In episode eight of the COVID-19 Retail Pulse: Live, Ryan and Joe sat down with Spanx Chief Digital Officer, Cricket Whitton to better understand what top retail marketers are doing to reorient themselves to accommodate what customers need today, not what brands would like them to need. 

The three discussed how brands should use this moment to enhance engagement by meeting customers where they are, both digitally and in their homes (figuratively):

With stimulus checks being distributed over the past week and coming weeks, email has become the channel of choice for getting out the word about the Cyber Monday-level deals you should be running right now

How Spanx reoriented their merchandising and UX to highlight leisure and at-home wear to accommodate current customer trends. 

The 3 key considerations for running a great promotion during a global pandemic!

To sign up for the next Retail Pulse Live podcast, visit: http://covidretailpulse2020.splashthat.com/w

For WITHIN’s COVID-19 Retail Pulse dashboard visit: https://covid19.within.co/covid-19retailpulse/

For BounceX’s COVID-19 dashboard, visit: https://www.bouncex.com/covid-19/

In episode seven of the COVID-19 Retail Pulse: Live, Ryan and Joe sat down with Stephen R. Collins, a decisive and energetic high-growth oriented business leader with extensive management expertise in developing, disruptive, and rapidly growing markets. 

Collins’ experience ranges from Big 4 audit to consumer products in emerging markets in Eastern Europe and to the early days of online advertising. For the last twenty years, Collins has been a C-level leader and board member in the software industry.

Most recently, from August of 2018 to October 2019, Collins served as  President & CEO for marketing technology provider Monetate leading its successful sale to Kibo Commerce and Vista Equity Partners in October 2019. Currently, Collins is focused on building Luca Partners a strategic, finance and operating advisory services firm focused on venture and private equity funded technology businesses.

The three discussed how brands should use this moment to take more granular steps to success, including:

Maintaining brand voice while reaching out with empathetic messaging

Letting the most up-to-date data guide you instead of relying on gut instincts that influenced by what worked in a pre-COVID world

Focusing on what’s working now versus what used to work or what you think should work, in both the sense of what marketing strategies are working and what products are selling

To sign up for the next Retail Pulse Live podcast, visit: http://covidretailpulse2020.splashthat.com/w

For WITHIN’s COVID-19 Retail Pulse dashboard visit: https://covid19.within.co/covid-19retailpulse/

For BounceX’s COVID-19 dashboard, visit: https://www.bouncex.com/covid-19/

In episode six of COVID-19 Retail Pulse: Live, Ryan and Joe sat down with Justin Yoshimura, CEO at CSC Generation. During the conversation, Justin, Joe, & Ryan touched on three key strategies to help ensure you spend money smarter during times of economic downturn like COVID-19. 

Cut costs by adjusting your affiliate compensation strategy

Test for incrementality in your approach

Change your merchandising to reflect the times

To sign up for the next Retail Pulse Live podcast, visit: http://covidretailpulse2020.splashthat.com/w

For WITHIN’s COVID-19 Retail Pulse dashboard visit: https://covid19.within.co/covid-19retailpulse/

For BounceX’s COVID-19 dashboard, visit: https://www.bouncex.com/covid-19/

On episode five of COVID-19 Retail Pulse: Live, Ryan and Joe welcomed Charlie Cole, the new CEO of FTD—a floral retailer and wholesaler. Prior to FTD, Charlie served as both the Chief Digital and Chief eCommerce officer for TUMI & Samsonite respectively. With his wide breadth of eCommerce experience and international focus, we were able to pull together brand new tips for how to recoup the most lost profit for your business during this time. 

Some key takeaways from our talk today were:

How to focus on regionality when assessing marketing channels for national and international campaigns.

Why constant evaluation is key in the ever-changing economic landscape

How to assess attribution to accurately weigh the value of each channel across the customer journey. 

To sign up for the next Retail Pulse Live podcast, visit: http://covidretailpulse2020.splashthat.com/w

For WITHIN’s COVID-19 Retail Pulse dashboard visit: https://covid19.within.co/covid-19retailpulse/

For BounceX’s COVID-19 dashboard, visit: https://www.bouncex.com/covid-19/

On episode five of COVID-19 Retail Pulse: Live, Ryan and Joe are joined by Ryan Babenzien, CEO of Brooklyn-based luxury sneakers company GREATS, a WITHIN client. 

Some key takeaways from our talk today were:

How to maximize your cash flow by focusing on metrics other than CPA or ROAS to increase profit without more spend

How SMS has become a top channel for GREATS during the outbreak even though only 1/4 of marketers use it

Ways to adapt your messaging for COVID-19 authentically and effectively

Giving back through initiatives like BRANDS X BETTER

To sign up for the next Retail Pulse Live podcast, visit: http://covidretailpulse2020.splashthat.com/w

For WITHIN’s COVID-19 Retail Pulse dashboard visit: https://covid19.within.co/covid-19retailpulse/

For BounceX’s COVID-19 dashboard, visit: https://www.bouncex.com/covid-19/

On episode three of the COVID-19 Retail Pulse: Live, Ryan and Joe sat down with ConversionXL founder Peep Laja to talk about what these three data-obsessed founders have seen across industries and what successful brands are doing to overcome challenges and create real connections with customers. 

Some key strategy takeaways include:

Why you should extend your marketing promotions or start running new ones

By how much should you increase the numbers of emails you're sending

How to present promotions and offerings to get the biggest response

Why branded content is more important than ever

When and where to feature promotional messaging versus personal-feeling communications

To sign up for the next Retail Pulse Live podcast, visit: http://covidretailpulse2020.splashthat.com/w

For BounceX’s COVID-19 dashboard, visit: https://www.bouncex.com/covid-19/

For WITHIN’s COVID-19 Retail Pulse dashboard visit: https://covid19.within.co/covid-19retailpulse/

On episode two of COVID-19 Retail Pulse: Live, Ryan and Joe welcomed Trade Coffee CEO Mike Lackman to discuss key strategies for surviving and thriving in the new retail landscape. Together they elaborated on and pulled examples for the following key takeaways:

How to approach your marketing strategy with your new revenue stream in mind

How to assess conversion rate on a traffic-by-traffic basis

How to keep promotions, front, center, and easy to find

How to keep messaging sensitivity in mind

How to stay engaged with your community

How to take advantage of ways to negotiate deals

To sign up for the next Retail Pulse Live podcast, visit: http://covidretailpulse2020.splashthat.com/w

For BounceX’s COVID-19 dashboard, visit: https://www.bouncex.com/covid-19/

For WITHIN’s COVID-19 Retail Pulse dashboard visit: https://covid19.within.co/covid-19retailpulse/

On March 4, WITHIN started tracking the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak on its clients’ ecommerce revenue, conversion rates, and ad spend. They used the pre-COVID period as the benchmark to compare YoY performance before and after COVID. 

Meanwhile, WITHIN’s friends at BounceX launched a similar project that tracked daily website visits vs resulting revenue, daily email engagement vs resulting revenue, site visits, conversions by state, and more. 

Following two incredibly volatile weeks of reporting and working in the trenches with retailers across verticals, WITHIN and BounceX teamed up to present the performance insights, strategies, and tactics that retailers were employing to protect their revenue. 

In this inaugural webinar, cohosted by WITHIN Founder & CEO Joe Yakuel and BounceX (soon to be Wunderkind) Co-founder & CEO Ryan Urban, the duo dive into easily implemented shifts to streamline retail marketing efforts for maximal ROI. The duo is also joined by PetFlow General Manager Andrea Barsk-Roberts to learn what the pure-play retailer has done to maintain growth. 

To sign up for the next Retail Pulse Live podcast, visit: http://covidretailpulse2020.splashthat.com/w

For BounceX’s COVID-19 dashboard, visit: https://www.bouncex.com/covid-19/

For WITHIN’s COVID-19 Retail Pulse dashboard visit: https://covid19.within.co/covid-19retailpulse/