A transformation of marketing is underway as we spend more time on our mobiles, tablets and laptops. The challenge for brands is to connect with customers through all these devices in real time and create campaigns that work across social media, display advertising and e-commerce. Argos, known as the biggest high street retailer online with over 738 million website visits annually found that over 30% of UK´s population owned a tablet. With this perspective in mind they saw a new market opener and embarked upon the ambitious project of opening 53 new digital stores across the UK.

With over 40 years of history, Argos felt that it would be a challenge for this change and they soon started getting interested in knowing if customers would embrace the change or oppose. Argos wanted to be close to their customers however with an estimated of 123 million customer a year, managing, dissecting and digesting the volume of response would be a challenge. To approach this problem, Argos used one of the world’s leading social media listening and analytics technology platforms called Brandwatch. It gathers millions of online conversations every day and provides users with the tools to analyze them. This allowed the business to track the reaction to their 53 new digital stores and keep on track of the consumer’s thoughts about this new approach.

Using a social media listening platform can bring many benefits to a business for instance:

• Obtain sales leads. When a potential customer asks about a product or mentions they are considering buying a new product, your team can respond with information.
• Respond to customer complaints. Social media monitoring enables brands to find negative customer comments in social networks that call for responses.
• Find user-generated content. Consumers frequently post photos of products online. Social listening enables you to share that content and engage with consumers.
• Predict market trends. Social listening can help predict larger consumer buying patterns.
• Obtain competitive intelligence. Occasionally checking a competitor’s website does not provide adequate information about how their marketing claims resonate with consumers. Tracking competitors on social media allows you to identify their strengths and weaknesses. Knowing their weaknesses allows you to target new customers.
• Improve products. Companies can determine their product’s shortcomings and strengths by listening to social media conversations related to their products. Insights gained can help guide future product enhancements and develop new products.
• Bottom Line: Social media listening provides organizations both marketing and PR benefits. Companies can find new customers, improve products, research their markets, and improve their PR campaigns.

There are many benefits for using businesses such as Brandwatch. With this in-store innovation Argos managed to understand the consumers sentiment towards their new digital stores and which stores were perceived more favorably and in which areas. Using the feedback of consumers, Argos can now find resolutions to increase customer satisfaction in the present and future. With this business strategy Argos managed to be updated with the present world of digital marketing and they manage to exploit social analytics to help improve the way they work day by day and be at the top of their niche market becoming the leader in digital retailing.

Based on Argos Case Study – in-store innovation