Laissez les Bons Temps Rouler! Online Retail Growing 10%!
There’s good news for online retailers: Forrester is predicting a 10% growth rate for you guys!
In fact, online sales will increase from $173 billion this year to a healthy $249 billion in 2014. Along with that growth comes a nice bump in online retail’s share of all US retail sales: up from 6% to 8% share.
Forrester says our spending on clothing, consumer electronics and computers will lead the growth spurt.
Google’s Beating Apple—But Not Where You’d Expect
In all the hubbub of the Nexus One premiere this week, another Google milestone has gone largely unnoticed. (Even I saw the headline earlier this week, but opted to cover a Nexus story instead.) While we’ve all anticipated Google coming out with a smartphone to end all smartphones (and start calling them “superphones” 
), they’re beating Apple in another area: the browser wars.
According to one measure, Google’s Chrome browser is now the #3 most popular browser, behind IE and Firefox. And why is that so important? Because the guy they just beat out, #4, is Apple’s default browser, Safari. Metrics firm Net Applications reports that Chrome has cornered 4.63% of the browser market, enough to edge out Safari’s 4.46% of the market.
PCWorld points out that the 0.7 percentage point bump for Chrome in December may have been fueled by the release of the browser for Mac and Linux. Safari gained 0.1 percentage point in December, so it doesn’t appear that Google directly stole a lot of their marketshare.
IE continues to dominate, with 62.7% of the market, although it lost nearly a percentage point in December (continuing a six month trend of around 0.9 point losses). Firefox also lost ground in December, falling 0.1 point to 24.6%.
With such a narrow margin of victory, Chrome and Safari will probably continue to vie neck and neck for that third-place spot for some time. Chrome was officially released for Windows in December 2008—pretty quick to take over that spot in the first place. What do you want to bet Google would be happy to repeat that victory in other areas?
What do you think? Is this a turning point for Google and/or Chrome, or for Apple? Or is this just another battle in the Google-Apple war?
PPC Bid Management Tips For The Holiday Season
Data driven anticipatory bidding can turn an ordinary holiday bump into something extraordinary. Here are some tips for how to take apart and act on the data.
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Bing Bing Bing! Bing on a Roll?
Efficient Frontier is taking yet another look at Bing’s usage stats—and yet again, they’re up. As of the first week in August, Bing’s click share has grown 45 percentage points since the beginning of June.
Bing has been working to target travel and shopping as a “decision engine.” Efficient Frontier reports that this seems to be working pretty well, at least in the travel category, with an 11% (though I think they might mean “11 percentage points”) click share lift. The finance category has also been a boon to Bing, with 22% click share lift.
EF postulates that maybe the Bingahoo announcement brought searchers wondering about the deal and the companies’ financial fortunes. Yahoo has traditionally been the most popular finance site on the Internet, and this bump for Bing probably isn’t going to challenge it. But are they going to maintain two separate sites, or is that going to be too much competition between the two now-allies?
What do you think? Is Bing on a roll, or is this just an extended blip?
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Smaller Newspapers Have Fared Better Than The Big Boys
If you work for a smaller paper or you have a favorite local paper that you simply don’t want to see fade into the sunset this is OK news. I can’t honestly say that there is real good news. It’s about the newspaper business after all. TechCrunch reports that statistics gathered by the Inland Press Association show that overall the average drop in profits for the industry as a whole was 77.6%, So how do you find a bright spot in that kind of number? You look at who is floundering the least and go from there.
The sad thing is that even of the economy comes back strong at some point this century newspapers may not even see improvement because it’s the medium, not the economy, which is the biggest culprit in the agonizing demise of a once vibrant industry. The chart below shows just how bad things are for the newspaper industry and there is little hope for recovery.
Only one category saw a revenue bump in over the 5 year span studied and that was the smallest of the small papers. There are many possible reasons for this including the lack of online hyperlocal content thus allowing the paper to still be relevant as well as the lower overhead. But is this just delaying the inevitable?
One major reason for the little guys still holding some ground is the classifieds. I personally never look at the classifieds for much of anything so I am a little surprised by this
Another sign of hope: small papers still have a hold on classifieds. Average classified sales for small papers have actually gone up, at a time when they have been declining for most papers. Inland cites an example of a daily newspaper with a circulation of less than 15,000, which posted a 210.4% increase in classified revenue from 2004 to 2008. But it didn’t do much good. The paper’s profits were down by almost 30%.
Now the paper’s profits were down 30% which still means that they were profitable. Now, we’re getting somewhere. This data, however, is just like most where it can be a bit misleading. Considering the sources were the papers themselves and the information was offered voluntarily and with anonymity there may be room for some fudging. Also, there was no recognition of who suffered tremendous losses and who fared OK. The numbers can best be seen as an average.
Who really knows the real deal but there is certainly not a lot of room for celebration. When you have to concentrate on who suffered the least then you have to figure that no matter where a paper is on the scale of size there is not a tremendous amount of hope for the future.
Holistic Online Marketing
You can excel in all marketing channels individually, yet never achieve overall optimal marketing health. Right now you are only feeding each marketing channel breads and grains, but they all need their fruits and vegetables too. Take your next online promotion to the next level.
I see a lot of articles on improving paid search, seo, email, or social media, but not many on how these channels must all work together to improve overall conversions of a promotion. Everyone needs to understand that online promotions should work in sync with each other, not independently. By aligning all your promotional efforts in all channels, you are increasing your chances of marketing success. When I write “all,” I mean all: social media, email, paid search, affiliates, and any other channels you are using. Imagine increasing your conversion rates by .5 percent to two percent, or possibly more, in each marketing channel.
Ever notice when you have a successful email promotion, you get a slight bump in traffic and sales from all other channels? Can you take further advantage of this extra traffic and sales to boost sales even further? The answer is yes, with a holistic online marketing approach.
Many companies use a non-holistic approach, and if you step back and look at a very high level, you can see how this approach can never achieve the same success as a holistic approach.
An example of a Non-Holistic Approach “Food” Pyramid
Merchandising is in charge of the promotion and overall responsibility of website product placement, wording, and message. Your design team may have designed an image for your homepage with the email promotion.
Social media efforts include an informational blurb about a new product that has nothing to do with the promotion. The affiliate team is focusing their efforts on obtaining new affiliates and reviewing reports.
Your paid search person, whether they are in-house or outsourced, is pretty much out of the loop of each promotion. Your organic search person is evaluating ranking reports and trying to come up with ideas for articles and other ways to get backlinks.
I see the above scenario over and over. It doesn’t seem like everyone is on the same page. Merchandising is not working with marketing, marketing is not working with design, design has no idea what the actual marketing theme and message of the promotion is. How is this supposed to work? Does this look like the best way to promote your business, your products or your services? I see this as a problem, but I also see this as a huge opportunity.
The Holistic Approach
The goal of the holistic approach is to understand that all online marketing channels must work together for maximum results. When a great promotion launches, it starts chatter, online and off. People will mention it on deal sites, coupon sites, blogs, and forums. All of this chatter can be used to further increase your conversions. Also, keep in mind your customers will get an email, yet still type your URL directly into their browser, search in their favorite engine, etc. instead of clicking on the email link. This is why all traffic to your site seems to increase with a great email promotion.
There are several differences between approaches that go on behind the scenes.
1. With the holistic approach, you should meet as a team to discuss the overall theme and marketing message of the promotion. Who is invited? Merchandising, Catalog, Email, Paid Search, seo Person, Social Media Person, Affiliate, and anyone else that is involved in your online marketing efforts.
2. Even though this is a team approach, for accountability reasons, one person should lead the meeting and be responsible for the overall success of the promotion. It appears most promotions are based around an email. If this is the case, and your email manager is in the marketing department, this person may be the Email Manager. If not, the lead should still be part of the marketing department (not merchandising, finance, IT). Once merchandising states what the product/service promotion is, the team should give input as to the actual theme and marketing message. This brainstorming does a lot, not just for a complete understanding of the promotion and getting some great ideas, but everyone becomes owners of the promotion and wants the promotion to succeed.
Accountability is very important in the Holistic Approach. Before, if the promotion did not do well, no one took responsibility or ownership. While the team brainstorms and decides on the actual theme and wording, the person responsible for the promotion, the marketing lead, is the person who has final say. With one person now accountable, and everyone’s input taken into consideration, they feel as if they are part owners in the success of the promotion. I know there are many factors involved in the actual success of a promotion, such as inventory and prices. If the promotion didn’t do as expected, or did much better than expected, you will start to see everyone investigate why the promotion did not do well or why it succeeded. Keep in mind that as long as you learn from the poor performing promotion, it was not a failure.
Now that paid search knows what the promotion is, they have time to create enticing ads such as “Free Shipping This Week Only,” “$20 Off Coupon,” or “Father’s Day Closeouts.” Include promotional text on the landing page. If it can’t, try changing the landing page to the home page so customers see the promotion and then can link to the product or service. The best scenario, of course, is to test landing page concepts to see which converts the best.
Social Media can start the promotion buzz. Organic search can create articles, reviews, landing page text, and more to increase conversions. The affiliate manager can notify the affiliates and coupon sites of the promotion
One of the largest contributors in the success of the promotion is your design team. If your design team understands the theme and message of the promotion, they can help in many ways:
1. Create banners and modules to use on the website and used for affiliates websites that don’t just look great, but are designed with the proper message in mind.
2. Work with paid search and seo to add banners to the landing page of the products or to the top of every page. How many times have you opened a promotional email, clicked on the link, and have been taken to an interior page with no promotion in sight? This will also happen with paid search. Many of your paid search landing pages go directly to the product or service that is getting promoted. The customer bypasses the homepage with all the details. The customer can easily feel the promotion must have expired and ends up leaving the site.
3. Set goals for each metric, email open rates, click thru rates, conversion rates, and revenue.
4. Meet after promotion is over to review metrics. Where did you exceed your goals, where did you not reach your goals? Why?
Even though many do not place design under marketing, your design team knows their designs have an impact on sales. Their involvement in the results of the campaign will most likely result in increased sales.
To summarize the Holistic Online Marketing Approach:
1. Get the search team involved in the promotional theme and message.
2. Involve Design Team in marketing meetings
3. Assign accountability, goals, and strive for others to take ownership.
4. Make sure the promotion is in sync with all marketing channels.
This is an entry to Marketing Pilgrim’s 4th Annual SEM Scholarship contest.
Internet Ad Revenues Drop 5%; A Road Bump or Road Kill?
While other advertising verticals saw recent declines in growth, it seemed as if internet advertising would continue to be invincible. Well, it looks like the kryptonite just caught up with our Superman.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers just released new U.S. quarterly numbers showing a 5% decline compared to the same period in 2008.
As the chart shows, this isn’t the first time that ad revenues have dropped–they did so in the same period last year–but it is the severest quarterly decline since 2001. The big question is, what’s next? Will spending continue its free fall, or will it, like last year, make a recovery over the course of the next 9 months?
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Mobile Marketing Bucks Trend with Predicted 26% Increase in ‘09
Ok class. What’s the most important word in the title of this post? What’s that? I can’t hear you? The word is predicted. We then turn to our training in the world of market research and look at the source, which in this case is the Mobile Marketing Association, and then draw our conclusions. Please note that I am by no means saying that this study that MediaPost brings us isn’t correct. I hope it is. We need good news and if there is a segment of new media marketing that is poised to take off it’s mobile (well, at least we have been hearing that for the past few years so it has to happen at some point right?)
So the MMA is taking heart that despite overall marketing spend being off 7% for the same period (which is another prediction so it could be higher or lower in the end when all the rubble is cleared away) there is a 26% bump in mobile marketing spend anticipated. It goes on to say
While mobile is bucking the downward spending trend resulting from the recession, the emerging medium is still only a small fraction of total marketing budgets, at 1.8%. The MMA projects that mobile ad spending will grow from $1.7 billion this year to $2.16 billion in 2010
Of the brands and agencies polled about half report doing some mobile work
with SMS text campaigns being the most common at 66%, followed by having a mobile Web site (53%), and mobile email marketing (33%)
Not everything has the rosy glow of optimism in it, however.
About half of agencies said they overall viewed mobile marketing as still being part of experimental expending, compared to 36% of brands. Both brands and agencies reported having “average” success with mobile efforts compared to other marketing channels.
There is a lot of room for improvement obviously. As we discussed recently maybe they just need to market to the cool kids with the iPhones (there’s my iPhone envy again, sorry). The mobile industry leaders are touting the tracking and targeting capabilities of mobile as the reason why spend is looking to increase despite the horrific advertising environment we are currently in.
One particularly interesting piece of data was the following
Not surprisingly, the study also showed that the Internet is the medium that advertisers are most often integrating mobile efforts with, at 70%. Less expected is that trade shows and other promotional events would be the next most popular type of marketing effort tied into mobile, at 36%.
Special event marketing and the mobile tie-ins that are available make good sense due to the captive audience and the ability to push users toward the offering at the event. This practically ensures a higher response and it will be interesting to see how that develops.
So it looks like mobile is the new hot thing but haven’t we heard that in the past? Maybe we should wait until 2010 and look back on how 2009 did before we say anything else. Just a thought.
