Retailers See E-Commerce as Main Digital Platform Across Channels

The vast majority (89%) of retailers with comparable store/channel sales growth of over 4% (”winners”) agree that their e-commerce platform will ultimately serve as the central point of all digital activity across channels, and 94% agree that the future of online commerce lies more with cross-channel or merged channel capabilities, according to [download page] a report released in January 2012 by RSR Research. Those with comparable store/channel sales growth of less than 4% (”laggards”) also agree, but to a lesser extent: 62% see their e-commerce platform as ultimately becoming their digital platform across all channels, and 70% agree that the future of online lies more with cross-channel.

In fact, 34% of retailers report being in pilot to extend their e-commerce platform as a mobile platform, with a further 38% budgeting or planning to do so. And 21% plan to one day use their e-commerce platform at their point of sale, while 36% have already taken steps to do so.

Digital Channels Grow, as do Expectations

Data from “eCommerce 2012 - Back to the Future” indicates that 84% of the retailers surveyed in 2011 operated an online channel, up 17% from 72% in 2010. Along with an increased presence in the online channel, retailers’ expectations for what digital channels can contribute to their business continue to grow. While just 13% cited the percentage of sales coming from their online channel today to be 25% or greater, one-third said it would be so in 3 years.

Channel proliferation spread into mobile also, with 44% engaged in mobile commerce, up 76% from one-quarter the previous year. Retailers’ best be careful to optimize their mobile experiences, though: according to a report released in November 2011 by Limelight Networks, 2 in 5 mobile shoppers penalize retailers for unsatisfactory site experiences. 20% of mobile shoppers respond to a bad shopping experience on their mobile device by completing their research and/or purchase but vowing to never return to the site in the future if they can avoid it, with a further 18% saying they abandon the site and seek alternative brands using their device.

Meanwhile, according to RSR survey results, retailers presence in traditional channels is falling as they expand into digital channels. The only 2 channels to show a decline in respondents reporting a presence were catalog (from 27% to 24%), and stores (from 84% to 80%).

Consumer Engagement Among Top Biz Challenges

The top 3 e-commerce business challenges most cited by winners included keeping up with evolving consumer shopping patterns, getting consumers to engage more online, and maintaining growth rates (all at 54%). These were also cited as the top challenges by laggards, although they gave top billing to online consumer engagement and growth rates (both at 64%). More than twice as many winners as laggards said that providing more ways for consumers to connect with each other through their brand was a top 3 challenge (46% vs. 21%).

Customer Engagement Also Top Operational Challenge

Understanding and accommodating how different customer segments engage with them is the most widespread top 3 operational challenge for both winners (65%) and laggards (75%), followed by difficulty coordinating with other channels to create a seamless cross-channel experience (48% of winners, and 58% of laggards). Laggards appear far more uncertain about what makes for a differentiated online experience than winners: three-quarters said they had not yet defined what a differentiated experience looks or feels like for their brand, compared to just 13% of winners.

About the Data: RSR conducted an online survey from September to December 2011 and received answers from 94 qualified retail respondents across the world. 31% had 2010 revenue of less than $50 million, while 41% had 2010 revenue of over $1 billion.

Only 1 "Top Brand" Has Created a Google+ Page In The Past Two Months, Report Says

(Marketing Land) The world’s top brands are adopting Google+ very slowly. Only one has created a new Google+ page in the past two months, and only four have increased their activity level above three posts per week. The numbers, which suggest that brands are still unsure about how — or if — to adopt Google+ as a marketing channel, come from a new study by the social media analytics firm Simply Measured.

Using the Interbrand Top 100 Global Brands list, Simply Measured compared Google+ adoption on December 7th — the one-month anniversary of brand pages — with adoption two months later, on February 7th.

At the one-month anniversary, 61 of the top 100 brands had created a Google+ page; since then, only Honda has joined them.

In addition to the slow adoption, the chart shows that brand activity on Google+ hasn’t caught fire yet, either. At the three-month mark, only 15 of the Top 100 brands were posting more than three times per week. After one month, 11 were at that level.

On the bright side, and despite the apparent lack of activity, brands are gaining followers on Google+. Simply Measured says that 21 of the top brands now have more than 5,000 followers (“circlers”), 13 have surpassed 100,000 followers, and 36 have more than doubled their follower count in the past two months.

 

Top Brands On Google+

For some time, Google itself had the most popular page on Google+ with YouTube not far behind. But things have changed, and now other pages are well ahead of those. As of Simply Measured’s study, H&M had the most popular page with more than 456,000 followers. As I look at it now, the page is above 490,000 followers.


I would argue that Britney Spears, with her 1.8 million followers is the top brand on Google+, but she’s not part of Interbrand’s list, nor is she on any of the “top brand” lists as far as I know.

Also worth noting is that BrightEdge previously reported 77 of the top 100 brands as having Google+ pages — higher than the 62 that Simply Measured shows. It could be that the two companies are using different “top brand” lists, or that some brands have created Google+ pages for smaller units of their company, but not one for the overall brand itself. I don’t know if that’s the case, but let the record show that the numbers are different.

Regardless, it’s a mixed bag for Google+ where brands are concerned right now. It’s not a good sign that only one of the world’s top brands has created a new page in the past two months and that few brands are increasing their activity on Google+. It’s also not a good sign that none of the Super Bowl advertisers last week bothered to mention Google+ in their TV ads. It is a good sign, though, that the brands who are using the site are attracting more followers.

There are additional brand/Google+ stats on Simply Measured’s website.

Digital Ad Overload Proves a Major Turn-Off For Consumers

(Marketing Charts) Two-thirds of adults in the US and UK say they receive too many digital marketing promotions and are exposed to too many ads, according to a survey released in February 2012 by Upstream, conducted by YouGov. Marketers beware: consumers will not be shy to act. Two-thirds say they would unsubscribe from a brand’s promotions if they thought the messages they were receiving were too frequent, while 27% in the UK and 20% in the US say they would stop using the brand’s product or service. 37% of UK respondents (and 28% of US adults) would respond negatively to future messages from that brand, and about 1 in 10 would protest on social media sites.

In general, 55% of the US consumers do not want to be targeted more than once a month, while the 18-24-year-old set are most tolerant of targeting as often as weekly or more (31%).

Ads Most Unwanted on Mobile Devices

When asked which device they would like to receive ads and promotions on, respondents (UK and US combined) cited PCs first (39%), followed by laptops (24%). Just 4% said their smartphones, and only 2% indicated tablets. Indeed, two-thirds the consumers say they are turned off by unwanted advertising on their mobile or smartphone.

Email Best Delivery Channel

Data from the “2012 Digital Advertising Attitudes Report” indicates that 34% of consumers prefer to receive ads and promotions via a detailed email, more than double the proportion who prefer a short text-only message such as a tweet, Facebook message, Google Adwords message, or SMS (15%). These are the same top 2 channels consumers recently cited for receiving updates from brands, though with a much narrower gap: according to survey results released in December 2011 by AYTM Market Research, short updates from Facebook and Twitter (32%) and emails (27%) ranked as the leading ways in which consumers most prefer to get updates from their favorite brands.

Meanwhile, only a small proportion of the Upstream survey respondents say they respond positively to QR codes (9%) and augmented reality (2%).

Personalized Messages Important

Some marketing messages have a higher likelihood of getting through to consumers than others. 26% of the UK and US consumers say they are more likely to respond to messages tailored to their personal interests, while 22% are more likely to respond to promotions that are location-specific, and 21% to promotions that are contextually relevant to what they were doing. Other types of promotions that respondents report being more likely to respond to include those specific to the time they are sent (14%) and those with attention-grabbing phrasing (7%).

Other Findings:

• Consumers are accessing communications channels through a variety of devices: two-thirds use more than one device to check their email; 64% use more than one to browse the internet; and 44% use more than one to access social media sites. One-third either do not mind or do not know which platform they prefer to receive promotional messages over.
• Only 11% of UK respondents and 15% of US consumers who have browsed the internet on their mobile phone have ever clicked on a mobile banner ad. Furthermore, just 1% of UK adults and 2% of US adults who browse on their devices click on banner ads frequently.
• 79% of UK respondents and 72% of US consumers find banner ads on their mobiles or smartphones to be irritating.

About the Data: The Digital Advertising Attitudes Report 2012 was commissioned by Upstream and conducted by YouGov. The total sample size was 2,054 UK adults and 2,015 US adults. Fieldwork was undertaken from January 24-26, 2012, and the survey was carried out online.

Blogging Down Among Inc. 500, but Still Rated Successful

The use of blogging has dropped to 37% of the 2011 Inc. 500, representing a 26% decline from 50% in 2010, and an 18% fall from 45% in 2009, according to a study released in January 2012 by the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

Other platforms experiencing a year-over-year fall in usage among the Inc. 500 include message/bulletin boards, from 33% to 15%, online video, from 33% to 24%, and podcasting, from 16% to 6%.

Out With the Old, In With the New

The platform most utilized by the Inc. 500 is Facebook, which rose to 74% penetration in 2011 from 71% in 2010, closely followed by LinkedIn (73%). The adoption of Twitter has also continued to increase, reaching 64% in 2011, up from 59% in 2010 and 52% in 2009. YouTube is currently being used by 45%, while Foursquare jumped from 5% to 13% adoption, slightly behind mobile applications, which debuted in 2011’s survey at 15%. Overall, 91% of respondents reported using social media to market their brands.

As these fast-growing companies evolve to enterprise-level, research suggests their social media use will proliferate: according to a survey released in January 2012 by Jeremiah Owyang of the Altimeter Group, enterprise-level companies of over 1000 employees now average 178 corporate-owned social media accounts, with the average enterprise company owning the most accounts on Twitter (39), followed by blogs (32), Facebook (30), and LinkedIn (29).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blogging More Successful Than Social Networks

Interestingly, most of the platforms that declined in penetration among the Inc. 500 in 2011 were rated very highly by their users. For example, 92% of those using a blogging platform said it has been successful for their business, up from 86% in 2010. Message/bulletin boards were rated even more highly, with 96% of users finding them successful. By contrast, Facebook was rated successful by only 82% of its users, down from 85% the previous year, putting the social network behind Twitter (86%, up from 81% in 2010), and LinedIn (90%). 

Adoption Easier Said Than Done

When asked if they planned to adopt any of the social media technologies that they were not currently using, respondents’ intents did not often translate into practice. For example, in the 2010 study, 42% of those not blogging said they intended to adopt the tool, although actual usage in 2011 declined markedly. Similarly, 34% of 2010’s non-Facebook users reported planning to adopt it, yet the actual use of Facebook only increased by 3% points.

In 2011, 56% of those not blogging reported planning to do so, with adoption intent also high for those not using LinkedIn (40%), YouTube (39%), and mobile apps (38%).

Other Findings:

• Inc. 500 respondents report that social media technologies are most important for increasing brand awareness (90%), building company reputation (90%), increasing web traffic (88%), and lead generation (81%).
• 68% of the companies reported monitoring their brands or company name in the social media space, down from 70% in 2010.
• 43% of respondents said they would be increasing their investment in social media by at least 20% in the coming year.
• The leading methods for measuring the effectiveness of social media efforts were number of fans, followers, and supporters (26%), web traffic (25%), and value of new leads generated (16%). 1 in 10 said they do not measure their social media efforts.
• Two-thirds of the companies reported retraining or repositioning existing employees to handle their social media efforts, compared to only 7% who said they had made new hires specifically for those efforts.

About the Data: The Center for Market Research findings are the result of a nationwide telephone survey of those companies named by Inc. Magazine to the Inc. 500 list for 2011. All interviews took place from September to November of 2011. The list was released in the September 2011 issue of Inc. Magazine. In this fifth iteration, 34% (170) of the Inc. 500 participated.

 

10 Free blog directories to submit your blog.

 Blog directories can be a good way to build back links and increase traffic to your blog website. It is important when registering your blog with directories to be selective about which directories your blog is linked to. Avoid linking to lots of small low page rank directories as these can be a drain on your blog’s SEO. A lot of the free blog directories require a reciprocal link on your blog. The following is a list of free blog directories and a brief description on each.

www.technorati.com Page rank 8, no reciprocal link required. This is probably the best blog directory to link to. The listing process can take a couple of weeks to a month to complete but it is worth waiting.

www.Blogged.com – Page rank 6, reciprocal link required. Blogged is a news and events hub as well as a blog directory. The site is very clean with a good layout. Submission is very simple and fast. My blog was approved and listed within 5 days of submission.

www.bloggapedia.com Page rank 6, reciprocal link require. Bloggapedia has a good page rank and submission is straightforward and simple. The approval process seems to take some time; I am still waiting for my blog to be listed after submitting it one month ago.

www.blogflux.com Page rank 6, reciprocal link required. Blogflux has a growing number of blogs listed 157,000 at last count. My blog was approved within 1 week. The site seems to have some intermittent trouble with the search function.

www.Blogtoplist.com Page rank 6, reciprocal link required. Blogtoplist has over 100,000 blogs listed on their site, with a unique rating system which moves blogs up and down according to ratings. Blogs are approved and listed quickly, the site is well laid out however does not feature a search button.

www.blogarama.com Page rank 6, reciprocal link not required however blogs with reciprocal links are processed faster than those without. Blogarama has over 200,000 sites listed. Submission is straight forward. No reciprocal link is required, however a blogs with reciprocal links will be processed within 10 days rather than 30 without.

www.ontoplist.com Page rank 5, reciprocal link required. Ontoplist is a large blog directory which offers premium and regular services. Links can include a thumbnail of the blog for more visual impact.

www.globeofblogs.com Page rank 6, no reciprocal link required. Globeofblogs is one of the older blog directories with over 50,000 blogs linked.

www.blogdirectory.net Page rank 4, reciprocal link required. Small blog directory, after 2 months with a reciprocal link I am still waiting for my blog to appear in their listings.

www.bloghints.com Page rank 4, no reciprocal link required. Bloghints is a good site to have your blog listed, reciprocal links are encouraged but not required. Blogs are approved for listing within 3 business days

eGrowth Marketing agrees that at least these but for a commercially viable blog, we submit to specialty sites and other business website directories as well. The more exposure, long term, is better.

Facebook Facts

Rebranding Corporate Art Co.

(Midlands Business Journal) At the height of the recession, then-Holly Hackwith Corporate Art & Consulting's business had slowed. With the encouragement of the Greater Omaha Chamber's Executive Dialogue group, notably eGrowth Marketing's Sally Cohen and Certified Transmittion's Peter Fink, Holly Hackwith decided to make significant changes to the business before a dismal change was forced upon her by economic conditions.

Roughly a year and a half later, and armed with accreditation with the International Society of Appraisers, Hackwith and Office Manager Jody Baines have just wrapped the business' rebranding as Corporate Art Co. and are poised to make a "significant impact" this year according to owner Hackwith.

"We saw several galleries close," Hackwith said of evelopments in recent years. "I didn't want to be one of them."

If anything, demand for the now Corporate Art Co.'s art procurement, appraisals, and consultation solutions have grown as other regional art businesses have closed their doors for good.

Hackwith, who said she always worked with assistants, was in the position to add Baines as manager about a year ago.

Read the full article at the MBJ. 

Marketing Wisdom

CPG Coupon Distribution Down in ‘11, but Overall Trend Remains Up

The total number of CPG coupons distributed in the US during 2011 dropped 8.1% after hitting a peak in 2010, but remains up 7% from its 2007 pre-recession level, indicating continued strong levels of investment by marketers, according to a study released in January 2012 by NCH.

The number of CPG coupons distributed in the US last year via all media totaled 305 billion, down from 332 billion in 2010 and 311 million in 2009, but up from 285 billion in 2007.

Grocery Segment to Blame

The 27 billion year-over-year coupon distribution decline was attributed entirely to fewer coupons in the grocery segment, which fell 13.1% from 206 billion to 179 billion. Dividing CPG coupons into the grocery and health/beauty care (HBC) categories, grocery coupons held a 58.7% share in 2011, down from 62% the previous year.

The grocery segment saw a wide array of change by sector: distribution fell the most in the grocery cross-category (-21.4%), followed by frozen foods (-20.8%) and refrigerated foods (-15.2%). The beverages segment remained relatively flat, dropping just 0.4%.

CPG Coupon Value Drops

The total value of all CPG coupons distributed in the US last year equaled $470 billion, down 8% from $511 billion the prior year, but up from $445 billion in 2009. Since 2007, when total value equaled $373 billion, the figure has increased 26%, with year-over-year increases in every individual year save for 2011.

FSIs Continue to Dominate

CPG marketers continued to allocated the largest share of their coupon distribution to free standing inserts (FSIs) during 2011: FSIs accounted for 89.4% of CPG coupons, up from 87.7% in 2010, with all other forms of media comprising the remaining 10.6%. Of those 10.6% distributed by media other than FSIs, in-store handouts represented 4.2%, followed by direct mail (2.3%), other (including all digital formats – 2%), magazine (1.5%), and in/on-pack and cross-ruff (1.1%).

According to a survey released in January 2012 by SymphonyIRI, coupons from home heavily influenced brand choice for 55% of consumers in Q4 2011, unchanged from the previous quarter, but representing a 15% rise from 48% in Q1. Use of newspaper circulars from home proved influential to almost half of consumers, up 14% from 43% in Q1, while use of in-store circulars also gained steam over the course of the year, cited by 44% of consumers as a brand decision influencer in Q4, compared to 36% in Q1.

The Four C's of Blogging