15
Best Friend Brands
Becoming Indispensable to Your Customer
A real-world example of what behavioral marketing success looks like at the campaign and marketer level is Silverpop's sponsored primary research into a concept we call Best Friend Brands. Generally these are a user's most important 5 to 10 brand relationships. We wanted to document how users thought about their top brands and how a brand can truly make their way into their customer's inner circle. We surveyed almost 4,000 people across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany to ensure we have a well-represented global view and diverse email interaction types.
One of the core truths in regard to the ability of humans to interact socially is that we are limited by the number of people we can interact with efficiently. British anthropologist and evolutional psychologist Robin Dunbar has theorized that the maximum number is 150. As head of the Social and Evolutionary Neuroscience Research Group in the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford, Dunbar has some amazing credibility. He defines his Dunbar's number as:
A measurement of the cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable relationships.
That maximum of 150 shows up in all kinds of unique ways. It might be your complete extended-friend group when you were in your mid-twenties and single. Or it might be your friends plus your extended family if you're in your late thirties and married with children. We also see this thinking exhibited in today's social networking applications—specifically the photo sharing application Path, which differentiates from other photo-sharing apps by limiting the size of your sharing audience to 150 for exactly the reason Robin Dunbar outlines.
After discovering that there's a natural limit of 150, think about what it takes to be in the top 5 percent of that realm from a brand perspective. What does it mean to trust a brand so deeply that you interact seamlessly across three or four channels? How strong is the connection with an ecommerce brand if a recipient opens almost every email sent and buys two to three times per quarter? Getting to the attributes behind this type of advocacy is an interesting study in core tenets of behavioral marketing.
This chapter walks you through my personal Top 5 Best Friend Brands along with a detailed look at why I find them so compelling. At times, it's the channel-level excellence such as a perfect song recommendation from Spotify via email, but other days it's a cross-channel highly personalized experience that wins thousands of dollars in revenue from me annually.
Before we plunge into the brands themselves, let me provide a quick overview of the research's high points. You can read the entire study here at http://bit.ly/BFBWhitePaper—which, incidentally, I've provided as a direct link without the need for you to opt in to our nurture marketing to get. That's a textbook example of a content strategy perfectly in play—an interested audience member consumes top-level information that includes a link to a deeper content piece. However, accessing that deeper piece would typically require the user to be opted in to nurture marketing communication. So the user receives the value of expert thinking on a topic, and the marketer earns the right to continue the conversation and potentially end up making a sale. But no opt in is required here to read and share away—you gloriously anonymous user!
From a numbers perspective, the Best Friend Brands research outlined the following realities:
- The average number of Best Friend Brands is 4.5.
- The average pace of online purchases is one per month, so it's critical to be timely in your marketing messaging.
- 71 percent of consumers would be more likely to make a purchase if the initial email outreach from a retailer or brand had been tailored especially to them (and was a full 10 points higher in Germany).
- 58 percent of consumers said they wouldn't even open an email if they thought it irrelevant to them or their needs.
- 40 percent of consumers wouldn't open an email if the subject line wasn't relevant to them.
- 64 percent of people would open an email simply because they trusted the brand.
- More than 25 percent of respondents said that a brand's email approach had stopped them from buying.
- 34 percent of respondents said they would leave emails unopened if they receive too much correspondence from the brand.
- 17 percent of the people surveyed said they tend to purchase directly from a brand email once a month (which rose to 21 percent in the United States).
- 67 percent of consumers want to receive information, such as new products, special offers, transactional information and newsletter via email.
The takeaway for all these numbers comes back to one of the core tenets of behavioral marketing: relevance and trust are absolute keys to a great marketing effort. This study looked mostly at the email channel, but you'll see when I share my own Top 5 Best Friend Brands that it's a much more holistic, cross-channel experience that drives massive advocacy.
My Best Friend Brands
I normally don't use myself (or my inbox) as an example because sometimes my job makes me overly critical or interested in tiny aspects of email campaigns that few others would ever care about. So I was really surprised when a few talks I gave on Best Friend Brands became highly interactive after taking a deep dive into my own relationship with these brands. I think it's because so often we talk about marketing—and specifically behavioral marketing—in such general terms that it can seem overly theoretical or not directly applicable to what happens in your inbox every day. So let's jump right in.
Number Five: Spotify
The music streaming company Spotify is brilliant because they understand the role that online music plays in my world: pure new artist discovery. Music is a central part of both my work and home life. As I write this section, I'm listening to Mirella Freni and Luciano Pavarotti's 1987 Decca recording of Puccini's La Boheme on 11. I've explored many more Puccini and Donizetti operas to hone my ear for both tenors and sopranos. I've also rediscovered some old musical friends like Mogwai and Daft Punk while writing this book, as well as unearthing some new up-and-coming talent like UK singer/songwriter James Bay.
The beauty is that Spotify both allows and suggests that I listen to multiple versions of the same opera but also understands the recommendation engine should behave differently when it's pop music. In these instances, it sees me listening to new music (Chvrches, for example, as shown in Figure 15.1) and recommends other new music that's similar.
Figure 15.1 Spotify's Recommendation Engine Is Based on Listener Behaviors
One of the benefits of being so personalized all the time is that Spotify has earned the right to send me suggestions that might be driven by attributes beyond my musical taste. For example, I got the email shown in Figure 15.2 for an artist I'd never heard of named Yuna. It's not explicitly stated that it's recommended based on my listening habits, so I assume it could very well have been paid marketing done by her record company or even an Editor's Pick from the staff at Spotify. Either way, I still go listen.
Figure 15.2 Even Without Specific Listening Behaviors, Spotify Recommends Featured Artists
For this amazing depth of personalized recommendations—and even deeper brilliance like my very own “Year in Music” campaign (see Figure 15.3), Spotify drives content relevance like few other brands in my inbox. (And yes, go listen to Eli “Paperboy” Reed if you love Philly-style pop soul.)
Figure 15.3 The Top Song in My “Year in Music”
Number Four: GILT Group
Although those who know me wouldn't really use the phrase “fashion forward,” I do actually pay attention to clothing and accessories and even dress myself without much help from my wife. My blue Steve Madden wingtips tend to get a few fun comments every time I step on stage. When it comes to shopping for these items, my favorite email relationship by far is with GILT.
Although I only buy two or three times a year, I really enjoy consuming GILT's email content for one very specific reason: all the key brands are smartly placed in the subject line. Does this virtually destroy the old rules around 40-character subject lines? Absolutely. Do I look at every single one that lands in my inbox? Again—absolutely.
When I receive content like the message shown in Figure 15.4 that contains brands I love (Tumi Luggage is visible, and John Varvatos and Hickey Freeman are below the fold), I often average 8 to 10 opens and clicks per message as I look at items and availability more than once. And when I buy, it's typically not a $15 pair of socks. Suffice it to say I'm a good value proposition for GILT.
Figure 15.4 A Highly-Relevant-to-Dave GILT Email
From a user experience perspective, I love how this class of ecommerce sellers has pioneered an elegant way for me to skip campaigns that contain brands I don't care about. They were the first brands to completely jettison the old 40-character subject line best-practices rule, and began jamming every featured brand into the subject line. For example, I received this subject line just today:
Vintage Finds Feat. What Goes Around Comes Around, Costume National: Up to 70% Off, Porsamo Bleu Watches and More Start Today at 9pm ET
That's amazingly specific, and it'd just barely fit in a Tweet or an SMS message at 137 characters. So when I receive a campaign like the one shown in Figure 15.5 featuring brands or products I'm not interested in (Eastland Shoes and Versace watches), I can delete it from my inbox quickly and efficiently.
Figure 15.5 A Considerably Less-Relevant-to-Dave GILT Email
I may not be GILT Group's most frequent customer, but I'm an incredibly active email user. Often, that exact activity is a great indicator for transaction-level behavior. So for their understanding of making content scannable and shopping simple—and also being very good at brand and SKU selection—GILT is a fixture in my Top 5 brands.
Number Three: eBags
When you travel as much as I do, a go-to retailer for luggage and travel accessories is a must-have, and eBags is my personal favorite. Beyond specializing in items my wife swears I buy like Carrie Bradshaw buys shoes, eBags has honed an incredibly personal stream of content for me. And it absolutely proves the fact that a Best Friend Brand can send five to seven campaigns a week and retain strong engagement.
As you'd expect, eBags is good at cart abandonment emails and even sends me an extra message if the price of an item I've carted drops. Beyond that, it also has browse abandon campaigns set up on a brand-by-brand basis, as you can see from the Samsonite message in Figure 15.6 that followed my web-based session by about two hours. Pretty brilliant stuff, huh?
Figure 15.6 A Browse Abandon Email from eBags Featuring Samsonite Products
While we're talking about great behavioral marketing campaigns, let's look at eBags' cart abandon program (Figure 15.7). The creative itself isn't mind-blowing, but it clearly conveys some very important buying signals: (1) the design mirrors the cart page, so it's clear I can buy quickly without having to relocate the SKU; (2) they're telling me how much branded reward currency I'll earn for this purchase, which is important for multiple purchasers like me; and (3) they're recommending alternatives in case that item was not exactly what I want.
Figure 15.7 EBags Cart Abandon Message
From a cadence perspective, this began within a few hours and continued to run for almost two weeks. It went a bit longer than a normal three-touches-over-two-weeks campaign might run, but eBags gets lots of inbox latitude with me. However, I could see this four-to-five-touch program logic becoming a bit much for other customers who aren't as much as an advocate.
Finally, eBags clearly understands the affinity that's a major behavior driver in the travel industry. Not only does it deliver timely offers and have its own reward currency (which has directly driven a conversion from me in the past); it's affiliated with Delta's SkyMiles Shopping, which gets me even more miles per dollar spent, as shown in Figure 15.8. More on SkyMiles in a minute but suffice to say this is a perfect buying moment for me.
Figure 15.8 Delta's SkyMiles Shopping Offer for 10 Miles per Dollar Spent at eBags
For its aggressive frequency, strong availability of almost any travel-related item, and a clear understanding of my buying drivers, eBags is my number one pure-play ecommerce brand. And that's saying a lot when you consider what an incredibly crowded segment luggage is from an ecommerce perspective. I could buy from eBags, Amazon, a local department store like Macy's, or direct from the manufacturer. Creating retailer-level buying preference in this scenario by leveraging great behavioral marketing techniques is earning eBags literally millions of dollars annually.
Number Two: Creative Market
Many of my more technical customers are aware that I've been known to hack up an optimized landing page or end up deep in conversation about how best to tackle the age-old question of responsive design for email templates. Although I don't necessarily create assets in Photoshop, I'm a great collector of content from Creative Market—a designer-driven marketplace of fonts, templates, icons, and almost every other asset a designer or developer might need to build beautiful campaigns.
Creative Market absolutely nails the value proposition of our email relationship by delivering a weekly email containing six free asset packs—three on its site, and three on its Facebook page (see Figure 15.9). There are three to four other campaigns every week that educate me on the latest trends and deliver great offers, but the free asset email gets me every time.
In fact, I keep a subdirectory with just those zip files for a rainy day of hacking. So where do you think I go every time I need something beyond the freebies? Yep! I've become a 10- to 15-purchase customer during the last couple of years just by Creative Market engaging me via email.
Figure 15.9 Creative Market's Weekly Free Goods Email
In addition to powering my infrequent building tasks, Creative Market does an amazing job at updating me on recent design trends. Again, because it's more of a hobby for me, I don't track the latest in logo design or great website templates, but I can follow along with their content, remain up to date, and receive great offers like the one in Figure 15.10.
Figure 15.10 Creative Market's “What's Hot This Week” Email
So for its understanding that trial leads beautifully to purchase, and for keeping me up to date on the latest trends in design, Creative Market is second to only one brand in my inbox. They've crafted an epic value proposition via email that benefits not only their business but also all the artists and designers who sell their products on the site. It's a win–win for both the audience and the marketer, and demonstrates a brand that gets it right on many levels.
Number One: Delta Air Lines
If there's one brand to which I am fanatically loyal, it's Delta Airlines. Given I average somewhere around 175,000 miles annually, I spend an inordinate amount of time planning, booking, and flying—often across multiple channels for every trip. I'm likely to research seat-level availability with a Diamond Medallion desk call center rep, purchase the ticket in my corporate travel portal, modify some aspects of the trip in the mobile app, and then maybe even circle back to the call center preflight. To call me channel agnostic would be a stunning understatement.
Delta understands me at a level most brands couldn't achieve. It knows my notification preferences, and its interactive voice response (IVR) system in the call center recognizes my phone number and routes me to a rep who has my upcoming itineraries on screen before even greeting me (which he or she does by name).
Beyond just the flight experience, Delta builds partnerships with other travel brands like Starwood and Hertz that leverage my Delta status to receive preferred benefits at those other companies. Figure 15.11 shows an example of the Starwood Crossover Reward program that gives me serious hotel-side benefits based on my Diamond Status with Delta. You can imagine how quickly that creates brand preference with my hotels.
Figure 15.11 Starwood Crossover Reward Program
Notice how clearly the value proposition is articulated and lays out the benefits. And since this is only available to me because of the segment I'm in within Delta's structure, it is a masterstroke of behavioral marketing by both companies. Delta adds another benefit to its already-strong value proposition, and SPG gets business directly from Delta's most frequent flyers. Very smart co-marketing.
Of course, even your Best Friend Brands can have suboptimal programs. For me, that's Delta's SkyDining program, which earns me a few miles every couple of months but does nothing to affect my choice of restaurants (which is what they really are trying to do with the program). The quality and relevance of the locations just isn't up to the standards I consistently receive from Foursquare in terms of reviews and other forms of social proof.
See Figure 15.12 for an example of an email that just misses on the behavioral promise. I don't know these restaurants and they're a fair distance away from my home. This is a case in which building a great behavioral marketing program around a valuable audience has to truly hit on all cylinders. Missing one aspect of it (location selection, in this case) makes the whole program suffer in end-user usefulness.
Figure 15.12 Delta's Less-than-Impressive SkyDining Program
I remain enrolled in SkyDining, however, because they reward you two points for every dollar spent if you're opted in for email versus one point per dollar if you're not. I'm willing to put up with a subpar stream of content in my inbox for the simple 100 percent more earning factor. There's probably a really interesting how-far-can-a-brand-go-to-alienate-an-advocate question in this program, but we'll save that one for another day.
The sheer amount of time, money, and effort I spend with Delta Air Lines makes them my clear Number One Best Friend Brand. Delta's service, support, and marketing are strong across virtually all channels, and it makes for an excellent customer experience. Could they do even more things right? Sure, but their game is strong, and if you live in Atlanta and travel, Delta is your choice for many reasons.
Conclusion
In trying to paint a full picture of the benefits of behavioral marketing, I've given you a look deep inside my inbox and my most important brands. Do the same for yourself, and then begin the process of putting your customers in segments as well. You should always have a goal to be among your best customers' Best Friend Brands. That starts with understanding who they are, and continues with building programs, communications, and offers that exceed their expectations.
Some days, these winning programs will mean building great email content and offers, but it might just as easily be something as nondigital as enhancing your call center software to recognize customers by name based on their Caller ID. Start with the simple elements you have complete control over (if someone's shopping beach vacations, do not show pictures of Paris in your emails), but chart an aggressive course to make more meaningful change. You're going to need help for lots of other people in your company, but marketing should always be pushing a customer advocacy agenda.