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Has Internet Marketing Made the Meet and Greet Obsolete?

posted on December 10, 2010

There was a time when marketing men were like politicians. They had to shake hands and kiss babies, take district reps out for a lunch meeting and have dinner with the guy who could open up new territory but those days have gone the way of the piano lounge in the airplane. Now, we video conference with the reps, connect with customers by email and Facebook and use Linkedin to network with the guy who can help you open a store in Kansas.

Yeah for the internet! But Renee Huang of The Globe and Mail says that the internet is a poor substitute for the old fashioned meet and greet.

“Research in the business-to-business world suggests the No. 1 reason for selection of a supplier is the personality of the sales team or seller. This is above the technical specs, marketing form, anything else.”

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Free Shipping is the Battle Cry This Holiday Season

posted on December 9, 2010

Free shipping! Online retailers are shouting it from the rooftops and it could be the key to staying out of the red this holiday season. ComScore worked the numbers and discovered that unlike last year, the percentage of transactions with free shipping continued to rise after Black Friday. Last year, free shipping orders dropped to 45% late in November, but this year they climbed to 55.1%.

I do the majority of my holiday shopping online and I noticed this trend long before I saw this report. Nearly every online store I visited was offering free shipping on any size order. That’s not just a boon for people buying a whole sleigh full of presents from one retailer. A no threshold offer encourages people to buy small items that would have been too pricey with shipping included like a $5.00 pair of slippers from Kohls.

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Twitter’s Huge! Or is it?

posted on December 9, 2010

If you had to guess, what percent of American internet users would you say uses Twitter? 30%? 15%? 10%?

According to the latest report from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, the answer is 8%. Eight! How can that be? Twitter is one of the most popular social media services. Famous people Tweet every day. Twitter is used to help raise money during a disaster and detectives in England are being trained to use the service to help track criminals. So how can it be that only 8% of internet users are hanging with the bird?

In September’s Pew Report, it was noted that 24% of internet users used Twitter or “another service to share updates.” This time around, the researches asked a more specific question, namely, “Do you use Twitter?” Can’t get more specific than that.

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Internet Explorer 9 Will Offer Do Not Track Option

posted on December 8, 2010

Yesterday, Microsoft announced that they’re taking steps to assure user privacy with a new Do Not Track option in Internet Explorer 9. The announcement comes on the heels of a highly disputed recommendation from the FTC that would make tracking an opt-in only scenario.

Experts have complained that asking web users to turn on the ability to track them would be devastating for small business owners who depend on tracking to tightly target ads. Others have said that such a move would be impossible to regulate due to the wide variety of browsers and ad delivery systems.

Microsoft has come up with a middle-ground solution that, if it appeases the FTC, could be the way of the future.

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One in Three Consumers Follows Through on Social Media Recommendations

posted on December 7, 2010

Empathica, Inc wanted to know more about how consumers were using social media in regard to brands so they sat down and interviewed 15,000 people from both the US and Canada. Okay, they didn’t actually sit down with all those people, but they asked the questions, the people answered and they published a nifty new report called The Empathica Consumer Insights Panel – Q2 2010, Issue 4.

I can’t say that their findings were very surprising but empirical validation is always nice, don’t you think? So here are the two key points:

When it comes to social media, six in ten consumers said they followed at least one brand. 40% of those people said they did it for coupons and promotions while the 30% said they were simply looking for “additional information.”  I’m bad at math, remember, but that does seem to leave a few people unaccounted for. Maybe they’re following brands for nefarious reasons and didn’t want to say.

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Does the Rise in Social Media Marketing Equal a Rise in Holiday Sales?

posted on December 7, 2010

There’s no doubt that this is the year of the social media holiday marketing blitz. More folks than ever are using Facebook, Twitter and other sites to encourage holiday shopping.

According to eMarketer, 27% of retailers said they’d spend most of their marketing budget on social media, up from 18%. And 75% said they had a social media strategy this year as opposed to only 51% last year. But does this rise in activity mean a rise in sales?

We’ve been told that Black Friday and Cyber Monday both did very well this year, but is it as a result of all the social media air time?

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The Cancellation of Terriers and The Importance of First Impressions

posted on December 6, 2010

FX has canceled the TV show Terriers. You’re probably not too crushed by the news. It’s safe to say that the majority of the people who will read this blog post never even heard of the show before today since less than a million people watched the premiere. A million may seem like a lot but 13.5 million people watched the Lost finale, so in TV terms, not so much.

What does the cancellation of a low rated TV show have to do with marketing? I’ll tell you. Or rather, I’ll show you. Just look at the ad FX used to advertise the series. It was one of a couple of graphics that all featured snarling dogs. Add that up with the title of the show, “Terriers” and you gotta figure its about dogs, right? Wrong.