Online Players Go Head To Head

Traditionally, the sales funnel starts with “awareness” or outbound marketing to drive unqualified leads into the top of funnel, then, after a series of qualifying steps, ends with fewer “customers” exiting through the bottom.Traditionally, the sales funnel starts with “awareness” or outbound marketing to drive unqualified leads into the top of funnel, then, after a series of qualifying steps, ends with fewer “customers” exiting through the bottom.

Social media has affected traditional funnel in a number of ways. First, the traditional funnel starts with “awareness” then moves straight into qualifying, then ends with either customers or retention. In this new funnel, businesses identify “qualified” prospects sooner by first understanding user personas and then by joining or building community around the industry in which it wishes to converse, engage and educate prospects. Once community is established either by building or joining, awareness then happens through more traditional means such as marketing, direct marketing, events, trade shows, social media, blogging, white papers, eBook and other campaigns. – read more…

It’s no doubt that innovation in the Social Media and Digital space is moving faster than ever. We’re seeing more and more new concepts, sites, apps and gadgets come out at a much more rapid pace than ever before and I believe the speed of innovation is only going to get faster. Concepts are being formulated, designed, created, and getting funding in a matter of months (GetGlue launching and being acquired by Warner Bros quickly is just one example of this). It would even be fair to say that the speed of innovation is moving quicker at this stage than the speed of business and even consumer adoption in some cases. Social Networks, Location Based Services, Social Entertainment, Social Gaming and Social Shopping sites/apps are being churned out in abundance…where does Market Research stand in the midst of all this and is Market Research truly innovating? read more…

Well, Coremetrics just released the annual report (download summary here) and the findings are not that surprising.

• The surgical shopping trend continued to gain momentum. With product views and the average session length for site visits on the decline, consumers have become much more directed in their online shopping behaviors.
• Department stores have become the research engine of choice for consumers looking for deals and product promotions. As a consequence, shoppers were spending more time year over year on department store sites throughout the holiday season.
• Health and Beauty had a very strong holiday season in terms of sales as well as new visitor traffic. November jumped 90.1 percent and December increased 46.1 percent over 2009 for the number of new consumers completing their first purchase on their sites.
• Luxury goods made a comeback this holiday season with consumers spending more overall and splurging on higher ticket items.
• The growing trend of consumers using their networks on social sites for information about deals and inventory levels continued throughout the holiday season. While the percentage of visitors arriving from social network sites is fairly small relative to all online visitors—nearly 1 percent—it is gaining momentum, with Facebook dominating the space.
• Consumers are continuing to rely more heavily on their mobile devices to find the best deals. While the percent of site traffic increased over the holiday season, the percent of sales from mobile devices increased as well.

What is interesting however, is that average cart size and value rose 8%, while new people buying online improved 3%. What’s more, the average product price was constant.

So what does that mean. It means people weren’t spending more on items (discounting for buyers in storefronts or online is still the primary strategy of today’s retailers), but they were buying more items – and online shopping is still growing (although the rate of growth has diminished).

Maybe the economy is actually improving.

Come back often to read our take on the latest marketing news, discover our voice, and see if it’s one that you want to work with.