting the value of the business. Over the past five years, total assets of the company have grown by 725%, but liabilities have grown by 925%.  If company management were investing wisely, we should be seeing assets grow at a faster pace than liabilities in the long-term, not the other way around. While investing for future growth is great, the way LinkedIn has been doing it just isn't sustainable.



LinkedIn has been experiencing problems with operating income as well. Operating income is the profit after basic business expenses but before interest and tax expense. Basic operations of the business are barely profitable at best and have solidly dipped into negative territory in the past year. Taking a look at the statement of operations and income from the last quarter, the company has been spending about 35% of revenue on sales and marketing. The next biggest expense, coming in at over a quarter of all revenue, is product development. The remaining cash flow is getting eaten up by general admin and operational expenses.



As investors mull over the implications of slowing revenue generation but no sign of expenses falling from the professional networking site, seeing basic operations in the red is worrisome. I think it's time for LinkedIn to start looking for ways to turn an actual profit and start returning value to shareholders.



What is dragging on profitability?



LinkedIn's business is driven primarily by its hiring products within the "talent solutions" division. Making up nearly 60% of revenue, these solutions cater to recruiters and other businesses looking to attract talent to their organization. Year-over-year, the company saw hiring product income increase by 23%. Realizing this is the leader in growth, LinkedIn launched its new recruiter tool late in 2015 and has already seen increased use of the new product.



The company has seen robust growth in its other segments as well, including the new learning and development segment that came with the acquisition of Lynda.com mentioned earlier. Despite the rise in business activity, though, expenses keep mounting and dragging down margins.



A solution to the problem may be in sight. Noted in last month's earnings report was the nearing end of what management has called a period of increased spending and investment to support long-term growth. This spending includes global data center infrastructure construction, which has helped with site speed and reliability. Spending cutbacks are supposed to begin later this year with the completion of most of the data center infrastructure, and continue into 2017.



LinkedIn expects to see 40% savings in the "cost of revenue" line item on the statement of operations as these reductions start to kick in. However, that particular expense only represents just over 10% of total operational cost. And even before this current period of elevated spending that began in 2014, the professional social media site has a history of very thin or non-existent profit margins, as noted in the charts above. The company will need to find more ways to cut costs and drive earnings higher as revenue growth starts to slow down.



Is it possible for the business to turn around? Yes, but a long and difficult road lies ahead for shareholders fraught with great risk. LinkedIn's financial picture worries me and keeps me from adding the stock to my holdings.



Nicholas Rossolillo has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends LinkedIn. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.



http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/05/14/why-linkedins-financials-worry-me.aspx?source=iedfolrf0000001

On-Page SEO

https://moz.com/blog/on-page-seo-8-principles-whiteboard-friday

On-Page SEO in 2016: The 8 Principles for Success

By Rand Fishkin

On-page SEO is no longer a simple matter of checking things off a list. There's more complexity to this process in 2016 than ever before, and the idea of "optimization" both includes and builds upon traditional page elements. In this Whiteboard Friday, Rand explores the eight principles you'll need for on-page SEO success going forward.

Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week we're going to chat about on-page SEO, keyword targeting but beyond keyword targeting into all the realms of the things that we need to optimize on an individual URL in order to have the best chance of success in the search engines in 2016.

So what does that involve? Well look, we could spend a tremendous amount of time on any one of these, but I'm going to share eight principles that are behind all of the tactical work that you would put into optimizing that page for that keyword term, phrase, or set of phrases. Most likely, in 2016, it is a set of phrases that you're targeting rather than just a single keyword term.

Piece of the whiteboard: illustration of a SERPs page

1. Fulfill the searcher's goal and satisfy their intent

What we are trying to do is fulfill the searcher's goal and satisfy their intent. So there's an intent behind every search query. I'm seeking some information. I'm seeking to accomplish a task. Oftentimes, that initial intent is different from the final goal that someone might have.

I'll give you an example. When someone searches for types of wedding formal wear, we might infer from that query that, right now, their specific intent behind this search is they want to see different kinds of potential formalwear that they could wear to a wedding, maybe as a guest or as a bride or a groom. But their ultimate goal is probably going to be to decide on one of those specific things and then potentially purchase that item or take something from their wardrobe and add it in there.

But this means that we need to try and serve both intents. It's actually going to be really tough if we're an ecommerce player to say, "Hey, you know what, I want a rank for types of wedding formal wear, and I want to rank for it with a page that tells people to buy this particular tuxedo."

That's tough for a bunch of reasons. You don't know whether that formalwear is going to be necessarily black tie in the United States, which is tuxedo. You don't know whether that person is a male or a female when they're performing the search. A woman, well, they might buy a tuxedo but probably not, at least statistically speaking, they're probably not going to. They're probably going to buy a dress. You might have much more success with a piece of content like 20 suits and tuxes men look great in at a wedding. Especially if I'm targeting men or if this is types of men's wedding formalwear, that's probably going to be the piece of content that has a great chance of serving the searcher's intent and fulfilling their goals, especially if we then take that content and link off to the places where you can buy or accessorize all those different pieces. So we're trying to do both of these items in number one.

Piece of the whiteboard: A negatively-trending graph with User Satisfaction on the Y axis and Page Load Time on the X axis.

2. Speed, speed, & more speed

This is very simplistic, but the idea is really easy here. We know that user satisfaction is a signal that Google interprets in some ways directly and in many, many ways indirectly. We also know that abandonment rates are very high, even higher on mobile for longer-loading pages. We know that pages that have fast load times earn more links and amplification. We know that pages that earn more links earn more engagement on them. We know that all of these things including speed itself is positively correlated with rankings, and we know that Google has made page load speed a small, albeit small, but a ranking sig

5 Startup Name Generators for the Creatively-Challenged

5 Startup Name Generators for the Creatively-Challenged





What’s in a name?” - Shakespeare



 Well, when it comes to startups, the right name can go a long way in establishing what your company does and who your market is. But creativity doesn’t grow on trees, and startup owners can often be too close to the product to know what to call it. Fortunately, startup name generators have begun popping up all over the place. And they provide a wide range of options for whatever you are selling.



Whether you are looking for a creative twist on an existing idea or need to start completely from scratch, these 5 startup name generators will help you get your business off the ground with some flare.

5 Link Building Tactics to Avoid (and Modern Alternatives)

5 Link Building Tactics to Avoid (and Modern Alternatives)





5 Link Building Tactics to Avoid (and Modern Alternatives)



By Jayson DeMers





Few SEO strategies have changed as dramatically or as consistently as link building. Despite some occasional claims to the contrary, link building is still a necessary element if you want to earn any significant rankings in search engines. In fact, Google recently confirmed that inbound links are one of the top two ranking factors in the algorithm. Links have always existed as a kind of third-party validation for the trustworthiness, credibility, or authoritativeness of a page or website as a whole; if there are hundreds of sites with links pointing back to yours, clearly you've made a positive impact, and are worth listening to. Therefore, according to Google, you're worth ranking highly. However, without those links, it's virtually impossible to gain any kind of search visibility.



How Link Building Has Changed



Old link building strategies were somewhat straightforward: do whatever it takes to get more links. Link quantity was the main focus, along with anchor text, and there weren't many standards for how you could or couldn't build them. However, thanks to increasing publisher standards and more quality checks in Google's ranking algorithm, the entire idea of "link building" has evolved to mean something more. Links should be earned naturally through the power of your content, and serve a genuine value to your readers. All other links can--and will--be disregarded.



Obsolete Practices



Unfortunately, a number of old-world strategies persist in our modern link building era. Due to ignorance and confusion, these techniques, when executed, actually put your domain in danger of being penalized. So instead of continuing with these obsolete, questionable practices, engage in a modern alternative that can increase your authority and keep you safe.



1. Black-hat link exchanges. The old tactic here was an implied or formal deal between two sites to set up direct link exchanges; each site in the deal would link to the other, improving the relative authority of both sites. This type of scheme also evolved to higher scales; link circles and link networks would involve dozens or even hundreds of such sites, resulting in complicated link networks. Such tactics no longer fly, and generally get every site involved blacklisted from Google. So instead of seeking a valueless exchange, why not come together for a mutual benefit, with value for your readers? Interviews are the perfect opportunity for this; one authority interviews another, members of both audiences get content value, and each participant in the interview earns a link and visibility out of the deal.



2. Including links in forum comments. It used to be common practice to simply post a link wherever you had an opportunity to post anything--and forum comment boxes presented a great opportunity. All you had to do was paste the link to your site and click "submit." Today, posting only a link as a forum comment will get you banned from the forum long before Google even catches up to you. Instead, become an active participant in the community. Once you become known and respected as an authority, you can start including links to your own site--as long as they're appropriate, relevant, and valuable in the context of the conversation. While they probably won't add much SEO value, forum links can drive significant referral traffic, especially when posted by a trusted member of the community.



3. Article marketing with sneaky links. Article directories once provided an opportunity to slap together fluff content and include your link somewhere in the body of the material. Today, article directories are shunned by Google's algorithm, rarely appearing in search results anymore. Furthermore, links from article directories are often completely neutralized or even result in penalties for the websites they link to, if there are enough of them. Additionally, publisher reputations are held in far higher esteem, and "article marketing" has been exposed for what it is; spam. If you want a chance at your contribute content being accepted by external publishers, you need to meet their standards, which means producing original, well-written, detailed material that's valuable for their readership. As long as your links are valuable and relevant to the conversation, there's no need to try to be sneaky with them.



4. Stuffing anchor text with keywords. Anchor text used to be a huge deal for a link building campaign--you had to embed your links in text that contained the keywords you wanted to rank for. The end result was usually links embedded in phrases like "cheap bookshelves Kentucky" or "best tacos Portland." These are clunky, non-descriptive, and clear indicators of rank manipulation. This type of anchor text not only has no positive effect today, it's actually the easiest and quickest way for Google to identify spammy, manipulative link building, which can earn your website a manual or algorithmic penalty. Instead, aim for anchor text that is clearly and objectively descriptive of the content you're linking to--check out any of the links in this article as examples.



5. Plotting a specific rhythm and order to your links. Old-school link building strategies required some level of formalization, identifying potential sources for link building efforts, creating a schedule or calendar for the building process, and putting those sources on rotation. It was all highly mathematical; there was even a term for it: "link velocity." Today, such a process will let Google catch on almost immediately; instead, you have to make your links as natural as possible. And what better way to make your links natural than to just attract natural links? Produce great content, syndicate it far and wide, and readers will link to it, share it, bookmark it, and comment on it.



There are plenty of modern link building strategies that allow you to earn links naturally and even place some, under the right circumstances. Never again should you have to rely on the kind of black-hat practices that drove search engine visibility growth in decades past. It's important to consider your domain authority and search ranking goals, but don't forget what's most important here--the value you bring to your audience. Keep that as your top priority, and you shouldn't ever have to worry about a penalty.

David Ogilvy and the Advertising Art of Cool | Inc.com

David Ogilvy and the Advertising Art of Cool | Inc.com


For Jim Somers, VP of marketing at Join.me, a collaboration tool created by Boston-based LogMeIn, that role model is the one and only David Ogilvy, founder of the legendary Ogilvy & Mather advertising firm. Though Somers never got the chance to meet Ogilvy (who passed away at age 88 in 1999), Somers did spend four formative years in his mid-20s as an account manager at O&M's New York City headquarters between 1993 and 1996. It was during that time that Ogilvy became Somers's role model--a leader and a thinker whose beliefs would shape and inform Somers' career.

In an era venerating throwback programs like Mad Men, Ogilvy has garnered plenty of acclaim as one of several "real life Mad Men" of the 1950s and 1960s, a titan with a flair for creating ads that mixed drama with hardcore research and client empathy. As a participant in O&M's training program for account managers, Somers was "inculcated in David's many philosophies around advertising, marketing, business, and life," he says.

More than 20 years later, which lessons have stuck with Somers? One of them is Ogilvy's belief that creative efforts need to have "a wink and a smile." From Somers's perspective, this IBM ad from several years ago, which was made by O&M, epitomizes this approach. Somers says it's the best 21st-century example of a prominent television ad containing Ogilvy's creative DNA. (Somers adds that the famous Dos Equis ads featuring "the most interesting man in the world" are a close second.)

The marketing lesson here is straightforward: Make your point, but make it fast--and make it interesting. Create a tense conflict whose outcome is interesting to viewers. And don't take yourself so seriously.

Another lesson Somers learned from his study of Ogilvy is about the importance of doing hardcore homework on your clients--to the point where you know their innermost needs almost as well as they do. Somers notes that Ogilvy's time spent working for Gallup, the legendary research company, was an enormous influence on his thinking. Indeed, the O&M bio of Ogilvy notes that while at Gallup, where he worked in the late 1930s and early 1940s, he learned the importance of "emphasizing meticulous research methods and adherence to reality."

Recently, Somers has applied Ogilvy's tenets to his work at Join.me. Years ago, he notes, Join.me was an exciting alternative to GoToMeeting and WebEx--it was a web site where you could hold instant online meetings without installing or downloading anything. But somewhere along the line--as both incumbents and new competitors allowed anyone to host free, no-download, online meetings--Join.me "lost our mojo and lost our sense of self," he says.

In his quest to return Join.me to the swagger of its salad days, Somers has invoked Ogilvy's principles. For example, he says, the company conducted tons of research about how to appeal to Millennials in the online meeting space. The result is a rearticulated brand message, emphasizing that today's workplace is anyplace--and that anyone, even the youngest person in the (virtual) office, can take charge. The company's new slogan--"Show work who's boss"--is a reflection of this rebranding with an eye on Millennials. The company is also not shying away from giving its non-paying, "freemium" users even more features, having learned--as anyone researching Millennial spending habits learns--that Millennials love a bargain.

In addition, you can find the cheekiness of that IBM ad in some of Join.me's new messaging. Beneath "show work who's boss" on the company's home page, the copy reads: "Collaborate instantly with free screen sharing, unlimited audio, and ridiculously simple video conferencing. No registration required." In the exuberance of a phrase like "ridiculously simple," you can spot a linguistic attempt to emotionally connect with the customer. In making the promises of "no registration" and "unlimited audio," you can see key insights into the bargain-loving, target customer.

Though Join.me unveiled these changes only earlier this week, it believes that, so far, the approach is working. "Our engagement on the web site was up after one day between 5 and 10 percent," Somers says. "And when you have 20,000 new users a day coming to Join.me, that scale can be significant."

Given the impact, you wonder what Somers might say to Ogilvy today, if it were somehow possible for them to have a conversation. "I'd thank him for giving me the foundation for what defines me as a marketer," Somers says. "And then I'd walk away giving him a 'wink and a smile.'"

Office Jargon

Office jargon and where it comes from

A condensed etymology

(“Let’s circle back and consider whether this is in our wheelhouse. Ping me later, so we can touch base before the meeting.”)

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Tips for public speakibg

6 public speaking lessons from the White House Correspondents’ Dinner

By Michelle Garrett
   

People’s attention was recently turned toward Washington, D.C., where the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner was held.

The “nerd prom,” as it’s affectionately known, is one of Washington, D.C.’s premier parties for politicians (such as Bernie Sanders), journalists (such as Don Lemon) and celebrities, including Bill Nye, Tom Hiddleston and Kendall Jenner.

It’s a tradition for comedians to roast the commander in chief at the dinner—and the president always delivers a few punch lines as well. Though you might never get your hands on an invite, communicators can glean insights for their next presentation or interview.

Here are six takeaways from the star-studded event:

1. Use humor.

Everyone likes to laugh.

The audience appreciates it when presenters incorporate humor into their remarks and can poke fun at themselves—and President Barack Obama didn’t disappoint. Though he took comedic jabs at others, he also skewered himself, from a reference to his birth certificate to his so-called “mom jeans.”

His remarks were so witty that NPR gave Obama the title of “class clown” of the nerd prom.

You might not be vying for the same title, but making your audience laugh will probably net you positive feedback.

2. Know your audience and plan your material accordingly.

Comedian Larry Wilmore might not have been the best choice for host of the event.

The reviews of his remarks have been mixed at best, and some say that questionable choices with his jokes went too far.

The lukewarm reception might have been due to the dinner’s crowd. With an overwhelmingly white audience in attendance, Wilmore’s racial jokes were probably not in tune with their senses of humor . Hollywood Reporter’s journalist John DeFore wrote that had the crowd been more racially mixed, Wilmore’s material might have been better received.

When crafting your remarks, think of your audience members.

3. Play off the headlines.

The president brought in current events when he talked about how he could earn some “serious Tubmans” in one of his jokes, playing off the recent announcement of Harriet Tubman’s image replacing Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill:

If this material goes well, I'll use it at Goldman Sachs next year. Earn me some serious Tubmans.

Then he referenced Ted Cruz’s gaffe made during his recent visit to Indiana:

He went to Indiana—Hoosier country—stood on a basketball court and called the hoop a “basketball ring.” What else is in his lexicon? “Baseball sticks?” “Football hats?”

Using current news and trends in your presentations can capture audience attention and, when done correctly, can make your speech more relevant and interesting.

4. Use what has previously worked.

Obama delivered a plethora of Donald Trump jokes, knowing that the crowd would eat them up—because he did something similar during 2011’s event and received rave reviews.

He had more material to work with this year and didn’t disappoint the crowd. This might’ve been a risk in other scenarios, but because it was a tried-and-true approach, Obama went for it again—with success.

Though you should take care to avoid having your remarks go stale from overuse, repeat jokes—or new material around hot topics that you’ve spoken about previously—can punch up your speech.

5. Take chances.

This is Obama’s final dinner, and his “why not?” attitude—including using Anna Kendrick’s “You're Going to Miss Me When I'm Gone”—reflected it. Regardless of how you feel about him, you have to give him props for his devil-may-care approach.

In like manner, memorable speakers take risks. Just make sure you don’t go too far, burning bridges you might have to use in the future.

6. Leverage the power of video.

The growing trend of video content didn’t escape the event’s producers, who used a short film produced especially for the evening to bring even more humor:

“Couch Commander” took a page from shows like “Saturday Night Live,” which regularly perform these types of skits. The White House team even got the reporters and politicians to play along—and the first lady’s Snapchat account made an appearance.

Don’t use videos as a crutch; instead, employ them to make your presentation more visually interesting and entertaining.

What lessons did you take away from the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, PR Daily readers?

Michelle Garrett is a PR consultant and writer at Garrett Public Relations. Follow her on Twitter @PRisUs or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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Can American Retailers Kick Their Discounts Addiction? | Intelligence | BoF

Can American Retailers Kick Their Discounts Addiction? | Intelligence | BoF

NEW YORK, United States — Over the past month, American specialty retailer J.Crew has run at least one sales promotion every single day. Last weekend, it was 40 percent off, both in-store and online. In mid-April, it was a 30 percent discount, plus free shipping for online orders. At the beginning of the month, it was an additional 50 percent off final sale items. Indeed, J.Crew’s promotions have become so ubiquitous that, last year, one shopper made headlines for creating Threadstats, a website built solely to track the retailer’s sales promotions and help consumers score the best deal.

In March, J.Crew’s discounting strategy was back in the news when the company was sued in New York federal court for allegedly deceiving customers in a “systematic scheme of false and misleading advertising, marketing and sales practices” on its J.Crew Factory website, according to the complaint. The plaintiff, Joesph D’Aversa, maintains that the “valued at” price displayed alongside each item — which supposedly indicates the true retail price of a product — was misleading given that J.Crew Factory’s merchandise was always on sale.

And the issue goes far beyond J.Crew. Amongst American retailers, discounting has become so common that it’s a challenge to walk past specialty stores like J.Crew and Gap, or traditional department stores like Macy’s or JCPenney, without seeing red sale signs. (The practice has become so prevalent that handbag-maker Coach recently told analysts it was considering pulling it goods out of certain department store locations and would no longer participate in some store-wide sales and promotions).

While these promotions may benefit price-conscious consumers, the practice is unhealthy for retail industry players, for whom competing on price with deeper discounts is creating a race to the bottom, shrinking profit margins and diminished brand value, while making the path back to growth more difficult.

We’re on this 40 percent off drug that we pulse every weekend. When you take away your promotions, your shopper melts away because you’ve trained them to come back on that 40 percent off day.

Ubiquitous discounting wasn’t always the norm. Retailers could once count on consumers who had more brand loyalty and fewer options, and, on average, spent more on clothing. But the tumult of the Great Recession and the rise of e-commerce have made American shoppers more savvy and more frugal, resulting in lower store traffic and lower spending, even as the economy has recovered. To make matters worse, many retailers failed to anticipate changing consumer demand, manufacturing too much merchandise and over-expanding their brick-and-mortar store networks.

“As an industry, it took retail a very long time to learn some lessons on the ‘new normal’ — and, more importantly, what are the implications of new normal on my business?” says Adheer Bahulkar, a partner at A.T. Kearney, a global strategy and management consultancy firm. Instead, many legacy retailers, desperate for new sources of growth, turned to discounting. “The path of least resistance to growth for these retailers is to lower your price,” says Robin Lewis, chief executive of The Robin Report, a retail strategy report. “And when everybody’s doing that, it gets to be insane. It’s a race to the bottom for everybody because you cannot not compete on price.”

“Once you discount you get into this spiral because your margins get slimmer, and then you also have to sell so much more to make up for the lost margin on the price,” explains Denise Dahlhoff, the research director at the University of Pennsylvania’s Baker Retailing Center. “It’s sort of this vicious cycle that you get into.”

The issue is particularly pronounced in the US, where new European fast fashion players like H&M and Zara have been eating up market share. “The US is where you see a lot of the legacy-type models,” says Tim Barrett, a retail analyst at Euromonitor. “Gap, Abercrombie, J.Crew, Macy’s — all of these models don’t really work as well anymore especially when you take into account that they are overextended physically in a lot of areas where they are not going to be doing the business that they need to be doing.”

The rise of discounting at American retailers also reflects underlying differences in the way sales are deployed and perceived in the US compared to other markets. At Farfetch, a global e-commerce platform, 56.5 percent of products on the company’s US site are reduced by an average of 13.6 percent, while on the company’s UK site, 27.3 percent of products are discounted at an average of 20.2 percent. This kind of widespread but light discounting is common in the US, compared to the narrow and deep discounting often seen in the UK, notes Katie Smith, senior fashion and retail market analyst for Edited.

"The UK is in a slightly healthier discounting cycle, using it to clear products that aren't working and entice consumers in planned promotions,” explains Smith. “Price slashes are part of the regular conversation for the retailer and consumer in the US market."

“It’s almost like a drug,” says Tiffany Hogan, a retail analyst for Kantar Retail. “We’re on this 40 percent off drug that we pulse every weekend or even more frequently. What happens when you take away your promotions? Your shopper just kind of melts away because you know that you’ve trained them to come back on that 40 percent off day.”

But widespread discounting is unsustainable and as profit margins become slimmer and sales growth slows, retailers have turned to downsizing their store networks and company-wide layoffs to offset losses. In June 2015, Gap announced it was laying off 250 corporate employees and shuttering 175 stores, while J.Crew and Ralph Lauren cut 157 and 750 jobs respectively. At the beginning of this year, Macy’s set out a restructuring plan that involved 36 store closures and thousands of employee layoffs. (JCPenney outlined a similar plan in 2015, which included shuttering 40 stores and making around 2,250 employees redundant, following 2014, when the retailer laid off 2,000 employees and closed 33 locations.)

This month, Coach and Nordstrom announced plans to cut 300 and 400 employees respectively, with Nordstrom having already laid off 120 employees from its tech department in March.

“There’s this huge bubble of too many specialty stores, too many department stores,” says Hogan. “At some point there’s got to be a cooling off period, which is what I think we’re seeing now. Retailers reducing store counts, reducing their presence, just figuring out how they fit into a new apparel landscape.”

Adding fuel to the fire, the cost of making apparel hasn’t gotten any cheaper. “From a supply chain perspective, the cost at the manufacturing level is going up,” says Edward Hertzman, the publisher for Sourcing Journal, a publication that focuses on the apparel and textile industries. “Compliance costs, labor costs, energy costs, and the quality of living is improving. Whatever costs were saved from cotton prices or gas prices being down is really not offsetting the manufacturing costs in a way that you would hope. Then, you have retailers that have to discount in order to move goods so you have this margin compression,” continues Hertzman.

“Typically when you discount, [it’s] the last resort to get people to come to the store,” says Dahlhoff. “And when you are in that place, getting out is hard.”

A number of legacy retailers in the US have been investing in outlets to escape this vicious cycle. Their hope is that by clearly delineating discount merchandise in one type of store while full-price merchandise stays separate in the mainline stores, retailers can serve a range of customers while maintaining brand value.

Last summer, J.Crew introduced a new retail concept called J.Crew Mercantile as, essentially, a new home for J.Crew factory merchandise, and the company has plans to triple the number of Mercantile locations in 2016. As well, Macy’s, Kohl’s and Lord & Taylor were amongst the retailers that all launched off-price stores in 2015.

“These new off-price experiments are ways to evolve brands into new models without having to abandon the old models and upset legacy consumers or shoppers,” says Euromonitor’s Barrett.

Those department stores that were already operating off-price stores have also doubled down on these efforts. Today, Saks Fifth Avenue operates 90 Off Fifth locations to 40 full-priced stores. And as of March 2016, Nordstrom had 197 Nordstrom Rack locations, with a goal to operate 300 Rack stores by 2020. Comparatively, in the past five years, the number of full-priced stores grew from 115 to 118.

For retailers in the affordable luxury range, outlet stores are also seen as a boon. At the end of fiscal year 2015, Ralph Lauren operated 165 factory outlets in the US and Canada, compared to 58 full-price stores. (In Europe, the company owns 54 factory stores to its 27 regular stores, while Asia is the only market where it has more full-price stores than factory outlets — 58 to 40.)

Kate Spade had 64 outlet locations in the US at the end of fiscal 2015, up from 29 in 2010. Similarly, of the 351 full-priced stores Coach operated at the end of fiscal 2013, the company has closed nearly 100, while growing the number of outlets from 193 to 204.

But will it work?

“From a consumer perspective, I think anything where they can find a great discount on a product is a win-win situation for them,” says Pam Goodfellow, the director of consumer insights at Prosper Analytics. For retailers, “It’s good right now but it could erode their full-price stores in the long term. I think retailers have to tread very carefully in that area because of brand image and perceptions of quality. Plus, consumers are just smart shoppers now. If they know they can hit up the outlet store for the same merchandise, they’re just going to do that.”

Of course, when deployed well, discounting can be a powerful promotional tool. “Select promotions are not a bad thing,” says Dahlhoff. “They can help you with store traffic, promoting different categories, getting people to try something new, or increase loyalty for certain merchandise.”

But, fostering a greater sense of value, whether through loyalty programs or unique brand experiences, can entice shoppers without lowering prices. “You always want to get out of the pricing game,” Dahlhoff continues. “You want to focus on all of the other benefits that you can provide to customers.”

And fast fashion retailers often use pull different levers to drive footfall and sales. “The idea that Zara really capitalised on is if you like something in the store you better get it because there’s no guarantee that it’ll be there tomorrow,” says Bahulkar. This creates a panic in the mind of the consumer, which can prompt them to purchase. “[It’s] a fundamental shift in the traditional retail mindset, which generations of retailers grew up on, of never having product out of stock,” he explains.

“The customer has fundamentally changed,” Bahulkar continues. “They’ve become much smarter, less loyal and they want what they want. The focus on the product and the uniqueness and the appeal is becoming much more important.”

Editor's Note: This article was revised on April 28th, 2016. A previous version of this article misstated that Saks Fifth Avenue operates 38 full-price locations. This is incorrect. The retailer has 40 full-price stores.