Brand loyalty is dead

Our retail customers know this better than anyone. With a recent wave that has lead to the demise of formerly well-loved retailers like Toys R Us and Sears, most retail brands today are scrambling to figure out what it takes to stay afloat.

The customer experience is everything

Getting it right once, twice, or ten times is not enough. Customers are being inundated with options every second of the day, and their expectations are changing faster than ever. The breakneck pace of retail in the digital age demands that retail teams continuously improve to deliver the best product, service, and experience, or risk being taken down by someone who is doing it better.

It takes less than 50 milliseconds for your digital marketing to make a first impression on a prospective customer. Your visual content is what powers that experience – and if your team, process, and technology are not in a place that allows you to iterate quickly and continuously so you can get to market fast, you’re probably already behind.

Becoming agile

The most innovative marketing teams in the world are increasingly making the shift to an Agile Marketing methodology, where large projects that would traditionally be scoped out for longer timelines are broken down into smaller chunks and worked on iteratively.

Because the process is designed to move so quickly, Agile marketing forces you to be absolutely clear and transparent about why you’re prioritizing something and what outcomes you’re looking for. Teams who implement an Agile approach are able to shift gears more quickly, which means greater speed to market in getting campaigns and marketing programs up and running, and faster response to market feedback.

Powering up your performance

Without the right technology in place to help dismantle roadblocks that might stall a project for hours, days, or weeks, even the most nimble project management approach won’t keep you ahead of the curve. Retailers who are running circles around the competition power their customer experience with compelling visual content, and are continuously delivering new content and iterating to improve the experience. Eliminating high-volume, time consuming lasts like image requests is crucial to keeping the team focused on achieving business objectives.

Enabling self-service across the creative organization can be a game changer for brands who manage hundreds of thousands of digital assets across cloud storage, hard drives, and email. Every day, we see retail marketing teams like Bumkins, Godiva Chocolatier and Taos Footwear move from being bottlenecks within the organization to spending more time supporting new visual content for campaigns with Canto. Click here to learn more about how retail marketing teams are using Canto to enable self-service and get on with more important business.