We recently published a new Case Study examining the competitive scenario between two leading retailers of cycling gear and supplies – Bike Nashbar and Performance Bike. There is a de-facto advantage to one of the players and a key channel that the other can leverage to fight back.
The ultimate question: What would you do if wearing the moccasins of either Chief Marketing Officer?
Loyalty Truth recruited a panel of experts to review this Case Study and offer insights into what it will take for Bike Nashbar to put forth a differentiated Customer Strategy and how it should revamp its email marketing strategy. Now that all 3 of our experts have weighed in, look for a compilation of responses in our Resource section soon.
Loyalty Truth is proud to share Stephanie Scuderi‘s thoughts on this case study as our newest contributing author. Please read more about Stephanie, a veteran of the Loyalty Marketing industry, at the end of this article.
In the age old challenge of newcomer vs. established brand, the newcomer, or Bike Nashbar in this case, has the ‘scrappy’ advantage. Without the momentum of established brand experience, Bike Nashbar’s brand strategy is a clean slate – nothing terrible to overcome…and a point of established relativity – or Performance Bike in this case. Creative ideas quickly fall into acquisition, brand and customer strategies. At a high level, the following considerations could be explored.
Brand Strategy
- Give it a personality…if Bike Nashbar was a person, who would they be?
- Appeal to the segment – sponsor or be a founding partner of global amateur racing – designed for the wealthy who are looking to blend experience with exertion
- Enlist a spokesperson relevant to the target – Instead of Lance Armstrong, get Jack Dorsey (twitter founder) or someone equally contemporary, making a difference, using his head, thinking out of the box, and oh yea, biking off the steam. Publish his race times or self-bests — how do you stack up?
THEN…within that framework…
- Take it offline: make the relationship tangible – can be done with a physical mailing – cleverly designed or worded.
- Partner with biking merchants to create a Bike Nashbar network. BN becomes the face of all mom and pop shops online…providing a few templates, BN essentially private labels their web site to shops who couldn’t otherwise afford the complexity afforded in a co-op structure.
- Host “the world’s largest recreational biking” party – all members invited to the local Bike Nashbar network partner – with streaming video, a la the You Tube Symphony – get everyone across the world together – have it be newsworthy enough that the press alone is value.
Reward and Recognize…
- Set a goal to get to know customers – and communicate with them with respect to the relationship they have with you…don’t send everyone the same emails…they’re not sending you the same amount of business – reflect knowledge and insight in messaging.
- Set up a program that motivates people to spend more with Bike Nashbar — and reward for bike-related activities – even if they aren’t a direct revenue stream. Jack Smith completed his first race, give him bonus points to congratulate him and get him to race another…the more he races, and the more he knows you’re in his corner, the more he’s going to spend with you and tell you about his experiences.
Finally, the Acquisition Strategy…with ideas for brand direction and how to keep customers in the loop, how to attract those prospects?
- Start a “What was your first bicycle?” campaign to get people to go online, register, and indirectly get acquainted with Bike Nashbar.
- Take them back to the beginning…ask the question why they fell in love with biking…I’m not a biker, other than around the neighborhood with my son on his tricycle, but I still remember my first bike, it was yellow with a black racing stripe and training wheels. Then, I graduated to a Huffy Sweet Pea (yellow and pea green – loved it). Point being, by tapping into a basic memory, prospects who aren’t currently avid bikers may be lured into the brand introduction experience and fall into the fold of occasional customers — who can then be targeted for growth in spend.
- Conversion: be a race portal
- Create a race log…have all “registered” bike races online, with registration forms
- Partner with bike racing organizations to automatically load all times for racers belonging to Bike Nashbar network
- Users can link with bikers of similar skill/time level to see how others like themselves are training to improve
Success lies in the blend of meeting basic needs with a new twist — elegant new ways to do and think about everyday things associated with the sport and hobby of biking. By re-engineering its brand, Bike Nashbar has an opportunity to reset expectations and redefine the biker’s experience.
More about Stephanie Scuderi: Currently focused on business development and marketing for Centennial Bank, a $2.7 billion financial institution, Stephanie has deep roots in data-driven business development strategies that build engagement and drive customer loyalty. Having worked with Brierley & Partners, Frequency Marketing, Inc. and Alliance Data’s Colloquy consulting group, Stephanie has developed customer strategies for a diverse group of companies including Verizon, classmates.com and JP Morgan Chase.