We all know that today we live in a world of readily available technology gadgets providing almost an unlimited ways and means to access information on the WWW. We also appreciate that Social Networks can now play a big part in driving traffic to our web site, as well as away.
But what happens when the weather outside is hot or cold? Wet or dry? Have you, as a business, considered the effect weather plays to your online and high street sales? Usually, it's one or the other; strong high street sales in nice, warm weather or strong online sales in nasty, cold and wet weather. But could you literally have your cake and eat it by addressing online better, regardless of the weather outside?
Which brings me to my purpose of this blog posting; you can now feed Weather data to your Customer Data Hub (CDH for short) which is THE place to store all your offline and online data. Couple that with a Real-Time engine and you have a powerful combination for providing relevant content to the appropriate people!
Recently, Google launched its own Weather API. So, Consider this theory with an online retailer:
With real-time content injection into a browser now possible, based around various attributes known or unknown of a visitor, a business can promote relevant items which a shopper might well be in the mood for buying.
For example, let's assume for a minute that I'm visiting your web site in October and I'm from Southern England. It's now Autumn and according to Google Weather, it's windy, raining and chilly (but not freezing cold) and I happen to be in the market for something that will take the chill off a chilly day whilst I'm out walking the dog, keep me dry for the rainy days and hopefully keep me from being too windswept!
So, when I arrive on your web site, why are you promoting big winter coats, scarves, bobble hats and gloves?
However, in northern England, it's bitterly cold, significant amounts of snow have fallen in the higher grounds and I'm in the market for a big warm coat, scarf and gloves.
Your current web site setup is only really appealing to 50% of your customer/visitor base today.
When it comes to relevant and appropriate communication, we need to consider the above scenarios. Just because we have seasons doesn't mean the current weather reflects the season we're supposed to be in.
If, as a business, I know weather for the region a visitor is coming from, surely as an online clothing retailer, I can promote the relevant products, to the right people, at the right time. Better still, if I know their purchasing history, also at the right price!
Simply putting the location you're interested in at the end of a Google Weather API string, I get back a vast amount of information back about the weather forecast for the rest of the week: http://www.google.com/ig/api?weather=Newbury
Give it a go and change your location from Newbury to somewhere else above and look at the XML returned. This could take online clothing retailers to the next level of offering personalized, relevant content. All you need as a business is the location (and you can gleam that from a registration process).
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