Author: Jeff Ketner

Don’t Fall Behind in PR: Four Steps to Raising Your Company’s Media Profile

Posted on | by Jeff Ketner
Fall Sampler by Micky**, on Flickr

Fall is finally here. After 40 days of 100°-plus weather in Austin this summer, the temperature is dipping into the 60s in the mornings. Sure, we’re already back to the mid-90s this week, but the mornings are crisp, folks are breaking out the fall clothes, and there’s football galore. The Longhorns even won again this weekend, so everything’s right with the world.

Fall is the season of new beginnings—and one of the busiest times of year for Ketner Group and our clients. There are key conferences and trade shows (next week, Catherine and Caitlin will be at Shop.org with a number of our clients, for example). KG clients are making exciting new product and customer announcements in the coming months, and we’re busily working with them on fresh ideas and opportunities for PR and marketing campaigns.

As we mention on our Be Spectacled page, it’s no time to let your PR program “fall” back. After all, the next few months are a critical time in the technology sales cycle. Companies will select vendors for their remaining technology projects before the end of the year, and they’re also setting their 2014 budgets and deciding which projects to fund. It’s essential for technology vendors to keep up a high profile with PR and marketing campaigns.

What can companies do in the remaining months of 2013? Here are four simple suggestions:

Pick up the pace with press releases. Press releases are an essential way of gaining earned media coverage and creating buzz for your company. We love to see our clients generate one to two newsworthy announcements each month, as it’s a way to let key editors, analysts, influencers and prospects know your company is on the move.

Pitch, pitch, pitch. In today’s always-on news cycle, the media are hungry for content, and fall is ripe with opportunities. Holiday shopping will be one of the top business stories this fall and winter, for example, and many of our clients have story angles that feed directly into potential coverage in the coming months.

The key is to be relevant and creative. Do you or your customers have particular expertise that might be valuable to media? Then pitch your ideas; after all, the media is continually looking for interesting stories.

Focus on analysts. Industry analysts play a critical role in the technology ecosystem. How long has it been since you’ve briefed the key analysts covering your space? If it’s been 6-12 months or longer, it’s time for an update, regardless of whether or not your company is a client. After all, analysts need to understand your products, strategy and customer base in order to do their job; and since they often advise end-user companies on vendor selections, it’s essential that the analysts are up to date on your company.

Refresh your content. It’s no secret that content is king. Now is the time to refresh your website with fresh content, short videos, case studies, infographics, e-books, case studies and vehicles for telling your company’s story. Most of our clients’ software solutions have hefty price tags and solve critical business problems, so prospects will be on your site often to look for relevant, up to date content.

There’s much more, of course, but these are just a few ideas to get you started. What other suggestions do you have to give your PR and marketing campaigns a fall makeover? We’d love to hear from you.

Retail’s Reinvention: Back to the Future?

Posted on | by Jeff Ketner

I’ve been reading and thinking about retail innovation a lot lately, which is no surprise. After all, many of our clients here at Ketner Group are retail tech companies, and retailers have been reinventing themselves at a furious pace in recent years as they seek new ways to compete with Amazon.

One of the things that intrigued me is a recent Reuters article about Walmart’s “radical plan” to have its customers deliver packages to online buyers. The plans are still in the early stages, but as the article explains, “shoppers could tell the retailer where they live and sign up to drop off packages for online customers who live on their route back home,” in exchange for a discount on their Walmart purchases. The retail giant’s ability to crowdsource its deliveries could make same-day delivery a reality, giving Walmart a potent edge over Amazon.

Will this plan ever see the light of day? At this point, it sounds far-fetched. But as one retail pundit pointed out, at least Walmart is thinking of creative ways to reinvent retail.

An article by retail futurist Doug Stephens draws an intriguing picture of what this future might look like. Stephens says “retail, as we’ve known it for at least the last two millenia, is coming to an end…it’s very clear to me that we are coming to a tipping point and data, processing power and connectedness lie at the center of it all.”

In the next decade, Stephens argues, retail will completely shift from a focus on ­physical and digital destinations and storefronts, to a focus on consumers as the ultimate destination. Instead of consumers deciding which stores and e-commerce sites to visit, retail will in essence start coming to us.

For example, according to Stephens, let’s say I’m on a business trip and my mobile device alerts me my anniversary is coming up in two days. A digital shopping assistant then springs into action—and it knows my wife’s shopping preferences so well that it presents a list of personalized gift suggestions in seconds, pulling information from a number of available storefronts. It finds the best available offer (my wife’s favorite fragrance on sale at Norstrom with a special bonus gift), then makes the purchase and arranges for the most convenient pickup or delivery option. The whole process takes under a minute.

It’s an intriguing vision from Stephens (aka The Retail Prophet). And the future that he describes is already taking shape. After all, the very best retailers compete for our business by analyzing our preferences, understanding our shopping habits, and delivering highly personalized recommendations and offers, sometimes anticipating our wants and needs before we even know we have them. (Check out the chapter, “How Target Knows What You Want Before You Do,” in Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit for a fascinating account of how Target analyzes consumer data.)

With all these innovations, though, it seems to me that retailers are simply trying to recapture an era where individual store owners recognized their customers by name, knew their shopping preferences by heart, and conducted business as a series of highly individualized, one-to-one transactions. In earlier days, retail was a highly personal business, and merchant’s storefronts were focal points not just of commerce, but community. Did shoppers need something delivered to their home the same day? No problem, the store owner could arrange it. Did you almost forget your wife’s birthday? Luckily, your local retailer had a timely gift suggestion when you called in a last-minute panic.

So as retail reinvents itself, it’s really just trying to get back to its roots, seeking new ways to make large-scale, mass-market retailing more personal and intimate. Technology may be the enabler, but in the end, what retailers are really doing is going back to the future.

NRF 2013: What Editors and Analysts are Predicting

Posted on | by Jeff Ketner | 1 Comment on NRF 2013: What Editors and Analysts are Predicting

They don’t call NRF “Retail’s Big Show” for nothing! Ketner Group has attended NRF for the past 13 years, and year after year, it’s the ONE show that matters more than any other – and a great place to connect with retail’s leading editors and analysts. We asked a number of our friends in the editor and analyst communities to share their insights about NRF, and you’ll be interested in seeing their thoughts on retail trends, technologies, and the biggest surprises of 2012.

What will you be looking for at NRF 2013, in terms of retail trends and technology?

Jordan Speer, Editor-in-Chief, Apparel Magazine: Generally, I’ll be looking for technology that apparel retailers/brands are using. In particular, I’ll be interested to see how things continue to integrate to make a seamless omni-channel experience possible. It’s difficult for me to think of distinct technologies these days. It all goes together: Social media is connected to CRM is connected to loyalty is connected to POS is connected to mobile is connected to RFID is connected to fulfillment and so on and so forth. I’ll be looking for ways in which retailers are casting off the barriers between all of these solutions and getting the big picture of their enterprise.

Paula Rosenblum, Managing Partner, Retail Systems Research: What I’m looking for is practical usability of technology.  I have been hearing a lot of buzzwords – “mobility,” “the customer as part of merchandising processes,” “Big Data” (my current fave), “Cloud.” So what I would like to see is the nitty-gritty of what it takes to actually get the job done.  For example, “What does the user interface in a system that includes the customer dimension of data look like?”  “How do you manage 30,000 iPhones and iPads in your stores?”

Joe Skorupa, Group Editor-in-Chief, RIS News: I am looking for technology strategies and solutions that are responsive to the dramatic shifts taking place in the marketplace as well as those that enable retailers to become more pro-active and get ahead of fast-moving trends.

Debbie Hauss, Editor-in-Chief, Retail TouchPoints: I am expecting to see more advanced solutions that address the data collection and analytics related to Big Data and omnichannel retail. Retailers like Macy’s are starting to focus more on allocating by individual store, based on the demographics and seasonality of each store. New solutions need to provide an easy way for merchants to make this happen.

I also anticipate more solutions targeted to mobile payments, and the requirements around EMV. Retailers need to be prepared to accept EMV when the April 2013 deadline rolls around. Additionally, by October 2015, fraud liability will shift in the marketplace, which could be an incentive for merchants to enable EMV transactions before that date.

Greg Buzek, Founder and President, IHL Group, and Co-founder of the Retail Orphan Initiative: I think we’ll see a lot of emphasis in three main areas.  The rise of Big Data and Social integration will be a major trend.  Mobile will be everywhere – in all flavors – iOS, Android, Windows 8; we will be past our first mobile Christmas.  And then there are the rapid changes in the POS industry.  We are seeing a seismic shift right now in threats to this business and a changing of the guard in established competitors.  And of course everyone will be talking about how great Retail ROI’s SuperSaturday was!

What have been the biggest surprises in the retail industry so far in 2012?

Joe Skorupa, RIS: This is the year of bold transformation of business models and instead of taking a cautious approach or battling it, retailers are embracing change and finding new opportunities.

Greg Buzek, IHL: The biggest surprise is the speed in which retailers have come out and said they are never buying another POS terminal again.  We haven’t even seen mobile survive a Christmas rush, and several retailers have already said they are all mobile from now on.

Jordan Speer, Apparel: I think the big surprises for me are the increasing shift to the “fulfill-from-store” model and also the sense that, in apparel, we are really on the edge of seeing technologies like “magic mirrors” and such start to materialize at the commercial level. One other thing – it has really hit home with me this year just how much Amazon truly presents a major threat to so many retailers. I am glad that many of them are addressing that and will be interested to see some of the clever ways that retailers use product and technology to keep customers in their brick-and-mortar or online stores.

Paula Rosenblum, RSR: I suppose it’s the explosion of mobile payments – or the apparent coming explosion.  Starbucks adopting Square and Home Depot adopting PayPal was a pretty big surprise.  Beyond that? That wireless is still just not prevalent.  And overall in the industry, that the luxury market is softening.  I honestly don’t understand why it’s happening.

What do tech vendors and PR people need to keep in mind as they reach out to you for NRF?

Debbie Hauss, Retail TouchPoints: We look forward to meeting with as many companies and retailers as possible during NRF, to discuss industry trends and announcements. The most productive conversations are around innovations and how we can help retail companies improve their businesses. Once again this year, Retail TouchPoints will be filming short video interviews with retailers and solution providers during the NRF event. If any companies are interested in participating in these videos, they should contact us as soon as possible.

Jordan Speer, Apparel: I always appreciate a brief synopsis of press releases announcing new technologies, along with information on which apparel companies are using the technology (if any). If they can’t reveal that info specifically, it is helpful to know at least what type of apparel companies are using it (big vs. small; specialty vs. department, etc.) In the synopsis, it is helpful also for me to understand if the technology (or process or whatever) being announced is a significant shift, or basically just an update of what’s been available. It’s also helpful for PR people to keep in mind that I am looking for apparel companies that will talk to us on various topics, including but definitely not limited to those on our editorial calendar.

Paula Rosenblum, RSR:  They should understand that we’d be happy to take pre-briefings and will be doing a webinar or something for our customers afterwards to review what we saw at NRF. I would imagine what they want to know from us (besides “do you like our stuff?”) is “What did you see that was cool?”  This year, we’re going to have time to actually answer that question adequately.  Heck, we might even attend some sessions!  After much thought, we realized it’s a way better way to add value.

Greg Buzek, IHL:  Vendors should have talking points in handout form either in the meeting or use the meeting as more relationship building and very short demos rather than marketing speak. We see between 12-18 sales pitches a day; what gets remembered is the one-pager with key talking points. What are the 3-4 things you want me to remember? Have that on a piece of paper or better yet, show me and email it to me while we are in the meeting (not “I’ll get that to you”) so I am sure to have it in my inbox when I get home.

Personally, I am buried in the materials from my own event, other interesting things and several bags of swag items from different events. Standard collateral material doesn’t make it home. An analyst is not going to pay extra luggage fees to carry home a bunch of glossy materials.

Like everyone else, we are sleep deprived and exhausted and we will have heard 40-50 company pitches and caught up with another 100 friends and colleagues. Vendors give the same pitch over and over; we hear 50 different ones. What gets remembered past the show is what is written down or on a single page handed to us – and the meetings with our friends.

Analyst Relations: The “R” is for Relationship

Posted on | by Jeff Ketner

Clients frequently ask our opinion on analyst relations. Which firms do we recommend? Who are the top analysts in a particular space? How often should they brief with analysts? Should they become paying clients?

We can’t answer all these questions in a short blog post. But we’ve been fortunate to work with a number of clients that understand the value of analyst relations, and in the process, we’ve seen what works – and what doesn’t – in analyst relations.

Here are several principles that Ketner Group stresses to our clients. We use these as some of our guidelines in helping our clients develop appropriate analyst relations programs.

Remember, it’s a relationship. Analyst relations are first and foremost about building relationships – and like any relationship, you’ll get out of it what you put into it. Relationships between analysts and technology vendors are mutually beneficial. Analysts need to know about the key vendors in the spaces that they cover, and vendors, in turn, depend upon the analysts to help get the word out to the market. But like all relationships, analyst relations take time and nurturing.

Know the analysts and leverage their strengths. It’s essential for vendors to develop relationships with the leading analysts that cover their technology – not only to be included in key reports but also because large enterprises often turn to retailers to get their advice when they’re considering a major technology initiative. Analysts can be especially valuable as strategic partners, offering insight on product direction and positioning, the competitive landscape, possible partners or acquisition targets, and messaging.

However, to “go deep” with analysts, vendors will need to develop paying relationships. And if your company is considering that, you’ll want to carefully consider everything that entails (which leads to our next point).

Be realistic about the commitments. Becoming a paying client of the right analyst firm can pay for itself many times over, if vendors are willing to commit time and resources. However, that leads squarely back to the first point – you’ll get out of it what you put into it. Are you willing to do regular briefings, talk honestly about the challenges your company faces, accept tough feedback, and invest in periodic analyst days, so your top analysts really know your technology and direction? Are your key executives willing to commit their time and energy to nurturing key analyst relationships? Continue reading →

April 2012: Retail Technology’s Landmark Month

Posted on | by Jeff Ketner

For those of us who spend our working hours focused on retail technology, April 2012 was a landmark month, for two reasons.

First, IBM announced that it was selling its POS business to Toshiba on April 16 – exiting the business that it started nearly 40 years ago and dominated for decades. To someone who started his retail tech PR and marketing career working with POS companies such as Wincor Nixdorf, Triversity and 360Commerce, this was a watershed event. IBM owned the POS industry. To other POS hardware manufacturers, IBM was the #1 competitor and the standard against which they were always compared. IBM was also the preferred hardware partner for virtually every POS software company, too, due to IBM’s brand reputation and unparalleled reach into retail.

I’ll leave it to the retail industry analysts to dissect all the reasons behind IBM’s decision (and for an excellent analysis by IHL’s Greg Buzek, click here). However, one reason that Greg mentions stood out above all the others: the continued rise of mobile, which leads me to the second point.

When the annual RIS/Gartner Technology Study was released early last month, retailers cited “mobile POS with payment” as their top technology for 2012. Retailers also ranked “developing a mobile enterprise and/or store strategy” as their #2 action item over the next 18 months – second only to social media.

Is mobile POS one of the main reasons that IBM is saying “adios” to the POS market? Certainly margin erosion in POS hardware was the key reason, but apart from that, I think it’s all about the shift to mobile. And in fact, IHL’s research shows that 72% of specialty retailers plan to roll out mobile POS, and they’ll also be purchasing 20% fewer traditional POS terminals.

Of course, traditional POS isn’t going to disappear completely, at least not anytime soon. But there are compelling economic and customer service advantages behind retail’s continuing rush to mobile. In years to come, I think we’ll see fewer cash wraps in stores, especially department stores and specialty, freeing up retailers to rethink and redesign the retail store experience. The work that Ketner Group is doing with our clients in mobile POS, mobile commerce and location-based mobile marketing is certainly hastening the transition.

April, 2012: IBM exits the retail POS that it founded, and mobile POS is crowned the #1 technology in retail. It’s no coincidence – and it’s one of the reasons that retail tech fascinates and intrigues me, with surprises and twists as new technologies continue to unfold.

What Will Retailers Do with 2.7 Million Tablets?

Posted on | by Jeff Ketner

If anyone needed more proof that mobile is the hottest trend in retail, RIS News reported this week that the percentage of consumers who made purchases with mobile phones doubled from 2010 to 2011, from 9% to 18%. STORES devoted almost its entire November issue to mobility, too. These are just a couple of additional proof points for the meteoric rise of consumer mobility, which Retail Systems Research describes as the “most galvanizing force (in a positive way) we’ve ever seen in retail.”

Mobile technology is changing the retail landscape in ways that haven’t been seen since the rise of e-commerce. However, the trend that’s captured my attention lately is what’s happening with mobile devices inside the store – and more specifically, how retailers are using smartphones and tablets inside the stores.

A recent research study from retail analyst firm IHL Group included a fascinating statistic. According to IHL’s survey, more than 2.7 million tablet devices will be shipped for use in North American retail and hospitality by 2015, an increase of 450% over current rates. These figures don’t even take into account the handheld devices that retailers are scrambling to roll out in mobile POS deployments.

The bottom line? Get ready to see millions of tablets and smartphones in retail stores in the next few years, along with fundamental changes in everything from the physical layout of stores to the way that consumers interact with store associates.

61% of retailers surveyed by IHL Group rate mobile technology as their top priority, so what we’ve seen so far in store-based mobile systems is just the beginning.

Early mobile deployments at retailers such as Urban Outfitters, Home Depot, Nordstrom and others have focused primarily on the ways that mobile can improve the store experience. These retailers are looking to mobile devices to get their sales associates out from behind the cash wrap and onto the sales floor, where they can interact with customers, guide the shopping experience, look up product reviews and ratings, and check inventory on out-of-stocks in order to save the sale.  Early deployments are promising, but the changes we’ve seen so far are just the tip of the iceberg. Continue reading →

How Retail Tech Vendors Can Make the Most Out of Analyst Relations

Posted on | by Jeff Ketner

We wear numerous hats when working with our retail technology clients on their PR and marketing programs. (However, as discussed in our recent post, we have to be mindful that we’re not trying to do everything all at once.) One of the most important hats we wear is that of the Analyst Relations manager.

Just like any smart business strategy, there is no single best recipe for success when it comes to Analyst Relations, because every company is different, and every analyst is different and has unique preferences. However, there are a number of best practices that we stress to our clients when working with retail and technology analysts. In this edition of Shopology, we wanted to bring you some pointers straight from the experts themselves.

1. What is the number one thing you wish retail tech vendors understood better about working with analysts?

KEVIN STERNECKERT (Gartner): We don’t need a history of where the industry’s been. Too many software vendors feel like they need to educate us on the state of the industry and spend up to 25% of the time talking about stuff that’s known and we hear everyday from vendors.

Also, many of the strategic analysts are not as concerned with the individual features/functions of a technology, but what’s truly different about the company. Most companies, when asked what’s truly different about them, surprisingly do not have a solid answer.

PAULA ROSENBLUM (Retail Systems Research): What we care most about is “What problem are you trying to solve?” and then “How do you solve it?”  70-page Powerpoints are hard to deal with.  Don’t forget, we often have 4-5 briefings in a single day.

It’s also sort of offensive to have someone justify their position/existence to one analyst firm by quoting another analyst firm. I’ll bet I’m not the only one who’s bothered by this, and it is totally irrelevant to me where another analyst firm ranked your company in their report. Continue reading →

NRF 2012: What You Can Do Now to Get Ready

Posted on | by Jeff Ketner

June is a busy trade show month for retail, with Oracle’s CrossTalk, the Retail Mobile Executive Summit, and the RIS Retail Executive Summit, among others. And even though it seems an eternity from now, we’re inching ever closer to the most important annual event in retail technology: NRF 2012, the 101st edition of the National Retail Federation’s Big Show.

I was reminded of this several weeks ago while our team worked on NRF speaking submissions for several of our clients. Admittedly, it’s not time to hit the panic button; after all, NRF is still seven months away.However, it’s a reminder to everyone in retail tech that even while we’re enjoying the slightly less hectic pace of summer, it will be time to hit the ground running in September. In preparation for that, we’re working with our retail tech clients to start planning now for the all-important months leading up to NRF, when vendors turn up the heat on their PR and marketing campaigns to lay the groundwork for a successful show.

After all, as anyone who has ever exhibited at NRF or another huge trade show knows, it can be unnerving that the hefty investment and months of planning that it takes to prepare for the show ultimately culminate in just a few short days. During and afterward, the questions are constantly on your mind: Did we do it right this year? Did we do everything we could to make the work and investment worth it?

We know it’s a lot of pressure, and since we’ve worked for years with our clients to prepare for NRF, we’ve seen a lot of what works great and what doesn’t work so well. So what can you be doing in the months between now and NRF? Here are a couple of building blocks that can help you work toward success in January. (And if you’re not going to NRF, keep reading, because these same principles apply across many different verticals and industry events.)

Continue reading →

NRF 2011: Let the Countdown Begin

Posted on | by Jeff Ketner

 

For all our non-retail clients and friends who may not be familiar, NRF – the National Retail Federation – hosts its annual conference and expo the second week of every January. The Javits Center bustles with two jam-packed days of exhibit halls that seem to go on for miles, keynotes from some of the world’s preeminent retail executives, live demos of all the latest and greatest retail technology, and of course, lots of parties. And this time, it all seems just a little more significant – the show coming up in January will mark the 100th year of the NRF conference.

For many of our clients, NRF is the most exciting time of the year – and even though it can be chaotic with last-minute prep during the holidays, we love attending NRF each year. Not only is it a blast, but it’s the only time we get to see many of our non-local clients face-to-face all year.

As of this writing, there are just under 100 days left until Christmas. And if you work in retail technology, you know what that means – once the last presents are unwrapped on Christmas Day, you’ll have 15 days until NRF begins. The race is on.

If you think consumers have it bad seeing holiday décor pop up in stores earlier and earlier every year, just imagine how soon retailers have to start thinking about the holidays – basically, as soon as the last gift is unwrapped, planning for next year’s peak holiday season begins. Similarly, each year the preparations for retail technology’s biggest show start a little earlier. We’ve seen NRF-related emails for several months now, and our clients have been actively working on NRF strategies for months, and marketing is kicking into high gear. Chances are, your planning is well underway by now ­– but here are a few PR tips to keep in mind in the run-up to NRF.

Don’t save your announcements until January. Most vendors spend months planning their NRF announcements. But why cram all your news into a three-day period? We counsel our clients not to save everything until NRF but rather to adopt a release strategy for before, during and after the Big Show.

Announcing significant customer wins and new technology in the months leading up to NRF is a great way to build momentum going into the show and to trumpet your successes to prospects. During the show, your news faces stiff competition from hundreds of other press releases, yet one or two newsworthy announcements can help drive booth traffic and create a buzz during NRF. After the show is a good time for announcements, too; editors’ inboxes will be a lot less crowded, many of your competitors will have emptied their arsenal of news at NRF, and your news will have room to breathe.

Continue reading →

The Power of the Press (Release)

Posted on | by Jeff Ketner

For better or worse, press releases are a staple of every public relations toolkit. Used incorrectly, they can be the bane of an editor’s inbox: when the “news” isn’t really newsworthy, when companies take a shotgun approach to the media list, and when media outlets are bombarded with irrelevant information (does the New York Times really care about your software company’s latest technology partnership?).

Used properly, however, a press release is a powerful communications tool that can help create sales opportunities, drive revenues and much more – all of which is underscored by several client examples from the past few months.

Just before this month’s NRF (National Retail Federation) show, for example, one of our retail technology clients, an NRF exhibitor, received a call from a midsized apparel retailer, requesting a meeting at the show. The impetus? The retailer had just seen a press release announcing that another retailer (one of our client’s customers) had received a major industry award for successfully implementing our client’s software. If our client’s software could provide a competitive advantage, this retailer didn’t want to be left out in the cold. The press release opened a door, the meeting went well, and sales discussions are continuing.

In a similar vein, this fall we announced that a well-known consumer electronics brand had tapped another of our clients for a major technology initiative – and within a few days, our client received an inquiry from another brand looking for a similar solution. That inquiry has led to ongoing sales meetings, and at this point, a deal looks probable. If so, the revenue from that one customer will likely cover the cost of our PR services for many years to come.

Continue reading →