1to1 Weekly Magazine - Sears Builds Social Loyalty

 
By Jeremy Nedelaka

1to1 Magazine's Jeremy Nedelka wrote a great article highlighting Sears' strategy behind the MySearsand MyKmart communiites in today's 1to1 Weekly. He talks about how their keen focus on engaging their customers and creating an opportunity for dialogue is why Sears' communiites will survive where so many others have failed.

From the article: Online communities are notoriously hit-or-miss, for a variety of reasons. The lack of engaging features or personalization, no sense of belonging, or too much promotion are just some of the reasons customers visit sites once and never return. Sears created its communities with an emphasis on engagement, recognition, and dialogue to avoid joining the list of orphaned online retail communities.

"The genesis for us was that we need to get to know our customers better, so we wanted to get people talking [to] better understand their motivations," says Rob Harles, Sears Holding Corp's vice president of community. "We didn't really do any promotion; we used our online point of sale to tell customers about the site and ask for their feedback."

The MySears.comand MyKmart.com communities contain customer reviews, discussion boards, consumer guides, and access to coupons. The sites, powered by Viewpoints Network, have 330,000 registered members and attract 1.3 million monthly visitors, more than half of whom come from organic search, according to Harles.

October 26, 2009

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