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  • GUEST COLUMN: A complete guide to retail analytics for 2022

    GUEST COLUMN: A complete guide to retail analytics for 2022

    Mumbai: There are a million things that retailers need to do every day. From creating strategies for attracting new customers to finding ways to retain old customers and introducing exciting offers and brand campaigns, they have to also keep an eye on the fierce competition in the market as well.

    But, coming up with strategies and implementing marketing tactics is not enough until you track them right!

    Data analytics must be a crucial part of every retail business these days. Whether the website traffic, engagement rates, inventory, revenues, or expenses, tracking every retail marketing metric is essential. By monitoring your data the right way, you can gain meaningful insights and make better, informed decisions for your business.

    So, let’s dive into what retail analytics is and how it can be leveraged to make your retail business a success.

    What is retail analytics?

    Retail analytics refers to collecting retail data and analyzing it to gain meaningful insights into the performance of the business. That is information about their stores, vendors, products, and customers. Retail analytics allows retailers to harness all the data, discover trends, and make predictions based on the current data values.

    Types of retail analytics

    You can tap into different types of retail analytics that can help you understand the performance of your business in a better way. These include:

    In-store analytics: This refers to the methods you use to collect data from your retail store. For instance, foot traffic, dwell time, conversion rate, etc.
    Web analytics: You must also know how your website is performing. This includes tracking metrics like website traffic, conversions, and sales.
    Inventory analytics: Keeping track of your stock is also crucial in retail analytics. It helps you determine which products are doing better and which are not. The primary metrics here include sell-through rate, stock turn, etc.
    Customer analytics: It is all about knowing your customers—for example, customer retention rate, churn rate, customer loyalty, etc.

    Importance of retail analytics

    When you have all the data you need, you can use retail data analytics to improve various aspects of your business. Here are a few points highlighting why retail analytics is crucial for every retail business.

    1. Better sales and marketing tactics

    Retail analytics can help you understand your customers at a deeper level, making it easier for you to market your products to the right customers and in the right way. For instance, data analytics can help you find out what messaging attracts more customers or which social media channel has the highest engagement rates. This way, you can improve your marketing campaigns accordingly and drive sales.

    2. Improved business management

    Retail analytics plays a crucial role in enhancing day-to-day business management. It allows you to predict which products are being preferred by customers these days, and you can make decisions on stocking, tracking, and restocking the units accordingly. You can keep track of how a particular product sells and understand the current demand in the market.

    3. Enhancing customer loyalty

    Retail analytics helps you keep track of purchase history, shopping patterns, preferences, and other essential metrics associated with every customer. As retail analytics enables you to analyse customer behavior better, you can use this information to provide a better, personalised shopping experience to every buyer.

    4. Better in-store operations

    With in-store retail analytics, you can make changes around your store to attract more customers and increase your sales. For instance, you can determine which store layouts attract the customers the most or which product placement draws maximum attention. You can enhance your staffing, include appealing designs, and implement effective sales tactics to make your offline store a hit.

    Data analytics is not as easy as it sounds

    Many marketers these days struggle with data analytics. According to Marketing Revolution, 57 per cent of marketers incorrectly interpret data and likely get incorrect results. The main problem that retail marketers face these days is the lack of data which leads to:

        Uninformed decisions and underachieved goals
        Poorly performing campaigns since marketers have no idea which aspect of their campaigns to improve
        Unnecessary investment in data analytics tools and vendors

    How to utilise retail analytics for your business?

    Retail analytics can help take away the guesswork out of your business. It gives you a reality-check of how your business is performing and enables you to keep track of every aspect of your business, from sales to inventory and customer experience. Here’s how you can overcome data analytics problems and make use of retail analytics better.

    1. Integrate various marketing channels

    Keeping data from different sources distinctively makes tracking it a difficult task. The first step to retail marketing involves connecting all your marketing channels to a single data platform. Bring data from multiple marketing channels to a centralised place so that you can track data, find patterns and understand your customer journey in a better way.

    2. Real-time tracking

    Track the critical metrics every single day! Real-time tracking allows you to understand the current market situation. This way, you can take immediate action and see results. You can send the proper communication to your customers at the right time and promote your sales.

    3. Represent your data visually

    Do not just rely on spreadsheets for retail analytics. Make use of charts, graphs, and funnels to understand every little detail. Visual representation of data will also make it easier for you to identify patterns and understand the performance of your business in a better way.

    4. 360-degrees retail analytics

    This is considered one of the most important analysis tools for a retail company. It is a compact, easy-to-read, insightful report that combines all the customer metrics in one place. For instance, a 360-degree customer profile helps you understand their buying history, interests, preferences, shopping patterns, and demographics.

    5. Access analytics data from anywhere

    Data should be available to retailers at all times and across platforms. This means you should be able to access and manage your analytics dashboards at any time from your laptop, tablet, or even mobile phone. This way, you can share this data anytime, from anywhere, with your team and keep track of your retail business performance.

    Some tips for better retail analytics:

    Here are some essential tips that retailers should keep in mind to ensure a successful data analytics process for their business.

    1. Focus on key metrics

    There are different key performance indicators (KPIs) in retail marketing. But, not all of them might work for all retail businesses. So, you must find out which metrics affect your business the most and are relevant to you. Track them and make the best use of retail analytics. Some important retail marketing KPIs include:

        Customer retention
        Average transaction value
        Conversion rate
        Foot traffic and digital traffic
        Sales per square foot
        Inventory turnover
        Gross margins return on investment

    2. Be consistent

    Retail analytics should be something that you do regularly—for instance, weekly or even daily. When you track the metrics constantly, you understand the various factors bringing that change in a better way. For example, if you follow your sales weekly, you can quickly determine if your sales are dropping and immediately take action.

    3. Connect different metrics

    If you want to gain clear insights into the performance of your business, you need to relate the various metrics and analyze them. For example, foot traffic should be associated with the number of sales to determine whether people entering your store are actually buying your product.

    4. Collaborate with your team

    Clever algorithms and practical tools are essential, but so is a team that can study the results and gives its opinions. Talk to your staff and understand what they are experiencing on the frontline. Then match their experiences with the results from the numbers you have collected. Allow your team members to bring in different perspectives in analysing and interpreting data to create better marketing strategies.

    5. Use intelligent tools

    Last but not least, find a tool that can help you maximise your retail analytics efforts. Pick up a tool that can help you collect, measure and analyze data all in one place. You should be able to spot long-term trends, track every metric, integrate with other tools or applications, and access data from anywhere you want.

    Gain a competitive advantage with retail analytics

    There is no denying that data can do wonders for a retail business. But, it is essential to note that data alone cannot do everything. You need the right analytics tools to extract the correct value from the data you have collected.

    (About Author: Pranav Ahuja is the co-founder and CEO of Xeno)

  • GUEST COLUMN: Streamlining performance marketing via automation is must in post-pandemic era

    GUEST COLUMN: Streamlining performance marketing via automation is must in post-pandemic era

    Mumbai: The Covid-19 pandemic altered how we live and work in ways that will redefine our behavior even after its effects subside. As of today, businesses are still continuing to rapidly deploy digital and automation technologies which in turn are putting trends (previously progressing at a slower pace) on a fast-track mode. The marketing automation software market poised to grow at 8.55 per cent is slated to unlock a market capitalisation of $6.4 billion by 2024 (Source- Marketing Automation Market by Component-Software, Services). While over 51 per cent of businesses are already using marketing automation, over 58 per cent of companies have plans of adopting it (Source- Emailmonday).

    Across advanced economies, the dynamics of these changes, whether in business models, operations or consumer behavior will continue this year but not with the same intensity as witnessed in 2020 or 2021. Against such a scenario, a lot of businesses are stretched for margins. Therefore, the best utilisation of resources for them is to focus on growing their businesses by having their employees focus on tasks that are oriented towards value-creation. Using automation to replace all the man-hours put into repetitive manual processes will be their arsenal!

    This year marketers in India are channeling their energies towards generating distinct, value-added user experiences and making user engagement even more connected for consumers who are always online. Digital marketers in India should look to leverage automation in five important ways to make their performance marketing strategies more efficient and scalable.

    Offer testing

    Nobody wants to send traffic to an inactive offer or to spend money on users that are not going to yield any return. Offer testing can save both time and cost for advertisers and publishers. By identifying broken links, corrective measures can be taken in a timely manner to make the most of the efforts. This saves hours and hours of advertising operations along with manual back and forth communication to solve an issue, which can be identified by an automated tool within seconds. Some of the leading performance marketing management platforms offer testing as an inbuilt part, where all the actions from creating a new offer to promoting them to your partners can be validated by the system upon the user’s choice.

    Data-driven campaign optimisation

    The next key lever typically in the hands of marketers to pull when it comes to optimizing their digital marketing campaigns is audience targeting. They should focus on effectively targeting their audience based on geolocation, device, traffic type, carriers, interests, and other custom data. Performance marketing solutions with automated audience targeting can reduce the amount of manual work and cost based on rules set by the marketers. Additionally, they can set rules that determine which ads are distributed to the publisher partners to best match the audiences targeted using advanced machine learning algorithms. This means that companies can use granular targeting options manually and also use a platform’s recommendation tool, powered by machine learning, to suggest the right advert for the right user, thereby increasing the ROI for the advertiser and profitability for businesses.

    Automated insights

    While the first-generation campaign management tools only provide limited data insights and still require substantial manual work processes, the next-generation solutions are integrating more sophisticated data science tools. Digital marketers can partner with performance marketing management platforms which can lend them greater accessibility to performance metrics. This in turn will allow marketers and partners to see tracking and revenue numbers in real-time. Further, today’s data science tools can automatically discover patterns, trends, and business opportunities in the given data sets, so that marketers can further optimize their performance marketing efforts. Business users can query billions of real-time events in seconds with just drag and drop actions and marketers can identify patterns in traffic across a business with just a few clicks. Many global martech platforms are offering these directly with zero setup and no third-party fees and integration pains.

    Automatic offer approval

    Affiliate or partner marketing is unique from other digital advertising channels (like search or social media) in the way that the marketer must distribute and accept offers with the partner for referring potential customers. It’s a process that is until today manual and archaic in the digital marketing age. Fortunately, automation now enables importing, creating, and accepting offers from a vast number of integrated partners based on predefined rules, thereby saving tons of time and resources. When it comes to taking any action with automation, marketers should look at partnering with those martech platforms which allow them to configure the rule to their needs. Flexibility is a key ingredient for automation to succeed and their martech platforms should empower them to set up their processes with dos and don’ts and let the platform handle the rest while they can focus on other value-adding tasks.

    Automated client notifications

    Another big part of the partner marketing domain is keeping all partners informed of all the changes that might be happening on an offer. Communicating this information to the partner in real-time can be a bit of a challenge. With automation, all of this can be handled with a click of a button. An industry-wide innovation like ‘Smart Triggers’ helps identify your partners and the contacts, write an appropriate text for the update, and all marketers need to do is schedule it.

    Performance marketing is made even more effective by automation. To really hit business goals, it’s important to build campaigns strategically—choose the right platforms, advertising formats, and optimisation goals, focus on the right audience, and, of course, create campaigns that will resonate with the target audience. Automation is the key to scaling and achieving these goals.

    (About Author: Yogeeta Chainani co-founded Swaarm, in September 2020. As the CEO of Swaarm, Yogeeta drives product innovation and human resources along with spearheading business development in India and other global geographies for her company.)

  • Industry veteran Varun Kohli takes over as Sporty Solutionz CEO

    Industry veteran Varun Kohli takes over as Sporty Solutionz CEO

    Mumbai: In a significant move in the sports marketing industry, Varun Kohli has joined sports marketing and media rights company Sporty Solutionz as its new chief executive officer. Kohli will take charge of all SSPL Group of companies including Sports Media Unit InsideSport.

    Kohli has a very distinguished media career in leadership positions for the last 27 years in leading media organisations. Before joining Sporty Solutionz Pvt Ltd (SSPL), he was the CEO of ITV Network for eight long years.

    Previously, he worked with Network 18, Bennett and Colman Ltd, HT Media Ltd, Amar Ujala Prakashan and other top media houses in senior leadership roles.

    With professional experience spanning over 27 years, Kohli is a seasoned sales specialist and is credited with creating sustainable business development and management strategies.

    “The demand for watching top−class sports events on both air and ground is increasingly growing in India and as a company, we are committed to fulfilling the desires of millions of discerning sports fans,” commented SSPL director Ashish Chadha. “Kohli brings a wealth of experience behind him in the media, marketing and advertising industry and has led various organizations to success. We welcome him on board and hope it will be a great mutual association and he will take the company to new heights.”

    Delighted with this new responsibility, Kohli said, “Sporty Solutionz has emerged as one of the leading sports content creators and monetiser in the region. SSPL is planning to integrate all its business interests. The company has envisaged some big growth plans and I will channelise those to realities.”

  • ASCI appoints Manisha Kapoor as CEO

    ASCI appoints Manisha Kapoor as CEO

    Mumbai: Manisha Kapoor has been elevated as the new chief executive officer of the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), according to her Linkedin profile.

    Kapoor has been serving as secretary general at ASCI since 2020. “I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at The Advertising Standards Council of India!,” reads her LinkedIn post.

    Kapoor has been working in the industry for 25 years now. Over the years, she has worked with many notable brands such as Hindustan Unilever, Johnson & Johnson India and Kotak Mahindra Bank.  

    She has helped many companies to establish their brand. Her expertise includes brand building, new product development, marketing and strategy development.

    She said in her post,  “It is my absolute privilege to lead a rocking team that has relentlessly pushed itself to deliver better, and adapted itself to the transformation we are in the midst of at ASCI.”

  • CarDekho appoints Sharad Saxena as CEO of used car business

    CarDekho appoints Sharad Saxena as CEO of used car business

    Mumbai: Homegrown auto-tech company CarDekho Group has appointed Sharad Saxena as CEO of the used car business. He will operate out of the company’s Gurugram office and will report to CarDekho Group CEO and co-founder Amit Jain.

    In this role, Saxena will oversee the pan-India used car business of the company, team development and work on strengthening the organisation’s business offering through retail and dealer relationships, said the company in a statement.

    “Sharad’s proven track record of scaling up varied businesses profitably in demanding circumstances, team development and strategic thinking will be immensely beneficial as we embark on CarDekho’s next growth phase,” stated Amit Jain. “His deep knowledge and expertise will enable us to supercharge the Used Car business while we continue delighting our customers.’

    With 16+ years of experience in various globally reputed organisations across a wide range of sectors, Saxena has built and nurtured several high-performing teams and businesses. He is a well-respected business leader with expertise in strategic business management, large-scale business transformation, and people leadership.

    Before joining CarDekho, he was working with McKinsey & Co India as a senior advisor serving large pharma and healthcare clients on business strategy, commercial excellence, and digital transformation. Before McKinsey, he was working with OYO Rooms as COO for their flagship hotels franchise business in South Asia. His other professional experience spans different marquee organisations (ITC Ltd, Max Healthcare, Ranbaxy) in various strategic capacities.

    He is an alumnus of IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad.

    “I am very excited to be a part of the CarDekho Group and lead the used car team, which has achieved several milestones in the recent past,” said Sharad Saxena. “I look forward to working with the team to provide an exceptional experience to our customers, execute the organization’s growth plans and create exponential value for all the stakeholders.’

    With a presence in over 100 markets across India, CarDekho is on track to launch its flagship CarDekho Mall and mega refurbishment factories across multiple cities throughout the country, said the statement.

  • Srishti Behl Arya takes over as Phantom Films CEO

    Srishti Behl Arya takes over as Phantom Films CEO

    Mumbai: Film production company Phantom Films has appointed Srishti Behl Arya as its new CEO. She has moved from Netflix India as director – international original films, after a three-year-long stint, that ended in May last year.

    During her tenure with Netflix, Srishti played a key role in building the platform’s original film bouquet including more than 35 original films like “Guilty,” “AK vs AK,” “Bulbbul,” “Serious Men,” and the first Tamil and Telugu films “Paava Kadhaigal” and “Pitta Kathalu,” respectively. Prior to this, she was an independent producer in the Indian film and television industry.

    Founded by Anurag Kashyap, Vikas Bahl, Madhu Mantena, and Vikramaditya Motwane, Phantom Films has produced landmark Bollywood films like “Queen,” “Masaan,” “Lootera,” “Udta Punjab,” among others. The company was launched in 2012 in a 50 per cent partnership with Reliance Entertainment.

  • News9 Plus is an out-of-the-box idea: TV9 Network CEO Barun Das

    News9 Plus is an out-of-the-box idea: TV9 Network CEO Barun Das

    Mumbai: The multi-lingual national media network TV9 Network recently launched its prime offering, News9 Plus – India’s first video magazine OTT service. News9 Plus is a unique service platform that will operate at the intersection of impeccable journalism, world-class presentation, and next-in-class technology..

    It will showcase narratives, news, and debates with in-depth analysis and production qualities. There will be unique storytelling techniques through the OTT platforms. After the foray of the network into the digital news domain, TV9 is constantly growing and expanding its horizons in different mediums. The platform is destined to be the go-to app for nuanced news-based content produced with the best in class audio-visual storytelling formats.

    News9 Plus is the first pureplay subscription-driven, and on-demand news product. In a press statement, TV9 Network CEO Barun Das said the company is committed to bringing about a qualitative change in the news genre landscape. 

    “The best is yet to come,” Das affirmed, adding that, “News9 Plus is one such out-of-box idea that promises to radically change the art of story-telling in news media.”

    TV9 Network group editor B V Rao said News9 Plus is an audacious attempt to take the news to the OTT space. “A generation brought up on watching the best of content on Netflix, etc, won’t settle for anything other than the best-produced news content. News9 Plus will cater to this Genflix – or the generation that lives on Netflix,” Rao added.

    TV9 Bharatvarsh, which has just scripted history to become India’s top Hindi news channel, celebrated its third anniversary on Wednesday.  

    According to the data shared by the network provided to them by Broadcast Audience Research Council (Barc) India, TV9 Bharatvarsh has emerged as the leading Hindi news channel in week 10 (5-11 April) in terms of market share. According to the data, TV9 Bharatvarsh leads the Hindi-speaking market (HSM) with 16.9 per cent market share for the target audience 15+ all adults.

    “We are extremely pleased to receive a resounding thumbs up for our sterling performance. For us, any celebration is incomplete without the participation of all those who have seen us through our journey to the top. We salute the verdict of viewers with a promise that we shall always endeavor to serve them without fear or favor,” Das said in a statement.

    Talking about the number one status achieved by TV9 Bharatvarsh, TV9 Bharatvarsh news director Hemant Sharma said, “Leadership and learning are indispensable. We owe our success to our viewers. We have a responsibility to ensure we continue to earn their trust.”

    “It is a dream come true for me,” commented TV9 Bharatvarsh editor Sant Prasad Rai. “My team has given their 100% to end the legacy of 22 years and become the top Hindi news channel.”  

    TV9 Network promotes marquee leader news brands that include TV9 Kannada, TV9 Telugu, TV9 Marathi, TV9 Gujarati and TV9 Bharatvarsh. Its digital assets include TV9 Hindi, News9live, and Money9. 

  • Varun Kohli steps down as ITV Network CEO

    Varun Kohli steps down as ITV Network CEO

    Mumbai: After an eight-year long stint, media veteran Varun Kohli has decided to step down as ITV Network CEO.

    “Varun Kohli will move on as ITV Network’s CEO effective 31 March and ITV Network wishes him all the best for his future endeavours,” an official statement read.

    With a professional experience spanning over 25 years, Kohli is a seasoned sales specialist and is credited with creating sustainable business development and management strategies that have increased top and bottom lines and enhanced efficiency in organisations.

    He has worked with media houses like Network 18, Bennett and Colman Ltd, HT Media Ltd, Amar Ujala Prakashan.

    Kohli is a management graduate from SIMS, Ghaziabad and post graduate from YMCA, besides being a certified coach from Results Coaching Systems.

  • Lodestar UM CEO Nandini Dias moves on after 27 years

    Lodestar UM CEO Nandini Dias moves on after 27 years

    Mumbai: Lodestar UM CEO Nandini Dias has decided to move on from the agency, after being its CEO for close to a decade. She joined the group 27 years ago as a young media person and has since gone on to acquire the top positions.

    “I leave Lodestar UM in the hands of a strong, capable, and empowered team that has stayed vested and bonded with me for a long time,” Dias said. “In fact, almost all of the top 30 have been with me throughout my tenure as CEO – something that I am particularly proud of. So it was with a heavy heart that I had to break the news to them about my decision to move on. It is rare that one gets the opportunity to hand over the reins after an organisation’s best years, but this year was one of Lodestar UM’s finest.”

    “Over a dozen new businesses, over 20 international awards, Campaign’s Agency Of The Year – Silver, RECMA recognised it as the agency with highest Vitality and personally, my being recognised as the Media Agency CEO Leader Of The Year by the International Advertising Association (IAA) and feted by the Governor of Maharashtra. I couldn’t choose a greater milestone year in which to hand over the baton and go out on a high,” she further said.

    Over the years, Dias has been recognised with numerous honours by several bodies – starting with being the Media Planner of the Year in 1998 to going on to be the Media CEO of the Year on various platforms in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2021. She’s also been recognised by platforms like The World Leadership Congress and made it to The Times of India’s coveted list of Times Power Women, among others. She has also been on the Economic Times Most Influential list for several years now, one of the first woman leaders to make it there.

    While not having taken a decision on the future yet, Dias said, “I started out with a fledgling agency and am handing over the Media Agency of the Year as I move on. So I am looking forward to taking a well-earned break for the first time in my life and am excited to see how things will unfurl.”

    In 2018, Dias piloted a pan-industry citizens’ initiative – WorkToLiveToWork – that pushed a radical solution to save commuter lives on their way to work, for which she was awarded the prestigious ‘Gamechanger Of The Year’ award. She’s won over 100 awards at Asia-Pacific Spikes, Festival Of Media Global and APAC, Creative Media Award, several Cannes Lions and many, many local awards. It is widely believed that her focus on innovative solutions transformed the culture of Lodestar UM into an award-winning one which led to the company being one of the most respected media groups in the industry today.

    “Nandini has been my partner ally, and friend for 27 years,” Mediabrands CEO India Shashi Sinha said. “She has led from the front to build Lodestar UM ground up to make it what it is today.  A dynamic, vibrant top three agency in the country. Passion is what defines Nandini, whether it is creating business solutions, building strong media properties for her clients or making a difference to our society and communities or just bringing her teams together to celebrate a festival or a win, Nandini did it all with remarkable fervour. At a personal level, I will miss her terribly. But I have always believed that a good leader is defined not by what has been built but by what is left behind. Nandini leaves her indelible mark on Lodestar UM in the solid and hugely capable leadership team that she has nurtured and I can say with all confidence that they will only continue to build on her legacy.”

  • Prabha Narasimhan to take over as Colgate-Palmolive CEO

    Prabha Narasimhan to take over as Colgate-Palmolive CEO

    Mumbai: Household and consumer products company Colgate-Palmolive India has announced the appointment of former HUL executive Prabha Narasimhan as its managing director and chief executive officer, effective from 1 September. Narasimhan takes over from Ram Raghavan, who is set to move to a global role.

    “The nomination and remuneration committee of the Board of Directors approved that effective 16th April, 2022, Ram Raghavan, managing director and CEO of the company has been promoted to president, enterprise oral care, for Colgate Palmolive Company. Raghavan will be based out of the company’s headquarters in New York,” the company said in a filing to the exchanges.

    Narasimhan is armed with over two decades of experience across consumer marketing insights, customer development and marketing roles in multiple geographies and across multiple categories including beauty, personal care, and refreshments.

    In her most recent role, she was associated with HUL as executive director – home care and Unilever South Asia as vice president – home care.