NATIONAL RETAIL FEDERATION -Connect, Collaborate, & Create
Integrated Marketing and Communications Plan - December 2013
The Executive Summary below prefaces a communications plan prepared for and presented to the National Retail Federation. I was the lead writer in a five-student group, presenting ourselves as Lynked PR, at Georgetown University.
Image Credit: Brett VA
Retailers are at the forefront of change in the economy—changing technologies, changing tastes, changing habits. Armed with smartphones and tablets, customers expect retailers to anticipate and adapt as quickly as we do to mobile technology. To do so, companies must change the way they operate and the way they market.
Mobile technology impacts all sectors of the industry, at all sizes and all levels of sophistication. The way retailers respond to mobile trends will determine their future profitability.
To effectively respond to mobile opportunities, retailers need content and collaboration. Subject matter experts, consulting firms like Deloitte Consulting and researchers like Forrester Research, as well as a multitude of so-called experts, offer thought leadership on the issue of mobile commerce. Retailers need that information to be aggregated, vetted, and delivered.
Collaboration provides the forward-facing solutions that m-commerce requires. This constantly evolving technology and its dynamic impact cannot be fully understood with research studies and white papers based on year-old data. Mobile commerce demands an exchange of ideas and a shared commitment to challenge what comes next.
Retailers look to the National Retail Federation for answers, but the association has not yet provided the dynamic, relevant tools retailers need.
NRF has an opportunity to be the go-to resource on mobile for its members. The full scope of mobile’s impact on retail is just beginning to be fully understood. NRF can still have a leadership role and position itself as the answer its members seek. By investing in a product that delivers the curated content and provides opportunities for collaboration that its members need.
With Mobile Match and the Digital Library, NRF will be able to capitalize on the opportunity to become the primary m-commerce resource for its members.
Mobile Match builds on the pairing analytics of online dating sites to match NRF members with other members that have similar experiences or interests. It creates a portal for members to collaborate on specific m-commerce challenges.
The Digital Library provides the curated information that retailers need, tailored to the specific questions they ask, problems they have faced, and interests in adoption.
Lynked PR’s solution, Mobile Match, is collaborative and incentivized to drive shared information and encourage new solutions. Mobile Match is curated, providing the information retailers want when they need it. Mobile Match is adaptable to its members’ specific questions, and it is enduring—dynamic enough to respond to the next disruption of the retail industry.
Introduced to targeted members and tested throughout 2014, Mobile Match will launch for NRF and Shop.org members at the Big Show in 2015. Through it, NRF will seize the moment and position itself as the number one place for its members to find solutions about m-commerce.