Starting Ideas
Here is a summary of some of my recent writing which provides the foundation for thinking about the parallel strategy for Inbound@Scale:
A Long US Visit: “The focus for us [at eTail West and Shoptalk] was on two innovations: AMP in Email (what we termed as All-in-Email) and AI-enriched catalog (which is the key to getting product discovery and personalisation right)…The absolute amazement that I saw time and again when I showed the demos of search and payments inside emails was most heartening. The challenge now is to convert this “wow” to a “win”. It means switching brands away from their existing ESP and martech stack to Netcore. I am hopeful because what we have is a real game changing innovation which can do wonders for conversions.”
LEMMMA: A Playbook for US SaaS Success at Scale: A few Indian SaaS companies have succeeded and scaled up in the US, but they are more the exception than the norm. I know Netcore can grow 20-25% consistently in India and emerging markets, but if we have to get to higher growth rates (40-50%), we need to win in the US. This has been the question I have been thinking about for some time. LEMMMA is one possible answer: land, expand, maximise, moat, monopoly, acquire…To take Netcore’s example, the ideal outcome is for an enterprise to switch 100% of their email traffic to Netcore. But that has a lot of friction associated with it: lists, segments, creatives, journeys, historical data – all have to be migrated. An enterprise will not undertake that exercise unless it is absolutely convinced that there is big RoI to be gained from the transition. So, a landing approach could focus on three stages: show value with the email program without making a switch (what I call the 0% solution), then get some emails sent via Netcore (1-30% solution), and finally a pathway for the full switch (31-100% solution)… The 0% phase needs to have product-led growth (PLG). A developer or marketer must be able to use the utility without much friction – and the resulting RoI must be big enough that there is word-of-mouth spread to help drive growth.”
ProfitXL: Selling A System: “ProfitXL is more than a single point solution or even a stack (multiple interconnected solutions); it is a bigger idea that the marketing industry has forgotten – how to ensure existing customers come back for more and bring their friends. ProfitXL is about creating a disciplined process which can deliver 25% year-on-year growth for long periods of time and at the same time cut marketing spending by 50%, leading to a dramatic improvement in profitability… For ProfitXL to succeed, I will have to make the problem visible and then talk about the system which leads to the solutions. In fact, more than talk, I realised I have to “show”… The question that I started to think about: could I create a (virtual) Broadway-like show to persuade decision-makers about the power of the ProfitXL system, and thus create a “landing idea” before the product-centric “land-and-expand” approach kicks in?”
Inbox Commerce: “For long, it has been assumed that brands must bring their buyers to their websites and apps for completing transactions. This has been a point of friction since unidirectional push messages (like emails and SMSes) had to persuade consumers to click and change context to the brand properties. Now, the interactivity that is coming in the push channels can ensure that commerce can be done right inside the inbox. Netcore’s early customers for AMP in Email have seen an increase of 5-15 times (500-1500%) in actions being performed inside the email when the option is provided to consumers. While engagement has been the primary use case so far, the next obvious step is to enable shopping. Once the payment layer gets streamlined and embedded inside the messages, frictionless commerce will be here – right inside the inbox where all of us spend so much time each day… The premise and promise of inbox commerce lies in the fact that it brings the conversion funnel closer to customers. Every friction point that is removed can lead to a magnitude increase in actions. What’s exciting is that almost all the push channels are now moving to becoming two-way, evolving from simply being communication channels to powering conversation and commerce.”
Resetting ESP and Adtech Industries: By eliminating the (at times, interminable) wait for consumers, marketers can push the conversation, conversion and commerce funnels close to the user. The magic of interactivity and incentives in the inbox is something consumers have not experienced before. The convenience and excitement will help increase engagement by magnitudes. And as existing customers engage and buy more, brands will need to spend less on the adtech platforms acquiring new ones…This is where the All-in-Email solution comes in.
Quizzing in Email: An Innovation in the Inbox: “Quizzes have had some part in our lives – and for some, they probably still do. They educate and entertain, are teaching and learning moments, bring social recognition, and work as filters in recruitment. How can we bring them into our inboxes daily – to fill life’s empty moments and also the know-now ones?…As I was thinking of interesting AMP use cases, I thought of quizzes. None of us has seen a quiz in an email because emails have not been interactive. Clicking through to a landing page and then answering questions creates inertia and we just let the moment pass. Remembering to open an app daily and participate leaves quizzing to the most passionate. I asked myself: what if we combined the power of AMP in email with the attraction of quizzing? Imagine getting a few questions daily in the inbox and answering them – all in a matter of seconds. Could it bring back the excitement we all felt as casual quizzers in the early years of our lives?”
How can we connect these ideas to create solutions for Inbound@Scale?
