Global Digital Marketing & Retail by Alex 24
Inspiration from across the world for retail enthusiasts, e-commerce professionals, marketing lovers and technology fans.
Thank you all for reading my newsletter! In this edition a summary of articles I read last week on (international) marketing and e-commerce. My goal is also to write on tools, templates, and useful information that one day you might need in work. I hope Substack will create a GPT service for their creators so people can easily search through all the posts of a creator. When not, I will create a custom GPT filled with the feed of my newsletter in the future. Now let’s start the newsletter for this week:
🇻🇳 Vietnam is ready for the AI era
This is an index of the ASEAN government’s readiness for AI (for other countries see the link below). Vietnam has now passed The Philippines and is climbing up. Vietnam always gives me a lot of energy when I visit. Such a bustling place. It’s nice to read there national AI strategy works.
To make its assessment, Oxford Insights relies on three pillars: government, technology, and access to databases and infrastructure. Of which, the government (regulations, policies, readiness to adapt to change scored 69,04 points. The remaining two pillars include technology (37,82 points) and the ability to access databases and infrastructure. infrastructure (56,58 points).
The US topped the global rankings with 84,80 points thanks to high scores in all three pillars, including outstanding development speed in the technology sector. One of the most important developments in AI readiness in the country is in the AI policy, including the announcement of an ordinance on the safe and secure development and use of AI and regulations. clear the standard for AI in President Joe Biden's administration.
The East Asia region received special attention this year when the average score was 51,41, ranking 4th out of 9 evaluated regions, surpassing South and Central Asia and the Pacific. However, the ranking scores between countries in this region have high differences, for example the gap of 52 points between Singapore (ranked 17st) and Timor-Leste (ranked XNUMXth).
Furthermore, I admire Singapore's leadership in setting clear, long-term visions for the nation's development and its pragmatic approach to execution. That clearly works as well. I think they will be on top of this list for a while longer.
https://www.vietnam.vn/en/viet-nam-xep-thu-5-dong-nam-a-ve-chi-so-san-sang-ai-toan-cau-2023/
https://oxfordinsights.com/ai-readiness/ai-readiness-index/
🔍SEO: Aleyda Solis gives us a great slide deck
Aleyda Solis is a great source of high-quality SEO information. When I read her posts and insights, it gave me the same enthusiasm I had in the past when Rand Fishkin did his whiteboard sessions on SEO.
Recently I found this slide deck of hers called: SEO Success in 2024. I think it is a must-read for every marketer. The deck has great tips and insights. Valuable and all cited with sources. In the deck also quite some tools are mentioned, I summarize them here below for quick reference. But do check out the presentation and use it as a guideline or framework for your SEO activities.
Quickly identify top questions to address via alsoasked and keyword insights
SGE assessment checklist to help identify the potential risk for queries
SEO Prompt generator in Google Sheets using the 5Ws and the H for faster results
The complete deck is available here:
https://speakerdeck.com/aleyda/keys-to-seo-success-in-2024-number-igbaffiliate?slide=24
🇨🇳 Cross-border e-commerce: Agency China
There are a few people who inspired me to international e-commerce in general and Asian/Chinese in specific. One of them is Jacco Bouw. I remember listening with great attention to his speeches on this topic. Made me dream of faraway places and opportunities in e-commerce.
Jacco has set up multiple companies in international e-commerce and is one of the most experienced China experts. That’s why I am sharing this link from Cross Border magazine where he shares some insights.
https://cross-border-magazine.com/when-are-you-ready-for-cross-border-e-commerce/
🇨🇳 How shopping malls survive in China
Chinese shopping malls are often another level. You need to get used to it as a Westerner, but once you do, they are very convenient. When I lived in Shanghai, I sometimes struggled with the size of some malls. It always took a lot of time to simply get groceries (these stores are usually on the bottom or below floors). But on the other hand, everything is usually integrated within close distance of subway stations so it is also easy to get in and out.
I found a threat on Twitter (or X), with pictures where David Fishman describes why (in a country where you can order everything online and get it delivered rapidly) shopping malls survive. It’s also my experience that there is so much to do in Chinese shopping malls besides just buying things, especially for children there are many things to do like these e-cars that can be remote-controlled by parents (for safety)
Read all in his tweet:
https://twitter.com/pretentiouswhat/status/1755944733237764290
🏪Will AI finally, integrate physical and online experiences?
This report from IBM provides some great ideas for retailers to bridge on and offline.
IBM: Consumers are ready to use the tools of tomorrow, today—but most brands aren’t delivering
So many possibilities are already here. Imagine being in a shopping mall and a custom GPT (for now by text) that has all relevant information from all shops at the mall helps you navigate or find offers of products inside the stores. It can be really helpful and isn’t difficult to create and test.
In larger stores, simply offer a chat possibility in the app or site of that store, with an expert of that store that helps you navigate and ask questions on products you see. The person has the ability to answer questions remotely or send an employee.
Give every employee the knowledge of your most experienced associate to provide a consistent, unified experience across all channels. Train a generative AI model on your products and services to help associates quickly solve customer problems and provide relevant recommendations online and in-store.
“Our study found that dissatisfaction in-store also stems from a lack of variety and depth in product offerings, coupled with inefficient in-store processes such as slow checkouts. Online, the frustration is often due to inadequate product information and a cumbersome process for product returns, all of which are areas ripe for AI integration,” he told Inside Retail.
If there is a lack of variety in the store, AI can help advise the customer in the store to select the same product but for example in a different color via his phone online.
Dittmar also said that another practical example of this is an AI-powered menu creator that looks at the ingredients you have in your fridge and then suggests recipes and generates a shopping list for items you need, saving time and effort in meal planning and shopping.
I have already seen bootstrappers who integrated AI image recognition in a simple one-page site where you upload a picture of your meal and it provides you within a few seconds with the amount of calories in it.
“Our research indicates that a majority of consumers use their smartphones in-store. Retailers who capitalise on this by offering a more digitised, interactive in-store experience will lead the way in meeting modern consumer needs,” he stressed.
He also said that effective use of AI-powered chatbots for customer service, user-friendly interfaces, and a seamless connection between online and offline channels can significantly enhance the consumer’s online journey, making shopping not just a transaction, but an engaging experience.
https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/35BVNBNA
🧮450 ChatGPT Prompts for High-Converting Landing Pages
In case you are busy crafting landing pages, also there ChatGPT (or other AI assistants) can help you out. This Notion database gives prompt suggestions to use to make your life easier.
📨Email marketing /advertising persuasion techniques in one screenshot
Carl Velloti’s latest newsletter had a few great screenshots. I share them here because they can be useful when you are busy with e-mail marketing or advertising. It’s not a new topic, it’s about Cialdini and persuasion techniques. But it’s the first time I see them all applied in a single screenshot. And this my friends, can be useful to search back when you are creating campaigns
More details in the newsletter:
https://www.carlsnewsletter.com/p/influence-everywhere-pms-blueprint-daily-mastery
📨 Email marketing: Learn to love unsubscribes
Back in 2016, I was invited to the email insider summit in Portugal via the agency 100 percent. This was truly a great event with not only insider information on email marketing but also sightseeing tours in the area.
One of the speakers there was Dela Quist, and I have always remembered his speech because it was something different most other email marketers said (certainly at that time). Maybe I could call it “flip thinking”. Now Dela has published a blog on the same topic he talked about back in 2016 and I think it is still relevant today. Learn to love unsubscribers.
Managing a list that's both active and interested while making money is like a careful dance. Every decision in email marketing shapes how people see and engage with a brand over time, so make sure your decisions are based on all the data, not just unsubscribes.
That’s it for this edition. Enjoy the day.
Cheerio,
Alex