What is “M.E- Commerce” and how will it change how you do business today?
Take a peek into the living room of America after dinner on a “school night”. The flat screen TV is tuned to some commercial free on-demand programming. The teenager daughter is busy texting away on her smart phone in between posting social media updates on her laptop.
The pre-teen son is streaming video game instructional videos on youtube from his I-pad intermittently playing some internet based social games. Mom is surfing e-commerce sites while juggling social media updates and texting on her smart phone. Dad is catching up on some e-mails, reading some news and updating his Tumblr account or some other site.
These days, we aren’t just switching to digital media, we are juggling it.
In Madison Avenue’s hey day, Ad men reached out to American families and sold them products through TV commercials, print ads, radio commercials, billboards and through the US Post office coining the term “junk mail”.
They shouted the benefits of their products and services through clever ad copy, catchy jingles and interruption. The more ad budget they had, the more they could beat their message into the collective conscience of the American public.
We, the digital consumer, all have blogs, e-mails, social media accounts, and we interact with each other and our favorite brands any time of day, on any number of untethered devices. These devices have altered the way we communicate, and have empowered us to change what we demand from our brands and how we want to buy.
We the consumer now drive the conversation, not the advertiser.
If you are a marketer and you continue this traditional, interruption based marketing, you will continue to get tuned out ignored. Consumers are connecting to you in real time, and to keep up with them, you had better master how to reach their insatiable appetites for content.
Today’s consumer doesn’t need to listen to you any more, and they don’t welcome your interruptions. They are fiercely selective, socially connected, and are two clicks away from finding any answer, product or service any where, any time, any day.
So how do you sell your products and services to today’s device juggling American consumer? You stop interrupting, and you start inviting them in and give them what they want.
The smartphone is currently outselling the personal computer at a ratio of three to one. In the 1980’s when personal computing became the new norm for homes and businesses, it was predicted that one day we would have wearable computers. That day has arrived in the form of the smart phone.
Commerce is shifting at a dizzying rate to mobile and retailers are scrambling to master mobile commerce and mobile advertising. Screens are getting larger, the processors beginning to match those of a laptop. And mobile commerce is not just about a mobile version of a website. Its much more than that, its about outfitting the mobile consumer with tools to make their lives better, and shopping more informed and convenient.
Like it or not, if you are in business today, you are in the e-commerce business.
It doesn’t matter if you are an auto mechanic, a retail store, a plumber, or a business to business provider; to stay competitive today, you must find out how to make your website sell for you. You must figure out how to make your brand knowledgeable, visitable, and shareable. You want people to find you, learn from you, return to you, talk about you and ultimately BUY FROM YOU.
Since E-commerce is quickly moving intto M-commerce, what is happening now can be called “ME-commerce”. ME commerce is that fusion of all things which work in internet e-commerce selling environments which is then adapted and combined with mobile use.
ME –Commerce also represents the shift in how we buy. It is no longer about you the seller, its about US, and what WE want. We ask, you answer, we decide and then we buy. It is that simple. The sooner you begin to grasp this principal and embrace the changes it brings, the sooner you can begin to grow your business and profit from it.
This blog- ME time is your new dedicated resource to learning how to sell in the new digital America. Welcome, and stay tuned as I bring to you a detailed break down of how to profit from a ME-commerce mentality.
