Dear Mr. Keith Bryan,
I’m writing you because back in June 2020, we at PostFunnel – a publication dedicated to everything relationship marketing (O&O by Optimove) – analyzed Best Buy’s basic CRM practices, according to our “7 commandments” of how brands should behave in a post-COVID-19 world.
A little about the commandments:
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 7 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 real-time (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’ll 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.
That’s the story of the 7 commandments analysis we did on your brand back in the summer of 2020. You can see the full analysis here.
And now, we wanted to revisit it, see what has changed – what has improved, stagnated, or gotten worse. After all, we all know these things are dynamic.
So, let’s cut to the chase. Yours was only the 5th brand we analyzed, and you scored 78%. Back then, it was enough for 2nd place. Now, 38 brands in, it’s good for 15th. Middle of the pack.
You did great at handing out varied and useful promotional offers, at being relevant and helpful and a company, and even provided a personalized customer experience that was good enough for a perfect 10 according to our early standards (we’ve evolved since. Again, that dynamic thing). You scored lower on the transparency, UX, and social media commandments.
Now, eight months later – we came back to look at customer relationship marketing practices – once again – and would like to bring the following to your attention.
What’s Gone Better
Master UX
Last time, we wrote:
“Perhaps the brand should “clean” the homepage a bit to get the customer more on point and in focus. The last thing the brand wants is for you to leave as you literally forgot what you came for.”
However, after adding items to our carts, the experience was still personalized, but much less pushy. That’s good.
What’s Not Better
Be Transparent
Again, Best Buy’s transparency doesn’t seem to be the brand’s strong side. Too few press releases, barely providing insights into why behind the company’s actions. Even when The Motley Fool said that “Best Buy anticipates growth will slow, citing concerns about potential supply constraints and elevated unemployment levels,” we could not find comments made by the brand.
Following Best Buy on Google news or on social media (we’ll get to that in a sec) does not make us feel like there are actual people behind the logo.
Leverage Social Media
Like we said back in June, we still think that a post a day can def keep the “social media doctor” away. So why not do this?
And, it’s not just the quantity. Different social media channels should be populated with different kinds of content, and the more you use them to connect with your community – the better it is for your CRM. There’s certainly room for improvement there.
That’s all for now. Scoring Best Buy again would not yield a significantly higher score than the original one. And it was important for us to point this all out to you.
Don’t hesitate to reach out to Optimove to see how you, too, can improve your brand’s CRM marketing efforts.
Best,
PostFunnel Team
