Posts Tagged ‘bbsdigmarket’
Advertising online has grown over the years. In 2005, the Guardian had estimated that some people had seen up to 3500 advertisements per day. 12 years later, we can only assume that we have been exposed to further advertisements as platforms such as social media has grown significantly over the years.
What social media platforms are out there?
There are many social media platforms that are available to use including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. However, the number of active users vary for each platform which makes popularity an individual preference
Source: Chaffey, 2017
The graph shows that Facebook has the most active users worldwide. This is closely followed by Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger, which are based around creating conversations with one another. It also shows some less advertised applications such as QQ and WeChat. In the UK, they are not as popular as the more known apps which include Snapchat and Twitter (which rank lower in the graph)
Myself as a Consumer
You are and I am are consumers. We purchase goods and use services. However, do we actually consider what makes us do those things? Do we actual consider that we may be targeted in a segmented market which use Social Media?
From my own personal experiences, I have seen that advertising and marketing campaigns are particularly engaging when they are on Facebook. I have noticed that when I am scrolling through my Facebook home page, advertisements that contain videos are automatically played, resulting in me watching. I find that they are interesting and normally catch my attention.
I would also say that in addition to Facebook, Twitter can be exciting and different for advertising as it is normally re-tweeted by my friends rather than a random selection on my home page. This makes it more personal as the use of re-tweet can be powerful if you and your twitter friends have the same interests.
However, I do use other social media platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat and I do see many advertisements that appeal to me. Instagram do have a strategy of having advertisements on the home page which are in a form of a small video clip or a picture. When it is a picture,
The Future of Social Media Advertising
As Facebook has a significantly higher amount of active users compared to the rest of the platforms, it could be expected that Facebook will remain that way. The only change that could happen would have to be drastic enough to change the statistics hugely.
I also believe that it could be changed through generations. Generation Y users, who are born between 1980 and 2000 (The Telegraph, 2014) may start to use different social platforms to the older generation or people born after 2000.
There may be other applications that can be used to advertising which may be much more effective and popular in the future. However, I think for now we can safely say that Facebook is still number one!
Click here for an interesting journal about Mobile Social Media
Thanks for reading
Leila
References
Chaffey, D. (2017) Smart Insights. Global Social Media Statistics Summary 2017
The Guardian (2005). Shopper’s eye view of ads that pass us by.
The Telegraph (2014). Gen Z, Gen Y, baby boomers – a guide to the generations.
I’m sure at some point we have all been a target of online marketing. We have all probably received an email or been targeted on social media but just how many of those have been personal to you? Have they been directed to you by your name? Have they marketed something that is of your interest? If they have, we can call this a form of Personalisation.
What is Personalisation?
Personalisation in the context of Marketing can also be called ‘One-to-one Marketing’ or Personalised Marketing. It can also form part of ‘Relationship Marketing’ in some books, articles and other sources.
A simple explanation is that personalisation is ‘acquiring information from every possible point of contact and employing it in the process of identification’ (Pepper & Rogers, 1997) This is normally due to data retrieved from a database, with customer information, that can be filtered to tailor information to the individual customer. Copulsky and Wolf (1990) state a database influences Relationship Marketing/Personalisation and is used by marketing firms to select suitable customer information.
My Opinion: Yes or No?
In my own experiences, I thrive of personalisation as I believe that I am seen as an individual customer. I am more likely to click on a link or even open an email if I see something addressed to me by my name. I also enjoy businesses personalising my interests without me having to do it manually. For example, if I sign into my account on a fashion retailer and see styles handed picked by my previous orders or similar to what I browse, I will be more likely to use that company again. I do not think I am alone in my thoughts for personalisation and I believe many customers value it!
Below is an example of Boohoo trying to create a personalised selection of clothing that is similar to my interests or similar to the tops I have looked at. They have incorporated at the bottom of the page a ‘We think you’ll like’ section based on similarities of the tops I am browsing.
Source: Boohoo.com
This makes me intrigued as the tops are of my style and I have not selected anything about myself to give them any information; they have chosen the additional styles from the data they have of my account and my searches on Boohoo. They could, however, improve their personalisation as I am signed in and I do not see my name anywhere on the page to indicate it is my account.
Advantages for Businesses
According to Peppers and Rogers (1997) Personalised Marketing can ‘build long-term customer relationships with customers and offer products adjusted to their needs’, Businesses need to create relationships with customers in order to generate sales and keep customer retention high. In 2011, CO-OP Travel saw an 217% increase in sales and an 95% increase in visitors due to their personalisation on their website (E-Consultancy.com, 2013) This just shows how effective personalisation can be and that customers do actually like it (including myself!)
Businesses also want a competitive advantage by using this marketing strategy. Adopting ‘customer needs and value is essential in order to survive and grow in competitive markets (Slater & Narver, 2000) so personalisation can be used, even starting in a simplist form, to be beneficial to a business.
Are there any risks?
There is always a risk to anything new or developed that is introduced. However, some are bigger risks than others. The main risk of personalisation is doing it wrong. When I say wrong, I mean not correctly identifying the interests, needs and wants of a customer. Below is an example of a fashion retailer not quite grasping the personalisation like Boohoo.
Source: Misspap.co.uk
This website, Misspap, does show some recommendations that some people may feel are personalised to their searches as they include other dresses that are also fashionable (some could argue otherwise). However, they some differ quite extensively. Based on my own opinion, you can see a black dress, that looks more for a party, whilst the current search was on a summery dress. Misspap have also included some shoes. There is no indication on the page to suggest the kind of shoes I like to wear, for any occasion, let alone with that dress. I may also add that this was the first search I have done on this website for a long time and I have just created an account so they are unaware of my preference of footwear. So the question is, what are they basing their recommendations on? Who decided to suggest those shoes out of all the other pairs they sell? I fail to see how it is personalised and it is more customised to the company and their ‘opinion’.
Personalisation can collapse if there is no information or there is lack of information on the individual customer. According to Simon Kingsnorth (2016), this will result in some customers getting ‘generic comms’, meaning they receive general communications. This can include email, website data and other digital marketing strategies.
Key Points:
- Personalisation can be be effective if it is done correctly
- Personalisation can be in many forms
- It can give business advantage as well as customer advantage
- Risks can occur if data is not collected accurately
Are you interested on how to introduce Personalisation in a business? Click here
For further exploration on this topic click here also.
Thanks for reading!
Leila
References
E-Consultancy.com (2013). Three major benefits of using personalisation in marketing. Available from: https://econsultancy.com/blog/63212-three-major-benefits-of-using-personalisation-in-marketing
Kingsnorth, S. (2016). Digital marketing strategy. 1st ed. London (GB): Kogan Page.
Jonathan R. Copulsky, Michael J. Wolf, (1990) “Relationship Marketing: Positioning for the Future”, Journal of Business Strategy, Vol. 11 Issue: 4, pp.16-20
Peppers, D. and M. Rogers. (1997). Enterprise one to one. 1st ed. New York: Currency/Doubleday.
Slater, S. F., & Narver, J. C. (2000). Intelligence generation and superior customer value. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science.
With over 600 million users by December 2016 (Instagram, 2017), it can be said that Instagram has become a successful social platform. However, just how well does this ‘free’ service provide a network for businesses to advertise?
Instagram can be used free of charge for a personal or business user to upload pictures as a way of expressing themselves; you do not need to pay Instagram for their services. Therefore, businesses could use Instagram by uploading a ‘selfie’ or images showing their merchandise. The user can gain followers and there is no limit to how many pictures can be uploaded per page. For businesses, they can use it to their advantage and use it as a way of free advertising.
As Social media has become popular and continues to grow, it is changing the business landscape and redefining how business communicate across their channels of distribution and with their customers (Rapp et al, 2013). I have seen over the years the shift in businesses communicating through social media to give out certain messages or to visually attract people to view their profile, content or products.
One way I have noticed the use of businesses promoting their page or certain products is by the use of the ‘re-post’. This is the business uploading an image to Instagram with a message stating something like ‘First 50 people to re-post wins a big giveaway’ or something similar. This engages with personal users, and for me, it is a way to attract new customers. In my experience, even if I did not know the business nor their products, I still participate because I want the free ‘giveaway’ or prize equivalent.
Here is my own personal experience from a ‘re-post’. I saw this on my friends instagram profile as she had re-posted. I re-posted this myself even though I was not familiar with the brand as it had an attractive prize. This may have been a strategy for the business to entice people like me, to re-post their picture, regardless of our interests.
Studies show that similar interests are shared between groups of friends (Telegraph, 2010). This could be a strategy that marketers have as they are aware of the number of users on Instagram and know how easy it is for friends to view each others profiles. This happened to me, with the re-post above so it shows just how effective an Instagram post can be.
Understandably, businesses, especially start-ups or small businesses need to build a reputation. This is crucial for a business enterprise risk management (Arnold, 2006). By businesses posting exciting content, it can allow them to gain followers and entice them to buy their products (if they sell products) or to just become familiar with the business.
How can businesses maximise the use of Instagram posting?
- Post regularly to engage other users
- Be creative
- Encourage users to re-post
- Upload particular posts that have worthy content
Social media marketing has been proven to have a high conversion rate along with 83% of all marketers actively pursue social media marketing initiatives. (Aberdeen, 2016) (Source: https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics#Social%20Media). This shows just how successful it can be to use a social platform to attract customers.
With around 80 million pictures being uploaded to Instagram everyday(Instagram, 2017), businesses need to be smart with what they share on their page.
However, If a business does post ineffectively, this could damage the company and may even decrease their number of followers.
Reasons for posts being ineffective:
- Too frequent or infrequent
- Content not being relevant to the company or their followers
- Deemed inappropriate or offensive
- Boring content or feed
With Instagram having such a large network, businesses could ruin their marketing strategy if they decide to post unappealing content. I have followed businesses before where they no longer attracted my attention so I did not need to follow them anymore.
Ineffective posts could be on the rise for businesses if they feel under pressure to upload content because other companies are. They may want to be noticed on such a large social platform that they will not consider the content they post. This is something, in my opinion, that businesses need to examine as a marketing technique, as Instagram can be powerful, both negatively and positively.
One interesting link I found was expert opinion on Instagram marketing tips including the use of pictures and videos and the quality of the pictures. This may help conceal how Instagram can be very effective. Click here to read the article.
Click here to also read another interesting article on how to build Instagram followers.
Lessons Learnt:
- It is important to use social platforms for both small and large businesses as the amount of users are on the rise
- Social media can have both a positive and negative affect on your business depending how you use it
- There are concrete techniques to attract followers
Thanks for reading!
Leila
References
Arnold, M. (2006) CEO’s respect importance of reputation, Haymarket Media Inc: New York.
Rapp, A., Beitelspacher, L.S., Grewal, D. & Hughes, D.E. (2012) Understanding social media effects across seller, retailers, and consumer interactions, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. Vol. 41, No. 5, p547-566.
I read emails from The Fragrance Shop often and they are actually very enticing. They send me deals and offers which are presented immediately in the subject without me needing to open the email and its content. For example, it could say ‘20% online tonight only’ in which I don’t need to even open the email, I can just go straight to the website. This is much easier when being faced with other emails to open that may be more important, yet I find myself still opening it. I think this is because I am interested in what they sell rather than the company themselves. When I open it the display is exciting. The main ‘offer’ is what is shown with bright colours and flashing text. I can also scroll down further and find another promotion. Obviously, this is exactly what a customer wants to see! I even have the choice of going in-store or online for the promotion. In addition, the colours are bright pink and yellow. I could not be sure but this could be because I am female. I cannot imagine them sending it to a male as it would be less attractive. This could be personalised to my gender and could well be effective if this is the case. The landing page is also colourful and bold. It takes me straight to the ‘deal section’ and provides me with extra offers including ‘Christmas buys’. The Fragrance Shop know exactly what I, as a customer, want and know that by me opening the email, I am already partly interested.
Here is an example of an email I have received from The Fragrance Shop
When shopping with them before, I have given them my full name. However, what I found was that it was not personalised to me. Rather than being deemed as a valuable customer, I am referred to as ‘L’. This is surprising as personalising email results in a 14 percent increase in click-throughs and a 26 percent increase if there is a personalised subject (Talarico, D. 2016). If I had been addressed with my name, I may have been more persuaded to purchase one of their products.
In a brief comparison to The Fragrance Shop emails, Funky Pigeon addresses me directly by ‘Leila’ when I open the email. This makes me feel like a valid customer and its more direct to myself. It doesn’t include my name in the subject line, however, when I open the email it’s as if I’m being greeted when they say ‘Hi Leila’. Maybe The Fragrance Shop should consider this for an effective marketing campaign.
The Fragrance Shop does offers great deals but how many times does a company need to email the same person the same offer? I received 3 emails in under 3 days about the same offer of 20% off. I also received an email prior to that and an email two days later with the same information.
I felt almost forced into buying their products. The emails were too frequent and if they contained different deals then I would be satisfied but it seemed ‘desperate’. I can understand that it is a time of year where people are purchasing gifts for Christmas so they want to tempt their subscribers. According to Ellis-Chadwick, frequency of emails increase around seasonal periods. During the fourth quarter, the largest amount of emails are sent, which is the festive period. This would make sense as to why I have received a total of 6 emails in 5 days with the same offer. The number of emails would not tempt me personally thought but some subscribers could be different. Do I think this is a good mechanism to sell products? No. Do I think they could adapt a different approach? Yes.
The Fragrance Shop could:
- Use ‘Permission Marketing’ to be more attractive to their subscribers. The use of incentives to build and maintain a relationship with your customers.
- Give away free things which would be exciting for us as a buyer. (I would be much more willing to purchase their products if I knew that by doing so, I would be rewarded!)
- Consider individual demographics to suggest products. This would be an effective way of marketing as it would be tailored to customers, like myself, to make it more personalised.
Click here for an interesting post on Permission Marketing.
Thanks for reading!
Leila
References
Ellis-Chadwick, F., & Doherty, N. F. (2012). Web advertising: The role of e-mail marketing. Journal of Business Research, 65(6), 843-848.
Talarico, D. (2016), From inbox to enroll: Email marketing tips. Recruiting & Retaining Adult Learners, 18: 1–3.
Argos, the UK’s leading digital retailer used their innovative ideas to improve in-store experiences for the customer whilst still maintaining their online plaform. They are already success with their online market as they generate 738 million views annually on their website. However, they undertsood that their customers have certain expectations so therefore argos wanted to create something new. Already on the social plaform, Twitter, Argos decided to embrace on the help of Brandwatch Analytics to perfect it. Demographic data was used which included which gender the consumer was or which city they lived in. This provided argos with valuable information as to who their customers were and what they were saying and why. This meant that by using Twitter, Argos could pre-categorize ‘mentions’ by using location to provide more precise help via replies. Argos employees could reply with their expert help and create better experience for the customer. The twitter mentions were most likely to be about their in-store experience so by receiving feedback, Argos could make changes where needed. This was very successful and received great acknowledge from customers.
For the Full Case Study click here
- Digital marketing is important and continuing expanding.
- Social Media is a plaform to create better experiences for the customer, helping businesses grow within their market
Thats all for now.
Thank you for reading!
