Nike came to the realization
that today’s media landscape allows a retailer to better serve their consumers.
Through advanced web analytics techniques, you can get to know your consumers
better, and you can communicate with your consumer better.
Although they were a little
late to the party, Nike is now fully committed to becoming not just a shoe and
apparel company, but a technology company as well.
As a result of this digital
onslaught, Nike’s ecommerce sales rose 32% in the fiscal year 2013 (Brohan,
2013).
Below I will explore some of
the steps Nike is taking to further their ecommerce division.
Data Collection Techniques
Some of Nike’s most
effective data collection techniques rely heavily on innovative product
development. Through new pieces of technology, Nike is taking their information
gathering from online activity, to on field activity.
Nike Plus
Nike Plus was conceived with
the help of Apple, and is essentially a running sensor that can be installed on
your mobile device to track your fitness performance. The application is great
for runners of all fitness levels, and can become quite addicting with features
that let you compare statistics with friends, and share your progress via
social media. Today, around 5 million
users log on to Nike Plus to check their performance (Intelligent, 2013).
In order to run Nike Plus on
your mobile device, you must first sign up for an account through Nike. The
sign up form is below:
Nike Plus and accessories
like the Fuelband (a tracking device you wear around your wrist) all lead to a
growing wealth of data for Nike.
Nike now knows how much
distance you have traveled in your shoes. So they will know ballpark when you
are due for a new pair of shoes, and when to target you with offers.
Because Nike Plus uses GPS
to measure the distances of your runs, Nike has a steady stream of data regarding
your geographic location as well. They can identify popular running routes
across the country and integrate them into future marketing efforts.
Data on athlete performance
is also being used to understand the needs of today’s athletes. What are they
struggling with? How can Nike improve their products to address the needs of
the athlete?
Nike Plus relies on the fact
that people want to receive some sort of credit for their athletic activity.
They want to document it, show it off, and be proud of it. The resulting
strategy from Nike is considered a “gamified platform,” which for many turns
the act of exercise into a game. However, from Nike’s point of view, it turns
the athlete into a collection of trackable numbers and figures that provide
targeted direct marketing opportunities, as well as larger marketing insights. (Rijmenam,
2013)
NikeID
NikeID is online service
that allows consumers to customize their Nike products while they shop.
Let’s say you visit the Nike
store and you really want a pair of basketball shoes in orange and black, but
the store doesn’t carry them, nor does Nike produce them. Well, traditionally
you would be sunk. However, NikeID allows a user to customize certain elements
of the shoe in terms of color, shape, and firmness.
The service succeeds in
pushing consumers to make online purchases, where they will then be prompted to
provide information upon checkout.
Targeted URL’s
Nike’s online store is very
impressive. Navigating the site is a breeze and the aesthetic is impeccable. I
believe one of the most important aspects of Nike’s analytic efforts, is the
creation of multiple websites to handle their extremely diverse audience.
Nike sells products for
several different sports. Instead of trying to squeeze all those sports under
one umbrella, Nike has created separate URLs for each sport, in terms of both their
online store and website.
I think this allows Nike to
get to know the online behavior of each specific audience a lot better. If all
of your data was coming from one singular URL you couldn’t connect which behavior
was coming from which audience. Maybe Golfers are having trouble with the
checkout cart, while Basketball players are not, for example.
I think this multi website
approach is ideal for segmenting the audience and understanding the nuances
that come with each sport culture.
Suggested Tools
Nike’s ecommerce sales rose
32% in the fiscal year 2013 (Brohan, 2013). So I am hard pressed to find
suggestions for their ecommerce/analytic strategy.
Speaking instead from a
small business standpoint, (because Nike has more money than God) I have
noticed one area that presents a challenge analytically.
For many of their product
information pages, Nike has two or three well produced videos that tell the
consumer about the product.
I’m sure the production cost
of these videos is not cheap, and as a business leader I would want to know if
those videos were in anyway contributing to online sales.
At first glance, I would
recommend tracking what users did after viewing the video, but after thinking
about it, this wouldn’t really prove anything. If users are viewing the demo
videos then they are probably already interested in the product and more likely
to buy anyway. Meaning that this measurement would be biased.
In a situation like this,
Kaushik recommends a program called Clicktrack. Clicktrack is able to compute
the influence of specific tools within a page. “Influence
is defined by the existence of that piece of content in the visitor session,
regardless of what path the visitor took, regardless of when the content was
seen.”
Or you could
send out a simple survey to customers following a purchase that asks them to
rank in order of importance the roles that each tool played in their purchase.
For example, product, demo video, informational article, testimonials etc. (Kaushik,
2013)
IntelligentHQ. (2013). Nike takes digital data and social media marketing
seriously. Retrieved 9 December 2013 from http://www.intelligenthq.com/social-media-business/nike-takes-digital-data-and-social-media-marketing-seriously/
Rijmenam, M. (2013). Valuable big data insights via
nike+ gamification platform. Retrieved 9 December 2013 from http://smartdatacollective.com/bigdatastartups/119886/big-data-insights-nike-gamification-platform-delivers
Brohan, M. (2013).
Nike envisions $2 billion in web sales in four yearsRetrieved 9 December 2013 from http://www.internetretailer.com/2013/10/21/nike-envisions-2-billion-web-sales-four-years
Kaushik, A. (2013).
Measuring value of ecommerce sales tools. Retrieved 9 December 2013 from
http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/excellent-analytics-tip-measuring-value-of-ecommerce-sales-tools/
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