Matt Grisman from Moss Bros speaks at The Figaro Digital Health Check & Marketing Summit on Thursday 6 November 2014. He gives us a quick preview of some of the issues under discussion
Hi Matt. You’ll be discussing Moss Bros’ transition from traditional to digital retailer. What can we expect to hear?
The story of one traditional retailer’s recent transition from ecommerce novice to ecommerce leader and – more specifically – the role that email marketing has played in that transformation. I’ll detail how applying ecommerce best practice allowed Moss Bros to earn some very quick wins – from basic segmentation which the business had never done before to making content work harder in generating incremental sales for us. In conclusion I look to the multichannel future laid out for the company by the introduction of a single customer view platform and explain how we’re planning to make best use of this with our existing and future email communication knowledge and experience.
Why does this matter to marketers right now?
Email can be a much maligned channel, considering the amount of spam we all seem to receive. The discussion about ‘how many emails are too many emails’ and ‘how do I keep my customers engaged’ has been raging for some time now but is more important than ever, given the multichannel world in which we’re all working today. Email is increasingly important because of the ease with which consumers can open and read them on their smartphones. It’s not simply about driving sales. It’s an increasingly important means of building brand awareness.
We’re impatient! Can we have one take-away from your presentation?
Two key points. The first is that email should be near the top of the priority list when it comes to developing any multichannel communications strategy. Secondly, it’s never too late to make the most of your email database. Even some of the big players in your industry still have a lot to learn and improve on.
What’s the single biggest issue facing marketers in your sector at the moment?
Multichannel and, more specifically, the cross-device journey consumers are taking to purchase. The key is in joining up the dots which, given a robust single customer view strategy, can be fairly straightforward. The issue is what to make of the joined up picture and how best you can improve your communications, offers and purchase journey based on these findings. It’s not a quick fix and takes some time in analysis, testing and evaluation before real incremental results are achieved. And in retail ‘some time’ is too long!
What factors do you anticipate dominating digital marketing in 2015?
As mentioned, cross-device tracking, communications and optimisation are top of the agenda. For us in e-retail, fulfilment is the key battleground and 2015 will be see the pinnacle of this struggle to out-do competitors with new and innovative delivery options – I envisage plenty of failed tests but one or two winners emerging in this space.