ComCorp, Inc. Articles

Emotional Connections Matter, Says Experts

Even in a highly computer-saturated age, emotional connections with customers are still important. This is according to Pete Blackshaw, chief marketing and customer satisfaction officer of Nielsen BuzzMetrics, a firm specializing on buzz metrics that helps brands track and measure consumer-generated data. 

According to Blackshaw, his research when he was still with PLanetFeedback.com has led him to this conclusion. 

The research involved a panel of active users of the website, each of which was asked to evaluate a series of company feedback forms. The study gauged customer viewpoints by simply asking, “If this feedback form were a person, what type of person would it be?” This allowed respondents to classify the form from a list of occupations and individuals. 

The results were stunning. It showed how most people saw online feedback forms as “government bureaucrats” instead of “hotel concierge”, which was so far the best option in the list. 

To confirm the results, Bradshaw followed respondents up with an interview, which also revealed interesting data on today’s internet marketing world. Customers say they could not connect with most feedback forms. Then, they add that they didn’t feel important, respected, or valued. Peter Bradshaw puts it well, “The government bureaucrat fit the bill.” 

“The rub is that in the eyes of so many CRM experts, such an (feedback) interface would be deemed efficient,” he quickly adds in his ClickZ column. 

In his newly released book, “Emotionomics: Winning Hearts and Minds,” Dan Hill, president of the Minneapolis-based Sensory Logic, a research consultancy firm, notes such occurrence well among consumers. 

“Feelings matter,” suggests Hill. What people say does not always have to necessarily agree with how they feel or do. Noting on the “say/feel gap,” Hill insists that new marketing models must be in place for measuring emotions.  

As if to say that this is the solution for suturing the gap just mentioned, Hill further asserts that achieving emotional connections with customers “through superior creativity and empathy becomes the key to winning over the audiences on which profitability extends.” To put it succinctly, emotional connection with consumers even through an impersonal medium like the internet could generate into manifold business returns. 

In Emotionomics, Hill gives reasons why emotional connections matter. On credibility, he stresses that “believability is based on a gut feeling.” To that he adds, “Emotions are more immediate and act as a gatekeeper” affecting responses to web content material such as ads. He remarks that in customer’s psyche, “emotions happen fast(er)” than thinking. 

Likewise, Hill comments that in a marketplace of skeptics, emotional connections help customers go through the “fear of being sold to.” An issue of trust, that is, in today’s internet-dependent environment. Connecting emotionally with consumers makes them also come back. To put in Dan Hill’s words, “emotional connections lay the ground work for loyalty.” 

Customer service, writes Hill, is “more emotional and more dangerous for the company,” as “customer self-worth is what’s at stake here.” 

In an impersonal business world like the internet, giving a “face” to services remains a key for successful, long-term business partnerships and relations. 

To this note, Pete Bradshaw writes thus in his ClickZ column: “The feedback interface that conveys the personality of a hotel concierge makes you feel better. It bonds you to the brand and encourages you to ask more questions and engage at a deeper level. It validates your self-worth.” 

Online Advertising Ups E-Profit

Internet advertising is finally making a mark in the market and is significantly changing the shopping and spending behavior of today’s consumers, according to a new study commissioned by online giant Yahoo! and web authority comScore. Yahoo! is one of the largest US online conglomerates with a wide range of Internet services which includes a web portal, free webmail service, instant messaging, members directory, news and the Yahoo! 360^o networking website. On the other hand, comScore is an online database that studies the divergent ways in which the Internet is used and provides valuable information for leading corporations to understand better and profit more from the advantages of fast-evolving online world. 

Involving a survey sample of more than 175,000 comScore panelists and made between April 2006 and January 2007, this study contrasted the buying attitudes of consumers exposed to online advertisements and those who have no access to them but share similar demographic characters and purchasing behaviors and to determine the incremental effects of exposure to Internet advertising on in-store sales. 

These latest conclusions on Internet marketing are based on the effects of search and display online advertising on in-store sales of five major retailers. Exposure on to online advertising influences consumers to “pre-shop” online or to make choices over products that could lead them to make in-store purchases. As a result, buyers who tend to pre-shop on the Internet spend an average of 41% more in in-store purchases than those who have no access to online advertisements. Online advertising has also widened the access to online “pre-shoppers” since buyers would usually search for similar products based on available online advertisement. Of the total sales made due to online advertisements, 90% of incremental sales include in-store purchases resulting in a $6 increment for every $1 spent for online advertising. Furthermore, online advertising campaign that uses the search and display strategy result in a stronger connection with the target consumers who have access to these advertisements and this too has contributed to increased profits. 

Results of the study further show that online advertising is increasingly becoming an important tool for modern businesses. By promoting their products and services to their targeted consumers who search the Internet for information and solutions, search and display online advertising also at the same time allows access to online advertisements. With increased website hits, an online advertising campaign can help increase offline sales made from in-store sales. 

With the widening Internet use and the latest developments in web technology, an increasing number of online advertisers have made several significant business advances with the use of innovative online tools like videos, graphics and other advertising medium as well as by directing Internet traffic to websites and web advertisements which feature products and services to potential customers and help speed up significantly business growth and considerably increase profitability. With a well-planned and carefully studied advertising campaign, online advertisements can make a great impact on one’s business sales, visibility and brand building, with just a few mouse clicks. 

Web Video Watchers Prefer Shorter Ads, Survey Says

If there is one thing that makes video streaming pleasurable, it is shorter ads. Video streaming viewers says so. 

This was revealed in a recent survey conducted by Advertising.com, a leading research company for advertisers worldwide. The survey showed 63 percent of respondents preferring shorter ads to lengthy posts. This, from 94 percent of internet users saying they prefer ads than subscription fees, which seem to proliferate in websites today. While 13 percent of consumers say ads should be made exclusively for the Internet medium, a significant 22 percent said that commercials could have been better if ads would have been more relevant for the web watching public. 

Findings also seem to challenge stereotypes such as web users most from the teenage or young adult age bracket. Survey results debunk this notion as Internet users shows to be an aggregate of web consumers in their thirties and up. This group comprise of people whop willingly allow in-stream short ads.     

The survey randomly gathered 500 Internet users to find out their video consumption patterns. Results indicate a dominantly thirtyish and up age group actively using the medium for online video streaming. Among the 62 percent of respondents who acknowledged their internet use for video streaming, internet consumers between the age ranges of 18 to 34 view web streaming content not much like the 69 percent of the 35-plus crowd. This, in contrast with only 31 percent of teens and people in their twenties watching online streaming content. In addition, the survey shows about 95 percent of respondents who view online video streaming at home rather than at work, with only 4 percent, and school, with only one percent of respondents saying so. 

Of all web content types, it was news that figured to be the most popular with 62 percent of respondents seeking such content. Movie trailers seem to catch with news content with 38 percent of respondents revealing such use followed by music videos with only 36 percent of respondents revealing their music video preference.  

Survey results continue to challenge common assumptions about music video. For a long time, advertisers focused on music videos as a medium for marketing. Lately, however, this marketing strategy seem to receive calls for revision, especially with Advertising.com’s research disclosing only 36 percent streaming music videos into their own homes. A fall in this trend is observable, as just a year ago, 47 percent revealed that they stream music videos online.  

Television shows, amateur videos, and movies also find its place of preference in the survey results. Thirty-three percent of internet users say they watch television shows in the internet, compared to the 29 percent of respondents watching amateur videos and 28 percent streaming movie content online. Another 21 percent say they watch sports clips more than any other web content. 

The use of YouTube and MySpaceTV also shows to be growing in popularity but in the rate showed in media. An unremarkable 10 percent growth explains this, compared to the other years 21 percent leap. 

This year’s survey from Advertising.com only shows that changes in internet marketing has to tale place and take the shape of internet users’ preferences and tastes.      

Local Search Advertising: A Challenge for SMBs

Nowadays, small and medium businesses (SMBs) are considering going into internet search for their products to widen their market targets. More and more of these businesses see the importance of being on the online trend as consumers are becoming more internet savvy. However, establishing a ready to buy or immediate servicing online and capturing the consumer’s attention and interest, and at the same time ensuring quality products and services deliveries pose more challenge to low capital businesses. 

While it is true that there are many opportunities awaiting SMBs if they avail of the local search advertising services, they do not necessarily have the capacity to effectively manage multiple search properties without the assistance of the search advertising agencies to provide them the resources, targeting tools, ease of implementation or customer care supports. Because of the wide variety of products and services offered by SMB, a search advertising agency should be able to narrow down the keywords for the advertising searches from the consumers who have a variety of needs to put attention to. Such varied needs also determine the several search keywords that the consumer may employ yet must be captured by the search advertising agencies to ensure that the SMB will be recognized online. 

But local search advertising does not employ a fit-all approach. It needs to grasp a measurable process of recognizing the products and delivering them based on the specialized needs of the consumer. In marketing an SMB, a search advertising agency should be able to understand marketing the product mix within the SMB’s category as well as recognize how their products are purchased by consumer.  

There are service industries that offer services within short term to long term arrangement. For short term needs, it means immediate delivery of service and so certain price for such service will take effect. On the other hand, there are services that employ long term delivery so that price for such service differs as well.  

Most of the SMBs can meet the same term. That’s why a specific keyword, visual content and enclosed distribution terms should be employed for the online search channels.  For example, a motor home for rent may fall into a category for transportation either for immediate need like today or for a long time needs like a month after. With this variety, consumers uses the key words “motor home California” and look for what’s available today and may search for availability in a month’s time. They do these searches in different search tools available in the net. The search advertisers need to capture the visual messages, keywords, and calls to attention possibly used by consumers given these factors on hand and distribute these to the frequently used and effective search tools available on the net.Nevertheless, though these may be helpful and important to widen the market, SMBs with limited resources for search advertising agencies find it rather helpful if they link with bigger and more knowledgeable firms with regards to this matter. This is because online search advertising needs a considerable of know-how and resources to meet the consumer needs, which is the driving force towards a successful business.  

Interactive Site for Meow Mix

One of the campaigns to promote Meow Mix is for Del Monte Food to partner with internet advertising agency called the Omnicom’s Agency.com who formulated an interactive website for Meow Mix cat food. This campaign is part of the “Think Like a Cat” campaign which imposes the use of Meow Mix brand as the consumer cat food.

The website is developed to be interactive so that cat pet lovers will be attracted to the brand as it gives a lot of entertaining and fun facts about cats and how they act around their owners. The website is designed in a way that creates a perception of a cat.

According to the director of Marketing at Del Monte Foods about Meow Mix, Brian Ely, they want to establish a website that connects the cat from its owner. “We wanted to build a site that helps these consumers build stronger relationship with their cats. If you can understand cats better, then you can have a better relationship with your cat”, he said.

Meow Mix brand is given life though its online site at www.MeowMix.com by various interactive activities such as videos about different cats and songs about meow mix which one can sing along to. Theses videos are designed over a living room setting where the pet-parent consumer can enjoy to.

Aside from this, visitors to the site can scroll over the different cats and play with them as if they were their pets. The cats behave in a lively manner such as playing the ball of yam, swatting over a fish bowls oar eating Meow Mix food. Cats even appear to speak through speech bubbles with words such as “See the treats that really get me purring.” or “Would you like to treat me to a delicious treat already?” The speeches will connect the visitor to a link of meow mix products and can even play games connected to the link. There are also links to the information on cat physiology, diet, mythology and behavior. In addition, an academy for Meow Mix is also available where one can get a better understanding about the cats and their owners. This Meow Mix academy is sort of a course to give such relevant pet-parent relationship. Furthermore, once on the site, the visitor is encouraged to sign up and recommend the website to a friend.

Aside from the interactive design of the website as a marketing attraction, they also offer a sweepstake in the site where the visitor can have the chance to win a weekend with a culinary treat in various locations that includes Las Vegas, New York and San Francisco.

Lastly, Meow Mix promotional campaign also includes TV and radio advertisements as well as promotional events in stores. These events will take place in Pittsburgh to San Francisco this fall. An invitation through an SMS message to the mobile phone of some selected customers will be sent to take part on the occasion. “These events will draw brand awareness as well as increased sale for the retailers”, added Ely.

Hotel Rates: New Launching For Farecast

When it comes to accommodation, there is no better customer service strategy than the predictability of its prices in different time periods. Hotel rates have been one of the concerns for most travelers because prices for hotels do increase easily without immediate notice. In some cases, a traveler may keep a certain amount within his pocket for a hotel price that he thought was the same than the previous month he stayed with it. Unfortunately upon arrival to the hotel, the price has gone up unexpectedly, catching the traveler off guard. Indeed, it’s such a pathetic quest for a lone traveler.

Perhaps this was one of the reasons why, Farecast, a start-up online traveler’s assistance guide, have come up with another service extension to travelers. Farecast was known to be able to assist travelers with predictions on the best time to buy flight tickets with its online information. With this, travelers are guided to the best rates on ticket at a certain period of time. Recently, they turned their attention to the assistance information on the hotel rates.

Farecast had launched a beta service that enabled the consumers to search the web for hotels rates and give them their best estimates whether the rate was in a good deal or not. This happens by showing a comparison on the historical and present rates for the similar dates and days of the week and plotting them on the Microsoft Virtual Earth Map with flags that are color coded to determine the price difference. Through this, the consumer is able to know in advance if the hotel is changing its rate or not. The estimates will guide them on the probable current rate of the hotel.

Farecast was just launched last year and is already gaining its ground as the travelers online assistance. The new focus from flight tickets to hotels makes them confident of the company’s goal to be of help to consumer’s confidence. As quoted “the launch was an important next step in the evolution of Farecast to bring transparency and help consumer buy with confidence in another critical category of travel”. The company stated that this new service would initially analyze hotel rates in 30 cities in the US. Its search tools have access to international coverage although it is not known how far the coverage can go.

Indeed, Farecast is a new online business that does not only concern itself with products and services that are highly competitive and common in the market. Its business strategy concerns itself with consumer confidence on its operation as a traveler’s guide. It utilizes the Internet as a tool that determines its success as a new business entity as it builds its credibility on the online market.

An independent consulting firm commented that its prediction was 74.5% accurate. Its website features paid-for-service, which was just launched last February. The feature allows the customer to “lock” the prices of their tickets for a week to protect them of price increase within the time period.

Hispanic Social Networks Boost Online Advertising Efforts

Crossing over all ethnic and geographic boundaries, social networking sites is increasingly transforming the world into one global community. A recent study made by the Pew Internet and American Life Project shows that 67% of US based-Hispanics within the 18 to 27 years old age range social networking sites such as MySpace, Friendster and Facebook and most online advertisers are taking full advantage of this demographic fact. Social networking websites are now very popular with Internet users of varying ages and background. Mostly motivated by an innate human tendency to make interactions and establish social connections, these social networking websites continue to grow considerably daily by thousands and thousands of users. With the increase of online social networks, a lot of people, including online businesses and advertisers have started to take advantage of these online communities in promoting their goods and services.

But Joseph Anthony, CEO of Vital Marketing believes that the growth of the Hispanic online community indicates a need to create more entertainment and networking sites that would cater to the significant Spanish-speaking minority. Hispanic influences should cease to be considered as “exotic” or “minority” but should be taken advantaged of in order to build up a growing and culturally diverse market for products of a wide variety from clothing apparel to food products to electronic gadgets and appliances. “As a booming group, minorities now set the pace at which trends are developed.” Mr Anthony explains further, “With this social influence and undeniable buying power, this market must be addressed directly.”

Vital Marketing has been instrumental in expanding the brand buildup of the U.S. Army, NASCAR, Motorola and Tommy Hilfiger among minority markets like the Hispanic population. The next step to reach out to the Hispanics according to Mr Anthony is the creation of El Hood, a bilingual social networking site that would specifically promote the latest Latin music. A bilingual social network will build the dynamic web-based dialogue that will create more avenues for online marketing campaigns.

Another study made by Forrester Research, Inc showed that 51% of today’s US Hispanic Internet users opt to use Spanish-language websites while another 23% tend to use Spanish often. In fact Vital Marketing’s El Hood will just share the Hispanic online community with exisiting Spanish networking sites like Quepasa.com, MiGente.com, MyGrito.com, Vostu.com and the Spanish-language version Latino.MySpace.com.

However Mr Anthony believes that building Hispanic online networking sites is one of the best ways for products and services to find themselves to the Hispanic market and increase in-store purchases. Any company that wants to make significant sales increases should take account of these Hispanic-focused social networking sites. With the right offline and interactive branding and marketing strategies, social networking sites can significantly reinforce conventional online. More importantly, Mr Anthony believes that relying on television broadcasts to reach the Hispanic community is no longer practical. In online advertising, social networks can provide the personalization and feeling of authenticity that would help business to get close and personal with their target Hispanic consumers.

First Boomerang Award Won by Philippine DOT

Recently, the online promotion of the Department of Tourism (DOT) in the Philippines known as the Great Philippine Free-Flight Giveaway has been awarded the first Gold Cyber Boomerang bye the Internet and Mobile Marketing Association of the Philippines (IMMP). The judges composed of expert marketers and specialists of new media from US, Australia, Singapore, and China. A boomerang awards reflects a marketing strategy that goes beyond reaching the market with its campaign but it also assures tangible and quantifiable results. This is according to one of the juror of the Boomerang Awards, Rob Martin Murphy from Australia, who believes that the DOT has been able to meet such criteria.

Boomerang Award is recognized to those who were able to create a campaign that employs the worldwide web as its primary marketing tools and that it has the ability to measure result of such campaign.

DOT was the only competitor as a government agency among other finalist who belongs to a consumer product companies for the Gold Cyber Boomerang. Ma. Corazon Jorda-Apo who is the head of the DOT team North America along with her team member, Zeny Pallugna, and the head of the Business Unit of the web developer, Bambie Paguia, received the Boomerang Awards trophy. The ceremony was held at the Intercontinental in Makati City.

DOT’s The Great Philippine Free-Flight Giveaways is part of their promotion known as the Philippines: Explore, Experience, Return (PEER) campaign under its web portal www.experiencephilippines.ph. The website was established by the Euro RSCG 4D advertising agency. It is considered as one of the most visited and successful website which is able to reach significant markets in North America as the PEER promotes the Philippines as the top tourist destination among North Americans. The Great Philippine Free-Flight Giveaways gave out a total of 250 Philippine Ariline tickets in raffle for those residents and nationals of US and Canada who earn entry points by visiting the PEER portal and participate in online activities such as surveys, answering trivia questions, booking destination packages and referring friends.

According to the research done by the DOT, there are about 1.5million tourists in the Philippines between January and June 2007. Twenty percent of these tourists are from the USA. This goes to show that the Great Philippine Free Flight Giveaways was successful on its implementation in lifting up tourism in the country as observed Tourism secretary Joseph Ace Durano. ”It also encourages us to think of other ways to effectively use the cyberspace as a tool to entice more tourists to visit the country”, the proud official said.

DOT Team North America launched a new raffle activity as a follow up on the Great Philippine Free-Flight Giveaway. This time it is called Out-of-the-Box which still targets Canadian and American nationals but this time all the contestants need to do is to complete their contact details and other relevant information earning them a chance to win shopping sprees on high end stores, an accommodation in a condominium, Philippine holiday packages, and business class airline tickets.

DOT Team North America Head Ma. Corazon Jordo-Apo explains: “Our target tourists from North America rely heavily on technology and the internet for information. Projects like Out-of-the-box and constant enhancements to the portal give them a reason to keep visiting the website and eventually encourage them to experience what Philippines have to offer”.

Failure on Email Marketing and Lessons behind It

Aside from online advertising and search engine tools that promote business products and services, email media and marketing had become popular as a means to provide subscription services especially for the media industry. However, email marketing can be a controversial marketing means as it has its share of failures due to security features.

Natmag has experienced such tragedy on its product launch on Jellyfish magazine when it was withdrawn after a 20 week trial. The magazine’s marketing niche was teenage girls aging from 11-19 and was delivered through email as a digital magazine. However, there was a problem on the delivery with the Hotmail because not all deliveries were received by the subscriber. The spam filter in Hotmail blocked incoming Jellyfish subscriptions even though the receiver was expecting such mail. Consequently, the product did not reach it due receiver which concluded the withdrawal of the product.

This incident shows that delivery failure of certain products directly affects the success of the product in the market. Whether online or direct deliveries, distribution is indeed one of the most important factors in marketing. The difference in this case, is that technology is expected to do better in distribution because of its speed and accessibility to more markets. Now it posed a question to the industry: where did it go wrong?

There are many possibilities of how Jellyfish’s distribution system failed. One could be the failure of ESP that Natmag chooses. Another could be the design of the product that is significantly similar to spam mails. Or perhaps it’s the choice of the distribution system itself, whether the emailing system is a good subscription avenue or not. Still, maybe because there was a huge market that cannot be accommodated by such media.

Whatever the reason was behind the Jellyfish failure, we cannot deny the fact that there were other magazine that succeeded in email marketing and subscription such as Dennis Monkey Magazine. So if this is the case, perhaps this has really something to do with the ESP or the pre launching strategy itself.

We cannot set aside the fact that there were negative impacts on the business and the interrelated components of the product failure. It is obvious that the bottom line for this was the deliverability of the product which determined the failure itself. First there was an issue on the choice of the ESP and email facility. It indeed gives the provider and email facility a bad image. Second, there was a lost confidence from the consumer on the ability of the company to deliver the product effectively. Finally, the cost allotted to the project was wasted, which is a big concern on company’s profitability.

We can only hope that before utilizing email marketing as a tool for distribution, the company must ensure a proper pre-launch testing of the product that involves all the players of the distribution process: from the product, to the ESP, to the email facility and its security measure, and to the market itself giving proper information on the testing stage and evaluating and monitoring the effectiveness of the delivery.

Consumers Has Demands for Online Retailers

As the holiday seasons draw near, online retailers are expecting again to receive a heavy volume of purchases from consumers who want to avoid the holiday rush in many physical stores. Yet as a recent survey shows, this might not likely be the case for retailers who want to maintain current customers seem to not agree with.

According to a study conducted by Sterling Commerce, 57 percent of American shoppers wanted to be able to return or exchange products in-store even if it was bought from a website, shop, or catalogue. Opening online and offline sales outlets, the study indicate, may well benefit online retailers as well as it does consumers.

“As retailers ramp up for the biggest shopping event of the year—the holidays,” says Jim Bengier, a leading retail executive from Sterling Commerce, “their readiness to address today’s cross-channel customers’ expectations could decide their success.”

The cross-channel experience, also called multi-channel experience for the flexibility it renders to the consumer, according to the executive, has “spoiled” consumers. This, he says, “raises the bar for every retailer.” In other words, pressure sets in for online retailers, as consumers demand revision of return guarantees and such policies in the marketplace.

The Sterling study also found a recognizable two-thirds of consumers expecting to change or cancel orders through any available channel. This ranks as a major demand of today’s consumer. With the coming of the holiday season, more and more consumers want easier changing and cancellation of orders. Most of the time, this is difficult to do with high traffic in the internet during the holidays.

As it is with most retailers, internet prices are not necessarily the same with in-store prices. The same holds true with promotions and other deals. What is offered online is not the same as in-store. Another finding from the Sterling Commerce was that consumers said they wanted retailers to make checking product availability and prices in stores easier. This becomes especially in the holiday season.

Only a few consumers have also indicated they use the internet for product availability. A stark 13 percent of consumers say they checked the web for product availability. A small percentage compared to the number of consumers demanding much more freedom in purchasing policies and conditions. Of the 13 percent, half say they would go to a competitor and a fifth say they would cancel the entire order, giving online retailers much to think or rather, rethink about.

Moreover, the study reveals forty-percent of customers saying that sales staff are unable to tell the availability of items in another location, when such are unavailable in the area. During the holidays, availability of a product can become a customer issue for retailers. That is why 54 percent of consumers say retailers should locate and ship products free of charge to consumers when not available—a demand that might rightly influence the decision of management this holiday season.

When consumers speak through surveys, retailers ought to listen. As Jim Bengier says it himself, “The success of retailers this holiday season depends on considering such demands.”