Is Your Marketing Like hhgregg?

I had the opportunity for the third year in a row to escape in the early morning hours of Black Friday to go shopping with my wife.  This year, we woke up at 3:30 am to make the 4am opening at Kohl's. There aren't many things more exciting to my wife than doorbusters at Kohl's the Friday after Thanksgiving (and I truly enjoy seeing her so happy).

Thanksgiving night, after all the eating is done, is time to lay all the Black Friday offers from the newspaper and see which one has the best deals. This year was the usually suspects - Kohl's, Wal-mart and Toys R Us (Best Buy was a little off on deals this year).

Although I've only shopped there once, I pulled out the hhgregg flyer.  Interesting...some good deals.

"How about hhgregg?" I said to my wife.

"Never," she said. "I can't stand the salespeople there".

"What about them specifically?" I followed.

And in a wise and generous manner, my wife stated the following (I'm paraphrasing here, but I'm sure won't do it justice):

"Shopping has to be on my terms. If I'm just browsing, I don't want to be bothered.  If I know what I want, I don't need to be bothered. If I have a question, I can ask someone. At hhgregg, the salespeople watch every move you make. It's uncomfortable and not an enjoyable experience. It would be better if they weren't there at all."

Since Friday, I asked a few more people about hhgregg who had similar thoughts and experiences. Not to single out hhgregg (I checked out their blog, which isn't too bad), but many stores are like this (try buying a car, especially in this economic climate).

There may have been a time for this type of selling and marketing, but I believe that day has gone away.  Unfortunately, many of us market with this "in your face" type of selling, even on the Internet.

Online, you have three seconds to make the right impression or your prospect will leave. Is this happening with your electronic communications?  Here are a couple ways to combat this:

1. Although I recommend an equal blend of educational/relevant content versus sales messaging, you should have at least one message on your home page that educates and informs. Perform an audit of your website. If you have all sales messaging and are not "giving back" to your customers with valuable information, you are too focused on selling and not focused enough on helping your customers. Focus on content marketing instead of just direct selling.
2. Do you have an Enewsletter? If the open rates aren't at least 25% (30%+ is better), you've got some problems.  Low open rates either mean your list is not opt-in (specifically requested) or the content is not perceived as valuable enough to open.  If the latter is the case, it most likely means the content is too product-centric and not customer-centric. Enewsletters should be almost exclusively about giving the gift of information, not ongoing sales pitches.

Just like the Thanksgiving flyers, there is nothing wrong with selling, if it's in the right context. Consumers today are expecting valuable information to come from you, from your website, from your communications. Buyer's expectations have changed, and now our marketing must change with it.

If you want to give your customers a gift this holiday season, then focus on giving them some good old-fashioned relevant information instead of the same, tired sales pitches. Once you do, check your stats. The difference will show.

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Comments

[Jeff Miller]

You're a true gentleman Joe...to get up at 3:30 AM to go shopping with your wife is a task not many men (that I know any ways) would do. I'm all about making and seeing my wife happy - but, I'd clean the house for the rest of our lives than "shop" at 4:00 AM.

Point taken on giving customers relevant information.

Continued success and have a great Holiday season,

Jeff

[Dodge]

hhgregg is thriving in a space where other retailers are floundering. Circuit City made the switch from hhgregg-style selling to hourly, younger, less-experienced sales personnel...look where that got them.

All you need to do is have the opposite experience to change your mind...go into a Best Buy/or any other hourly staff biz needing purchase advice and not be able to find someone to a)help you b)knows anything about the product. I completely agree that pushy sales people are a huge turnoff, but I've rarely had that experience at hhgregg. I simply let the sales person know, when they approach, that I'll come to them when needed...works well for me.

[wheatley]

I agree with Dodge on this one. Better to have someone who can actually help and realizes that it's their job to do so, than the usual crop of self-absorbed/uncaring sales floor help.

[Joe Pulizzi]

@ Dodge @wheatley

Thanks for the comments. I agree with you that helpful salespeople are necessary to any retail business. The difference in this case, with the experiences of many people that have contacted me through email since this post, is that being helpful and forceful are two very different things. I'm sure there are some wonderful hhgregg salespeople, but there are also ones that are "pushing hard" to get the sale. That behavior is making people NOT want to shop there.

Point is that some websites do the same thing. If you are a business, you just need to recognize that.

Thanks again
Joe