We may loathe it, but mother’s day is yet another retail opportunity like other religious and non-religious holidays.  In the recent times, mother’s day shopping has been increasingly going digital.   NRF survey shows over a quarter of mother’s day shoppers in the US will buy gifts online.  Additionally, nearly half the tablet and smartphone users in the US will use their devices  to research, compare prices or buy gifts for Mom this mother’s day.  Makes sense.  Mom and child(ren) may be cities or even continents apart, and online shopping is an easier way to arrange a gift for the long distance Mom.  Digital shopping is also the preferred option for those who do not have time to or are lazy to go to stores.

This, however, may not translate into profits for independent retailers.  The latest SMB DigitalScape analysis shows their web presence is far from optimized for capitalizing on the mother’s day opportunities.  On an average, 75% to 95% (with the exception of florists) of them can’t be found online, do not have enough information on the site, can’t be browsed on tablets/smartphones and do not sell on the website.

The deficiencies in the digital presence of independent retailers, however, translate into a $2.7B opportunity for digital media providers.  The latter can look for new revenue streams via website redesign, mobile site, e-commerce and SEO services for independent retailers.

The infographic below shows the details of the analysis.

Here are some key takeaways from the Google research:

• 74% of people like a mobile friendly site and they are more likely to revisit it.
• 67% of mobile users are more likely to buy a site’s product or service on a mobile friendly site.
• 79% of people will look for another site, if they don’t like what they find on one site.
• 50% of people will use them less often if the website isn’t mobile-friendly, even if they like the business.

In an article on Forbes, Robert Hof says that though Google may be self serving to some extent, he can’t argue with Google’s advice about creating a user-friendly mobile site with minimal steps.

Independent pizzerias are not leveraging web and mobile tools to grow their business the way the top chains are.  The latest infographic from vSplash points the various opportunities for improving the digital presence of independent pizzerias, and the revenue opportunity thereof for digital marketing service providers for bringing web presence of local pizzerias to best practice standards.  Neal Polachek will be sharing the analysis today at BIAKelsey’s Leading in Local conference being held in Boston.

Download the infographic here

(*From Pace Productivity)

BuzzBoard, the sales productivity tool from vSplash takes into consideration the different pain-points in a typical sales process involving precious sales-rep time and effort spent on a host of non-selling activities.

Filling out forms for adding a business listing, for example, is time-consuming and cumbersome and especially the “required field” alerts make you want to jump out of the window of a sky-scraper.  However, it is very simple to add business listings in BuzzBoard. You can bulk upload the entire data base or add an individual listing using an automated   form.  All you need to do is enter the business name and city or state or zip.  The tool looks up the web and auto-populates the form.  Look at this screen-shot of the  Add Listing form in BuzzBoard:

In the example above, we merely entered the keywords ‘vsplash’ and ‘nj’ in the search section.  Yes, without even bothering about case or punctuation. The listings form got auto-populated with the business name, website URL, address, city, state, zip and phone.  If you noticed, the elements have also conformed to style guide and best practices –   the right case, the right style for representing the phone number and the right punctuation.   The rep would have had to check all these manually in ordinary circumstances.

This is just one of the several features that BuzzBoard deploys to minimize to the extent possible the time spent on numerous administrative and non-selling tasks such as  lead-generation, pre-consultation research, generating proposals, pricing/quoting, order filing, paperwork, emailing/communication and so forth.  Overall, BuzzBoard has helped sales reps leverage 60% more time for selling.

The rep is driving around the field. BuzzBoard on his tablet device detects his location and plots on a map qualified prospects in the immediate surroundings, as well as all the prospects/leads assigned to that rep.  The sales rep can ‘geo-plan’ his moves and minimize travel-time by calling on prospects in a predetermined order.

BuzzBoard  is rich with features  to assist  sales reps with multiple stages of the sales process and the features collectively help maximize sales rep productivity and revenues.  However, effectively leveraging the BuzzBoard business map alone can drive additional revenues.  An hour saved overall per day translates to additional time for one more call per day, 22 more calls per month.  At 25% conversion rate, that translates to about 5 additional conversions per month per sales rep and 60 additional conversions per sales rep annually.  At $100 margin,  $6000 additional revenue per sales rep can be generated annually.

Not to mention additional calls/additional revenue generated with BuzzBoard implementation via time saved on other non-selling tasks  -  pre-sales research, proposal generation, administrative tasks, documentation, communication etc. We save that for another post.

The pointers on the BuzzBoard business map are additionally color coded for ‘hotness’ – to help prioritization. Tapping the pointer reveals the business name and the street address, as seen in the image below:

The Competition tab of the BuzzBoard digital media sales tool allows the sales rep to quickly leverage the audit report of the prospect’s immediate competition, in order to accomplish the sale. For example, see this sample competition audit in BuzzBoard showing how the prospect’s online presence and performance compares with that of his competitors.

Digital Presence Comparison

Digital Performance Comparison

Need the sales rep say a word more?  Once the prospect  sees  for himself that his competitors have a mobile site, social media pages, and a more robust website, will it be too hard for the sales rep to convince him to sign up for the corresponding products?  You have already closed the sale, if you leverage this feature effectively.

Clicking on the ‘+’ icon allows you to add more competitors.  You could involve the prospect and let him name more competitors whose online presence and performance he’d like to view an audit of.

To recap Neal’s observations based on Geoffrey James’ post titled “The future of selling”, the new age rep will  have to espouse (i) the tablet, (ii) customer intelligence, (iii) data and  (iv) video collaterals, while the burly laptop rests in peace. Read Neal’s blog here.

But while on it, it is worth noting what a boon the tablet is for sales reps. When the iPad came out in the open in 2010, it was almost written off as just another glorified piece of bunkum, until it started growing on users. With the tablet, the rep does not have to carry a huge sales kit consisting of product catalogs, other bulky collaterals, hand-written research notes, writing pads, contract papers what have you.  The laptop alleviated the pain to a small extent, but could not make life as easy as sales folks would like it.   BuzzBoard is by all accounts a strong agent of the change that has commenced.  While the laptop will not be missed, BuzzBoard, a tablet-based sales app loaded with customer intelligence, data and all sorts of collaterals, apart from a whole lot of other tools is set to build a long-term relationship with the sales rep.

Traditionally, sales reps are equipped with product knowledge and sales skills. Their knowledge of internet marketing may lack the depth that is required to come across as a consultant. Torn between various selling and non-selling tasks the day is ridden with, reps seldom have the time to brush up their knowledge and get a grip on the different nuances of digital presence and performance. These are the motivations behind some of the functionalities and features of BuzzBoard that instantly equip the rep with the customer intelligence and an understanding of the significance of the different elements of online presence and performance.

For example, let’s say a particular merchant’s website does not have microformats that are needed to leverage rich snippets provided by Google. This is a strong case for a website redesign. However, how many sales rep would be aware of the concept of microformats and how they help, much less have the ability to find out if the prospect’s website has them? BuzzBoard not only discovers that the website is lacking them, but also provides help blurbs to alert the rep what they are all about and why they are important. They can have an authoritative conversation with the merchant and build a strong case for the proposal they will then present.