Touchpoint management and geolocation: the secrets of drive to store
In digital retail, drive-to-store campaigns are increasingly organic to the overall business. The services available for this type of marketing are more sophisticated and tend to unify touchpoint management. A case study is offered by RetailTune, a digital platform created to bring traffic and revenue into stores by making full use of the potential of Local Digital Marketing, founded in 2018 on the initiative of Claudio Agazzi. Suffice it to say that it is now used by leading retailers such as Pinko, Gaudì, Momoni, Attic&Barn, Oof wear, Liu Jo, Dan John, NaturaSì, Gruppo Gabrielli, Altromercato, Nashi Argan, Thun and SKY, Gruppo OVS, Pittarosso, Multicedi, PrimaEdicola and Ceetrus Italia.
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The platform makes it possible to centrally manage data on physical stores and organic, zero-cost drive-to-store campaigns. Store data such as addresses, hours, contacts, services and more is entered into the RetailTune platform, which distributes it across all managed touchpoints (Store Locator, GMB, Facebook and Instagram Location, Google Maps, Apple Maps, Bing), offering a single point of entry for distribution across multiple touchpoints. In addition, the communications delivered by the platform are organic, not paid. A drive-to-store communication banner — whether it’s an in-store event, a new in-store service, a promotion, or a loyalty reward — is uploaded to the platform and delivered across all proprietary touchpoints. This makes it possible to spread a consistent, coordinated message across the touchpoints the brand has available for communicating with the local consumer. On top of this there is a geolocation feature, built in HTML5, which is activated — on both desktop and mobile — with the user’s consent, in order to be GDPR compliant. The features offered by the platform make it possible to deliver various services, such as the Booking service, which lets the end user book an appointment at the store. Or the Order Assistant service, which lets the store manager finalize a sale coming from a non-eCommerce digital channel (chat, WhatsApp, email, video call, etc.). The system generates a payment link with a summary of the products purchased and images, which it sends automatically to the consumer, who accepts the order and proceeds with payment.
Claudio Agazzi, owner of a consulting firm specializing in digital strategy and web design, drew on his ten years of experience to found RetailTune, building a business that has become important for retailers who today, more than ever, need effective tools for their Local Digital Marketing and Drive to Store. Collecting, managing, using and coordinating all digital touchpoints is essential for anyone who has to reach customers who are increasingly distracted and at the mercy of new technologies. Mark Up met with him.
What does omnichannel mean today?
I’ll answer with a provocation. For me, omnichannel today means having an open mind — only those who truly manage to have a broad vision know how to give the term its correct meaning.
For 20 years now, every company has attached its own specific meaning to the term: some think omnichannel means having, in-store, a totem that lets a customer buy a product that isn’t on the shop floor, focusing on the hardware side of the concept. Others have focused more on communication, considering omnichannel to be the delivery of a message across different touchpoints, physical and digital. Recently, some have discovered Google My Business, rightly thinking it’s a fundamental tool for store communication. This was an epiphany over the past year, when the health emergency highlighted the need to tell customers about constant changes in opening hours. I’m convinced omnichannel is really just one thing: the ability to make the customer, or the person interested in the brand, feel at the center of an ecosystem that lets them buy from any touchpoint — from eCommerce, from the physical store, from the physical store but with a digital interface, from an app. In short, the brand must be able to offer the best possible service to the public, reaching them anywhere and by any means.
How are Drive to Store activities connected to customer service?
All activities have to do with customer service, no exceptions.
Listening and analysis are also useful for improving what’s offered to the public. Our technology lets us know what consumers prefer, store by store, so why not use this added value to improve the offering? Today there are systems that get a lot of criticism, like geolocation, which let the customer start a dialogue with the brand, so they can have a complete, satisfying shopping experience. I know where you are, I know where the product you’re interested in is, I take care of you by creating a dialogue, a point of contact, and giving you the information you need to buy.
If you had to suggest the first three useful Digital Marketing steps for a company starting from scratch on omnichannel, what would they be?
The first definitely concerns owning the data and normalizing it. I’m talking about store data such as addresses, phone numbers, hours, but also stock availability, together with having advanced tools in place to enable dialogue with each individual store.
Then, as I said before, managers need to have an open mind. Experimentation is essential here, though it must be controlled, disciplined and channeled. Of course, today we don’t have the time or resources to put into practice everything that comes to mind, but there are simple things that can be pursued and that are often overlooked because our minds aren’t trained to see the bigger picture. In marketing terms, this means we need a vision and the strategy that follows from it. We also need training and local content. The store manager is swamped with tasks requested by HQ, but it’s also true that two situations can’t coexist: empty stores and sales staff who are too busy. Either the stores are full, in which case there’s no need to bring in more customers, or there’s room to make better use of available time. In this sense, training for sales staff is important, so they can offer the customer the best service, the best information, the best story. Finally, I mentioned the need to create local content: what’s needed is a staff capable of producing local content that can be used in the countless occasions for dialogue between the store and nearby prospects. In short, the principle of Think Global, Act Local applies.
What are RetailTune’s own, most significant innovations? What sets RetailTune apart from its competitors?
From the start we chose our own specific positioning, making radical strategic choices. We’re not just a company that distributes information to various directories — we’ve built an as-a-service platform capable of managing, 360 degrees, all the digital opportunities linked to local communication.
From direct in-store data collection systems — this is where our B2B app came from, and we’re the only ones offering it this way — to the consideration index, a tool that consistently provides the brand awareness of each individual store, showing the brand its potential based on the audience present, passing by, or resident, broken down by gender and age cluster. We have a truly high-performing tool for advertising, area by area, only the products we know that audience likes. These are just some of RetailTune’s unique projects — tools that cut across the sectors we work with: fashion, services, GDO (large-scale retail), food, wholesale, retailers.
Finally, in your view, what are the new frontiers of omnichannel?
There is no new frontier. There’s an old frontier that has never been reached, due to a bit of laziness, a lack of foresight, and above all the wrong structure within companies’ digital and communication teams. To be fair, some companies have seen this frontier and, like the leaders they are, have set off to reach it. There’s a wonderful article by Seth Godin that highlights the concept of the communication leader, identifying it as the company that creates the solution to the problem. RetailTune was founded with exactly this intent: to bring the problem to light, understand it, and propose a solution.