Speech Summaries

Barry Judge Vice President, Marketing Best Buy Company, Inc.

Selling Track: Winning The Cross-Channel Sale

Barry Judge, Vice President, Consumer and Brand Marketing, Best Buy, discussed how Best Buy tackled the art of selling to the multichannel customer by: 1) understanding the multichannel customer; 2) courting the multichannel customer; and ultimately 3) winning the multichannel customer.

Barry’s first lesson to the audience was that companies need to truly understand their audience on a more granular level. He suggested that companies gain more key insight into what drives their customers, what their customers’ universal key problem is, and who their core target audience is. In Best Buy’s case, these individuals were known as “Techno-tainment Enthusiasts,” who are excited about the Internet, like to shop online, and spend 38% of their technology and entertainment dollars with Best Buy.

The next lesson to the audience was to appeal to multichannel customers by letting them be in control of their shopping experience, providing flexibility in their shopping patterns, and by making their shopping experience more convenient and faster. For Best Buy, this meant aligning Bestbuy.com with the Best Buy brand and delivering consistent offers in both the weekly circular ad and online ad.

The last lesson Barry had for the audience was to reward customers for their loyalty once they’ve won it by creating a reward program for the company’s best customers, establishing relationships with customers to increase traffic and spending, providing incentives to resist competitive offers, and creating detailed tracking of customer spending behavior. Best Buy worked with companies such as ATG, Unica, and WebSideStory to establish many of these practices.

Questions And Answers

Q: What is a major don’t do when selling through multichannels?

A: Don't put a kiosk in your store and just expect people to use it. However, do give incentives to your employees for showing customers how to use the kiosks correctly, otherwise they will eventually sell against your company’s Web site.

Q: Is there a magic price point where people won’t buy online without browsing in the store?

A: I don’t think there is a magic price point, but I think there are elements of the purchase process that can work similarly, such as free shipping. Companies that offer free shipping to their consumers are creating a magic point.