Richard van Hooijdonk

Video Orlando session

The video of the IAAPA Orlando Marketing 2.0 session will be online soon.

I am Richard van Hooijdonk, CEO of MarketingMonday. This is my personal company blog. Because our website is in Dutch you'll find information here. The weblog is about the power of marketing 2.0. It will offer examples, strategies en interesting information about new (2.0) marketing. The blog has started after my first USA marketing-2.0-powersession at the IAAPA in Orlando on the 18th of November and will be updated weekly. We developed a special marketing 2.0 newsletter for free. Subscribe and get it now!

Multichannel operations: mixing online and offline

It's no surprise to salesmen anymore: increasingly, consumers research products online before heading to an offline store to make a purchase. Research company 'Frank about Women' found out the average adult visits approximately four web pages to inform himself on a product, before deciding to buy. In their “Multichannel shopping transformation study”, 'the e-tailing group' poses that 37% of all consumers first do online research before buying in an offline environment.

So online information is used for offline purchasing. It also works the other way around. A post order catalogue (such as Wehkamp or Neckermann's catalogues) is the most important stimulator for consumers to visit the website online. In this case, a complete array of well-integrated channels is essential for the company's multichannel strategy to succeed. The consumer has come to expect any multichannel operation to at least contain excellent communication, helpful information, a wide range of options to choose from, products in stock and timely delivery. When running an integrated multichannel business, getting these things right is an absolute must.

Buying clothes online more popular

More clothes are being sold online than computers. Market research company Forrester issued this surprising conclusion. It would seem that clothes are hard to sell online, but increasingly, websites like Timberland.com are convincing online shoppers to buy clothes on the internet. The secret to the e-tailers' success lies in their ability to remove the risks consumers may perceive. Detailed close-ups make it easier for consumers to choose from the webshop offerings. Also, return postage is usually free or at very low costs, meaning consumers can 'try before they buy', just like in brick-and-mortar stores.

Forecasts suggest that this year, 10% of all clothes will be bought online. Meanwhile, Dell's computers will also become available at Wal-Mart instead of just on Dell.com. Perhaps a move to compensate for decreasing online sales?

Customer reviews prove profitable

An increasing number of businesses is finding out it can sway online reviews in its favor by posing as customers and positively reviewing its own products. Meanwhile, consumers are catching on to these questionable business practices and keep in mind that online reviews aren't always 100% trustworthy. Nonetheless, online customer reviews have a positive influence on buying behavior. Online clothing store Netshops and the University of Nebraska conducted a study on the effects of online customer reviews and concluded that online reviews stimulate online purchases.

For twelve months, sales figures and review scores were kept track of in order to analyze the relationship between the two. Seasonal influences and changes to websites were eliminated as potential disruptive factors. As it turned out, customer reviews proved very profitable: product reviews pushed sales resulting in a 26% turnover increase!

Marketeer fails to properly utilize client data

There may be a wealth of information available on clients, marketeers still don't make proper use of the resources they have at their disposal. Consulting agency De Informatiegroep assigned MarketResponse to research how well marketeers use the data they obtain from their clients. MarketResponse questioned both marketeers and executives on the availability, quality and usage of marketing data. Less than three out of ten said they have full insight in the desires of their clients.

Customer relationship management (CRM) systems are very common among businesses, yet marketeers remain unaware on how to properly extract useful information from the software. Valuable information is frequently stored but rarely made to good use. Instead of working out how to make the most of CRM systems, marketeers all too often stick to more familiar methods such as traditional market research. When collecting data on clients or competitors, it's clear many marketeers aren't working as efficiently as they should.

Surfing The Live Web

Companies are quickly making their online presence more and more transparent. In the past, companies stuck to one way communications: their websites were nothing little more than glorified company brochures, offering visitors no interaction whatsoever. Today, all that has changed. Weblog expert Steve Rubel calls it The Live Web: RSS feeds keep consumers updated on the latest business news, companies open up on public weblogs and so on. No longer do companies wait for the consumer to come to them, instead they'll take it upon themselves to reach potential buyers.

In AdAge Digital, part of online magazine AdAge, Rubel shares his thoughts on how to decentralize a company's online presence. To achieve this, he outlines three possible strategies. The first strategy for online decentralization is to drop the idea of a having a single website representing the company online. Social websites such as Facebook or MySpace let companies' brands infiltrate the consumer's online world. They can experience brands online in a way that much better suits the modern internet.

The second strategy is to connect people. Taking the first strategy a step further, brands can actually use the internet as a meeting point for (potential) clients. Again, social networking sites like Hyves could be used here. The third and final strategy is to offer portable content. For instance, content from the company website can be offered in form of RSS feeds to mobile telephones. Obviously, this would require a critical analysis of the current website: not every company has a website that is already suitable for conversion to portable content.