Are you preparing to be relevant to individuals used to get things done on screens? Any screen they chose to start and then finish their transaction on -- be it search, share, or involve.
It's not about how "social" you are, or how you cookie visitors and retarget them -- those are tactical applications you may select when you understand the implications of being available in response to this new generation of connected customers have on your model.
Is your business strategy relevant for this marketplace? For many industries, the business will go from slight decrease in growth or parity to a rapid cliff, seemingly overnight.
Because when you're not organized around a -- for lack of better terminology -- "digital core", you are not even going to be part of the consideration set. You're not even there.
Customers will hire something else to do that job.
Amazon gets "net natives"
It doesn't integrate digital, it thinks and acts that way. Instead of considering people -- customers are people -- part of the cost to acquire, serve, and retain as most organizations do, Amazon considers them the best form of investment.
The net retailer leverages personalization -- the very same technology that is available for implementation on any Web site -- to deliver on customer experience with every interaction.
That means that while the average business is still working out segmentation of customer type, or segmentation of product/service type, Amazon delivers relevant marketing in real time.
One to one, bingo.
Shop on the site with confidence. Go to Consumer Reports and check out their reviews for appliances. You can do it on your mobile, too. Select the link recommended for purchase on the top washer and dryer sets, for example. See where you land -- that's right, Amazon.com.
Amazon knows what you buy, so they don't have to store the items you don't want. It hosts one of the largest and most visited forums of frequently read reviews on the 'net, integrating content with community, with commerce.
It uses unique URLs for learning how people share its content and it optimizes around points of conversion.
Vision for 2020
About the cloud, the study notes that “[e]ven though [Amazon Web Services] AWS is primarily a B2B offer, the Amazon cloud will ultimately be geared toward end-users.”
It also addresses the company’s long-term goals to grow the Kindle ecosystem, achieve same-day delivery ambition, and lock in as the small and medium business supplier of choice.
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As I'm fond of pointing out, if there were no people involved -- no people as customers, no people as employees -- it would all work smoothly in some place in the ether.
Since we have humans on both sides of the exchange, being future ready with technology means that the pure online plays like Google and Amazon will start showing up in the real world and redefine location in physical terms.
See for example, Amazon metal lockers in grocery and convenience stores and recent news that Google is building stand-alone retail stores in the U.S.
On the other end of the spectrum, brick-and-mortar retailers like Walmart, Target, and Best Buy have been experimenting with retail, social, and mobile, personalized offers, and convenient pricing respectively as part of the connected customer experience.
Is your business ready for 'net natives?
[hat tip O'Reilly for the Amazon research]
[images source faberNovel]
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Valeria is an experienced listener. She is also frequent speaker at conferences and companies on a variety of topics. To book her for a speaking engagement click here.