If you are not Marisa Thalberg, then here’s a summary of what’s in this article:
- A follow up on PostFunnel’s CRM analysis taken on Lowe’s back in July 2020
- Back then, Lowe’s earned first place out of the 11 brands we analyzed to date, and has even improved since!
And, if you are her, so…
Dear Ms. Marisa Thalberg, Executive Vice President, Chief Brand and Marketing Officer at Lowe’s Companies, Inc.,
I’m writing to you because on July 30th, 2020, we at PostFunnel – a publication dedicated to everything relationship marketing (O&O by Optimove) – analyzed your company’s basic relationship marketing tactics, according to our “7 commandments” for basic CRM practices for the kind of world we live in today. In other words, we looked at Lowe’s through the lens of how brands should behave in a post-COVID-19 world to improve their chances of building meaningful customer relationships.
You can read more about the method at the bottom of this page.
Since we ran Lowe’s analysis at the end of July 2020, we wanted to revisit it today to see what has changed – what has improved, stagnated, or gotten worse. After all, we all know these things are dynamic.
See the full analysis of Lowe’s from July 30th, 2020.
So back then, your brand got a fantastic 90% mark and ranked first place out of the 11 brands we analyzed! Now, 40 brands later – Lowe’s bumped down only one spot to second place – losing to Pets at Home.
Out of the 7 commandments, we gave you a score lower than 9 only on two of them! Realtime personalization, and social media.
And we will not be jumping to conclusions here – you won’t be seeing us taking any credit for this 🙂 – but it seems like in the months since our first analysis, you improved on both ends!
Here’s the entire revisited analysis.
What’s Gone Better
Social Media
We checked your brand’s Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts and found that all three profiles boast millions of followers and that the content you post is super engaging.
Lowe’s posts in high frequency on all three social media channels, content that includes videos, free DIY kits, activities for the kids, coronavirus support, and so much more.
Back in July 2020, we were disappointed to see that you didn’t use the Insta Story feature much or post different content to IG, as it has a different audience. However, when checking back today – we can only say the same about the Insta Story feature.
Realtime Personalization
Back in July, we wrote this after adding a lawnmower to our shopping cart:
“We were not retargeted with the product when going back to the company’s homepage or on our social media accounts.”
Today, we can say that after browsing through the Bath category and adding both an acrylic jacuzzi and a frameless bathroom mirror to our cart – both cross-sell and upsell techniques were implemented:
That’s great! When going back to the Lowe’s HP to continue browsing around, we also noticed some similar item suggestions – but only when scrolling all the way down to the bottom of the page:
We are so glad to see it! Realtime Personalization is a CRM practice that no brand (especially one of your size and popularity) can afford to ignore or not take full advantage of.
What’s Not Better
One thing that didn’t improve was how we still could not notice any quick remarketing efforts.
That’s too bad! As recently reported by Garner: “Technology makes up 44% of marketing spend on personalization. Despite the investment in tools, 26% of marketers polled cite technology as a key obstacle to personalization.”
In other words, more than a quarter of marketers see technology as a problem rather than a solution when implementing personalization programs.
And this is where the next step – beyond the 7 basic CRM commandments – should come from: upping your CRM games with next-gen CRM technology, that will enable you to scale from managing tens to managing hundreds of customers segments, increase personalization, boost customer lifetime value, and do it smartly and seamlessly with AI.
To learn more about how Lowe’s can fully benefit from all the latest, cutting-edge realtime marketing personalization practices, feel free to reach out to me at any time:
Amit Bivas, VP Marketing at Optimove
Email: amit_b@optimove.com
**
About the 7 Commandments for Basic CRM Tactics for the post-coronavirus-outbreak world:
We have a saying here at PostFunnel: All marketing is relationship marketing. Why? Because every touchpoint with a potential customer impacts the kind of relationship they will have with a brand, if and when they become customers. Even branding has. It’s like what people hear about their upcoming blind-date can determine the actual meeting’s success.
In recent years, it meant that the ways brands support global, social, environmental, and even political causes have become increasingly critical to their relationships with customers.
Then, 2020 happened. With its global pandemic’s tragedy, economic downturn, and historical social and political turmoils – people turned their eyes to brands, almost as much as they have to governments. Expecting and judging brands by how they conduct themselves throughout such events was never more crucial to a company’s CRM success.
One after the other, the internet got flooded with articles advising marketing and CRM leaders on how to make sure their brand is suited for this new reality. So, we combed dozens of them – and came up with a list of 7 staples that appeared in most of those articles.
The seven most essential commandments a brand must follow these days to make sure they put themselves in the best position possible to develop long, meaningful relationships with their customers.
The 7 commandments are:
1) Transparency. Show the human side of your brand
2) Give incentives and perks (that make sense)
3) Be relevant (with your language, offering)
4) Be helpful (improve your communities’ lives)
5) Personalize in realtime (cause, duh)
6) Master UX (slow, clunky websites are no longer an option)
7) Leverage social media (don’t just treat it as a sales channel)
Yup, that’s all. Without being at least decent at all of these, your CRM efforts will struggle to achieve their full potential.
And, let’s be honest, it’s not too much to ask of a brand, right?
Yet, you’d be surprised how many well-known brands fall short too often when analyzed through these lenses.
Still, it makes some sense – these changes are happening fast, and not all brands can react and adapt quickly enough and on all fronts.
And we’re here to follow these reactions and adjustments as they happen.