The Dead Pixels Society podcast

Three things retailers must do, with John Kelly from Zenreach

November 06, 2020 Gary Pageau Season 1 Episode 25
The Dead Pixels Society podcast
Three things retailers must do, with John Kelly from Zenreach
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Show Notes Transcript

Gary Pageau of the Dead Pixels Society talks with John Kelly, CEO of Zenreach, a walk-through marketing company. Kelly describes the three activities a brick-and-mortar retailer must not stop doing in the age of COVID-19.

Zenreach is an American technology company based in San Francisco. It produces marketing software used by brick-and-mortar businesses allowing customers to access public Wi-Fi. These details are used to create user profiles, track subsequent visits, and deliver targeted ads.

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Hosted and produced by Gary Pageau
Edited by Olivia Pageau
Announcer: Erin Manning

Gary Pageau  0:03  
Hello again, and welcome to the Dead Pixel Society podcast. I'm your host, Gary Pageau. And today we're joined by John Kelly, the CEO of Zen reach a walk through marketing company. And John's gonna be sharing with us three things brick and mortar companies shouldn't stop doing in the wake of COVID-19. So john, welcome to the show. And

John Kelly  0:27  
thanks for having me, Gary. Pleasure.

Gary Pageau  0:30  
So John, tell me a little bit about Zenreach and what a walkthrough marketing company is,

John Kelly  0:35  
yeah, walk through marketing company is essentially a company that delivers in store traffic to our merchant base. And so we specialize in putting online messages in front of consumers, and ensuring that we can track and deliver the in store walkthrough.

Gary Pageau  0:55  
Okay, so it's basically building traffic for retailers, right?

John Kelly  0:59  
Yep. foot traffic for retailers. Very good. Thank you.

Gary Pageau  1:01  
So would that be through social channels, text ALC, or what someone's sort of magical things you do?

John Kelly  1:07  
Yeah. So maybe I can explain how the technology works, that might be better. So we have a software layer that sits on top of the local Wi Fi. So this is the Wi Fi that's in your store, or restaurant or event space. And it transforms that Wi Fi into a sensor. And so your cell phone is automatically set the ping for a Wi Fi signal every 30 seconds. And we read that that ping as a proxy for foot traffic. And so if you've never logged into Zen rate, you don't know who we are as a consumer. All we know is that device 123 came in at eight o'clock and left at 820 or something like that. But we also then offer to the consumer what's called a guest Wi Fi experience. And this is where, you know, you look on the Wi Fi signal says that Joe's Photoshop, Wi Fi, you click on it, and then up pops a what we call a portal page that says Welcome to Joe's put your email address in here for unlimited Wi Fi. So there's no tracking down the manager for the password, etc. On the back end, we do a couple things to tie that device to the email address, so we know who you are. And therefore, anytime we send you an online message, whether it's via advertising or email, we know that you've seen it and then we know when that device walks back in and we know it's you.

Gary Pageau  2:27  
Okay, so this is this, there's an opt in sort of environment

Unknown Speaker  2:31  
100% opt in correct.

Gary Pageau  2:33  
And most people probably even if they don't opt in, you're getting some pretty interesting metrics from traffic, even if people choose to opt in, you still know their devices there, you don't know who they are, or you can't tie their activity. But you know, hey, you know this, you're getting repeat traffic, for example, or things like that?

John Kelly  2:51  
That's pretty Correct, correct? Yeah, there's overall traffic patterns data that we can collect in the aggregate. And then obviously, if a consumer is allowed us to market to them that we can get really granular with the information we can provide the merchants.

Gary Pageau  3:04  
So as we're entering into the fourth quarter, which is the key quarter for the photo industry, and almost every, you know, retailer these days, and we're hearing a lot of the changes that are coming into play with fourth quarter retail in the age of COVID, including, for example, an extended shopping period, you know, Black Friday, starting earlier and earlier. And also, in with the online space, you know, delayed shipping for online orders. So I didn't think there's going to be a lot of last minute retail when people realize, Oh, my gosh, that the widget I ordered isn't going to make it in time. So I better go run over to Best Buy and buy a replacement widget and send the other one back when it finally arrives. So there's gonna be a lot of craziness, I think in the in this retail season, so but you've come up with some things that retailers should not do that in the wake of COVID. Can you kind of share, maybe in bullet point form those three items?

John Kelly  4:01  
Yeah, I think like really, really briefly, especially in today's environment with COVID-19. The first thing you want to make sure not to do is ignore the safety concerns of your consumers or let your guard down. Right? It's really important that you maintain the safety of the environment. This might be frequent cleanings, did the social distancing for consumers as they walk in protections for your employees? consumers, it's very clear from the data we have that consumers are concerned for their safety. One example I'll give you is when we looked at overall traffic patterns, we as a country are down about 50% year over year in terms of in store traffic. That's a pretty, pretty big Delta, right? Even if you look at states that have been open that have no restrictions whatsoever, like Georgia, for example. They basically went back to fully open and I think may 1 Their in store traffic is still down anywhere between 30 and 40%. So what does that indicate? To me that indicates that the consumer is actually concerned, they're not just coming back as quickly as they were before?

Gary Pageau  5:14  
Sure. Because I mean, you know, whether or not, you know, depending on how you feel about COVID, most people are going to try and take care of themselves, right. And it's really up to a retailer to provide a safe environment. So currently, some of the ways retailers are communicating that they have a safe environment I'm See, I mean, I'm seeing things like, you know, signs in, in, in doors, and on Windows, there's been the advancement of you know, some contactless delivery. In a retail store, for example, there's often photo kiosks which people are touching so so how could a retailer communicate some of the ways that they're keeping their both of their employees and the customer safe?

John Kelly  5:56  
Yeah, it's a great, I mean, assuming you're taking these really strong precautions to protect your employees and your and your consumers. The next step is just what you described and getting the word out to your customers. And I will tell you, in the environment that we have today, where people are driving less, many of us are working from home, spending more time online, when you might have relied on that store, sign out front or the sandwich board, but I could communicate your message beforehand, it's not going to be nearly as effective in this environment. And if you look at what's happened, most of us are spending more and more time online. Online usage is at record highs, right? So it's really important that if you're going to communicate with consumers, you invest in that online communication, right. And this can be through a lot of different means. Email, and advertising are the two that have the widest breadth possible. You know,

Gary Pageau  6:55  
it's funny, you mentioned email, because that's always one of the things in the age of social and tick tock and, you know, 22nd videos, and you know, things like that, that really kind of the tried and true email has kind of been overlooked for for a lot of people. But I think that's actually one of the more effective methods that a retailer can have, if they've if they do it, right.

John Kelly  7:19  
Yeah, if they do it, right, that's correct. Email one is really cheap, in many ways, right? The acquisition of an email address might be a little bit harder. But once you have it, like sending out emails to consumers doesn't cost that much. And that's why it's still very attractive. And you can do this with a fairly high degree of frequency. Now, I would counsel against doing it too much, because that becomes starts to look like spam, but can be really effective. And then there's the added benefit, which most retailers Don't think about is that your email addresses, in many ways, your identity, your online identity. And that unlocks a lot of different features. So you can send me emails, but also you can match that email to a Facebook profile or an Instagram profile. And you can match that to the Google network. And that enables you to have really good targeted advertising in that circumstance. So it is kind of what used to be called the killer app online for marketing. And it still is a very strong signal, and one that you want to make sure to leverage.

Gary Pageau  8:25  
There's probably two key identifiers that people have, as a consumer. I think probably their actual biological name is probably secondary to their email address, and then their phone number, right. I mean, those are probably the two things if you've got those, you can pretty much reach out most anyone.

John Kelly  8:45  
Yeah, yeah, I think I would actually make an argument that email is actually still a little bit more important than phone number. Okay. Now with phone number, you can text somebody, and that puts you straight in front of their attention immediately. But that can also be viewed as spam. If you're a little intrusive, right? Yeah, emails, a lot less intrusive. People pull that up, when they're, you know, look ready to look for it. But it also can be the anchor for the advertising that I just mentioned, phone number, you can do that as well. But it's not necessarily as prevalent across all platforms.

Gary Pageau  9:21  
And also the other thing, tax is really good for and we send in the photo digital space to the customer service side. Right, your your order is ready. Here's where we can pick it up safely, right. Let us know. And we'll come out and bring it to you. So you don't have to leave your car.

John Kelly  9:34  
Yep. 100%. All of that's available. Yeah, absolutely.

Gary Pageau  9:37  
So you also advise people not to cut their marketing budget. So yeah. What's the thought behind that process?

John Kelly  9:46  
Yeah, so there's actually quite a bit of research. And the Harvard Business School produced a study a number of years ago that during economically challenged times, those companies Continue to market are the ones that not only succeed to the period, but actually take significant market share as they come out of the, the recession. And so there is kind of a general belief and a general principle that like, that is actually one of the times when you can be super effective, because whereas you might be competing aggressively with your competitors in a normal market, in a depressed market, you're not, you don't have that same level of competition for the attention of the consumer, oh, by the way, the consumer doesn't go away during a depressed market, they're still there. And they still want to know that you're there. And they want to know what you can offer them. And they want to know about your, your increased offerings. The second point I will add to that is, believe it or not, now is one of the best times to advertise online, we already talked about how online engagement is through the roof. The second thing is, because a lot of businesses are, you know, they're hurting during this timeframe, they're not spending as much on marketing, the cost of advertising online is actually decreased during this period. And so you've got this perfect storm of the highest level of consumer engagement, lower cost of inventory. And we've seen this through some of our merchants that they've had click through rates and response rates that are unheard of like some of the highest I've seen in my 20 year career in this industry.

Gary Pageau  11:27  
So with this being attended as a cutting the marketing budget, would this be the time to maybe experiment also, with some sort of some different tactics, let's say for example, you're a one hour photo store, right? Where you can make prints and I shouldn't say one hour, because that's sort of an archaic term, that's how old I am. But you know, your, your, you're a photo store, you do retail printing, and you have some cameras and things like that. Yep. And this might be the time to, you know, perhaps start doing some short videos, start doing some, some different sort of engagement, you know, you know, buff off that Pinterest page that you may have started and never actually put it on. So you're so I guess what I'm seeing is that maybe it's not just spending money on marketing, but actually reinvigorating your marketing efforts.

John Kelly  12:17  
I would agree, I would agree completely the the, as we talked about before, the engagement rates, the time online, the time, the engagement with content, they're all at all time highs right now across the board. So this is the great time, this is the the time when you want to invest in that area. The The other thing I would add is, as you look at kind of how you develop your marketing plan, especially if you're an offline business, it's really important that you, you identify who your offline customers are, right? And how you do that. There's a lot of different ways. But you know, the one of the ways that we have is by enabling you to have this guest Wi Fi experience, so enables you to identify who your consumer is, when you have that offline experience. There's two things that we've noticed through kind of the data that we see one is your online engagement. So whether people are clicking on your ads, or liking your Facebook posts or whatever, is not necessarily a one to one predictor of your offline results. It's not necessarily predictive, whether that foot traffic is coming in. And a lot of people who, you know, have invested in the online space believe that, hey, as long as I get my likes, I'm eventually going to get the walkthrough cover. That's not necessarily the race, right. So it's really important to, you know, that distinction there.

Gary Pageau  13:38  
We got to measure the right thing, right. That's one of the things that I think, like you said, you know, likes don't pay the bills. Right? Right. If you if you're not coming if you're not. And that's, you know, you see that a lot with influencer, dialogue that happens around you know, so and so photographer has, you know, and he's, and he's an ambassador of this camera brand. He's got a million followers, but, you know, is he really delivering an audience that's going to buy that camera? Right. Right. So So what are some of that? I'm just curious. So So what are some of the metrics that a retailer can use? Because I've always been a big believer that the metrics that are important, are the ones actually tied to actual consumer transactions and behavior, right, as opposed to, you know, conducting a survey saying, you know, would you buy a photo print if I printed it as a five by seven instead of a four by six? And, you know, you know, they may or may not actually be truthful?

John Kelly  14:40  
Yeah. Well, it's, uh, I started off my early part of my career worked at Yahoo. And one of the, one of the talks that the head of the data science team there gave us was on consumer perception versus reaction, right. And, you know, if you ask the consumers like, what publications they read, you know, there was kind of like a step up and what they what they assess themselves as through survey data. So, oh, I'm an economist reader, I read the Wall Street Journal, I read the New York Times, and then you put in front of them different content, what were they clicking on the images and People Magazine. So I agree, surveys are not necessarily the best indicator of what consumers will do. Online, we've got some pretty good technology across the board that can indicate like, Hey, this is what consumers are, are responding to. And, you know, let's take this and double down on that, on that perfect that performance.

Gary Pageau  15:41  
Now, one of the things also, we're gonna move to the to the third item is, is a lot of the uncertainty regarding COVID. Right, there's, there's, we're open this week. Now, we're not open this week, because of a rise in cases or a change in a government policy or something like that. Right? What are the things you're talking about, as you know, retailers should anticipate possibly having to close again?

John Kelly  16:06  
Yeah, yeah, in fact, I think Illinois just just closed this restaurants yesterday, as a matter of fact, they just rolled back some of the openings in that state. So we do anticipate that there will be some more restrictions as we as we move forward into, especially into the fall, right. As a result, I think it's really important that we invest in that online interaction, especially like delivery, if you if you haven't looked at it, if you don't have an online presence, I would definitely encourage you to get that online presence and figure out a way that you can deliver your products to the consumers, because, you know, if for some reason, a retail shop is down or required to close political mandates, you know, we still have to find a way to keep ourselves in business.

Gary Pageau  16:56  
Yeah, that's one of the things I think that just from what I've been reading and experiencing the the consumers actually have become far more flexible and patient with retail businesses that have had to make accommodations, right, whether, for example, a restaurant may have to move some seating outside, which may not be great. But hey, I want to support my local business. So I'm going to do that kind of thing.

John Kelly  17:23  
Yeah, that that's actually quite prevalent. In fact, one of the most successful clients we have, and in our businesses, a client that's in the restaurant space, that did this pivot to delivery pretty early. And they also took a really good humoristic approach to it. So they invest in the marketing, they moved tables outside. And then they did things like, Hey, we're gonna have this new drink called the quarantine it and any order over $50 gets a free roll of toilet paper or hand sanitizer, right. Like, they jumped in with both feet and said, we're going to make the best of it. And the numbers speak for themselves. They've done they've done much better than their competitive sector in this crisis.

Gary Pageau  18:08  
Yeah, unfortunately, that's been a that, that sounds like that that case is an anomaly, unfortunately, at least as it relates to the restaurant industry. I mean, that's that, you know, they are, unfortunately, not been considered essential in a lot of areas. Right. So that's, that's good to hear that, you know, there are some, some positive news coming out of that segment of the industry, you know, in our space, the photo imaging space, a lot of the business were considered essential, because they did some business printing, right. So they were considered essential. So they'd have to deal with that. But they actually, you know, you know, that that kept the doors open and the lights on for a while, but, you know, the consumer traffic, the bread and butter was impacted. And I think, a lot of that uncertainty with whether people are going to be open or closed, or it's gonna affect consumer shopping. So do you have any recommendations for communication marketing methods to to communicate with customers about the possibility? Hey, you know, we might be shut down for a period under nofollow our own or, or we have had a COVID? You know, we've had a staff come, staffer come down with COVID. So we've got to shut down for a week

John Kelly  19:17  
or two. That's right. Yeah, I think, I think one of the, one of the mistakes that most of us who have offline businesses make is assuming that our customers know that we're open or we're not proactively right. And I'll just speak from kind of my own personal experience. My assumption is that the the shopping mall that's a mile and a half away from where I live, that most of those businesses are closed or hampered, or, you know, restricted in some way. And the truth of the matter is they're not but I haven't driven by that place that mall and you know, a month so how would How would I know know, if I'm not going by it? Well, it's really important to get that message out, especially, you know, changes in hours changes in protocols like you want to do curbside pickup, you got to let them know because that that's a huge selling point in this environment, right? Yeah. So you know, email your customers, if you have them, if you don't have them, like, you know, don't have an email database, like, happy to talk with you about how you can generate one. But getting the message out through email, through your social posts, and through advertising has proven to be essential during this timeframe.

Gary Pageau  20:33  
What I think is interesting is the very response to COVID from different businesses in the same segment, like you said, he, you could have a similar experience pre COVID, with let's say, a fast food restaurant. Right? Right. You know, whereas nowadays, you can drive down a well traveled street, and in some cases, a certain chain may provide you a contactless experience where they hand you your food in a bin for some reason, right? The you know, and then another one, but another one may not have their, their dining room open, whereas others will have they handle the stuff like normal and their dining rooms are open. So I think that's sort of what like you said, there's a lot of uncertainty out there. And usually, unfortunately, when it comes to consumers, when there's uncertainty, a lot of consumers don't take time to investigate, which is why it's important for them for retailers that can communicate more often.

John Kelly  21:34  
I think you said it really well. Like, who should bear the burden of knowing that you're open and ready for business? That consumer or you, right, and if you if you put it on the consumer, they're probably not going to get the message, right? If you put it on yourself and say, I got to make sure I get the message out there, you're gonna have much more success.

Gary Pageau  21:55  
So speaking of success, where can people learn more about Zenreach, and your products and services? Sure.

John Kelly  22:04  
The company is Zenreach.com. You can go to the website there, click contact us or you can just send a note to me or the sales team at sales at zenreach. Or jkelly@zenreach.com. As I mentioned, I'm happy to take any of your inquiries. 

Gary Pageau  22:23  
So what size retailers do you work with?

John Kelly  22:27  
All sorts from the single location mom and pops to the large chains. We've got almost 10,000 locations that we work with across the country.

Gary Pageau  22:38  
That's great. Well, thank you, john, for taking time to speak with me today and I hope you have a great holiday season.

John Kelly  22:45  
Wonderful. Thanks for having me and hope you have a great holiday as well.


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