Vintage Judy: Terry's Village

If you want to experience a vintage "Judy" shopping experience, go take a peek at Terry's Village (here is Quantcast data suggesting that Terry's Village is tailor-made for Judy).

1. Catalog Quick Order is featured at the top of the page.
2. A literal "dot whack" on the home page ... over 75 items under $20 ... Judy loves these sort of reminders that help her "focus", if you will.
3. A sale tab ... Jasmine needs everyday low prices, Jennifer is going to hunt for the lowest price coupled with free shipping ... Judy just wants to be told where to go.
4. Request a free catalog at the bottom of the page ... even though the entire merchandise assortment is on the website and Judy is currently visiting the website, Judy wants to know how to get a catalog with a partial merchandise assortment sent to her on a periodic basis.
5. Security:  Judy still isn't confident in this whole e-commerce thing, so Terry's Village helps her feel comfortable ... with "Safe and Secure Shopping", an Authentic and Secure site icon, McAfee Secure Tested in the past few days, 110% lowest price guarantee, 100% customer satisfaction, and a Better Business Bureau Accredited Business link to seal the deal.
6. No mention of Facebook.
7. No mention of Twitter.
8. No mention of YouTube.
9. No mention of Google Plus.
10. No share buttons.

Now, the social media and mobile elite will jump all over Terry's Village for a fossilized approach to commerce, and they'd be wrong if/when they did that.  This is where Judy shops.  You have to know who the heck Judy is, and you have to know what Judy wants from her shopping experience.


Study Questions:

1. Describe the circumstances under which Jasmine would shop at Terry's Village?  Describe how Jasmine would find Terry's Village, and describe what her purchase transaction might look like, from start to finish?
2. If an industry expert suggested that Terry's Village immediately craft a mobile shopping strategy for the Christmas 2012 shopping season, how would you respond, knowing that Judy is the customer who shops Terry's Village?
3. If Judy is the customer currently shopping from Terry's Village, and she is assumed to be about 59 years old, what does this say about the future of Terry's Village?  In other words, what happens when Judy is 64 years old?  Or 69 years old?
4. Instead of suggesting that "this brand is dead, long-term", pretend you are CEO of Terry's Village.  Describe your transition plan for recruiting customers in the "Jennifer" demographic.

Classic Jennifer: Anna and Kristina's Grocery Bag

Here's where we misunderstand Jennifer.


Check out the tweet from Anna and Kristina last week (Twitter page ... click here for the website).

• Tweet:  "Only a couple days left to get your official A&K Shopping Bag for 25% off! Join our FB or G+ page for disc. code.  Info: bit.ly/xqXtxs"

Now, you can pay $39.99 for this bag, or you can join their Google Plus page and get it for $29.99.


Judy is going to ask what the heck G+ is?  Then she'll frown and continue to thumb through her Terry's Village catalog.


Jasmine probably isn't going to pay $29.99 for a zippy bag anyway, she can get a $39.99 bag on Groupon for $15.00.


But Jennifer, she's going to head out to Google to see what else she can get for $29.99.  She'll search, she'll check out brands, she'll check out affiliates for coupon codes.  After all of that, she'll join the Anna & Kristina G+ page and get the bag for $29.99.


What has been accomplished?


A bag was sold at a discount.


Google earned a pair of eyeballs, allowing them to further track Jennifer's behavior.


A bunch of web analytics providers will take notice that Jennifer didn't convert, and folks will criticize you for being a dumb marketer.


Attribution wonks have a field day parsing her G+ and Google Searches and email click-throughs and affiliates visited and all that stuff.


But Jennifer "bagged" her prey.  She couldn't care less about being multi-channel.  Channels are a means to an end.  Liking Anna and Kristina on Facebook or G+ is irrelevant, it was the way that Jennifer got discounted merchandise.


Study Questions:  

1. Anna & Kristina are giving up $10 of profit to get you, the loyal customer, to like them on Facebook or G+.  How would you recoup this $10 investment per customer in social media channels?  Please provide examples with reasonable, actionable data.
2. Is Jennifer buying because of marketing channels, or because of discount/promotional strategy?  How would you separate the impact of marketing channels from the discount/promotional strategy employed here?
3. What is the likelihood of this strategy working with Judy?
4. What is the likelihood of this strategy working with Jennifer?
5. What is the likelihood of this strategy working with Jasmine?

Code Judy, Jennifer, and Jasmine in your database!  Email me if you want me to do it for you.

Judy Won't Use A Cell Phone To Buy Merchandise?

Here's the link for your perusal:  http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2399565,00.asp


Study Questions:

1. Does it make sense to have three managers in your marketing department ... one that caters to Judy, a 59 year old often-times rural shopper who isn't going to embrace new technology ... one that caters specifically to Jennifer, a 43 year old who will comparison shop at Best Buy before buying at Amazon ... and one that caters to Jasmine, the 27 year old who constantly checks her iPhone for deals from her favorite flash site?
2. If you had three customer persona managers, would you have the courage to market to each customer differently, and would you be willing to reward employees who increase spend among a specific customer persona?
3. What are the odds of convincing Judy to change her behavior and use her cell phone to research merchandise?

Dear Catalog CEOs: Integrating Judy, Jennifer, and Jasmine

Dear Catalog CEOs:

In the few weeks, we'll talk some about how we integrate Judy, Jennifer, and Jasmine into your database.  This is important, because Judy can actually support receiving MORE catalogs ... yes ... MORE catalogs!

Jennifer is a different story.  Your matchback analytics show that she buys three weeks after receiving a catalog.  That analysis, of course, is wrong, because you're always mailing Jennifer every three weeks, there isn't an open window in the calendar when you aren't mailing Jennifer.  Her behavior is mistakenly attributed to catalogs ... or search ... or affiliates ... or email marketing ... often, her purchase should be attributed to a discount/promotion you offered her!  In Jennifer's case, think Zappos ... almost no outbound marketing, and yet, Jennifer is buying twice a year from Zappos, because of free shipping both ways.  If you're sending Jennifer 17 catalogs a year, strongly consider sending her 6 catalogs a year, you'll be a lot more profitable, and you can reinvest your dollars in customer acquisition so that you can have two customers like Jennifer instead of just one.

Jasmine is orbiting a whole different planet ... she's a "recessionista".  Your merchandise, at 20% off plus free shipping fails to resonate with her.  Let's say she looks through your catalog ... that activity inspires her and her network of friends to find comparable product in a price range that is manageable for her.  You probably don't want to send her many catalogs.

In 2012, I am integrating Judy, Jennifer, and Jasmine with my Catalog PhD projects.  Judy, Jennifer and Jasmine form the "organic percentage" that many of you are familiar with ... the remainder of the Catalog PhD work tells you how often you should mail catalogs to a customer.  Remember, Catalog PhD project have identified $24,300,000 in profit opportunity in the past two years.  The methodology flat-out works.

If you're an email marketer, you will want to focus on Jennifer, as she's your bread-and-butter.  Jasmine will require some creativity, offering considerable opportunity.

Resources:

More on Judy, click here.

More on Jennifer, click here.

More on Jasmine, click here.

Hillstrom's Catalog Marketing PhD:

• Print, $7.95.
• Kindle, $2.99.

Hillstrom's 2012 Preview (still a lot of 2012 left, folks!)

• Print, $9.95.
• Kindle, $3.95.

Most Popular Series Of The Past Year: Judy, Jennifer, Jasmine

You like Judy, Jennifer, and Jasmine!

• Here's Judy.
• Here's Jennifer.
• Here's Jasmine.

Readership is up 40% this week, and clicks through links in the articles are at an all-time high.


We get a lot of conflicting information, don't we?  We're told that if we aren't fully fluent in mobile marketing, we'll become irrelevant.  Well, if our customer is Judy, mobile marketing is largely irrelevant!!


Email marketers tell us to focus on relevant content.  Well, for Jasmine, that might be everyday low prices.  For Jennifer, that might be 20% off plus free shipping, so long as the competition doesn't offer a better deal.  Judy just wants the catalog in the mail box.


Social media experts demand that you have a conversation.  Judy doesn't want a conversation, she wants to be on Facebook to see her grandchild!


In other words, it is important to know who your customer is!  Channels are irrelevant, to be honest, they are the means by which different customers with different interests express themselves.


Given the popularity of the series, you're going to continue to hear about Judy, Jennifer, and Jasmine.  When you are ready to have me analyze your customer base, contact me!


Before I leave you, why not take a brief quiz?  Match the persona (Judy, Jennifer, Jasmine) to each brand below.  Once you ace this quiz, think about each business from a marketing standpoint.  How does social, mobile, classic e-commerce, and offline marketing impact Judy, Jennifer, and Jasmine at each company?  What would your strategy be for each tactic?

1. Patagonia.com
2. MilesKimball.com
3. Bluefly.com

Ladies and Gentlemen, Meet Jasmine

I previously spoke about a "Transformational" customer.  From this point forward, that customer will be known as Jasmine.


Meet Jasmine!


Jasmine is different than the customer we've been analyzing for a long, long time.  In fact, catalogers and many online marketers are uncomfortable with fundamental differences in Jasmine's behavior vs. prior generations.

• Jasmine is 27, but she is representative of a customer between the ages of 18 and 34.
• Jasmine doesn't have the earning power she will one day have.  Therefore, Jasmine has to find the best deals at the best prices.  She's not going to pay $400 for a handbag, when she can spend $99 for a handbag at a flash sales website.  
• You can't market to her by offering 20% off plus free shipping ... she simply won't buy unless free shipping is part of the brand, and she thinks brands inflate prices, so she's looking for deals that work for her.
• Jasmine approves of this (click here).
• Jasmine "lives" social and mobile.  This is a fundamental difference from Judy and Jennifer.  Jasmine's experiences are infused with social and mobile.  Facebook and Twitter aren't social media, they're "utilities", much like Comcast or your local electric company.  And this means a lot, because you cannot separate out and attribute social or mobile and assign marketing value to each channel.  She buys from Shoemint.com ... social and mobile and email ARE the experience, that brand curates for her, you don't separate and attribute her spend to any channels in this case.
• If Jasmine had to choose between internet access, a car, or her cell phone, she'd choose her cell phone.  The cell phone is to Jasmine as the internet is to Jennifer and as cable television is to Judy.
• Jasmine likes low prices, scoring a deal on MyHabit or One Kings Lane or Fab.com or Gilt Group.  She'll recruit friends to get discounts from businesses she shops at, she will use her phone to score a great deal, and she loves the simplicity of the mobile shopping experience.  In some ways, an element of gamification motivates Jasmine, she likes completing tasks and earning credits/discounts for completing tasks (see the first twelve steps required to be on Shoemint.com for an example ... go do that right now).
• Jasmine doesn't trust advertising as much as she trusts her friends and the opinions of others.  Her inner circle of 400 people provide all the information she needs to make good decisions.  She says that if something is happening in the world, "it will find her".  This is different than Jennifer, who spends time finding/hunting things, and is different than Judy, who likes to watch The Today Show to learn what might be important.  You will have to seed a lot of clouds to be able to reach Jasmine.
• Jasmine will take a picture of something she likes at Aldo Shoes, and solicit feedback from her friends before buying the item.  She might spend time at Best Buy with her husband, reviewing items, then comparing prices on Amazon while in-store, finally settling for a comparable item on Amazon.  While she participates in social commerce, Jasmine is almost post-social commerce, she's not going to be labeled, but instead, she is simply shopping in a way that is congruent with how she lives.  This style of shopping is not recognizable to Judy.
• Jasmine likes to share what she's doing, and likes retailers who make it easy for her to share ... notice that you click on "share with a friend" before "add to shopping bag" in this example at Francesca's Collections:
• Jasmine is not going to read a newspaper unless she's stuck at an airport for two hours and her iPhone needs charging.
• Jasmine likes Spotify, she thinks paying $10 a month for millions of songs is better than paying $0.99 per song.  Conversely, Jennifer loves iTunes, while Judy still buys CDs at her local Target store.
• All that being said, Jasmine will buy sheets from Cuddledown of Maine, but this behavior is not likely to be habit forming, and Jasmine had better get free shipping and an everyday low price.
• Judy loves a sale. Jennifer loves hunting for the best price. Jasmine shops if the business offers an everyday low price.  Jasmine will participate in a "gamified" experience that results in earning credits that yield a low price.
• Jasmine may or may not like this style of merchandising, but it is more aligned with her style than old-school marketing (click here please).  Conversely, Judy expects this content to be delivered to her via a television commercial.  Different approaches are used to reach Judy and Jasmine.
• Judy barely trusts having passwords online.  Jennifer has a hundred different online passwords.  Jasmine shares her passwords with trusted friends, it's almost a form of trust currency.

Last week on Twitter, an 18-34 year old individual told that people like Jasmine will "do the marketing for you if you treat her well and let her do her job."  This is the complete opposite of Judy, who waits for companies to rent her name from a co-op so that she can see their catalog.


It isn't hard to identify Jasmine in your customer base, so get busy!  Record the referring URL, any blogs in your industry or Facebook or Twitter are key indicators that you're dealing with Jasmine.  She's a "true mobile" individual, using her iPhone or Android device ... she may use an iPad, but that's more likely to be Jennifer.  She likes sales/discounts, but she prefers low price point items.  She demand free shipping. Heck, if you are Fab.com, half your database is comprised of people like Jasmine!  Even if you're a traditional catalog brand, you have online customers with no attribution to catalogs/email who shop infrequently, off price, with free shipping ... hint ... this is Jasmine!


We care about Jasmine, because the marketing strategy for her has to be very different.  In my studies, 50% - 80% of what Jasmine spends is not associated with catalog marketing.  In other words, catalog matchback programs significantly, and I mean significantly overstate what she spends because of catalog marketing.  Instead of 18 catalogs a year, Jasmine needs maybe 3, all within a month or two of a purchase.

So get busy segmenting your database.  Find out who Judy, Jennifer, and Jasmine are, and start treating them differently.  You'll be significantly more profitable, and you'll make Judy, Jennifer, and Jasmine happier.


Next week, we'll dig a bit deeper, learning more about how to deal with Judy, Jennifer, and Jasmine.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Meet Jennifer

Yesterday, you were introduced to Judy, the classic Traditional customer.


Today, I introduce you to Jennifer, what I previously called the Transitional customer.


Think of Jennifer as a professional or service-oriented 43 year old customer (though she could be anywhere between 35 and 49 years old), a woman who spent her formative shopping years on the internet.


Here's a few things you need to know about Jennifer.

• Jennifer and the internet are "one".  If Google truly went down in protest of SOPA or PIPA, Jennifer would quietly implode.
• Jennifer is willing to pay full price for merchandise she loves from brands she trusts, but she's never going to pay for shipping or handling.  Jennifer will use any affiliate possible to get free shipping, she'll visit coupon sites, she'll like you on Facebook for discounts, she'll subscribe to and click through your email campaigns just to get the discount.  Channel marketers will say that Facebook or email "work", but to Jennifer, it's a means to an end ... a way to make sure she gets free shipping and hopefully a discount, too.  Jennifer is "post-channel", not "multi-channel".  Jennifer will scorch the internet to get a deal.  Do not get in her way!
• In fact, Jennifer loves sites like Coupon Cabin, she enjoys Kate Gosselin's blog.
• Jennifer carefully reads reviews from other purchasers.  Jennifer does not want to be burned when she spends $399 on a handbag.  That handbag better come with a 4.8 out of 5.0 stars and have at least a dozen positive reviews.
• Jennifer likes events like Cyber Monday, where she gets to combine discounts with promotions and fun.  She doesn't have to go to the mall on Black Friday and yet she gets great deals.  She feels like a "slueth", she literally "hunts" for merchandise at the best price.
• Jennifer spent her formative shopping years on the internet.  She met her husband on AOL.  She had an "Excite Homepage" before people knew what Excite even was.  She discovered Google in 2000.  If Jennifer were in college today, she'd argue that you don't need to study for a test, you need to know how to leverage Google and Wikipedia to get the answers you need.
• Because Jennifer was weaned on AOL, she has always been first to be "social".  She used email, she joined MySpace, then Facebook, and then Twitter, and is one of the biggest fans of Pinterest you'll find.
• Jennifer is the customer that email marketers are measuring.  All email marketers should code Jennifer in the database and actively measure her behavior.
• Jennifer browses catalogs, and even buys online after reviewing a catalog.  However, half of the demand that is attributed in matchbacks to catalog marketing would happen anyway.  You can mail Jennifer far fewer catalogs and get almost all of her demand.  Catalogers do not want to hear this.
• Attribution wonks struggle with Jennifer, because she "does everything".  She receives catalogs, she browses catalogs, she uses Google to comparison shop, she clicks through an email campaign, she visits a coupon site for a discount code, she visits via an iPad after reviewing your catalog in an app, she likes you on Facebook, and she buys on your website.  Jennifer "hunts" for her merchandise.  Hunters cover a lot of ground!  Take any channel except Google away from Jennifer, and she'll hunt for a new way to get to the same end result.  Just make sure she can get to her discount code in some way, and she'll buy from you regardless of email or catalog strategy.
• Jennifer is the iPad user you're currently tracking.  She will dictate what the iPad app experience will look like in 2015.
• Jennifer found Zappos before anybody else ... she liked free shipping both ways, and she loved the fact that her shoes arrived in a day or two.  "Why can't everybody do that?" is something she said often in the early days of Zappos.
• Jennifer has formed a "shopping habit" on Zappos, paying for Amazon Prime, buying consumables and having them shipped to her home.  She has no loyalty to the merchants she buys from on Amazon, all of her loyalty is with Amazon and only Amazon.
• If Judy buys a CD at Target, Jennifer loads up her iPad with music ... "I'm not going to sit here and listen to songs and commercials that I don't like, life is too short for that."

We can easily spot Jennifer in our database.  She doesn't purchase via mail or phone.  She often combines channels (receives email, visits via search twice, buys via a free shipping code from an affiliate) to place online orders.  She is more likely than average to take advantage of discounts and promotions.  She might be first to jump on new products or fashion products.  She's probably not one to be hooked on "winning products", as she has a sense of style and fashion that goes beyond what everybody else is doing.  She's an email subscriber using Gmail.  She purchases on Cyber Monday.  She visits the site a lot and doesn't purchase (online wonks think they have to fix this problem ... they don't ... that's just the way Jennifer behaves, just get a discount code in her hand and you'll be fine).

It's easy to find Jennifer in a database.  Find her.  Segment her!  Then start speaking her language, a language that probably doesn't include 22 catalog mailings per year.  In my consulting projects, I am routinely able to cut catalogs by 30% - 60% to this customer without a significant drop in demand.


Go set this attribute up in the database ... NOW!!

Tomorrow, we meet our Transformational customer, named Jasmine.