Important New Research on Customer Loyalty

It's devastating when you lose a long-term customer to a competitor. It’s even worse when you’ve been there for them, consistently providing top-notch service for years. You feel betrayed by their lack of loyalty.

Plus, you’re ticked off at your own company too. You did everything possible, but they didn’t give you a good enough price to compete effectively. Or, your offering just wasn’t quite as good as your competitors.

Here’s the deal. You may be seriously deluding yourself about the reasons you lost the business.

75% of people in this world have access to mobile phones, says study

Around three-quarters of the world population now has access to mobile devices, states a new study conducted by World Bank and its technology entrepreneurship and innovation program infoDev, to analyze the growth and development of mobile telephony, and the rise of data-based services, including apps, delivered to handheld devices.

Social Media for Business Takes Time

Many companies thinking about getting into social media to grow their business are stymied from the beginning because of the overwhelming challenge that faces them.

Those of you in that very position right now: I have great news for you. Everyone started where you are right now. Don’t be put off by what lies ahead. A solid social media presence is like any other successful thing: It takes time to build.

The 2011 Social Media Marketing Report said that 58% of the 3,300 marketers surveyed are using social media for more than six hours per week, while 34% invest 11 or more hours weekly. 15% spend more than 20 hours a week blogging, tweeting, etc.

The Science of Getting Healthy – What Marketers Can Learn from Research

From corporations to insurers to health care providers, there is a rush to reward those who take proactive steps in living a healthier lifestyle. But those aren’t the only places wellness is trending.  It’s also a thriving area of research.

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to attend the Fitness and Health Bloggers Conference in Denver, Colo. We had a first-hand look at the newly established Anschutz Health and Wellness Center at the University of Colorado, which opened on April 16. The Anschutz Health and Wellness Center is taking an innovative research and education approach to understand the effects of wellness practices on the human body. To assist researchers at the University of Colorado, programs like the human performance lab, metabolic kitchen and grocery lab were implemented.

L2 Collective: U.S. E-commerce 2012

Today (June 21) is an exciting day at L2, because it marks the release of the first installment in the L2 Collective, our newest suite of research reports. Similar to our Digital IQ Index® and Prestige 100® studies, the L2 Collective assesses luxury brands’ performance across several defined areas. Unlike those reports, however, the L2 Collective does not include rankings or even mention brands — all of which voluntarily participated in the study — by name. By gathering closely-guarded internal data from some of the luxury industry’s most prestigious (and most private) brands, L2 Collective reports offer insight into the state of organizational structures, compensation levels, even supporting resources.

7 merchandising buzzwords for online retailers in 2012

As customer expectations rise, the number of platforms and devices explodes. And as senior management looks for ways to achieve higher and more efficient performance, the online merchandiser’s job grows increasingly complex. While we’ll be spending time on many of these areas at the upcoming Shop.org Merchandising Workshop in San Diego in mid-July, last week’s Shop.org webinar “Rewind, Reset, Retool: Monitoring Trends and Prioritizing Merchandising When Customers are in Control” teed up many of those topics. Sponsored by BloomReach, this expert merchandising panel – including Lauren Freedman of The e-tailing group, John Lazarchic of PETCO, and Elizabeth Ragone of HSNi –honed in on 7 key areas for merchandisers to focus on this year.

For the first time, half of adults ages 65 and older are online

As of April 2012, 53% of American adults ages 65 and older use the internet or email. Though these adults are still less likely than all other age groups to use the internet, the latest data represent the first time that half of seniors are going online. After several years of very little growth among this group, these gains are significant.

Overall, 82% of all American adults ages 18 and older say they use the internet or email at least occasionally, and 67% do so on a typical day.
Once online, most seniors make internet use a regular part of their lives.

85 percent of brand pages on Wikipedia need improvement

Wikipedia articles define our company’s brand, heritage, leadership and culture for the internet.

They’re important.

But Wikipedia has thousands of them and about four million articles in all. According to a new study published today, 90 percent of brand pages on Wikipedia are marked as low or medium priority by the Wikipedia community.

Burnt Out on Social Media?

It seems these days advisors can’t get enough of social media. You’ll find that most conference break-out sessions on the topic are standing room only. A recent survey by Rep. found that the share of advisors using social media for business purposes notched higher across all channels in the last six months. But that same survey found that the share of advisors winning new clients via social media went down across all channels over that same time period. Could it be that advisors are getting burnt out on social media?

The Rep. report, A Day in the Life of a Financial Advisor: Current and Future Social Media Trends Revealed, found that 26 percent of advisors who use social media for business purposes have landed clients through their social media efforts, down from 38 percent who were landing clients in a similar poll conducted in September 2011. The share of advisors landing clients declined across all channels, with the insurance channel, regional firms, and bank brokerages seeing the most pronounced declines (see chart).

How Website Performance Affects Online Shopping Behavior

We can talk all day about website usability, navigation, marketing and so fourth. What we don’t really look at too often is how our website performs which really can make or break the visit for the consumer.

Let’s look at some key statistics regarding how website performance affects shopping behavior:

                                 Source: KISS METRICS

Mobile commerce is not mobile at all !

Honestly speaking do you purchase stuff online on the go? Stressing from one place to another with more or less stable internet connection nobody likes to make decisions about the next investment into new clothing or electronic equipment. I only found myself using the eBay app to make a last second bit in an auction I wanted to win desperately. However, eBay “forced” me to shop mobile as I was on the go at the time the auction ended. In any other case I used the smartphone for comparison or to get direction but not to actually place a transaction.

You’re not safe from Facebook – even if you’re not a member

Today's Facebook IPO makes it clear how valuable each user is to the company ($115.43 if you wondered), and with a reputed 800 million active users it can seem hard to find people that aren't members of the site.  A common explanation for those few that aren't on the site is that they object to putting all of their personal information onto a site and for that site to then make money off of selling that information to advertisers.

Alas some German researchers have managed to find out heaps about such people even though they're not on Facebook.  The researchers managed to paint a pretty good picture of those that abstained from Facebook just by monitoring the postings of their friends on the site.

TV, Coupons are Tops for Restaurant Marketers

Restaurants have resorted to a wide variety of tactics to reel in customers. The lingering recession means it’s more important than ever  before to employ the most effective advertising strategies. For restaurants, it seems that patrons most easily recall the ads they’ve seen on TV.
A new study published by the National Restaurant Association and LivingSocial shows that adults remember restaurant advertising as follows:

Top Startup Businesses for 2012

You want your startup to succeed, so do we.  In the process of funding over 2,000 new businesses in 2011 alone, we frequently get asked for input from our clients on specific businesses or industries. While we are happy to give specific advice, here is some general information we’ve learned about some of the best startups to launch in 2012.

A recent IBIS World research study reviewed the best industries for your next startup. They based their findings on 1) projected revenue growth 2) forecast enterprise growth over five years 3) 2011 profit margins 4) the low barrier to starting such a business 5) and the amount of capital required (our specialty).

Getting Ready For A Post-Search World

Search is no longer just one thing. At minimum, it’s two things: organic and paid. But, as the marketplace that holds it has evolved, search is so much more.

It’s a composite of methods; it’s an ingredient; it’s a mechanic; it’s a mindset. While it’s not yet unrecognizable, even marketers who once deemed it a silver bullet or their performance-marketing drug of choice must acknowledge that we have somewhat moved beyond search in its pure form.

It’s ironic that the very folks who perhaps took a bit too long to adopt search marketing in the first place than they should have, and who now consider it a vital method, must accept its transformation. But, it’s clear: In order to compete, we must come to terms with what is starting to feel like a Post-Search world, as we raise the bar, yet again.

Online friendships light up shadow social networks

FRIENDING someone on Facebook makes an association public, but many relationships are never professed online. Now there's a way to use the structure of an online social network to deduce the offline connections, dubbed "shadow connections", between people who don't use the service.

The technique may alarm those concerned about online privacy - but it could also be applied to other network types, helping to reveal hidden brain connections or biochemical pathways.

National Restaurant Association and LivingSocial Research is in

Two months ago, we received news that LivingSocial was teaming up with the National Restaurant Association to work together to educate restaurant owners and managers to use online and daily deals, along with traditional methods to effectively market themselves.
LivingSocial gave the NRA an unrestricted grant to examine the effectiveness of a number of marketing channels. Research has not concluded and results are being reported. James Balda, the Chief Marketing Communications Officer of the National Restaurant Associaion says that finding the right marketing mix is essential in the restaurant industry.

Marketers struggling to adjust to consumers’ needs across channels

A report from PulsePoint found that many marketers, agencies and content publishers are struggling to generate content that appeals to their target audiences across channels. As more consumers and B2B buyers access content from computers and various mobile devices, the need for dynamic, multi-faceted campaigns becomes increasingly clear and Pulsepoint’s study indicates many marketers struggle to keep up with evolving internet behavior.
According to the study, agencies have been more successful than marketers and publishers in launching campaigns that appeal to their target demographics on several different fronts. Fifty-seven percent of those included in the study said their multi-channel efforts are very or extremely effective.

10 things you didn’t know about online consumers

Online consumers love to share their opinions with each other on the things they buy. Savvy shoppers have always turned to this public feedback for guidance, but since more and more word of mouth data has been digitized, archived, and analyzed, companies are now able to rely on it for their own guidance. In the last year alone, our research has distilled tens of millions of consumer data points into a strikingly clear picture of today’s consumers. Here are ten of the most interesting things we’ve learned in the process.
1. Language is price-sensitive
Consumers talk about price more during economic downturns. They mention “price” in their online feedback more often when the Consumer Confidence Index is low (-.66 correlation), as well as when the Dow Jones Industrial average is low (-.68 correlation).

Moving Customers from Pinning to Purchase

Pinterest surged into the spotlight earlier this year when it was revealed that it drives more web traffic than YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn combined. What's so compelling about a website that lets you make virtual bulletin boards of "pinned" images, observers wondered, and does this service now belong in the pantheon of must-use social tools like Facebook and Twitter? Perhaps most important, marketers are asking, is this something that will drive revenue?