Facebook Using Data, Tools To Bring Online And Offline Consumer Marketing Together

If you’re a privacy advocate you might find it creepy or worrisome. But if you’re a marketer, you might be thrilled by the moves that Facebook is making to bring the online and offline worlds together.

AdAge highlights a number of initiatives that Facebook has undertaken to both show the offline sales impact of its ads as well as to bring offline consumer data to online targeting. Both involve the two-way flow of consumer data between online and traditional offline databases.

Facebook isn’t the first company to try any of this, but its scale puts it in a better position than others to successfully execute.

Personal Shopping: A New Standard

Shopping malls are dying… there’s even in an obituary of sorts where you can browse the fallen. There are a couple of macroeconomic trends that are responsible for all these fallen malls. The first major trend is of course the rise of the online shopper. The Amazons and Zappos of the world have been dominating traditional retail through their lower prices and convenience. The second trend I will highlight is a contraction of the middle class and a widening gap between the poorest and richest families in the US.  Furthermore, as economic inequality increases, the expected level of service for the wealthier also increases. This is evidenced in the developing world where the middle class is expanding instead of contracting. For example, its not unusual for an upper-middle class family in India to employ a staff of cleaners, cooks and drivers.

Due to the “middle class valley” that is emerging in the US, it behooves retailers to cater to one of the two mountains that flank this expanding valley- either the lower class or the upper class. Best Buy is a perfect example of a victim of the valley- the online shopping dynamic coupled with the change in their customers’ purchasing power has created the perfect storm. The businesses that are succeeding now and will continue to succeed in the future are those that target the bottom (Walmart) or the top (Gucci) of the income brackets.

Approaches to Tracking Word-of-Mouth (WOM) Consumer Activity

Tame Organic Offline Word-of-Mouth Traffic to Enhance Consumer Insights

Naturally occurring and offline word-of-mouth (WOM) comments about brands are referred to in the market research industry as organic. Word-of-mouth activity is an important source of consumer insights in which companies have keen interest, yet find difficult to access and track. The avenues available to market researchers for connecting with consumers have diminished. Telephone surveys are notoriously ignored through caller-ID and circumvented through do-not-call restrictions. Shopping malls are substantively less receptive to leasing space to market researchers and have heavily limited the ability of market research interviewers to move about inside malls and approach shoppers. The primary sources for word-of-mouth activity are through connections with consumers in online environments and mobile digital platforms. 

Transitional Marketing and the Connected Interface

There is no first, second, or third screen; there are only screens. Regardless of their uniqueness in form factor or function, these connected screens are simply humanized interfaces allowing us to communicate with and experience a digitally optimized world.

While much has been made of defining the distinctions between the various connected interfaces, be they mobile devices, tablets, connected television, etc., what’s been lost in the debates over how best to utilize each distinctly is how best to address the radical shift in digital user experience expectations and screen agnosticism. How do we address this fundamental shift from a technology-centric marketing model to one of experience centricity?

Οι καταναλωτικές τάσεις το 2013

Το Consumer Lab της Ericsson εντοπίζει μερικές από τις πιο σημαντικές τάσεις των καταναλωτών για τα επόμενα χρόνια.

Δύο από τις κυριότερες τάσεις είναι η διαμόρφωση νέων καταναλωτικών αναγκών λόγω του cloud, και η καθοριστική συμβολή των γυναικών στη μεγέθυνση της αγοράς των smartphone. Η συμπεριφορά των νέων αλλάζει την κοινωνία, ενώ η οικονομική αβεβαιότητα οδηγεί σε νέες χρήσεις του Ίντερνετ

Καθώς το 2012 πλησιάζει προς το τέλος του, το ConsumerLab της Ericsson καταγράφει τις πιο σημαντικές καταναλωτικές τάσεις για το 2013, αλλά και αργότερα. Για περισσότερα από 15 χρόνια το ConsumerLab έχει διενεργήσει ένα μεγάλο αριθμό εκθέσεων αναφορικά με τις αξίες και τη συμπεριφορά του καταναλωτή, αλλά και τους τρόπους με τους οποίους χρησιμοποιεί τα προϊόντα και τις υπηρεσίες πληροφορικής και τηλεπικοινωνιών (ICT).

Ο κ. Michael Björn, Επικεφαλής των Ερευνών στο ConsumerLab, ανέφερε σχετικά: “Το παγκόσμιο ερευνητικό πρόγραμμα του εργαστηρίου βασίζεται σε συνεντεύξεις με περισσότερα από 100.000 άτομα, τις οποίες διενεργούμε κάθε χρόνο σε περισσότερες από 40 χώρες και 15 μεγάλες πόλεις. Με την πάροδο των ετών, έχουμε δημιουργήσει μια τεράστια βάση δεδομένων σε σχέση με τις καταναλωτικές τάσεις, η οποία μας επιτρέπει να διαπιστώσουμε ότι, σήμερα, ο ρυθμός των αλλαγών είναι ταχύτερος από ποτέ. ”

Αυτές είναι οι 10 πιο σημαντικές τάσεις των καταναλωτών:

Συμβουλές για ασφαλείς online αγορές

Την έντονα αγοραστική περίοδο των Χριστουγέννων όπου πολλοί καταναλωτές πραγματοποιούν τις αγορές τους online, παρατηρείται ότι ο αριθμός των επιθέσεων "phishing" και οι ηλεκτρονικές απάτες αυξάνονται.

Ο όρος "phishing" ξεκίνησε να αναφέρεται σε ένα μήνυμα ηλεκτρονικού ταχυδρομείου, το οποίο έχει παραποιηθεί για να φανεί ότι προέρχεται από μια νόμιμη επιχείρηση ή οργανισμό με σκοπό να παρασύρει τον παραλήπτη να αποκαλύψει ευαίσθητα δεδομένα. Σήμερα ο όρος αυτός έχει επεκταθεί στα συνημμένα αρχεία και τα ενσωματωμένα links των ηλεκτρονικών μηνυμάτων, στα μηνύματα SMS καθώς και στα μηνύματα των social media (Facebook, Twitter κ.λπ.).

2013 Online Marketing Trends: The Year Of The Consumer

Trend #1: Let Consumers Be Your Marketers

More consumers are being vocal about their product and service experiences. From Angie’s List and Yelp to Twitter and Facebook, consumers are sounding off about their good and more often than not, their bad product and service experiences with businesses. Businesses need to capture and communicate effectively with their consumer base in 2013 if it wants to succeed. Bad customer reviews can cripple a business. 2013 will be a “culture shock” for businesses that don’t take social media and consumer reviews seriously.

5 Digital Trends Shaping the Consumer Experience

Digital marketing is a constantly evolving art and keeping current is key, so here are five trends shaping how consumers interact with brands.

1. Connecting the Physical and the Virtual

Previously, the only connection between tangible products and virtual marketing was that you could buy products online and have them delivered to you. However, now the two are more intricately entwined and becoming more so every day.

6 Hot Trends Driving Men’s Ecommerce

When it comes to ecommerce categories like grooming and fashion, the women’s market has long been the focus of marketers. And who can blame them. Women historically make upwards of 80% of the purchase decisions in the home, they’re statistically more active online, and tend to maintain longer session times on websites. Plus, they’re natural ‘window shoppers’ — in the physical and virtual world.

That said, in the past year, the men’s ecommerce market has seen more than a half dozen ecommerce launches, including Mr. Porter, Birchbox Man, and Dollar Shave Club. Here are the six major trends driving this growth.

1. Purchase Power

Are You Customer-Obsessed?

Consumers today are setting the pace for online marketers and brands, and the digital media technology is out there to listen to customer cues and respond with relevant, engaging communications. But what does it take to be truly customer-obsessed? Is the industry at large living up to the promises of real-time interactive marketing? The unfortunate answer is no. At least at this time.

This week, PulsePoint, in collaboration with the CMO Club and Digiday, announced the results of a groundbreaking study that examines the digital marketing capabilities, top challenges and priorities of nearly 400 senior marketers, agency executives and publishers.

From a capability standpoint, the large majority of survey respondents were comfortable executing multi-channel campaigns across two or more channels. However, the challenges start occurring when marketers are tasked with applying lessons from one channel to improve efforts in another channel (cross-channel). The wake up call revealed by the survey results is that, across the board, a majority of marketers, agencies and publishers lack the capabilities to execute real-time interactive marketing.

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).