Retailers face an increasingly difficult challenge to be successful. Not only do they have to outwit competitors with clever merchandising, creative store layout, and careful inventory management – they also have to understand how to best communicate their promotional offers to customers.
The last challenge can be perplexing as not all retailers use the same merchandising channels. For example, competitors in the same category can be single channel in brick and mortar, catalog, or online, or be operating with a mix of all three. Generally speaking, there isn’t a successful catalog retailer operating today without a website, and most brick and mortar retailers have gone online. Some have added a catalog and, to keep things interesting, others avoid the expense of printed catalogs and supplement their online marketing efforts with mass media advertising campaigns.
I’ve published a new Case Study on my web site that examines 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 conclusions raise as many questions as it offers answers.
The ultimate question: What would you do if wearing the moccasins of either Chief Marketing Officer?
Since I don’t have all the answers, I’ve asked 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. Chiming in will be:
- Michael Della Penna, Co-founder and President of SuiteDialog, a participatory marketing company that helps leading brands build interactive marketing programs that engage users in an ongoing dialog.
- Ragy Thomas, Co-founder and CEO of Aiti Solutions. Ragy is the former president of Epsilon Interactive, a division of Alliance Data Systems that was created by combining market leaders, Bigfoot Interactive and DoubleClick’s email solutions group. You can read his blog at The PMN blog.
- Tom Rapsas, an independent Creative Director, Writer and Creative Strategist who has worked for some of the biggest and most respected direct and loyalty marketing firms in the U.S. Tom is a Contributing Author to Loyalty Truth and has written numerous trade articles on issues related to loyalty and direct marketing.
In the next week, we will post comments from our panel on this Case Study in a new post on Loyalty Truth. We invite your comments on the case and are interested to know your reaction to the recommendations of our contributing panelists.
Download the Case Study here and join in the conversation.