While the official Thanksgiving festivities are over, and many are reaching for leftover turkey sandwiches or battling the Black Friday crowds, the spirit of giving thanks has not wholly disappeared. With Giving Tuesday just around the corner, new research from Mintel reveals that a company’s charitable giving affects three-quarters (73%) of Americans’ purchase decisions. Whether […]
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Tuesday, November 27, 2018
Secrets of 13 of the world’s most productive people
You’ve never been busier, and the demands on your time have never been greater. Here’s how some of 2018’s most driven people get the most out of every day, plus insider tips from experts in the field.
1. Janelle Monáe
CEO, Wondaland
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The problem with invisible branding
Average consumers typically have no idea they’re interacting with–or being manipulated by–an algorithm. That’s a branding problem.
Artificial intelligence is the most ubiquitous innovation you never see. It quietly powers automatic translation and closed captioning, automated media manipulation, search results, social media filtering, medical diagnosis, shipping logistics, and targeted advertising. There is likely no aspect of human industry and society that AI will not eventually touch–for better or for worse. Consumers, however, have few ways to understand when and how AI is being used, and to judge for themselves if they see it as a benefit or not. It’s simply not a recognizable element of a brand.
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The (absurdly funny) Consumer Product Safety Commission is winning social
An uncanny ability to turn safety messaging into entertainment is helping one federal agency rise above the fray.
How does one convey the importance of distancing newborns from electronic hazards in a way that captures an audience’s attention?
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Why Luxury Companies Need to Pay Attention to the Newly Wealthy
The year 2018 has been a good one for the luxury market, according to two new studies.
Bain & Company’s Luxury Study says the overall luxury market — encompassing both luxury goods and experiences — grew by 5 percent this year to an estimated $1.37 trillion globally. Meantime, Euromonitor International’s “Strategies to Win the High Net Worth Market” suggests massive growth in wealth in emerging and developing economies, which will have a strong impact on luxury spending over the next several years.
“Last year, we saw the global luxury market return to healthy growth, albeit at a more moderate pace than in the past,” said Bain’s Claudia D’Arpizio, the lead author of the first study. “That trend continues in 2018, reinforcing the ‘new normal’ we predicted, led by flourishing luxury demand from Chinese consumers, the continued rise of online channels, and increasing influence from younger generations of consumers.”
Travel is fueling that growth. In 2018, cruising has been the best performing luxury segment in real terms, with a growth rate of 7 percent. The report suggests that expedition cruising, in particular, is the star of the seas. Meantime, luxury hospitality is up 5 percent, as high-end hotels are “evolving into social venues in-sync with the city” in which they are located.
While the Bain report provides plenty of other statistics on luxury spending, the information it provides on the patterns of the youngest luxury consumers is likely to be of the greatest assistance to travel companies looking to develop post-millennial products.
“It is becoming increasingly more difficult for luxury brands to deny the influence of younger generations. Younger generations are the key drivers of changes in the industry, forcing brands to evolve and innovate. In 2018, Generations Y (the millennials) and Z contributed 100 percent to total luxury market growth, compared with 85 percent in 2017,” D’Arpizio and co-author Federica Levato said.
“Generation Z and millennials will represent approximately 55 percent of the 2025 market and will contribute 130 percent of market growth over the period.”
Members of Generation Z, currently in their teens or early twenties, are already showing traits that vary from their millennial forebears. Bain found the youngest luxury shoppers are more individualist and less brand loyal (even though they love a good logo.) As the generation ages, brands will be forced to evolve and innovate across product offerings, communications channels and media strategies.
“All signs point to significant changes afoot for luxury brands over the next several years,” said D’Arpizio. “They can weather these disruptions by keeping in mind three key strategies: be proactive in developing approaches to serve new customers and address market trends; be distinctive in designing a winning formula; and be next-gen minded. The underpinning of all of these strategies is the emergence of new technologies, which will play a crucial role as a fundamental enabler for brands through 2025.”
Meantime, Euromonitor’s white paper focuses on the global wealth landscape and the spending habits of high net worth individuals (HNWIs). It defines a HNWI as someone with more than five million dollars in assets. Given that definition, the United States accounts for more than half of the world’s HNWIs. France, China, the United Kingdom and Canada round out the top five.
While Euromonitor’s numbers on this front vary considerably from those we have seen in other studies, the consistent reporting is in the growth of the sector, particularly in emerging and developing economies. Within that segment, according to the report, nearly half the growth will come from China.
Even as it expands, the HNWI market is small in relative numbers. However, the report suggests that the brands and businesses that target it strategically can become highly profitable.
It starts with focusing on the newly wealthy. This group “travels regularly and extensively. These behaviors and characteristics of the newly wealthy means they are generally big spenders, willing to try new products and services and are arguably the most important target market for brands and businesses seeking to win over high net worth consumers.”
In order to attract the newly-rich, the report suggests several strategies for marketers. They include offering “money can’t buy” services and experiences; product personalization; and being authentic. Nothing new there, although it is instructive to note that author An Hodgson actually defines authenticity, rather than merely throwing it out as a buzzword.
To the high net worth consumer, “the most authentic brands may not be the biggest or most well-known, but those that are distinctive and special through the authentic way they deliver true luxury.” Hodgson then homes in on specific traits required to be an authentic brand. They include transparency, quality, integrity, consistency, reliability, uniqueness, passion and social responsibility.
Finally, the white paper suggests that embracing the healthy living trend is one key avenue to the heart of big spenders: “More than any other consumer group, high net worth consumers adopt a more holistic view and approach to health and wellness beyond just physical health to include their mental and spiritual well-being.” Businesses that increase their appeal to HNWIs by offering a range of wellness opportunities will be better off for the effort.
Photo Credit: Silversea's Silver Cloud cruise ship. Expedition cruising was one of the big winners of 2018 according to one new luxury study. Bruno Cazarini / Silversea
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Ritz and Virgin Cruise CEOs Think Agents Will Benefit From Brand Clout
Travel agents who partner with Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection and Virgin Voyages, new high-end cruise lines launching their first ships in 2020, will have an opportunity to broaden their client base for cruises, according to the CEOs of both lines.
The executives also say that agents will be an important part of their distribution channels. Ritz-Carlton rolled out a travel trade web portal with commission and incentive booking details earlier this year, while Virgin is in the process of formulating its plans.
First Mates
How the two lines are reaching out to travel agents reflects their particular corporate brands. For Virgin, this includes such characteristically quirky touches as calling its agent partners First Mates (passengers are called Sailors).
“The captain’s right-hand man is the first mate, and we see travel agents as a big part of our success,” said Tom McAlpin, Virgin Voyages CEO.
While no specifics have yet been announced, McAlpin said the line will be introducing a dedicated web portal for travel advisors, firstmates.com, during the next few months.
“We will be competitive with other cruise lines in terms of our commission structure and incentives,” he said. “However, we are looking to do things differently, we’re trying to create something that’s a win-win for everybody.”
Agents will have the option of selling the cruises in tandem with Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Holidays, he added.
“Agents will be able to combine a cruise with a land tour and air service — all packaged up in Virgin style,” McAlpin said.
Part of Virgin’s strategy in working with travel advisors is pinpointing and reaching out to those with clients best suited for its product — a mid-sized, adults-only ship with an innovative approach to design and onboard experiences.
“We’re selling luxury, but it’s luxury in a fun, Virgin kind of way,” McAlpin said. “We want to find agents who have the kind of clientele that likes luxury with a twist. And we have a small sales team, so we can’t be in front of everybody.”
Virgin Voyages recently drew 75 travel advisors to an event in New York City earlier this month previewing its non-traditional approach to shipboard food and beverage, including the absence of a main dining room and all-you-can-eat buffets.
Jennifer Waldron, a travel consultant with Big Sky Travel Source, a storefront agency in Oklahoma City, was among those at the event impressed by the new cruise line.
“Our agency is really excited about Virgin Voyages, especially about the adults-only concept and the fact that they’re going to Cuba,” she said. “Both of these are huge selling points for us.”
Waldron is also impressed that Virgin reached out to her agency, despites its relatively small size.
“They contacted us early on, perhaps because we’re known for our use of social media,” she said. “I think they will be good partners for us.”
Ritz’s Strategy
Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection has outlined its commission structure on its web portal for agents. The site also includes archived webinars and other product information and sales tips.
The Owners Suites for the Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection
Commissions will start at 10 percent for up to $100,000 in gross revenue, rising incrementally to 16 percent for $700,000 or more. Pre- and post-cruise programs are commissionable at five percent, while shore excursions are non-commissionable.
Along with individual cabin sales, Ritz-Carlton is actively encouraging travel advisors to maximize their revenue by selling to groups, including full-ship charters. The three ships in its fleet will have just 149 suites, a size that is conducive for charters, according to CEO Douglas Prothero.
“A single charter would automatically put an agency into our top commission tier,” he said. “Also, the ships will have an air wall system that can reduce the number of suites to 106, creating some that are larger, if the group prefers that.”
In seeking prospective agents, Ritz-Carlton took the unusual step of consulting with members of its hotel loyalty program.
“Prior to going on sale, we went to our own database and asked those guests to give us the names of their travel professionals, so we could get them in the loop,” Prothero said.
The widespread network of its parent company, Marriott International, is proving to be a useful resource for travel agency connections, he added.
“We’re going to events with the broader Marriott sales team, so we end up at events where you don’t normally find cruise lines,” Prothero said. “This is giving us reach beyond the typical cruise agent sources.”
Expanding the Cruise Base
Both Virgin and Ritz say that travel agents will be able to sell their cruise products to clients already familiar with their respective brands, including those who don’t normally take cruises.
“Agents are telling us that they’re getting interest from people who are new to cruising, but intrigued with the idea of a yacht product associated with Ritz-Carlton,” Prothero said. “We’re also encouraging agents to look not just at Ritz-Carlton customers, but to those who like luxury cruising and want to try something new.”
Among those who see this opportunity is Robert Romano of Fugazi Travel, a San Francisco-based agency with a luxury focus.
“The size of the Ritz-Carlton yachts and the fact that the staterooms are designed more like hotel rooms will appeal to our style of client,” he said. “They don’t like big ships or big hotels. I also anticipate interest from people who don’t normally take cruises. They might see this as kind of boutique hotel that moves around.”
McAlpin is also confident that agents will be able to sell Virgin Voyages to their non-cruise clientele.
“Some people who won’t go on a cruise will be willing to try us,” he said. “Agents who understand the type of client who would take a Virgin cruise will be able to sell it.”
Waldron agrees, emphasizing that it will be important to qualify the client.
“We like the edgy nature of Virgin, but it’s for a certain demographic and not for everyone,” she said. “It’s not necessarily related to age, but to whether or not they like to try new things.”
Photo Credit: This rendering depicts a side view of Scarlet Lady, a Virgin Voyages ship. Virgin Voyages
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Target the New Rich or Be Left Behind
The Skift New Luxury newsletter is our weekly newsletter focused on the business of selling luxury travel, the people and companies creating and selling experiences, emerging trends, and the changing consumer habits around the sector.
Despite plenty of challenges, it seems 2018 was a broadly good year for the global luxury travel industry, at least according to a couple of recent studies.
The quest for new markets both on geographic and generational levels continues to be a focus for many travel companies, and this is likely to spill over into 2019.
The question is, will the industry be able to focus on these opportunities if things start to get a little dicey?
It’s all very well going after Generation Z or Chinese travelers when the going is good and companies can afford to take risks, but what about in a downturn?
When times start to get tough, the better businesses out there find new ways to innovate.
For feedback or news tips, reach out via email at pw@skift.com or tweet me @paddywhyte.
— Patrick Whyte, Europe Editor
6 Looks at Luxury
Why Luxury Companies Need to Pay Attention to the Newly Wealthy: Just as a gold digger goes after an older mate with deep pockets, so the luxury market has traditionally kept a focus on the mature top 5 percent. But as the world of wealth evolves, companies need to broaden their horizons to consider the new and younger groups that are becoming eligible for elite status.
Onefinestay CEO Departs to Lead Serviced Apartment Brand Sweet Inn: We know what you’re all thinking: Can Onefinestay be saved? Was AccorHotels’ decision to buy a private rental business the right move? Or should it have partnered with one instead?
Luxury Agents Try to Combine High-Level Service With Street-Level Experiences: Luxury travel advisors are experts at planning a five-star vacation for their clients, but agents are more frequently being asked to add a more local element to their plans. A lot of behind-the-scenes work goes into making sure these experiences go off without a hitch.
Argentina’s Currency Crisis Creates Affordable Luxury for Visitors: Argentina’s currency crisis might be good news for international bargain-seeking visitors, but Argentine citizens are seeing their own trips grow too expensive.
Airport VIP Services Cater to the Rich and Famous: When the next recession hits — and it will come at some point — how many of these businesses will make it? We’re guessing a lot of VIP travelers will decide they don’t mind airport lines, after all.
Luxury Hotels in China Pledge to Clean Up Their Acts After Social Media Outcry: Hidden-camera videos of housekeepers acting badly at Chinese luxury hotels pop up from time to time. But a new video that’s gone viral on social media shows workers using the same sponges to clean cups and sinks. Brands need to take more active precautions.
Photo Credit: Massage treatment at Lake Austin Spa Resort. Wellness is increasingly a feature of luxury tourism. Lake Austin Spa Resort
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Japan’s Art Tourism and 13 Other Tourism Trends This Week
Throughout the week we post dozens of original stories, connecting the dots across the travel industry, and every weekend we sum it all up. This weekend roundup examines tourism trends.
For all of our weekend roundups, go here.
>>Ever since Naoshima, Japan, became home to a number of contemporary art museums, sculptures, and installations, the island’s identity as an “art island” has become intertwined with its history and culture. Naoshima now represents a way for other destinations to think about how tourism, and art tourism specifically, can be used to revitalize communities while preserving tradition and demonstrating respect to heritage: Japan’s Naoshima Island: A Portrait of Possibility for Art Tourism
>>After some confusion on visitor counts over a data glitch at airport kiosks across the country, international arrivals in the United States are on track to break a record in 2018. We’ll see if long-term growth ends up being as robust as the federal government is touting: International Visitors to U.S. This Year Expected to Break Record After Data Glitch Fix
>>Rail travel is a complex beast and something the tourism industry has yet to fully embrace, but things are starting to change: What European Rail Companies Need to Do to Boost Growth From Tourism
>>Tour operators only launch tours that they see demand for, and in Intrepid Travel’s case, there’s no question that vegan travelers appreciate the attention and effort to design food tours that are just as delicious as any other: Vegans Find New Options as Part of Next Wave of Food Tourism
>>Justyna Smith built up a modest Instagram following, and she’s used that, plus word of mouth, to run a four-woman luxury travel agency that’s making money. Many businesses decide to market wherever the customers are; in Smith’s case, the customers came to her and the business followed: Instagrammer Turned Her Following Into a Luxury Travel Advisor Business
>>As they ramp up their outreach to travel advisors, Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection and Virgin Voyages are both presenting themselves as new and different options for luxury clients. They say this means agents will be able to sell cruises to those who don’t normally cruise, but who are intrigued by the brands: Ritz and Virgin Cruise CEOs Think Agents Will Benefit From Brand Clout
>>Will Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection and Virgin Voyages, two high-end and newbie cruise lines, be able to attract passengers who have never chosen a cruise vacation? The two brands are counting on it: Travel Advisor Innovation Report: Virgin and Ritz Cruise Lines Have Brand Loyalty Hopes
>>Just as a gold digger goes after an older mate with deep pockets, so the luxury market has traditionally kept a focus on the mature top 5 percent. But as the world of wealth evolves, companies need to broaden their horizons to consider the new and younger groups that are becoming eligible for elite status: Why Luxury Companies Need to Pay Attention to the Newly Wealthy
>>High-end travel companies need to find a way of targeting the newly wealthy, or they risk being left behind: Target the New Rich or Be Left Behind
>>Grab’s partnership with Indonesia’s tourism ministry, the first of its kind between a national tourism body and a ridehailing platform, reveals one of the initial ways it is trying to become Southeast Asia’s super app for a plethora of travel services: Grab’s Tie-Up With Indonesia Tourism Gives a Glimpse of Ambitions Beyond Ridehailing
>>Traditional conference cities are still the default choice for events organizers, but rising costs and strained capacity are making secondary cities more appealing. And some are working hard to show their unique benefits: Event Planners Look Outside Major Cities for Savings and Variety
>>Attendees are tired of conferences in the same old locations, and it just so happens that secondary cities are more affordable for planners. Expect to see increased diversity in event location in the years ahead: Why Event Planners Have Warmed to Secondary Cities
>>Simply put, these are best deals we’ve ever offered. Act quickly and you’ll save the big bucks: Limited Time Only: The Best Deals Ever on Skift Forums and Research
>>Brace yourselves, Black Friday is coming. This year we’re giving you a head start on the frenzy by opening a few of our deals early: Sneak Peek: Weekend Deals on Forums and Research
Photo Credit: Yayoi Kusama’s "Red Pumpkin" is now part of the environment of Naoshima; a greeting upon arrival in Miyanoura. Skift
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What Online Shoppers Want--and How You Can Provide It [Infographic]
Between personalization, recommendations, loyalty programs, and more, the question remains: What do consumers really want in an online experience?
Yieldify, a customer journey optimization company, went back to the basics to find out. It asked over 1,000 online shoppers what they want and then created an infographic with some of the highlights, including...
- Nearly two-thirds of consumers expect brands to have up-to-date information about their shopping preferences.
- Yet 59% of consumers are not comfortable with behavior tracking.
- However, Generation Z is 30% more comfortable with tracking than other generations.
- One in five women and one in four baby boomers said an email from a brand is what drove them to their most recent purchase.
- The best way to get customers to purchase on-site is to help them feel they are getting the best price.
So what do customers really want—and, more important, is that what you are giving them? Check out the infographic to see.
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Blog and Social Media Use by Fortune 500 Companies in 2018
Most Fortune 500 companies now have corporate blogs, according to recent research conducted by Nora Ganim Barnes, Allison Kane, and Kylie Maloney at The Center for Marketing Research, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. Read the full article at MarketingProfs
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New and Exciting Ways Brands Are Using AI on Social Media
Artificial intelligence (AI) may not take down the human race like it does in the movies, but it is primed to change the world as we know it. The true impact of AI has yet to be felt, but it's no longer just movie magic... it's reality.
There are real implications and benefits to its use, and marketing will be one of the many disciplines affected the most: 47% of companies agree that those who don't invest in AI are at risk of being pushed out by competitors, according to Forbes Insights.
For Marketing, this evolving technology will open doors for automating processes and delivering more personalized experiences across platforms—including ones we haven't even dreamed of yet.
Fully 60% of enterprise marketers said they plan to use AI in their content marketing this year, and 32% said marketing technologies must integrate AI into their workflow, according to a recent report from martech company BrightEdge. They voiced that AI would help them gain a better understanding of their customers, increase productivity and save time, and create better performing content.
Though we've yet to see the full capabilities of AI—and many marketers are still adjusting to the learning curve—some brands are already using this powerful tool to engage their audiences on social media and so gain an edge on the competition.
Here's how.
Placing Personalized Social Feeds on Their Websites
Some brands are using AI to bridge the gap between social engagement and e-commerce. Cosmetics brand ColourPop, for example, wanted to drive its 5 million Instagram followers to its product and checkout pages, where they can then make a purchase. It set up an algorithm-based feed of social posts customized for each Instagram user right on its mobile site.
"The biggest thing about mobile shopping right now is if you don't know what you're looking for, discovering that is really difficult," said Nate Dierks, ColourPop's director of technology. "This has given me a lot of thought about the purpose of the mobile website: It needs to be just a stripped-down discovery page that shows you what other people are looking at, what's popular, what's about to sell out, and what you should know about this brand."
By placing personalized social posts on its website, ColourPop is able to build an intuitive and comprehensive customer experience, making the research and buying process more seamless for social audiences.
Finding Social Influencers Among Their Audiences
Almost 90% of marketers say influencer marketing can positively impact how consumers feel about a brand, and 70% say they think influencer marketing budgets will increase in 2018, according to eMarketer, yet over 70% of those marketers say finding the right influencers for their campaigns is still a challenge.
That's where AI can help. Brands can use AI to scan their social audiences for influencers who are leading the conversation and creating high-quality content. Kia, for instance, used AI to find influencers for its Super Bowl campaign. The car brand was able to tap 100 social stars to help share Kia's message during the game.
By automating this process, Kia didn't have to waste time manually scouring social conversations for valuable players. Kia quickly found the best influencers for its brand and audience, and it launched a multiplatform social campaign for one of the biggest social events of the year.
Deploying Social Image Recognition
AI software can now recognize people and objects in images with over 99% accuracy. This technology can be extremely valuable in marketers' hands. It can be used to gauge customers' in-store visits and social engagements, and match those activities to create a comprehensive customer profile. Marketers can then deliver more personalized experiences—such as discounts and welcome messages—once customers enter their stories.
Millions of users are on visual platforms like Snapchat and Instagram—and they are sharing billions of posts each day. It can be tough to comb through that content and identify potential buyers. For example, people may post pictures of your products but not include your brand or product name in the caption. If you're tracking only keywords, you may never see such posts—and miss out on identifying and understanding interested customers.
With AI-based image recognition, brands can expand their social listening beyond just text, and they can access valuable data to better understand their audiences.
AI and Social Media Join Forces
AI may seem intimidating and enigmatic, but for marketers it really points to one major opportunity: data. AI-powered tools can save time and resources by automating processes and surfacing more data for your brand.
Marketers can then use that data to accomplish a range of goals, such as finding influencers, delivering more personalized experiences, and closing the loop between social engagements and online or in-store conversions, ultimately driving business.
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The new world of marketing
Machine learning is reinventing marketing — and a growing number of marketers know it. According to recent research from the IBM Institute for Business Value, 91 percent of marketers at companies that outperform their competitors believe artificial intelligence is important to the future of their organizations.
At the same time, only about a quarter of them use it today. Industry analysts report AI empowers businesses to mine and interpret valuable data and make stronger connections with their customers. Yet most still aren’t applying AI to their marketing strategies.
Today’s consumers expect a lot from digital experiences. They want marketing content that’s useful and relevant to their lives. In an age when deep learning has become so advanced that it’s uncovering multi-faceted customer behavior and helping brands forge lasting relationships, the time to leverage AI is now.
And the place to start is with IBM’s leading AI platform for marketers, Watson Marketing.
How well do you know your customers? With so much data sourced from online behavior, social media activity, and browsing patterns, delivering messages that matter to them should be easy. But consumers are complex. To provide a totally relevant marketing experience across channels, you need to extract the deep, evolving insights from behavior as it’s happening, something that only AI can do.
ING DIRECT Australia took this approach to create the “bank of the future” for its customers. Using Watson Marketing, ING interpreted users’ actions to help identify customer preferences, build loyalty, and boost trust. AI’s diverse capabilities enabled the company to filter data based on more than 100 contextual triggers daily, and deploy relevant messages to 1 million prospective customers a month.
Without the holistic view that AI can provide, it’s impossible to get the whole story about your customers’ behavior. You could wind up delivering the wrong message and compromising that vital loyalty and trust. But AI can help you positively influence the customer journey to get the conversions you need.
As digital technology has grown more sophisticated, the task of managing critical customer data has become overwhelming. There’s so much data to process and assess that humans simply can’t do it alone. If you want to succeed in today’s ever-changing, omnichannel environment, there’s no question about it: you’ve got to connect data from multiple sources. And doing that is easier than you think.
Watson Marketing can be used to automate even the most labor-intensive activities, bearing the brunt of routine tasks like data collection so marketers are free to focus their energies on higher value work like strategy and creativity. Because AI built into a variety of products, all you have to do is add your data to Watson Marketing, and you’re on your way.
“When tedious marketing tasks are automated at scale, and data-driven customer insights are readily available, marketers have more time and energy to innovate,” says Mark Simpson, VP of offering management at IBM Watson Marketing. “In essence AI is like another member of the marketing team, able to lend knowledge and expertise to unburden marketers of time-consuming, repetitive tasks while helping to support, augment, and amplify their campaigns.”
Atlanta’s Georgia Aquarium uses Watson Marketing Insights to fill the gaps left by having siloed data sources. As a result its email newsletters produced a 32 percent lift in revenue and double the traffic to its website. ”
As a nonprofit, we are always looking to do as much as we can with as little as possible,” says Andrew Carlson, manager of digital marketing with Georgia Aquarium. “So we looked to AI to help us expand our team without adding headcount to be able to see what insights we can get out of it and provide a better, more personalized experience to our customers and guests.”
Delighting customers when they interact with your brand is no longer a perk, but a core component of successful marketing experiences. One of the best ways to satisfy this criteria is with personalized messaging. “We’re constantly engaging our users with content and information that they’re unable to see anywhere else, so we can give them up-to-the-minute insights, summaries, and even triggers to act in a certain way,” Carlson says.
Customer interactions with brands should feel seamless and rewarding, and tailoring content to their interests meets these requirements while also improving ROI. Yoox Net-a-Porter Group, for example, uses Watson Marketing to maximize its data and analytics and determine exactly what its international audience of shoppers wants.
Offering a personalized commerce experience with AI allows the luxury fashion retailer to build a “one-to-one relationship” with its customers by providing more relevant promotions. Combining customer data with external data like social, research, and even the weather — which can influence fashion purchasing decisions — lets Yoox Net-a-Porter create that personalized experience consumers increasingly expect.
The marketing world is changing. Consumers are complex, and so is their data. With an AI-powered marketing platform, you can blend analytics with creativity to help transform both the customer experience and the way your team works.
If you want to reach your customers now and in the future, the answer is simple: Work smarter with the help of AI.
Find out more about how Watson Marketing can uncover insights to help you better understand your customers.
Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.
About The Author
IBM
Watson Marketingprovides cognitive recommendations designed to help marketers understand and anticipate customer behaviors. Uncover actionable insights and deliver personalized experiences that customers want and value. Build relationships that drive engagement seamlessly across all channels. Make every touchpoint an opportunity to engage customers as individuals. Insider Studios is the branded content studio for Insider Inc., the parent company of INSIDER and Business Insider.
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8 best online reputation management tools for your brand
If your brand has an online presence at all, you can’t not worry about its reputation. Today, online reputation management (or ORM for short) is not only applicable to every business; ignoring it can cost you customers and money. Here’re just some of the reasons why ORM should be an integral part of your strategy:
- Consumers increasingly rely on online research when considering a purchase. 88 percent of buyers research products online before making a purchase (online or in-store); and 86 percent will hesitate to purchase from a business that has negative reviews.
- Leaving brand reputation to chance can lead to a crisis. Monitoring your reputation and reacting promptly will help you avoid crises and full-on disasters, and prevent negative news about your business from spreading.
- Your brand’s online reputation can affect your site’s rankings. It’s official: Google uses an algorithmic solution designed to de-rank sites that offer poor customer experience.
- Monitoring your online reputation will give you valuable customer insights: what people love about your product, what they wish they could change, and what they feel is missing.
Now that we’re clear on the benefits of ORM, let’s see which tools can help you facilitate and automate the process.
1. Awario
Monitor what people are saying about your brand across social media and the web, and spot trends with Sentiment Analysis and powerful analytics.
Awario is a social listening tool that makes reputation management easy. The platform will track your brand’s mentions across the major social networks and the web in real-time and let you respond to them right from the app.
To help you spot mentions that require your immediate attention, the tool offers Sentiment Analysis. The Sentiment graph in the dashboard shows you the share of positive and negative mentions of your business, letting you locate spikes you need to address.
On top of that, the tool helps you spot copyright infringements and find people stealing your content. To get started, just create an alert with an extract of your copy in quotes to make the app search for an exact match.
But the real power is in Awario’s competitor analysis capabilities. If you create monitoring alerts for your competition, you’ll be able to listen in on what their customers are happy or unhappy about, and learn from your rivals’ mistakes. Furthermore, you can compare mentions of your brand (in volume, sentiment, reach, and a number of other factors) to competitors’ and see where you’re winning and where you’re lagging behind.
Pricing: Awario offers 3 plans: Starter for individuals ($29/mo), Pro for SMBs ($89/mo), and Enterprise for agencies and big brands ($299/mo). If you go with an annual plan, you’ll get 2 months for free. To try Awario before you settle on a paid plan, sign up for a free trial.
2. Reputology
Monitor and manage online reviews of your local business in real-time.
Reputology helps local businesses track their online reviews. Apart from the common review platforms like Google and Facebook Reviews, Reputology monitors industry-specific review sites, be it real estate, hospitality, or healthcare. Of course, you can also respond to these reviews from the app.
Reputology works particularly well for multi-location businesses that want to keep reviews of each of their locations in one place: it lets you drill down on why certain locations are not doing as well as others, and measure your brand’s overall reputation across locations.
The best bit is, the tool integrates with Hootsuite. The integration lets you monitor and manage your reviews in the same dashboard where you keep your social media accounts – super handy if SMM and review management are both done by the same team in your company.
Pricing: Reputology charges from $10 to $49/mo for every location. You can sign up for a free trial before you settle on a plan.
3. GoFish Digital Complaint Search
Search over 40 complaint websites for negative reviews of your business.
GoFish Digital’s Google-powered complaint search is a handy way to check on your brand’s health. It lets you perform searches on over 40 websites to see if anyone’s filed a complaint against your business (remember, these reviews might potentially start ranking in Google for your brand name!).
From there, you can see which reviews are the most popular, see your brand’s ratings, and respond to complaints on most websites the platform monitors. On some of the sites, you’ll be able to flag or remove reviews if they don’t reflect the reality.
Pricing: Free.
4. SEO SpyGlass
Monitor your backlink profile and prevent spammy, low-quality links from ruining your rankings.
SEO SpyGlass is different from the other tools on this list. While it’s not specifically designed to track a brand’s overall reputation, it helps you monitor and manage the biggest factor of your reputation when it comes to SEO: backlinks. With a whole new backlink index, recently launched in beta (the public release is happening any day now), the tool claims to have the most up-to-date link index on the market.
What’s particularly handy isn’t the data itself though – it’s the analysis the app is capable of. It lets you analyze the authority of each of your links (aka InLink Rank) and measure the Penalty Risk of your backlinks to prevent potential search engine penalties (both algorithmic and manual).
On top of that, the tool offers a Domain Comparison module that lets you compare your link profile to competitors’ to see which aspects of off-page SEO you’re rocking, and which ones you need to work on to catch up.
Pricing: Paid plans start at $124.75 per license. There’s a free version available with a limited number of backlinks to analyze.
5. Grade.us
Real-time social media monitoring with data-rich, customizable reports.
Grade.us is a tool that lets you win more positive reviews from happy customers by automating multi-channel review acquisition campaigns via email or text messages. The tool also monitors new reviews about your business, with a way to respond to them from the app.
For agencies, Grade.us offers white-label reports that reveal trends in the volume of your reviews and let you measure the ROI of your ORM efforts.
Pricing: Grade.us offers 3 plans: Professional ($90/mo), Agency ($200/mo), and Enterprise ($1500/mo). There’s a free trial available if you’d like to test the tool before you commit to a paid plan.
6. Brandwatch
Perform in-depth brand reputation analysis and create powerful, data-rich reports.
Brandwatch is a powerful social listening and analytics tool. With Enterprise-level features like image recognition, trending topics and API access, it is also one of the more costly ones.
The tool offers demographic analysis of the people who’re talking about your brand, including gender, interests, occupation, and location. The platform’s social media coverage includes Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and local social media sites like Sina Weibo, VK, and QQ.
For those of you who’re ready to invest into a data visualization platform, Brandwatch has a handy tool called Vizia. Vizia lets you visualize your Brandwatch data and combine it with insights from Google Analytics, Buzzsumo, and Hootsuite for a holistic analysis.
Pricing: Brandwatch is an Enterprise-level tool. Prices start at $800/month, with custom Enterprise plans available on request. The tool doesn’t offer a free trial.
7. ReviewTrackers
Keep track of online reviews and encourage happy customers to review your business.
ReviewTrackers does exactly what the name implies – it monitors online reviews of your business across 100+ sites. You can set up email alerts to get notified about important reviews, and build powerful custom reports tailored to your needs. On top of that, ReviewTrackers aggregates your customers’ feedback and shows which aspects of your business customers tend to mention the most.
The platform also offers a mobile app to let you track and respond to reviews on the go.
Pricing: ReviewTrackers’ Professional plan is offered at $49/mo; Enterprise costs $59/mo. The tool has an Agency plan too, with pricing available on request.
8. IFTTT
Set up automated alerts when your brand gets mentioned online.
IFTTT can help you with a million things, and keeping track of your online reputation is one of them. The service lets you create simple, automated tasks that all follow the “if this then that” pattern. You get to decide what this and that stand for.
For reputation management, the service offers a number of helpful integrations. You can track brand mentions on Reddit, receive email alerts or Slack notifications when your company gets mentioned on specific websites, and automatically thank Twitter users for sharing your content.
The tool is also available as a mobile app for both iOS and Android devices.
Pricing: Free.
Take Charge
The 8 tools above will help you take charge of your brand’s online reputation. Whichever platform you settle on, don’t expect them to do all the work for you: check on your monitoring dashboard to spot unusual spikes and respond to reviews (good or bad) promptly. And while dealing with negative reviews is an art of its own, remember that speed and a little humility can go a long way :)
About The Author
Every day, the web is talking about your business. Most brands have limited insights into these conversations: only through their own social media feeds. To truly understand their customers, companies need access not only to their social media mentions, but to those from the rest of the web as well. Awario crawls over 13 billion web pages daily to bring instant mentions from everywhere online. Companies can now find all the important conversations, related to them, and join in. For more information and a free 14-day trial visit
awario.com.
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With so many choices, which SEO tool is right for you?
Compiled from the latest research, this 55-page report is your source for the latest trends, opportunities and challenges facing the market for SEO software tools as seen by industry leaders, vendors and their customers. In this report you will learn:
- Who the leading players are in enterprise SEO platforms.
- What you should look for in an SEO solution.
- What trends are driving the adoption of SEO platforms.
- What capabilities enterprise SEO platforms provide.
Also included in the report are profiles of 17 leading enterprise SEO platforms vendors. Visit Digital Marketing Depot to download “Enterprise SEO Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide.”
Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.
About The Author
Digital Marketing Depot
is a resource center for digital marketing strategies and tactics. We feature hosted white papers and E-Books, original research, and webcasts on digital marketing topics -- from advertising to analytics, SEO and PPC campaign management tools to social media management software, e-commerce to e-mail marketing, and much more about internet marketing. Digital Marketing Depot is a division of Third Door Media, publisher of Search Engine Land and Marketing Land, and producer of the conference series Search Marketing Expo and MarTech. Visit us at
http://digitalmarketingdepot.com.
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Social listening isn’t enough: Why brands need social understanding
By Sharb Farjami, CEO, Storyful
The social media analytics market is set to exceed $9 billion in four years, but are quantitative approaches enough to make sense of the modern social landscape?
The social media landscape is rich with consumer insights and equally rife with disinformation. The absence of meaningful content moderation and the complex interplay of ideas and platforms makes it more difficult than ever to protect your brand online by using quantitative tools.
Current approaches to social media analysis round up neat trendlines and sentiment scores, but data points alone fail to contextualize and explain the complex and sometimes harmful conversations unfolding. To best protect themselves and grow their businesses, brands need to go deeper than mere social listening, and strive to achieve social understanding.
Social understanding is a deeper, more informed analysis of how social conversations are intentionally or unintentionally connected to behaviors, perceptions and motivations online and offline. It’s the ability to map how conversations develop and flow through the entire media landscape, from fringe networks to mainstream social platforms and, eventually, to the front page of the morning newspaper.
For this kind of understanding to be achieved in today’s volatile social climate, a combination of technology and human reasoning is needed. Without human analysis, technology and dashboards cannot adequately reveal which factors, individuals and special-interest groups are driving social conversations around your brand; nor can they provide a sophisticated understanding of the impact of these conversations.
Mainstream platforms don’t tell the full story
The days of only combing through Twitter and Facebook mentions are over. Well-known social media listening tools might alert you to conversation spikes, but they’re blind to fringe platforms where misinformation and harmful hoaxes typically begin.
Connecting conversations across platforms and networks, and looking at all the players involved in those conversations, is vital to understanding the motivations and perceptions fueling the behaviors that impact businesses. Fake stories often start on lesser-known fringe sites before migrating to Twitter and Facebook — and if you’re addressing reputational threats when they’ve hit the mainstream, you’re too late. By the time an unsubstantiated claim about your chief executive is trending on Twitter, your stock price is taking a hit and your communications team is scrambling to curb the crisis.
Reputational threats to a brand narrative or a board have serious implications for earning potential. Recent research from Accenture and Arabesque Asset Management found that more than half of 7,000 companies analyzed missed out on a combined $180 billion in revenue due to material reputational damage, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The argument for qualitative analysis
Business decisions and strategies should stem from a richer understanding of the needs, issues and events that drive consumers to take to social media. Beyond surveying the fringes, a qualitative assessment of emotions, attitudes, behaviors and cultural phenomena manifested in social media conversations enables brands to adjust in real-time.
Gathering these insights requires a cross-section of skills and talents including integrated marketing talent, investigative journalists, crisis practitioners and preparedness trainers, media intelligence experts, global industry experts, statisticians and more. A multifaceted human perspective provides context to the conversations unfolding on social media. Experienced investigative analysts can help make sense of the rants, hoaxes and conspiracies gaining velocity in dark corners of the digital web.
Consider some of the biggest brand controversies of the past couple of years. In June 2017, a death hoax about Ethereum CEO Vitalik Buterin wiped $4 billion off the cryptocurrency’s valuation. The death hoax emerged from none other than the notorious fringe network 4chan. More recently, Starbucks was under attack on mainstream media after smear campaigns orchestrated in the fringes implicated the company in several race-related controversies. These disinformation attacks set the company into crisis response mode. Had Ethereum and Starbucks known of the threats gaining momentum beneath the surface, they could have gotten ahead of their brand narratives before false information spread like wildfire.
Dashboard tools and superficial modes of analysis may allow you to organize information, but will never give you the insights vital to understanding your place in market, the evolution of your customers’ perceptions and needs, and the flow of mis- and disinformation around your brand.
With billions of dollars on the line, are you arming your brand with the right solutions to face the inevitable threat of digital disinformation?
The post Social listening isn’t enough: Why brands need social understanding appeared first on Digiday.
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How media companies are courting direct-to-consumer brands
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How Brands Can Avoid Culturally Flammable Ideas
Flammable ideas. They are everywhere these days. We see brands struggle with the portrayal of diversity and what it looks like, or representing physical handicaps in a way that is trustworthy and socially relevant. We see a greater complexity of gender and identity sprouting in our society today, as everyone wants their voice to be heard and accounted for. This new situation calls for brands to address and understand how to accurately represent diverse groups of people in their advertising campaigns and marketing collateral.
Perhaps, in no other time throughout the human history has been the task of correctly representing and portraying the state of our social reality more difficult than it is today. As culture evolves rapidly, so do our expectations of brands to accurately mirror the evolution of our society. The lack of doing so results in cultural distortion, gender and racial stereotyping, which helps no one. To the contrary, it perpetuates the problem as the flattened, stereotyped or otherwise distorted ideas of who we are, what we look like and how we think and talk result in our further alienation from one another in society.
Marketing and advertising has a lot of power over cultivating and engineering our cultural consciousness, but with that power comes a great responsibility. In the past, advertising used to entertain a faulty idea that it was not to be held accountable for the kinds of words and images they put out in the world because they just sell stuff. Today, we know better. There must be a greater social responsibility for anything that shapes content, images and ideas in our minds, gives us a representation of the reality to consume, dreams to desire and aspire to and uses our minds as canvases to project corporate interests.
Catch Up, Or Go Down: The New Lack Of Tolerance In The Digital World
Brands now more than ever before need to catch up with the evolution of society, or they risk being irrelevant. Simply, if brands fail to shift with the flow of Culture and optimize/transform the meanings they embody, represent and send to the world, their advertising will not be relevant. And as relevance is innately tied to brand value, they have a lot to lose. Brands are all about meaning as meaning is what constitutes their long-term value and equity.
Surprisingly, brand owners and marketers are not entirely to blame for the brand gaffes and social lapses the brands they manage often make. In this new era of cultural and digital complexity, it’s especially easy for brands to fall into these traps or step on the landmines that were buried deep in our shared cultural consciousness a long time ago. Unfortunately for brands that stumble, social media brings an instantaneous effect, in this case, almost exclusively a negative one.
Earlier this year, we saw a perfect example of what a culturally flammable idea can do in the case of H&M and their critically flawed product photo shoot. Such racially and contextually insensitive representations of people can be very harmful to the brand’s image and negatively affect brand vale and equity.
The image featuring a black boy in a ‘coolest monkey in the jungle’ hoodie caused an international uproar. In South Africa, the ad resulted in massive protests in Johannesburg and Cape Town where people were trashing their stores. The backlash against the brand was so big that H&M had to temporarily close down its stores in South Africa to avoid further damage. Some protesters even demanded H&M to close permanently in South Africa, even though the chain had just opened there in 2015. This clearly shows how something as intangible and unintentional as a “cultural trespass” can have real, tangible and intentional business consequences.
One unskilled maneuver like this can easily trigger decades and even centuries old pain points, repressed grieves and unhealed historical wounds, recall past traumas, racial injustices and other painful memories. This is what happens when you push the buttons of Culture. History sleeps, but it can be easily awakened when provoked. Time isn’t linear – the past, present and future all coexist and continue to move along as we do. They are carried in people’s minds throughout their lives. The past contains a reference to our actions and creates a reservoir of memories that we compare our dreams, wishes and behaviors to. The separation of time is an illusion when it comes to Culture – your past, present and future all exist at once and are being transmitted through the codes and values your brand chooses to communicate and through the meanings it embodies, whether intentionally or unintentionally.
This is the reason why brands should avoid depicting problematic, challenging or otherwise perplexing cultural concepts that might be difficult to navigate, unless they have a strong foundation, an in-depth understanding of cultural evolution and a stellar point of view. For less fortunate brands with weaker positions, these lapses can be prevented with an informed cultural strategy.
Preventing Future Disasters: How To Assess The Cultural Dimension
A particularly good way to avoid any hidden cultural traps is to consult your strategy with a semiotician, cultural strategist or an anthropologist prior to creating the campaign or at least doing a pretest before the campaign goes live. A skilled semiotician will be able to help you navigate these potentially hazardous cultural spaces, explain why they might trigger meanings and connotations you don’t want your brand to be associated with or steer clear of some topics altogether. That’s either because these topics are not relevant to your brand, and therefore wouldn’t be trustworthy for you to tap into, or it’s because they could harm your brand image and the long-term equity. In either one of those two cases, you most definitely need to know this beforehand.
Preventing the damage is always more effective and less costly in the long run than blindly following a campaign strategy without a proper cultural contextualization. It’s easy to fall prey to your own lack of understanding of how the meanings that your idea elicits might then play out in the larger scheme of culture – the very same culture that your brand value is vitally tied to.
The first thing you need to do when trying to understand whether the brand story or a creative idea is potentially flammable or not, is to assess the scope of the situation properly. You need to understand the cultural context in which your brand lives and operates. You need to understand what the brand is saying and how this meaning lives in the world when it meets the residual (past), dominant (present) or emergent (future) codes of culture, which are all evenly distributed throughout the marketing and cultural landscape.
Many brands and their advertising agencies make the mistake that they come up with creative ideas first and then hope these ideas won’t clash with the context of culture later, whereas the right approach is the other way around. First explore the context of culture and then create ideas. Those ideas will then be rooted and anchored in culture, which will in return make them both relevant and valuable. Good ideas without context are good only in theory. It’s because we don’t live in a vacuum. In a vacuum, such a campaign might be very successful but once the strategy meets the real world, there are many different ways in which the cultural context and the brand can clash that neither the agency nor the client has necessarily the power to foresee.
This is when you call the semioticians, cultural strategists and anthropologists who will help you better navigate the fabric of meaning in the world today and determine whether the idea is relevant (e.g. depicting the mood of the now in a culturally relevant way that builds long-term brand value), irrelevant (e.g. outdated, vague, ambivalent or untrustworthy), or potentially flammable (e.g. culturally or racially insensitive, insulting or downright damaging).
If not careful, flammable ideas can quickly hijack, jeopardize and further deteriorate your brand marketing activities and decrease brand value. To communicate meaningfully and tell stories that are both brand and culturally relevant, we need to properly understand where our audiences are coming from, what representations of reality they carry in their minds and what meanings they might be sensitive to. This will give you an idea what is and isn’t a good idea.
If You Take Away Only One Lesson, It Should Be This One:
“No brand can ever say a thing outside of the cultural context in which the business is embedded.”
The context is always implicit to the environment in which your brand lives. It will always retroactively influence the brand, whether we like it or not. Even if you can’t see it or aren’t consciously aware of it, it is there and juxtaposes its own meaning on everything your brand says or does.
There is no way to tell a story outside of the context of culture. That is the nature of Culture; it’s omnipresent. We might not see it, we might not be aware of it, but we cannot ignore it. There is no way to break out of Culture. We are impacted by it, no matter what we choose our brand to say.
Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Dr. Martina Olbertova, founder and chief executive at Meaning.Global.
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40 Shocking Holiday Shopping Stats You’ll Have to See to Believe
Software company Adobe projects American consumers will spend $5.9 billion online during the upcoming retail bonanza that is Black Friday, which is up from $5 billion last year. Similarly, it estimates retailers will sell another $7.8 billion online for Cyber Monday 2018, which is up from $6.6 billion in 2017. (Although that’s still far less than the $30.8 billion ecommerce platform Alibaba made in 24 hours just a few days ago.)
Overall, the five-day Thanksgiving weekend is expected to net $23.4 billion in online sales, per Adobe’s figures.
Trade body the National Retail Federation (NRF) says this will come from an estimated 164 million shoppers. Black Friday will be busiest with 116 million, followed by 75 million shoppers on Cyber Monday.
Because it is such a lucrative time of year, consumer behavior is certainly under the microscope.
Take personal finance website WalletHub, for example, which found those looking for the steepest discounts should head to department store Belk, followed by JCPenney, Stage, Kohl’s, New York & Company, Payless ShoeSource, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Macy’s, Fred Meyer and Shopko.
WalletHub also found the product with the biggest discount is—drumroll—the Lifetime Storage Shed at a cool $1001 off.
Cash back app Dosh found moms are the bloodhounds of holiday deals, with 25 percent willing to stay up all night for extra cash back on purchases and more than 20 percent willing to kick a friend or family member out of her shopping group for additional savings.
And, finally, ecommerce personalization platform Monetate found the Dakotas—which are virtually forgotten in every other respect except as a destination specifically so visitors can brag about having visited all 50 states—top the list of both highest conversion rate during Cyber Week 2017 and most revenue per shopping sessions.
Here are 40 additional eye-popping Cyber Week stats:
- Of those shopping this year, 65 percent said they are doing so to take advantage of deals and promotions retailers will offer. (NRF)
- 78 percent of shoppers plan to shop during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend. (RetailMeNot)
- The top three places where consumers will be looking for gifts are: department stores (67 percent), online-only retailers (60 percent) and big-box stores (47 percent). (RetailMeNot)
- Consumers want to shop online to avoid crowds (63 percent), get online coupons (55 percent) and deal with less stress (54 percent). (RetailMeNot)
- 40 percent of consumers plan to do most of their holiday shopping via Amazon and other large online retailers. (Splitit)
- 93 percent of millennials will search for deals this holiday season. (RetailMeNot)
- Millennials plan to spend nearly $100 on their pets for Christmas. (Harris Insights/OpenX)
- More than half (52 percent) are most likely to make intentional purchases on desktop or mobile devices for Cyber Monday. (Avionos)
- 95 percent of retailers agree that deals and discounts are more effective at driving purchase decisions during the holidays than at any other time of the year. (RetailMeNot)
- The biggest motivation pushing American consumers to shop on Black Friday is because they feel there are offers/discounts that are not usually available at other times of the year. (OnBuy.com)
- Only 12 percent of consumers believe Black Friday will provide them with valuable moments to spend quality time with their family/friends. (OnBuy.com)
- Nearly 40 percent of online shoppers experienced an item being out of stock while shopping on a retailer’s site; 80 percent of these shoppers defected to another retailer’s website. (Mirakl)
- 55 percent of consumers have stopped shopping with a retailer because a competitor offered a better selection. (Mirakl)
- While 45 percent of shoppers plan to visit stores on Black Friday, robust spending is expected to continue throughout the holiday season, with 28 percent spending on that Saturday or Sunday and 26 percent shopping on Cyber Monday. (International Council of Shopping Centers)
- Digital media experiences will become a larger force in driving consumer engagement. (Perch)
- Competition during the holidays is fierce, so it’s effective to send shoppers to your page on the days when it matters most. (Seller Labs)
- Advertisers should not wait until Black Friday or Cyber Monday to launch their campaigns—the highest click-through-rates happen in November. (ZypMedia)
- When sent after Cyber Monday, emails promoting a one-day extension of the Cyber Monday sale lose their sense of urgency and only drive a 2.7 percent conversion rate. (Yes Marketing)
- Retailers should invest in digital to not only keep up with competitors, but to redefine value exchanges with customers. (Capgemini)
- Value will become the key word this year. Just moving everything to digital like the paperless forces of yesterday does not guarantee that the changes translate into value to the business and their customers. (CommerceCX)
- To reach shoppers, retailers will be investing heavily in mobile (72 percent) and in social media, particularly on Facebook (90 percent) and Instagram (76 percent). (RetailMeNot)
- Today’s tech-savvy consumers no longer tolerate impersonalized, irrelevant outreach. (Emarsys)
- 92.64 percent of Black Friday shoppers have been searching the internet for deals ahead of the day. (Influenster)
- 92.72 percent of Cyber Monday shoppers have been searching the internet for deals ahead of the day. (Influenster)
- Consumers should look to buy popular, higher-ticket gifting categories like wearable technology, cameras, TVs, tablets, headphones and portable speakers on Cyber Monday this year. (Numerator)
- 30 percent of people say online ads help with finding gift ideas. (Harris Insights/OpenX)
- 50 percent say they have learned about new products through digital ads. (Harris Insights/OpenX)
- According to a pricing study, Cyber Monday offered the second lowest prices of any day during November and December last year, behind only Black Friday. (Numerator)
- Prices on Cyber Monday were nearly on par with Black Friday on products like electronics. (Numerator)
- More than half (57 percent) of consumers say that the closing of many department stores has negatively impacted their perception of ecommerce, showing that brick-and-mortar is still important to today’s consumers. (Avionos)
- 34 percent of people said high shipping fees cause them stress and over one-quarter say not everyone offering two-day shipping is stressing them out. (Uship)
- Online and in-store purchases are split about 50/50 now. Mobile in particular is taking off, with millennials and their parents—two of the most important groups for retailers—now making one-quarter of their purchases through mobile. (OpenX)
- 61 percent of millennials will use a mobile device at some point as they browse and shop for the perfect gift. (Oath)
- Among consumers who plan to spend more, 47 percent say it is because they earned more. (RetailMeNot)
- Apple will continue to be hot. (SEMrush)
- 84 percent of holiday shoppers are more likely to purchase a product online this year because they are confident it will arrive on time. (CommerceHub)
- 86 percent of consumers said they are confident they can find specific gift cards that their family members will appreciate. (InComm)
- The majority of Americans will opt to get a refund for Black Friday purchases they change their minds about. (OnBuy.com)
- Consumers are 3937.6 percent more likely to be searching for “returns” in the lead up to Black Friday in 2018 compared to last year and the most likely demographic searching is parents. (Captify)
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