Written on November 7, 2011 at 12:26 pm, by Admin
Some astonishing facts have come to light courtesy of the latest Forrester Research benchmark study on Consumers and Technology – principal among them is that Baby Boomer
s are outspending everyone else online – who knew?! MediaPost breaks down more interesting stats in an article here, but some select takeaways are below:
- 70% of consumers 45-55 made an online purchase in the past 3 months – and it’s not even the Holiday buying season yet!
- Consumers 56-66 outspent all others online with an average of $367 in the past 3 months
- Nearly 50% of consumers 32-45 own a smartphone now and 58% of consumers 23-31 own smartphones
In true form, it seems the Baby Boomers are once again taking the lead in transforming shopping behavior – the beginning of a cultural shift best paid heed to by brick-and-mortar retailers everywhere. Certainly eCommerce will never make the physical retail store obsolete – we enjoy the act of shopping in the real world too much – but it certainly provides strong evidence that barriers are coming down among the largest demographic population in existance around entrusting financial data to internet retail enterprise. Todays offline stores will either embrace that shift and create a connected on-and-offline retail experience for Boomers or risk losing revenue to online channels.
I suspect the impending Holiday Shopping Season will simply amplify the Forrester benchmark results – raising the stakes even higher for offline retailers. Should make this shopping season even more interesting than the last one – stay tuned!
Written on October 27, 2011 at 5:08 pm, by Admin
Yahoo Shopping recently cobbled together a list of 7 gadgets that will be extinct by 2020. Interesting on it’s own, but what’s even more compelling is that the Smartphone is behind almost ALL of the gadgets demise. That darn Smartphone can do almost anything these days! But wait – can it? Because I know you’re DYING to know what my prediction is for the next wave of gadgets that our crafty Smartphones will kill off, here they are:
* the garage door opener – oh yeah, this one is headed to the bone-home for shur
* the car key – uh huh, you’ve seen the commercials on TV – elephant graveyard
* A/V remotes – all of them, collectively, dead and gone
* the wallet – if you can consider this a gadget…some are pretty fancy (?)
* the flashlight – yep, there’s an app for that
* the projector – coming to a business meeting near you..
* the lightsabre – OK, true, this will only happen after the lightsabre is invented, but then shortly thereafter – gone.
And there you have it – the next 7 gadgets that the Smartphone will kill off after it kills off the first 7 outlined in the article. Assuming of course that Smartphones take a regimented, orderly approach to gadget extinction.
At this point, you’re a good 14 gadgets out in front of the Smartphone, so consider yourself well-armed to tackle the future in fine shape – and consider your Christmas gadget purchases accordingly..Word!
Written on October 25, 2011 at 10:15 pm, by Admin
Are you the president of the United States? Do you hope to one-day be a fashion icon? Are you a news-driven site hoping to have your content shared at higher rates? Is your company’s customers between the ages of 18-34?
If you answered yes (heck, even if you answered no), then Tumblr may be for you.
Think twitter. Think WordPress (blogs).
Put them together and you pretty much get Tumblr, an increasingly popular microblogging platform that lets users effortlessly share any content they so wish.
Simply put, it’s essentially a blogging platform that doubles as a social network, and it just might be a perfect fit for your company’s social media strategy.
Tumblr is certainly not new (founded in 2007), but as of today the website is still very much in its adoption phase compared to its older, more established counterparts mentioned above. This is especially true in the business world. Only a handful of companies promote content via Tumblr as many experts are skeptical about Tumblr’s value to a brand and it’s ability to make meaningful connections.
I am confident this will soon change and that this skepticism will quickly turn into acceptance.
Several businesses will soon be swarming to Tumblr for the same simple reason they dove head first into Facebook and Twitter – because that’s where their target customers are! Check out a couple gaudy statistics from Nielsen’s recently released 2011 Social Media Report:
- According to the report, Tumblr nearly tripled its audience from a year ago.
Source: Nielsen
- Also, according to the same report, U.S. internet users spend more time on Tumblr than spent on Twitter and Linkedin.
Source: Nielsen
And let’s not forget… Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign team has has officially joined tumblr. According to Mashable, “the Barrack Obama Tumblr, run by the 2012 election campaign staff, is meant to focus on user submissions, behind-the-scenes shots and grassroots support.”
If that’s not evidence then I don’t know what is.
But let’s get back to the main question at hand: is Tumblr right for you and your company?
My answer to you is possibly… but you have to do your homework first. Before you sacrifice your time and energy to set up a Tumblr account and post, please take these facts into consideration:
The 18-34 female market.
Tumblr is predominately used by people under the age of 34 so if you have a young target market, Tumblr makes a lot of sense. However, If you are trying to engage with an older demographic, there are better social media platforms more worthy of your time.
Source: Nielsen
Content is king. Sharing is key. It’s easy to be ignored.
Tumblr users want to share content that they are interested in and passionate about. They thrive on it. It’s what the entire platform is based upon.
If you have content that is worth sharing, like news, unique content or valued opinions, then Tumblr makes for the perfect viral environment for your company. Just please be sure to make your content Tumblr friendly. Which gets me to this point…
Multimedia heavy.
This platform is much less focused on writing and more focused on videos, pictures, graphs, etc. In fact, a lot of writing on a page is a big no-no to users and can be a huge turn-off to your customers. So if your company can deliver unique multimedia, then I certainly recommend using Tumblr… but if your content is text heavy, stay away!
The Economist’s page does a great job at finding an appealing medium between news and tumblr-friendly multimedia content.
The fashion industry is all over Tumblr.
Tumblr is perfect for any business big on style and design because of it’s visually stunning outlay and it’s extremely fashion-literate community. The fashion industry has flocked to this platform – with great examples being the JCrew and Ann Taylor Tumblr pages.
Tumblr can act as the training wheels to your social media bicycle.
Tumblr, as an actual platform is simpler to use but offers less features than its competitors. A company in need of a heavy platform with complicated built out features should look elsewhere… but for a company looking to quickly set up and start posting, Tumblr makes for a fantastic beginning option.
With any business decision, the key is to have an honest approach to yourself in regards to your understanding of the specific abilities and needs of your company. Weigh your business needs against the characteristics of Tumblr’s platform to make an insightful decision on whether or not this platform is right for you.
Written on October 11, 2011 at 6:44 pm, by Admin
Holy Cow! When you read the list of the 10 Most Hated Jobs constructed by CareerBliss based on research from hundreds of thousands of participants, it’s a real wakeup call to see 20% of the field represented by Marketing. 
What’s going on these days within Marketing departments to earn such an objectionable ranking on this list-you-don’t -want-to-be-on?
The answer is pretty simple actually. Uncertainty. Marketing chiefs and employees face a constant battle with uncertainty – often tasked with managing or integrating complex technical components within standard communication mediums where the Best Practice manuals have yet to be written. For all the hype about how far we’ve come in the Marketing world, there’s still an overwhelming amount of “gut decisions” that have to be made. Gut decisions cause stress. Everyone wants to know they’re making the best, most effective, most economical, most-likely-to-succeed decision. That’s called being a good steward of the company funds.
Often Marketing professionals struggle to see where the “Win” is in the daily tasks they’re doing – how it all ties together to make a difference. Where the proof is that the $1 we invested in Marketing resulted in $2 of product sales. People are driven by accomplishment – all of us want to know what we do matters in the big picture. If you can’t measure with certainty the value you create for your employer – what confidence should you have in the security of your employment?
Uncertainty. Marketing. Sadly, they’ve been closely connected for the past 100 years. Today, we continue to make inroads towards concrete measurement through Direct Marketing, Database Marketing, Social Media and ever more sophisticated Reporting tools. We’re closing the gap all the time between “I think it made a difference” and “Our campaign delivered a 125% ROI”. At FaceTime Strategy, we’re working to get Marketing taken off that list…
Written on October 10, 2011 at 7:16 pm, by Admin
You have to TRY in order to FAIL, right? Not in the case of the Netflix Qwikster debacle. Just 3 weeks after announcing a new business structure dividing the archaic DVD-by-mail (read: the box at the end of the driveway that will soon join the ‘home phone’ in the museum of quaint references that future children will only have puzzled expressions when they hear references to) service from the video-on-demand component, Netflix is junking the Qwikster part. Raise your hand if you didn’t see this one coming.
Netflix has been the butt of a thousand jokes this year related to the bungling way they announced the service change to existing customers – not to mention the rather one-sided pricing structure they established to essentially drive all customers onto the the VOD platform.
Not that I blame them – there were plenty of reasons for them to rethink the Qwickster separation – among them a rather seedy character squatting on the Qwickster Twitter handle and widespread confusion around whether Qwickster was a spinoff company or still part of Netflix. In the end, the folks at Netflix decided going the seperatation route was just not going to work. As long as you interpret ‘in the end’ to be all of 3 weeks. That seems like a rather short ‘in the end’ even in the advertising business.
Some agency, somewhere, is looking at a whole lot of freshly printed Qwikster collateral, print ads, digital banners, etc and saying “You Gotta Be Kidding Me!!” Here’s a great article from Fox News on 5 other Epic Fails that left marketing firms saying the same thing.
For all the Epic Failness of the Qwikster attempt, you do have to give Netflix credit for making a quick decision – that kind of rapid response you just don’t see very often these days. Wall Street certainly gave them the golf clap in the form of a 10% spike in share price for making the call quickly.
Now if you’ll excuse me – I’m going to celebrate the good ‘ol days by finding a payphone to call my broker and buy some of that Blockbuster stock. I’ve got a good feeling…
s are outspending everyone else online – who knew?! MediaPost breaks down more interesting stats in an article here, but some select takeaways are below:
