ARTICLE POSTED BY: Lynn Gonsior

Retailers looking for great examples of wirelessly connecting with their shoppers have three great brands to look to: American Eagle Outfitters, Netflix and Amazon.com. They continue to differentiate their shopping experiences with intimacy, responsiveness and relevance.

Even with millions of items for sale, Amazon connects intimately with customers, from its one-click ordering to its ability to become more relevant with each visit. The result is a “barrier to exit” that other brands envy.

American Eagle excels at aggressively integrating multi-channel marketing tactics into both its traditional and digital campaigns. It connects at all the right touchpoints, which goes a long way towards achieving brand loyalty. This year, AE included a mobile filed in its loyalty program, and used mobile as a point of entry into sweepstakes as well as an alerts program. Calls to action were posted on social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter in the form of banner ads, status updates and tweets.

Netflix invites feedback and gives customers what they want. The movie provider uses crowdsourcing to find ways to improve its service and offerings, and recently generated a lot of buzz with a million-dollar prize awarded to the customer who could improve its movie recommendations by ten percent—a classic way to allow customers to interact positively and co-create with the brand.

In the future, both online and brick-and-mortar retailers will need to focus on customer mobility to connect intimately and immediately with customers. The giving is no longer one-way. These brands clearly demonstrate the digital connections also provide valuable information that allows services and products to be personalized with the crucial insights that help companies stay relevant.

Tags: brand update, Business Brand Strategy, Digital Retail, Retail Brands, Shopper Marketing | No Comments »-->