Commentary

Meeting The Challenge Of Today's One-Eyed, Flying Consumers

Today, the true challenge for marketers is driving engagement and conversion across every imaginable variety of consumer, including the one-eyed, flying shopper. The common theme with consumers is that they’re incredibly distracted, moving fast and looking for a clear, very personal, present-tense value proposition to inspire action.

As one of these distracted, on-the-go consumers, I can share personal examples of one-eyed, flying conversions. These experiences with Amazon.com happened months before Jeff Bezos announced Prime Air back in December, conjuring up visions of delivery drones aimed at my doorstep. Even before that act of sheer marketing genius, I was an Amazon one-eyed, flying shopper. Cue the science fiction music . . .

One-eyed shoe shopping

Like many humans, most days when I wake up the first thing I do is access my mobile phone or iPad to tune into the world’s happenings. This past winter, during one pre-caffeine session and before I had even inserted my contact lenses (and was thus legally blind in my left eye), I happened upon an email from Amazon.com with an array of shoes that enticed me.

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Before I knew it, I was searching, selecting and buying boots on my mobile -- all with just my one good right eye and before I had even made it into the kitchen for some caffeine. I had become an early morning, one-eyed shopper.

Flying and buying

Another early a.m., I boarded a plane to spend a day in the sky, aiming east. Shopping from my mobile device via airplane WiFi, I searched the Web for backyard fire pits, headed to Amazon, and quickly found a great option at a great price, with star-filled reviews. I purchased right then and there in the air. I had arrived at a new shopping height, literally and figuratively. Two days later, the fire pit arrived and has since provided some quality marshmallow-melting time.

Consumer demand at new heights

Recent stats show 65% of emails are opened on a mobile device. And, while a small subset of consumers may actually be shopping without their contact lenses or from an airplane, the majority of mobile consumers are flying through their days at faster paces and with more distractions than ever.

As marketers, the opportunity and challenge at hand is offering consumers cross-channel experiences that are positive, fast and frictionless. Amazon sets the consumer bar higher every day by doing three things incredibly well and consistently:

Make it about me: Deliver personalized communications that lead me down the conversion path more quickly. Paying attention to clear consumer value and WIIFM (what’s in it for me?), tuned to my precise needs and wants, is the only way to drive action with most consumers. And it has to happen in the here and now -- mobile-centric interaction is driving the need for hyper-relevant messaging and impeccable timing. This speaks to data that fuels interactions meaningful to every “me” out there, in whatever their present tense may be.

Make it fast and easy: Once I’m heading down a path to action, make it fast and easy for me to access the information I need, complete my transaction and move on. This speaks to the need for optimized content and experiences across all channels. Data and automation enable an understanding of the state individual consumers are in, delivering value by getting them closer to what they want when they want it -- and of course they want it now.

Lead and exceed: Setting expectations high and delivering on them is key. With the rapid improvements on user experiences, consumers expect organizations to keep innovating to improve on consumer experiences they may not even imagine yet, such as delivery drones and mind-reading (in the form of predictive shipping that anticipates what I may purchase before I hit the “buy” button, as Amazon recently announced).

As Amazon pushes consumer expectations to new heights, is your organization tuning into the needs of your one-eyed, flying shoppers in the present tense? We’d love to hear more in the comments.

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