At IMS we test and innovate too.
Submitted By: Heather Lantz
Chris is traveling this week and busy facilitating a high level training workshop in Europe. So, I thought I would step in and assist him with the weekly blog post.
If you have followed the IMS blog site you know IMS consistently shares stories about testing and innovating in retail. We always encourage clients to test and measure. Retailers should never become stagnant and always be on a path of consistent innovation.
Now what kind of consultant or partner would we be if we didn't practice what we preach? Every year IMS looks for new ways to innovate in hopes to provide more convenient and higher quality results for our clients. We review everything from our infrastructure to corporate processes. We look at our reporting methods and outputs to be sure we provide everything our clients may need to be successful in retail. We also review our customization options, we want to be sure we provide the best and most relavent options for each client.
The above is just a few things we consistently review. For the purpose of this post, I want to provide you with an update on some innovations we have executed with the marketing of IMS over the past year and some changes to come.
First, we set out to cultivate some partnerships with two highly respected retail news forums.
Retail Customer Experience (RCE) – daily news, trends and intelligence
For those of you that aren’t familiar with RCE it is a web portal devoted to helping retailers differentiate on experience, rather than on price. It is founded on the understanding that retail today is fundamentally different than any other time in its history, and staying competitive requires a new, holistic understanding of customers and how they want to shop.
RCE invited Chris to be a featured blogger focusing on all things retail. Chris’ posts include content that is shared on the IMS Results Count blog and custom content for RCE. Feel free to visit Chris’ RCE profile page to review his published blog posts.
In August, RCE invited Chris to speak at the RCE Executive Summit. Chris’ speaking topic was focused on ‘Retail Around the World’ and the differences that occur between retailers and countries. Here is a short video clip of Chris being interviewed after his presentation.
RetailWire – The Power of Collective Thinking
RetailWire is the retailing industry's premier online discussion forum. RetailWire, launched in February of 2002, goes beyond conventional headline news reporting. Each business morning, RetailWire editors pick news topics worthy of commentary by its "BrainTrust" panel of industry experts, and the general RetailWire membership. The results are virtual round tables of industry opinion and advice covering key dynamics and issues affecting the retailing industry.
RetailWire invited Chris to be a member of its “BrainTrust” panel. Chris shares his opinion as often as he can regarding the popular headlines and stories for the day. Feel free to visit Chris’s profile on RetailWire to review his commentary. Join in the conversation by leaving your thoughts also.
The relationships with these 2 forums has been one of great success and sharing of knowledge. IMS looks forward to continuing these partnerships over the next year. We give a big thank you to both forums for partnering with IMS and sharing our passion of retail.
Second, we focused on converting our web site into a blog site which now includes both our blog and web site information. The purpose of this was to provide our readers with a one-stop-shop to find anything they may need regarding IMS. Our followers can connect with us through any of our social media profiles. Our executive team profiles and contact information are convenient, as well as our services. A new area that we chose to develop, based on feedback from our followers, is the Knowledge Inventory area. This area directly highlights key retail information and tools that we have found important over the years. This section is updated on several times a year so be sure to return on a regular basis to review the new information we post.
Third, this one is coming soon. I wanted to add this one in to prepare you for the launch of a new blog site in early 2014. Don't worry it will include all of the great content that is currently there but it will also include some great new updates. We have spent the last year running monthly reports to learn how our followers use our blog site and the rest of our social media profiles. The results of this testing and monitoring has cultivated the need for IMS to innovate again.
I am not going to spoil the surprise as to what we will be specifically adding or improving on but we will be sure to share with you the launch and more innovations as they are released. Of course, we will be tracking the results of these over the next year.
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