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Navigating the Numbers in the Online Purchase Path

digital shopping cartAccording to a new infographic from Baynote, data plays an important role in the online purchase path (see the infographic at the end of this article), but few companies are effectively navigating through the opportunities and roadblocks that all of the data creates.

The infographic breaks the online path to purchase into five distinct steps: discovery, research/intent, interest/checkout, after the sale, and path to purchase future considerations.

Let’s take a look at some of the data to see what’s happening along the path.

The Data

  • 89% of consumers use search engines to find information about products before they make a purchase. That’s nine out of 10 shoppers!
  • 79% of consumers follow brands on social media to get more information about products, services, and so on.
  • 92% of consumers trust earned media (such as personal recommendations) more than any other type of advertising.
  • 70% of consumers trust online reviews.
  • 86% of consumers are influenced by negative reviews that they read online.
  • 21% of consumers abandon their online shopping carts because the checkout process is too inefficient. That’s one in five sales lost!
  • 66% of consumers would buy more online if shipping were free.

The data is compelling and points out some fatal flaws that brands are making in their ecommerce strategies. For example, only 30% of brands are sending personalized emails to existing customers to try to increase repeat purchases despite the fact that research shows personalized emails are opened 29% more frequently and clicked on 42% more frequently than non-personalized emails. Furthermore, transaction rates are six times higher for personalized email messages.

Brands are also failing when it comes to mobile. According to the infographic, 54% of ecommerce transactions will happen on mobile devices by 2018, but many brands are still trying to fit their traditional marketing strategies and campaigns into the mobile space. In essence, they’re creating self-inflicted roadblocks that keep them from achieving their growth goals because a growing number of consumers will be frustrated with the brand’s mobile shopping experience.

Key Takeaways

The important thing for brand marketers to understand is that they can take control and remove many of the obstacles that lead to reduced conversions. Listen to the data. Turn roadblocks into checkpoints where you check the data, review the user experience, and make the necessary changes to reduce cart abandonment rates and increase positive reviews and social sharing.

data online purchase path

Source: Baynote

Image: Svilen Milev

Enterprise Content Marketing in 2014

laptop content marketingIf you’re struggling to find employee buy-in to support your content marketing plan, fighting for every content marketing budget dollar, and disappointed with content marketing performance measurement options, you’re not alone. According to The State of Enterprise Content Marketing 2014 report from the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), many senior-level marketers feel the same way.

The data came from the CMI Executive Form held in San Francisco, California in May with 40 senior-level marketers discussing the present and future state of enterprise content marketing. The final report offers a number of key challenges and insights that are common among all or most of the executives in attendance, including:

Marketing Silos Impede Progress and Success

Marketing silos exist everywhere, not just in big companies and not just in content marketing. Having worked in marketing departments for some of the largest companies in the world during my career, I can attest to the rampant existence of silos. Today, marketing needs to be integrated across the enterprise, and that includes content marketing. However, the challenge to overcome marketing’s reputation as the department that only likes to spend money is one that has evolved over many decades and is unlikely to disappear anytime soon. It’s up to leadership to build and support a company culture that values marketing, including content marketing. And that brings us to the next item…

Company Cultures Don’t Support Content Marketing

Prioritizing content marketing has to come from the top down. Leaders and employees need to be trained on why content marketing is important to the company and the brand as a whole. The State of Enterprise Content Marketing 2014 report explains the challenges identified by executives related to company culture:

It can be difficult to get employee buy-in for content marketing. In addition, education is needed around social media governance, especially in companies where the C-suite is still “afraid” of what might get out. Training, as well as a flexible line of communication about content that can be shared across networks, can be invaluable.

Human Capital Resources are Hard to Come By

Where should the content marketing team sit on the organizational chart? Who should be on the team? Should team members be dedicated to content marketing or should content marketing be just one part of their job responsibilities? Should content marketing be outsourced? These are the questions that enterprise executives are still struggling with. In the meantime, progress slows and success is limited. “Hurry up and wait” is the norm when it comes to content marketing because decision-making isn’t happening efficiently or confidently.

Content is Created but Not Promoted

Companies invest in content creation, but not as many invest in content promotion. The days of “if you publish it, they will come” are over. For the enterprise, content promotion is an important part of a comprehensive plan. Without it, content has very little chance to survive and thrive.

View the SlideShare presentation below for the complete The State of Enterprise Marketing 2014 report from the Content Marketing Institute.

What challenges are you experiencing with your brand’s content marketing? Leave a comment and share your insights.

Image: Ahmed Al-Shukaili

Most and Least Respected Brands of 2014

corporate brand office buildingThe most respected brand of 2014 is Coca-Cola while the least respected is Delta Airlines.

The ranking of the most and least respected brands of 2014 comes from the Brand Respect 2014 report from CoreBrand. Using its Corporate Branding Index, which is a 23-year quantitative study, CoreBrand’s team analyzed 1,000 corporate brands (not product or divisional brands) that have been publicly traded for more than five years, and have been tracked by its Index for more than five years.

Over 500 companies met the study’s criteria and were included in the final analysis. Each brand was ranked based on familiarity (i.e., how familiar U.S. survey respondents were with the brand) and favorability (i.e., how survey respondents who were familiar with the brand ranked it in terms of overall reputation, perception of management, and investment potential). The top 100 brands with the highest familiarity rankings were sorted by their favorability scores to create the list of the most and least respected brands of 2014. The top 10 and bottom 10 brands follow:

10 Most Respected Brands of 2014

  1. Coca-Cola
  2. PepsiCo
  3. Hershey
  4. Bayer
  5. Johnson & Johnson
  6. Harley-Davidson
  7. IBM
  8. Apple
  9. Kellogg
  10. General Electric

10 Least Respected Brands of 2014

  1. Delta Airlines
  2. H&R Block
  3. Big Lots
  4. Denny’s
  5. Best Buy
  6. Rite Aid
  7. J.C. Penney
  8. Capital One Financial
  9. Family Dollar Stores
  10. Sprint Nextel

CoreBrand warns that the least respected brands are not the same as the least favorable brands that it tracks. Rather, the least respected brands are those that have the biggest gap between familiarity and favorability among survey respondents. In other words, “These are among the most well known brands, but lag dramatically in perceptions and audience sentiment. These 10 brands represent the bottom of the most familiar in regards to brand respect.”

It’s also important to note that the data is relative. For example, Delta Airlines ranked as the least respected brand of 2014. However, in comparison to competitor airline brands, Delta ranked second highest for familiarity but it ranked lowest for favorability. The other airline brands analyzed in this study (US Airways, United Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and American Airlines) all suffered from similar problems and low favorability scores were common across the industry. In other words, all airline brands suffer from low brand respect.

The brands included in this study are all household names. U.S. consumers (and in many cases, consumers around the world) are extremely familiar with these brands, but for some of these brands, that familiarity can’t make up for the lack of favorability.

How does your brand stack up in terms of familiarity versus consumers’ perceptions of the brand as favorable or unfavorable? When was the last time you invested in the necessary research to determine if there is a gap between familiarity and favorability for your brand? If that gap is growing, your brand respect is decreasing. Bottom-line, this is information you need to know as a brand marketer, so invest in the research before the gap gets too big.

Image: Stella Levi

What’s Hot in Social Media Marketing in 2014

hot flamesWhen it comes to social media marketing, tools and fads come and go in a heartbeat. What’s hot today, might not be hot tomorrow.

However, in 2014, we’re seeing some trends that won’t go away anytime soon. As truly useful tools rise to the top of the cluttered marketplace, brand marketers are gaining new abilities to drive real results via social media.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at what’s hot in social media marketing in 2014. Each of these trends has been growing for years, but finally, brand marketers and corporate leadership teams are prioritizing them and giving them more budget dollars.

1. Incentives

The days of “Like our Facebook Page” are over. The thrill of clicking the Like button disappeared well over a year ago. Today, people aren’t willing to tie themselves to a brand or company unless they get something in return. The promise of great content can be enough of an incentive to get some consumers to Like your Facebook Page or follow your brand on other social media channels, but there is a huge difference between “liking” and engaging.

Incentives work, not only in getting people to take the initial step to “like” your brand across social media channels, but also to engage with your brand. In other words, one time incentives aren’t enough. Incentives should be ongoing to build a new audience and to reward your existing audience. The latter is the part that brands are finally getting better at.

2. Mobile

Finally, brand marketers and corporate leaders are realizing that a “mobile-always” strategy is critical to ongoing success. Content and communications must work effectively or the rapidly growing (and dominating) mobile audience won’t give your brand a second chance. Simply applying an existing online marketing strategy to the mobile world doesn’t work.

3. Hyper-Targeting

Broadcasting and mass communications are taking a back seat to hyper-targeting. Whether brand marketers are pursuing hyper-local targeting strategies or laser-focused targeting based on demographic, psychographic, and behavioral factors, they’re all realizing that the power of social media marketing comes from building one-to-one relationships, not one-to-many relationships. Finding the right audience is an essential step to boosting brand awareness, recognition, sales, loyalty, and advocacy.

What social media marketing trends are you seeing in 2014? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: CaptureQueen licensed CC BY 2.0

Local Marketing and the Effect of Online Consumer Reviews

local marketing business mapLocal marketing is becoming more competitive every day and online consumer reviews play a large part in motivating consumers to make purchase decisions. For the fourth year, BrightLocal conducted its annual Local Consumer Review survey and found that online consumer reviews are critical to small businesses and large businesses operating on a local level.

BrightLocal surveyed 5,000 consumers in its Local Consumer Panel with 2,104 people responding (90% from the U.S. and 10% from Canada). Overall, 57% of respondents search online for a local business more than six times per year, but 39% search online for local businesses at least once per month. Many consumers (15%) search for local businesses online almost every day.

As you might expect, all of this local business searching has increased each year, and online consumer reviews are used by nearly all of the respondents when making purchase decisions. In the last 12 months, nearly nine out of 10 (88%) of respondents had read reviews to gauge the quality of a local business before making a purchase. Furthermore, 39% of respondents read reviews on a regular basis. That’s a significant contrast to the small percentage (12%) who claim to never read online reviews.

All Online Consumer Reviews are Not Equal

Given the fact that so many consumers are taking the time to seek out and read online reviews about local businesses, it’s critical for all businesses that operate at a local level to increase the number of reviews published about their products and services. However, not all online consumer reviews are equal, and consumers know the difference.

Respondents to the BrightLocal survey are reading more online reviews this year than in the past in part because they need to confirm the validity of the reviews they read. In total, 67% of respondents reported that they read up to six reviews before they feel like they can trust a business but 85% read up to 10 reviews and 7% read more than 20 reviews. In other words, it takes a lot of consistent proof before consumers will trust the authenticity of the reviews published about your local business.

Taking a closer look at the data, 72% of survey respondents claim that reviews make them trust a local business more, and 88% claim that they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Furthermore, consumers’ trust in online reviews is growing (up from 13% in 2013 to 21% in 2014). Nearly one in three consumers (32%) will trust a consumer review as much as a personal recommendation from someone they know as long as there are multiple positive reviews to read. Similarly, nearly one in three respondents (30%) will trust a consumer review as much as a personal recommendation as long as they believe that the review is authentic.

Bottom-line, online consumer reviews can lead directly to customer action and sales. Of the consumers who responded to the BrightLocal survey, 72% will take some kind of action after reading a positive online review about a local business while 57% will visit a local business website after they read a positive online review. It doesn’t matter if you’re marketing a brand for a local small business or a global company doing business at a local level, online consumer reviews can have a significant effect on awareness, reputation, and sales. Prioritize them!

Image: Vicchi licensed CC BY-SA 2.0