Marketing Pilgrim Published: "Is the Impact of Social on Shopping More Hype or Reality?" plus 3 more |
| Is the Impact of Social on Shopping More Hype or Reality? Posted: 27 Oct 2011 07:31 AM PDT If you read about the impact of social networks and deal sites on how people shop and what they buy when they are shopping, you would think that everyone is doing it on a regular basis, right? A study conducted by Performics and ROIresearch gives the impression that while many people are using social networks and other online shopping options like deal and shopping sites to influence purchases, it may not be as prevalent as we might like it to be. Look at the results that examine what percentage of those surveyed use any of the mentioned techniques on a daily basis to influence their shopping activities.
Granted, there are a lot of people using social networks so upwards of 19% of a very large number is still a very large number. It's just that the hype around social networks' influence on purchasing decisions would have you believe that everyone is involved in this activity all the time. That's just not the case …. yet. Another interesting piece of data shows the influence of social networks at the point of sale. This is the retailer's "make or break" moment so knowing that there could be 1 in 4 of your customers looking for last minute validation of their purchase through social networks it might be worth the time to at least be aware of the practice. The second piece of this slide shows that people are willing to wait for an answer. In this day and age, that is saying something.
So yes, social networks are influencing purchases on a daily basis. What is important to understand is that marketers need to keep the actual impact in proper perspective. Sure it seems like everyone is go-go-go all social all the time especially when it comes to commerce but the impact on sales is still only felt by a minority of customers. What is your take on these numbers? Are they what you expected? Do you think they truly reflect what is going on in the marketplace? Inquiring pilgrims want to know.
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| Google Voice Asks: Can Siri Do This? Posted: 26 Oct 2011 03:32 PM PDT While Siri is taking the voice recognition world by storm Google is down under testing their voice search. Hey it's not answering the meaning of life or anything but the engineers from Google Australia have done a series of different tests putting voice search through a few unique trials. Here is one in the Great Barrier Reef. There are a few other videos that go out into the desert for some voice search fun and games. While it's more for the gimmick it's still interesting to see what some engineers are up to down under on their 20% time (or is this their job?).
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| Majority of Americans Say No to Daily Deal Sites Posted: 26 Oct 2011 02:34 PM PDT
Their survey, conducted in September 2011, showed that 56% of Americans do not subscribe to a deal site. Even more interesting, 42% said the "do not like anything" about daily deal sites. Who is favoring the art of the deal? People 18 to 24 and households with earnings of more than $150,000 a year. Accenture's numbers showed a direct correlation between income and the proportion of consumers who subscribe to at least one deal site. If you're out to reach a young, upwardly mobile audience, then there's more good news. 39% of those who do use daily deal sites, say they're buying more deals than they did a year ago. 26% admitted that the deal got them to buy something they wouldn't have purchased otherwise. (Count me in as part of that crowd.) Most common complaints? 37% said they can't find deals they want to try and 24% said the deals weren't local enough. Tom Jacobson, senior executive at Accenture had this to say,
On a more general note, Accenture's Pricing Shopping Survey shows that even though folks are concerned about rising costs, they aren't willing to change their shopping behaviors just yet. For example, 40% reported an increase in coupon usage for food shopping, but only 20% say they've switched to cheaper products and only 30% have gone from grocery store to discount chain. That trend won't continue, if prices continue to rise. 70% of consumers were ready to drop their favorite brand name in exchange for the knock off if prices rose more than 10%. While we have to eat, we don't need new clothes. The survey found that markdowns are motivating, with 30% of buyers saying they'd wait for a 50% price cut before buying an item they want. Says Jacobson,
How will all of this effect holiday shopping? Personally, I'll be using those daily deal sites to get high-price gifts for cheap, cheap, cheap.
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| X-Factor and Twitter Make a Powerful Pair Posted: 26 Oct 2011 01:59 PM PDT
Simon Cowell's American Idol look-alike series is about to break new ground by giving viewers the option of voting by Twitter. Cowell, once a Twitter scoffer, now takes the social media site very seriously. An article in the New York Times states that Cowell not only reads the Twitter comments about his show, he also acts upon the feedback immediately in order to satisfy the biggest audience. With the new, Twitter voting system, Tweeters will have more power over the show than ever. The article states that The X-Factor tie-in didn't cost Cowell's company a cent. It's Twitter's belief that the additional press for them is worth the cost of any maintenance on their end. It's a good bet. With Twitter handles popping up on screen and online for every show on television, resistance is futile. In a similar vein, GetGlue just added a Conversations tab to their pages which updates in real time. When you check in to a show, the tab presents you with a way of writing a continuous stream of comments and it also returns a filtered list of comments from Twitter. "So you can stay on top of on what is going on Twitter without leaving GetGlue," says the company blog. Smart.
Twitter is the perfect TV companion app because it allows you to tell the world what you're thinking the moment that you think it. Forget writing a six paragraph review on your blog, make your point by posting to Twitter every five minutes throughout the run of an episode. (And if you think no one really does that, let me introduce you to my friends.) In this instance, micro-blogging refers only to the length of each line, not the overall submission. The tricky part of all of this is turning a one-way stream into a two-way conversation. Despite attempts to make it so, communicating back and forth on Twitter isn't easy. GetGlue hopes that their new system will make it so, but it has a ways to go. Right now most people are still posting one-off, unrelated messages but it's a new concept, so give it time. From a marketing perspective, it's all about putting the brand name in front of as many people as possible, and for that, Twitter is king.
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