State of Social ’19: Where to from here?
On June 25th one of Australia’s biggest digital marketing conferences, State of Social ’19, took over Optus Stadium for the second consecutive year.
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After months of planning and preparation, a sold out Online Retailer Roadshow finally arrived in Perth yesterday.
Held at the Crown Casino, delegates from the all ends of the online retailing spectrum came together to learn from Industry Leaders, Digital Experts and Impressive Local Online Retailer Case Studies.
It was a long and information packed day, so I’ve done my best to provide a “brief” summary of the stellar content that was presented yesterday.
NORA CEO, Paul Greenberg, kicked off proceedings by welcoming the delegates and reinforcing the challenges and opportunities that everyone in the retailing space are facing in this digital era.
Next up was Perth Lord Mayor, Lisa Scaffidi. Lisa proudly reminded everyone of the great achievements that Perth businesses have made in the online space and reinforced her commitment to continue to drive cha
nge and encourage retail growth through online and mobile channels.
Faye Ilhan from Dan Murphy then enlightened everyone with a very informative presentation on how Dan Murphy has evolved from Bricks n Mortar through to a digital retailing leader (having won several awards in recently for their online retailing efforts). Her key messages were to focus on being channel agnostic and to deliver exceptional customer experiences irrespective of the channel.
Joshua McNicol from members only shopping club “Temple & Webster” was up next. As marketing manager of a rapid growth online retailer, Joshua shared how they’ve used personalised one to one emails as a key part of their strategy. He reinforced the importance of gathering data at all stages of the client experience to fe
ed into the personalisation strategy – which improves conversion and lifetime value.
Steve Toth presented the Dick Smith Omni channel case study after morning tea. Dick Smith is an example of a larger bricks n mortar retailer that has caught up in the digital world at record pace. With a recent rollout schedule of digital initiatives that would make your mind spin. Dick Smith’s ability to create synergy between offline and online and more importantly mobile strategies is key to their position in the market and has them positioned for one of Australia’s fastest IPO’s due next week.
Evan Cunningham Dunlop followed up the Dick Smith case study with a rapid run down on the changing face of SEO in light of Google’s prolific update schedule. The key message in Evan’s presentation was summed up best at the end when he pointed out that the risks of “quick fix” SEO now outweighs the benefits.
A range of informative round table sessions run by the sponsors preceded the lunch break, which presented delegates with a welcomed chance to digest the wealth of info from the morning sessions.
Straight after lunch, our very own head honcho Clay Cook took the stage. Poor conversion is one of the biggest challenges for online retailers. Clay shared how important remarketing, and in particular Google’s remarketing program through the GDN, was in driving conversion rate improvements. Remarketing is one of the most underutilised tools in online retailing, and after his presentation, delegates will be keen to explore how they can add it into their marketing mix.
Director of RDG Insights, Katharina Kuehn was next on stage with some fascinating Neuromarketing Insights into the behaviours of digital consumers. All consumers are classifiable into one of seven Limbic Types. This drives how they perceive and engage with businesses online. Delegates came away understanding how they could better test their propositions and marketing to enhance engagement with their target market.
The lively Dave Bassett from Yahava Koffee Works was up next. He gave the group a run through on how they have built the Yahava brand over the years by ignoring the competition and staying true to their roots. This understanding of brand permeates through all their marketing activities ensuring all contact points are part of a consistent journey.
Following a short afternoon break, Brad Russell from Kitchenware Direct shared some insights into how one of WA’s most successful pure online kitchen ware retailers have achieved their success to date. Their online focused multi channel approach is key to their results. In short, SEO, Google Advertising, targeted email and social media that serves a customer service role, are the fundamentals of their approach.
Eight hours into an information packed show, and the effervescent Ludwina Dautovic took to the stage. Ready to share her DIY approach to engaging audiences online, it was her ways of refashioning content into different forms that will be one of the delegates’ major take aways.
A panel discussion moderated by Paul Greenberg, then gave attendees the chance to fire their own burning questions to the likes of Faye from Dan Murphy’s, Steve from Dick Smith, Peter Macaulay from Kitchenware Direct and Ludwina. The panel rarely touched on the supposed topic of “Creating Content that Converts”, but that was of little consequence as the audience got to better understand more pertinent issues such as grappling with bricks n mortar vs online, dealing with the growing pains of rapid growth digital businesses and many other topics.
And rounding out the day was Chris Dobson from Next Logistics. While positioned in the unenviable last spot for the day, Chris kept most glued to their seats with details on how to remain competitive beyond the promise of “free shipping” or “one hour delivery”.
The day was closed out with some networking drinks which gave everyone a chance to fire in some last minute questions to speakers and also share tales from the trenches of the online retailing battlefield.
We’re really stoked to have been involved in bringing such an impressive event to Perth. As Perth is often ignored on the schedules of touring conferences and seminars, it was important for us to get involved and help secure this valuable opportunity for learning and knowledge sharing for the local digital community. We look forward to its return next year and hopefully the impressive turn out and content from yesterday will encourage other conferences to venture West.
