Research showing how social media influences retail purchases

Shopping prompted by social media is on the rise, as we know from research on increasing use of  mobile devices - research and the use of social media. But this research reminds us that there are many other more important communications that first influence purchase. Bizrate's trend tracker survey demonstrates how shoppers are using social media, when buying products or services, researching online or engaging with retailers. Findings show that Facebook still ranks high for 'shopping related activities' for consumers and Pinterest follows for inspirational ideas.

In terms of purchase, Shopzilla's trend tracker shows on average 78% of consumers 'did not look at the product in a store before buying' and females…

Why is marketplace analysis important for digital marketing and what does it involve?

For me, marketplace or situation analysis is a key part of creating a digital marketing strategy.  We've included it as the starting point in our RACE digital strategy planning framework - it includes these key areas for defining the future opportunity or potential for digital marketing for which I've added examples at the end of this post. But some, maybe many, would ask "what's the point of situation analysis? We don't have time, why don't we just get on with our search, social and email marketing to hit our sales targets". The problem with this, is that if you're always operating in "campaign execution mode", you don't really know what's possible from digital marketing; you're "shooting in the dark". For us, taking time out regularly for…

Visual, real-time content must move up the agenda

I said something in a meeting this week, it’s pure opinion to be honest, but I think I can back it up and wanted to post about it this week:- “brands that can leverage real-time, visual content will find themselves market leaders.” Would you agree or disagree?

A move to visual content since 2012?

Ever since Pinterest and Instagram started to get traction with consumers (2012 I'd suggest?), we’ve seen pictures literally become a 'thousand words', and savvy marketers have been quick to get visual content to the front of their social media and search marketing agendas. I also remembered a great Altimeter report, again from 2012 that revealed a deep confidence that marketers saw the importance of visual content, social and mobile. We’d have to say that was well founded as it turned out?:

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A briefing on the new Experian UK Mosaic customer profiling

I recently attended the re-launch of Experian’s UK 2014 Mosaic Segmentation. I thought it would be useful to share a summary which I hope will be useful for marketers, who have been working with it and those who are new to what I have found is a fabulous segmentation tool. If you don't know it, Mosaic is a consumer classification tool that benchmarks the UK population on over 450 data variables. According to Experian, "Mosaic is our most comprehensive cross-channel consumer classification, built for today’s hyper-connected world. Using new data and analytical methods, organisations get deeper insights on consumer lifestyles and behaviour to help you make more informed marketing decisions". They go on to explain that they see Mosaic as more than a socio-demographic segmentation and they believe it is even more relevant today than when first created over 30 years ago.…

How price, type size, position on page and the colour of prices can all impact on whether people click the buy now button

The ultimate goal of marketing, of course, is to get people to buy. That means, that in an online context, actions that marketers can take to influence the pressing of a “buy now” button are desirable. 

But how often do we focus on what seem like trivial things, such as the size of the type used to show the price? Psychological research shows some interesting factors about the way prices are displayed. Get the display of prices right on a web page and you can affect the chances of that “buy now” button being pressed.

There are several factors which I shall cover in this article:

Should prices end in an odd numbered digit?It is not the last…

Our interview with Michael Welch of Blackcircles.com

Michael Welch created Blackcircles.com as a new way for consumers to buy tyres at competitive prices either over the Internet or on the telephone. From the site, consumers can find the best deal from a network of over 1,000 local dealerships. Blackcircles.com now has a turnover of £18 million and is growing rapidly, so we thought it would be interesting to learn the approaches its founder, Michael Welch has used to grow and sustain the business. Thanks Mike for sharing your story!

Key success factors for the business

Q1. Which factors do you put the initial success of Blackcircles.com down to? At the very beginning it was mainly about hard work, determination and not ‘taking no for an answer’. If I’m honest there was no real difference between me…

New research from the DMA compares the effectiveness of online and offline customer acquisition channels

I recently attended the launch of the DMA Customer Acquisition Barometer commissioned by McDowall. This is set to provide a regular benchmark to help marketers compare their approach to customer acquisition. In this post I will highlight some of the most useful findings from the detailed report.

What does customer acquisition mean in 2014?

The video below summarises some qualitative evaluation from marketers showing their views on customer acquisition. The panel, Chris Bibby, Head of Performance Marketing and Wonga, Michelle de Souza, Head of CRM and Customer Insights at Age UK, and the Business Development Director at HP discussed how for customer acquisition investment to be effective it needs to review the long-term impact in terms of lifetime customer value and churn, showing the importance of having the right measures in place. 

[youtubevideoembedder id="2ooyKbcjQ9A"]

Best customer acquisition sources

The headline…

Should we start using Universal Analytics now it's out of Beta?

This post was prompted by a question in our from from an agency advising a publishing company asking whether they should use Classic Google Analytics or the new Universal Analytics in future.

April 2nd 2014 update - Universal Analytics now out of public beta

It’s a timely question since Google's Universal Analytics is now out of Beta. We're alerting you to this since this now means there is feature parity between Google Analytics and Universal Analytics. According to Google: "Bringing Universal Analytics out of beta means that all the features, reports, and tools of Classic Analytics are now available in the product, including Remarketing and Audience reporting".

When will update to Universal Analytics become mandatory

Google's update doesn't mention if and when classic Google Analytics will be required although they have said that the intent is that all users will eventually have to upgrade to…

Content for social media success

Micro content, I keep hearing this term and thought it’d be useful to explore what it means; why content marketing is evolving and diversifying and what the practical applications of micro content are for marketing.

Essentially, micro content is as it sounds - short form content. Typically low cost, high value content appropriate to social channels. To all intents and purpose it’s social media content.

It’s not that detailed articles or long form, rich content are any less important, it’s simply a case of being relevant to the social media platform in question, and accessible to an ever detached consumer who’s on the move with a low attention span for your brand.

Social and mobile are leading the change

As the world shifts towards mobile devices, and accessing information via social networks on a mobile, micro content becomes a more important and…

A summary of new research showing the level of investment in digital marketing in 2014

It's always useful to be able to compare the way your marketing budget is divided between different digital tactics. Particularly if changes in allocation are highlighted and ideally if the budgets are for similar companies.

The fifth annual international survey from Econsultancy and Responsys Marketing Budgets 2014 helps with the first question. Over 600 businesses participated in the survey, note that some of these were agencies estimating their clients' investments.

This summary post includes what I believe to be the three most useful insights from the report Marketing Budgets 2014: Effectiveness, Measurement and Allocation Report.

Proportion of marketing budget allocated to digital channels

[caption id="attachment_35349" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Proportion of marketing budget spent on digital marketing. Source: Econsultancy 2014.[/caption]

This chart suggests that if you are…