Hibbett helps customers get their thumb in the game via new mobile site - Mobile Commerce Daily - Web site development

Hibbett helps customers get their thumb in the game via new mobile site 

April 19, 2013

Hibbett Sporting Goods is getting into the mobile game with a new optimized site designed to complement the in-store experience at its 850 locations.

Users who are members of the chain’s MVP Rewards loyalty program will be able to see their point balance on the site as well as review their point history and access rewards and special offers. The launch is being supported with a multichannel marketing campaign encouraging sports fans to “Get Your Thumb in the Game.”

“Estimates place mobile Web traffic at 15 percent of overall Internet traffic, and that figure will only increase,” said Rich Sullivan, CEO and executive creative director of Red Square Agency, Mobile, AL.

“Simply, mobile is an integral component of Hibbett’s customers’ experience with their brand, and it’s the link between physical and digital,” he said. “We want to make it easy for them to find products, stores and manage their MVP rewards.”

Hibbett Sporting Goods worked with Red Square Agency to develop the mobile Web site and supporting marketing campaign.

Shopping support
With smartphone owners increasingly using their mobile devices in store to support their shopping activities, Hibbett Sporting Goods wanted a mobile site that would enhance the strong tie between mobile usage and local shopping.

Mobile users who visit the Hibbett Sporting Goods site will be able to browse products, redeem coupons as well as manage their MVP Rewards account.

“When a mobile user arrives on hibbett.com they have the option to browse products, find a store, view or sign-up for an MVP Rewards account,” Mr. Sullivan said. “Users can also email Hibbett directly or read a brief about section.

“The new design gives users more control on how they search for products and store locations,” he said. “Items are organized in categories and users can search based on those categories.

“Users can also find stores that are nearby, with GPS, or search based on state or ZIP code.”

SpokesthumbsThe supporting marketing campaign introduces several thumb characters representing a football, basketball, baseball, soccer and softball player. The tagline is “Get Your Thumb in the Game.”

With users likely to be using their thumbs a lot on the mobile site, the thumb characters are a fun way to introduce the new site to customers.

The campaign will appear on in-store signage and radio spots, print ads and in three videos on the Hibbett Sports YouTube channel.

“These videos are comical introductions of the Hibbett Sports ‘spokesthumbs,’ encouraging consumers to ‘Get Your Thumb in The Game,’ by utilizing the new mobile Web site,” Mr. Sullivan said.

“The new mobile Web site ‘spokesthumbs’ are representative of baseball, basketball, football, soccer and softball athletes,” he said. “Essentially, a play on sports figures signing brand endorsement deals.”

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York

27 Time-Saving Tools and Tricks to Be a More Productive Marketer

27 Time-Saving Tools and Tricks to Be a More Productive Marketer

by Meghan Keaney Anderson

Today’s marketers are increasingly strapped for time. We live in a world where inboxes buzz at 11pm and “busy” is the most common response to “How are you?” If this sounds familiar, you’re probably faced with a conundrum: You can’t get in any earlier. You can’t stay much later. And sleeping any less would qualify you for full-on zombie citizenship.

So what can you do to become more efficient in the time that you do have?  Find small victories against the clock. (And it doesn't hurt to keep a sense of humor, either.)

To reclaim precious minutes and hours in your schedule, you’re going to need a few good strategies, a collection of tools, and a liberal policy on office coffee consumption. Here’s a start from my own arsenal of inbound marketer time-saving tactics.

Strategies to Speed You Up

So often, efficiency comes down to focus. The following strategies are designed to help you inject a bit more focus into your hectic day-to-day. They all need to be tried on for size, as some may work better than others for you and your business.

Timeboxing

If I let them, single blog posts could take me a full day to complete. I could spend hours finding the right words for an introduction and punctuating each line with a “quick” break to peek at email or witter. The next thing I know it’s 40 minutes later and I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole of side-topics and funny internet memes. (Store this gem for later. I said later, surfers.)

Timeboxing adds focus and urgency that helps you move more quickly through your work. Here’s how it works:

1) Allow yourself a concrete period of time for each task -- for example, 2 hours to research and write a blog post.

2) Block that time off on your calendar to illustrate that you shouldn’t be disturbed. In fact, if possible, go someplace quiet to work.

3) Here’s the hard part. Don’t do anything else during that time period. No email. No article reading. No snack breaks.

4) At the end of the 2 hours, stop. Even if you aren’t finished with the post, stop and move onto something else. Doing so will help keep your focus over the long run. You can always create a second timebox later to return and finish your post.

Email Quarantine

Email quarantine is similar to timeboxing but deserves its own line, because it battles one of the biggest time vortexes of all – your bleeping inbox. The trick here is to not check email continuously throughout the day. Instead, give yourself 15 minute blocks of time at the beginning, middle, and end of the day to go through it. You may lose a step in terms of immediate response, but you’ll gain epochs in your overall efficiency the rest of the day.

Walking Meetings

Written about by many, but first introduced to me by HubSpotters Jonathan Kim and Brian McMullin, walking meetings increase your productivity by actually keeping your body and mind moving throughout the discussion. Pick a loop around your office that takes about 30 minutes to walk, then use milestones along the path to indicate where you should be in your discussion. It may seem like getting out of the office would add time to your schedule, but more often than not it results in more productive conversations. I’d encourage you to try it once and let me know in the comments how it went.

30-Minute Stand-Ups

Walking meetings are great for one-on-one situations; for group meetings, try a "stand-up," a brief meeting meant to keep everyone efficient, accountable, and up-to-date ... not to belabor points and "brainstorm." Limit your time to 30-minute sessions, max -- sometimes we even do 10-minute sessions -- and give everyone in attendance one defined opportunity to speak. While not necessary, standing during the meeting can increase the sense of efficiency and bring a new energy to your meetings.

Cheetah-Like Productivity Tools

Software is an overwhelmed marketer’s best friend. These are a few of the tools I use regularly to keep me on schedule and prioritizing the right things.

• IFTTT: IFTTT stands for "If this then that." It’s a free tool that allows you to set up notifications or other actions based on a trigger. For example, if you’re tagged in an image on Facebook, send a text message or add that photo to your Dropbox. If you’ve got HubSpot, you probably don’t need this because notifications are part of HubSpot workflows, but for those of you don’t, IFTT is a good tool. 
• Skitch and Clarify: Skitch is a free drag-and-drop screenshot tool that helps you capture and use images more quickly. Clarify (a HubSpot customer) is just as fast, but more advanced. It combines image capture, editing, and document authoring to help you to quickly create documents and marketing collateral.
• Tempo: Tempo is a calendar app I just started using that is great for people hopping from meeting to meeting. Among the time saving features, Tempo pulls in webinar dial-in information, has one-click notification to let people know if you're running late, and integrates maps and LinkedIn profiles for meetings outside of your office. It's pretty handy. 
• HubSpot iPhone App: The HubSpot app allows you to track new leads and see your progress toward lead generation goals while on the go.   
• HubSpot Social Scheduling: Mention social media and two questions inevitably follow: Where do you find the time? And is it really worth it? HubSpot's social scheduling and bookmark tool answers both. 
• Chime: Okay, clearly I’m a little biased here because we loved these guys enough that we acquired them, but Chime is an incredibly useful tool that helps aggregate all of your notifications in one place, easily shaving off minutes throughout the day while keeping you informed. 
• TripIt: I don’t travel much for work, but I’ve learned from those who do that TripIt offers a really easy way to organize flight and travel information into one place.

Speed of Light Keyboard Tricks

Most people know about keyboard tricks to bold, underline, or copy and paste in a document. Here are few more of my favorite tricks to keep your fingers moving. Every computer model is set up differently, so you’ll have to test them out, but here are a few good shortcuts.

Windows/PC

• Create Filler Text: All marketers need filler text. When you’re laying out a document or writing a post, save yourself from writing blah blah blah 50 times with this simple trick. While using Microsoft Word, if you need some random text type: =rand(x,y) and press Enter; x and y are numbers of your choice. For example, =rand(3,4)<Enter> gives you 3 paragraphs with 4 sentences each. 
• Delete a Whole Word vs. Letter by Letter: Control + Backspace 
• Change From Lowercase to Uppercase: Shift F3 
• Go to the Desktop: Windows Key + d 
• Minimize Everything: Windows key + m

Mac Computers

• Screenshot: Command + Shift + 3 to take a full screenshot, or Command + Shift + 4 to take a section of your screen. These are great for educational content when you're trying to explain how to do something to your readers.
• Email a Link to This Page: Shift + Command + I
• Look Up a Word in the Dictionary: Control + Command + D.

All Computer Types

• Insert a Link: Highlight the words you want to hyperlink, then hold down Control or Command and hit the letter K. 
• Quickly Search a Page: Hold down Control or Command and then hit the letter F for find. 
• Tab Through Your Programs: On a PC, hold down Alt and strike the Tab key to cycle through your windows. On a Mac, hold down the Command button and strike the Tab key.

Internet Browsers

• Move cursor to the address bar: On a PC, strike F6 
• Accidentally closed a tab? Get it back. For Firefox and Chrome users, Ctrl +Shift + T opens that tab that you just closed by accident. I can’t tell you the number of times this has saved me when moving too fast. 
• Move between tabs: Control + Tab.

Data-Driven Prioritization

Keyboard shortcuts and productivity tools will only get you so far. It also helps to stop once in a while to examine your overall time investment and look for places to cut. The good news is, analytics can help you find ways to spend less time on activities that don't move the needle, and more time on things that have the biggest impact on your marketing.

Channel Evaluation

Take a look at the visits, leads, and customers each of your marketing channels have generated.  You can see an example of this within HubSpot below. Do the outcomes driven by each channel align well with the time you're putting into them?  Are there channels that are taking valuable marketing time without demonstrating any results? Use these metrics to reallocate your time into the channels that drive the greatest impact. 

Page Evaluation

You may spend tons of time getting your website to look just right, but do you know which of those pages are actually influential to people who end up buying? Use a conversion assistsreport or customer interviews to determine which pages were most commonly used by customers to make their purchase decision. Reallocate your time to focus more on testing and improving those pages before addressing other pages on your site. 

Since I’ve already taken a good five minutes off your day, I’ll stop there so you can get back to being an inbound marketing superhero.  But my final suggestion is this: Cut yourself some slack. Time is a slippery devil. Letting your to-do list overwhelm you is the surest way to reduce your productivity. Instead, focus on conquering two or three key achievements each day. Then if there’s time, attack the long-tail of your to-do list.

Oh, and it’s ok to whisper “King of the Mountain!*” each time you cross another item off. I recommend it.

*Achievement catch-phrases may vary.

Mobile Searches Lead to Conversions Within the Hour - 'Net Features - Website Magazine

Mobile Searches Lead to Conversions Within the Hour 

Just how big of a game changer is mobile? Really, really big (as if you didn't know) according to a new study from iAcquire and SurveyMonkey. 

The research exposed several interesting insights about how consumers search on their mobile devices, what they actually do when searching on mobile (their specific behaviors), and some standard demographic information. What is most interesting from the report however is the data that relates to the effectiveness of mobile searches. According to the study, 70 percent of mobile searches lead to action on websites within one hour. 

Some additional highlights from the study include: 

- 40% of people will choose another result if it is not mobile friendly.
- 40% of searches are conducted while users are watching television.
- 45% of users 18-29 use mobile search daily.

JCPenney CEO’s departure highlights challenges retailers face with in-store mobile efforts - Mobile Commerce Daily - Multichannel retail support

JCPenney CEO’s departure highlights challenges retailers face with in-store mobile efforts

April 10, 2013

CEO Ron Johnson’s departure from JCPenney is a cautionary tale for retailers about how moving forward quickly with a mobile in-store strategy will not necessarily drive sales if all the other pieces are not in place.

Mr. Johnson, who previously ran Apple’s retail business, tried to lead a turnaround at JCPenney by introducing a number of changes, including eliminating price promotions and replacing checkout counters with iPod touches. However, instead of these moves growing the business, the retailer’s fourth quarter 2012 sales were down 28 percent compared with the same period a year before and Mr. Johnson was let go.

“What Mr. Johnson did was like a splash in the face to his consumers, and technology was not able to redeem him in that regard,” said Stephen Burke, vice president of mobile at Resource, Columbus, OH.

“There can be such a thing as too much innovation too quickly, which is why many brands opt for the test-and-learn approach and gradually introduce changes,” he said. “He did not seem inclined to want to test or learn.

“I would say this is not a referendum on mobile in-store, this is a referendum on overturning the value proposition while you change everything else around it. Their consumers simply weren’t prepared for that.”

Preparing customers for change
Mr. Johnson tried to change too much, too quickly and, in the process, alienated the retailer’s traditional customers. In addition to the new pricing strategy and mobile checkout, he also introduced redesigned store layouts and got rid of some older brands.

At the same time, moves intended to attract younger, hipper customers such as the introduction of mobile checkout, were not able to bring in enough new customers.

While the belief that mobile can enhance the in-store experience, department stores face some challenges here.

One is making sure customers are well prepared for the changes, both demographically and in terms of the shopping experience.

“Clearly, the biggest challenge is Wi-Fi enablement as a first step,” said Rick Chavie, vice president at Hybris Software, Seattle.

“The second is to use mobile as a complement to a strong customer service culture – if the culture does not exist, mobile tools can actually distract from the customer experience by giving associates a tool to play with instead of engaging with customers,” he said.

Training staff
The significant investment need to train staff on how to engage customers via mobile is another challenge.

As a result of these challenges, department stores are behind some other retailers when it comes to putting these strategies into place.

“There is a significant investment in not only technology but more importantly training of front line staff to make this work,” said Laura Wheeler DeYonker, vice president of client services at AbsolutData, Alameda, CA. “Department stores often have high turn-over of the front line staff, which increases the frequency and costs of training.

“Department stores are lagging behind some of the high end retailers in using mobile inside the stores, but they are experimenting more than retailers with lower product lines,” she said.  “The best in class retailers are the technology/electronics retailers and high end fashion retailers, such as Tory Burch, that are using mobile to empower the sales representatives in enhancing the customer experience.”

The right way
There are examples of department stores that are doing a good job of integrating mobile into the customer experience to provide shoppers with access to product information and to speed up the checkout process.

Kohl’s has announced plans to make Wi-Fi available in all of its stores so it can engage customers while they are shopping.

Nordstrom is also using mobile in-store effectively.

Macy’s has gradually incorporated mobile calls-to-action in its various campaigns, departments and promotions. It was also an early adopter in testing shopkick before rolling it across its store base and continues to test other mobile initiatives.

“The way Macy’s positioned it and the consistency with which they have done it has made it comfortable for consumers to engage that way,” Resource’s Mr. Burke said.

“It is additive to the consumer experience and it is done in consistent way,” he said.

Gradual roll out
One way to prepare customers for using mobile to enhance the customer experience is with a gradual roll out that involves testing and learning along the way.

“Thoughtful test and learns that are rolled out over a period of time against a growing consumer bases tend to be successful,” Mr. Burke said. “Total rips and rebuilds tend not to be successful.

The example of Mr. Johnson and JCPenney does not suggest that retailers should not consider rolling out mobile technology – just that they need to do it thoughtfully.

This means making sure that mobile is aligned with a retailer’s core value proposition. For example, Macy’s uses mobile to provide more in-depth information on designers.

“If you look across the spectrum of retailers across America, most are marching very steadily towards an integrated mobile in-store experience,” Mr. Burke said.

“JCPenney is an outlier in this equation, not an example of cross-integration failing because of technology or platform,” he said.

“Make sure mobile is utilitarian and it is ideally transparent in that you don’t have to depend on mobile to deliver the whole value proposition. It enhances it in conjunction with standard merchandising and marketing techniques.”

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York

Beauty buyers rely on mobile reviews in-store before making a purchase: report - Mobile Commerce Daily - Multichannel retail support

Beauty buyers rely on mobile reviews in-store before making a purchase: report - Mobile Commerce Daily 

Beauty buyers are leveraging mobile reviews and other content to help them make in-store purchases, with Totalbeauty.com reporting 1.8 million sessions and 679,000 reviews read on its mobile application last year.

Additionally, 86,000 products were added to “favorites” in 2012 on Totalbeauty.com’s mobile app. The data also suggests women visit mobile Web sites while on the go, with the Totalbeauty.com site seeing 10.8 million mobile visits and 21.6 million mobile page views in 2012.

“We are seeing that not only are women looking to their networks, to people that they know, but they are also looking to trusted resources,” said Mary Dolan, social interactive marketing manager at Totalbeauty.com. “We have the biggest database of unbiased consumer product reviews on the Web so our mobile app lets them easily log-in and check out products and what people are saying about them before they purchase.

“Women are researching on average 20 minutes before they hit the store to make a purchase,” she said.

“We really aim to educate the consumer and be a resource where she can come in and find the ratings for products and find all the information she thinks she needs while she is standing in the aisle at the beauty store or at the beauty counter so that she feels ready to make that purchase.”

Mobile engagement
The online beauty reviews and tips site found that more than three-quarters of its audience uses mobile in store, with more than half using mobile to aid in making in-store purchase decisions and 25 percent using mobile to find coupons while shopping. The results point to how engaged beauty shoppers are with mobile.

Other key findings include that 75 percent of Totalbeauty.com’s audience downloads apps and that there were 1.86 million video views from a mobile device of Totalbeauty.com content on YouTube, with 60 percent saying they use video in place of consumer reports and product manuals.

“The biggest trend we are seeing right now is mobile video,” Ms. Dolan said.

“That is the biggest diverging pattern that we are seeing, that women aren’t just looking at the information, they are actually relying on their mobile devices as a tool all the way from purchase through to use of product info,” she said.

Content creation
The results also underscore how beauty shoppers are engaging with social media via mobile, with one in ten women reporting to spend two to four hours per day social networking on her phone.

Additionally, among Apple users, 50 percent are gamers, 42 percent are catalog shoppers, 39 percent are social influencers and 34 percent are fashionistas.

The results point to an opportunity for brands to intercept beauty shoppers via mobile while they on the way to making a purchase by creating content that resonates with them in an authentic way.

“Eighty percent of women said they find advertising extremely annoying, but only one-third of women were willing to pay for premium content,” Ms. Dolan said. “So what that says for brands is that they really need to find different, fun ways to engage with the consumer.

“There are a lot of different ways to do that, such as engagement surveys, polls and social media,” she said.

“Incorporating gaming elements as well is a good idea as we are seeing about 50 percent of mobile users consider themselves gamers, so interactive, entertaining content is a huge opportunity for brands right now.”

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York

The race is on: iOS, Android each approach 1 million live mobile apps - Mobile Marketer - Content

The race is on: iOS, Android each approach 1 million live mobile apps 

Apple has been the leader in mobile applications ever since the space started to take off. However, both iOS and Android are nearing one million live apps with some predicting Android will get there first, suggesting the platforms are on more even footing than ever before.  

While Android is the more widely available mobile operating system, Apple has traditionally offered more apps as well as the highest quality offerings. But Android has quickly caught up to iOS over the past year and each is expected to hit the one million mark for live apps sometime in the next couple of months.

“The two platforms are closer to parity than they have ever been with regard to applications,” said Karl Stillner, CEO of Appolicious, Chicago. “Android has effectively caught up in quantity, and in most cases, quality.

“However, there are more pure native applications on iOS than Android still, due to Android developers working with hybrid native/Web solutions to address the device fragmentation issue that exists on that platform,” he said.

Apple’s advantagesThe number of apps offered on the iOS platform has been one of its competitive advantages over Android and others. But, with iOS and Android soon offering same number of apps, this means consumers could have many of the same options on either platform.

However, there are likely to be some differences in the types of apps that are available on each platform.

For example, developers who are looking to monetize apps still tend to focus more on the Apple App store because results, on average, are better compared to the more fragmented Android ecosystem.

“The Apple approach gives organizations and developers a straight line strategy to reach all iOS users,” said Arun Ramdeane, senior account executive at Atimi Software, Vancouver, Canada.

“When deploying flagship apps for Android, one must think about their total addressable market and if monetization is a driver, which device do you support to reach your goal,” he said. “More time is spent on planning your route to market with Android vs. Apple.”

Quality apps Apple has also traditionally offered the higher quality apps because it has done the better job of enforcing its App Store guidelines. However, Google is beginning to take a more active role in policing apps available on Google Play, suggesting quality may be less of an issue in the future.

In the short term, developers are likely to continue to focus on bringing apps to the iOS platform first.

“The two platforms are not at parity when it comes to apps,” said Scott Michaels, a partner at Atimi Software. “They may be at parity in numbers, but in a couple key metrics they are not equal.

“Those are the overall revenue being generated — Apple wins — and overall quality of the offerings — Apple wins,” he said.

“That is borne out by our work every day in this market. Our clients still do iOS first, as that is where users are still the most likely to be converted from free to paid, and where they see the biggest impact overall to the brand.”

Room to grow It is likely the number of apps available will not stop at one million but continue to grow as apps become more integrated into different aspects of life.

For example, more enterprise apps are likely to become available in the consumer marketplace as the bring-your-own-device trend continues.

Additionally, retailers have only begun to figure out the many ways that apps can be leveraged to improve the shopping experience.

The growing number of available apps means it is more important than ever for developers to ensure they offer quality apps. Apps with small budgets and me-too apps are not likely to find success in this increasingly competitive app marketplace.

However, many brands still do not understand the app market. While there are examples of highly successful brands apps – Nike, REI, Starbucks and Delta are all examples – there are still many brands that have yet to successfully find a way to connect with consumers via mobile apps.

“Largely, brands are still trying to figure out how to better integrate mobile apps into their marketing mix,” said Peter Farago, vice president of marketing at Flurry Analytics, San Francisco.

“For many brands, there is an opportunity to re-architect the entire digital marketing strategy around the mobile app as the primary consumer touch point,” he said.

“Brands can shift their strategy from periodically reaching consumer through campaigns with living with them through a mobile app.”

Final TakeChantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York

Facebook's New APIs Help Brands Monitor, Respond to Comment Replies

Facebook's New APIs Help Brands Monitor, Respond to Comment Replies

Just a week after launching comment replies on Facebook, the social network updated its API Wednesday to help brands better monitor and respond to them.

In a post on its developer blog, Facebook product engineer Alex Madjar says developers can now set up different comment "views" on posts.

The first view is called "top level comments," which are standalone comments on a post that are not replies to individual comments. Next, "replies," are comments responding to other comments. Finally, the last view, "comment streams," show all comments — both top level and replies — together; this view lists comments in chronological order, helping programmers "get what's new."

Madjar then explains how to get started with the new APIs: "Opt into the 'July 2013 Breaking Changes' migration for your app by visiting the Advanced tab of your app dashboard."