Ship Something!

There's Julie Bornstein, of Nordstrom / Sephora fame, shipping something to prospects at Stitch Fix. You take a quiz, and a personalized assortment is shipped to the customer.

I know, I know. You are unique. You are different. You sell widgets. Why would a customer ever fill out a quiz that enables the customer to receive a personalized set of widgets?

I get the chance to analyze continuity programs ... you know ... programs where customers receive monthly shipments of stuff they don't even know they want yet ... or stuff they know they want and are happy to receive. Either way, the Stitch Fix example is really nothing more sophisticated than the old "receive twelve VHS movies free" concept that caused a customer to receive movies for a full year. It's just a modern twist on an old concept.

I know, I know, you think continuity programs only work for best customers. Not true. The concept fully depends upon what you ship to the prospect. And if the hypothesis were true, so what? Why not use your current merchandise assortment to up-sell the customer into monthly shipments?

Customer Acquisition is the most important topic in 2016. We need to shake things up. We need to try different strategies. It's time to hire a brand response marketing professional and then it is time to get busy implementing different tactics / strategies.