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SEO: Marketing yourself in today’s world

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Nowadays, everything is available online, so when it comes to marketing yourself, there are certain little tips and tricks that have to be followed. Your LinkedIn account, for example, would be better for potential interviewers to see than your Facebook account, especially if you have any old photos lurking around. Rennar (2003) states that to uncover new opportunities, you must improve the way your market yourself.

Right back at the dawn of web 2.0, Swift (2003) spoke of the need for ‘engineers to promote themselves professionally, with integrity and honour’. This can be expanded to include all persons. There are several ways in which someone can build their online presence. A digital marketer would expect themselves to have a strong online profile, through LinkedIn, Twitter, Video resume, and others. In this blog we will look at different ways to market yourself digitally, and how to ensure that these land on the first page on any search engine, using search engine optimisation (SEO):

  • LinkedIn Account
  • Twitter
  • Video Resume
  • Blogs
  • Alternatives

LinkedIn:

LinkedIn has been making strides recently in profile views and rankings (LinkedIn, 2014). It now allows you to see how you rank against your connections and against those in your industry. It is the latter we are focusing on. Using this feature, you can find out what percentile you are in for profile views. If you’re looking to improve your visibility, improving your rank could be a good place to start.

There are a few ways of doing this, even for those who have seemingly followed all the ‘how to’ guides online. The first is to increase the number of keywords you have in your profile. Google and other search engines rank their search results in terms of relevance, view count, time spent on landing page etc. Having more keywords can make you more relevant to more searches and therefore optimise the results.

Quality content is a second factor. Once you have a number of relevant keywords, and many people are drawn to your account, the quality of the landing page is important. If viewers are repeatedly turned off from this, you’ll drop down the results, and someone else could skip above you.

Twitter:

Twitter is almost entirely about visibility. Those who tweet regularly with relevant content will show up on the first page of google. Having many followers will help this but it is possible to do without, plus of you are consistently showing on the first page of google your followers will increase with time. Up to date and relevant content to your industry or industries that interest you are important to keep your account professional (Twitter, 2015).

Video Resume:

YouTube is the most popular video sharing site in the world. The popularity of videos on this website works in a very similar way to google, in that it focuses on the keywords you use, and where you appear in the results is based on popularity (number of subscribers), view count, relevance etc. the best video resumes will appear on both the top results in YouTube and on Google as shown below.

SEO

Blogs:

Again, unsurprisingly, to get blogs to the top of google results, relevance and keywords are the priorities. Ensuring the content serves the audience is what allow blogs to be noticed and read often (Forbes, 2013). A strong landing page of course is also required, especially with blogs, where often viewers are able to comment upon what they have read. While many negative comments may be great for SEO, you would top of the pile for popularity, it would not look good as a tool for marketing yourself. Having said that ‘any publicity is good publicity’…

Alternatives:

One particular alternative, which would complement the above options, would be to engage in pay-per-click advertising. By having quality and relevant content on your various online pages you can create a huge amount traffic through by ensuring you appear on the top of the first page on Google. This, of course, could prove to be very expensive, although you can cap the amount you pay for the advertising.

Conclusion:

Overall, a combination of all of the above, or at least a few of the above, can greatly increase the chances of improving your online presence. If you’re hoping to be headhunted, looking for a new job, or just looking to widen your network across industries, these different options can move you from the 500th page of Google results, to the 1st.

 

References

LinkedIn, 2014. Accessed 09 April 2015. Available at: <https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140806165448-134997749-linkedin-feature-how-you-rank-for-profile-views-how-to-improve-your-ranking-for-profile-views>

Rennar, H 2003, ‘Marketing Yourself. It May just Be Job One’, Financial Executive, 19, 6, pp. 48-50, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 9 April 2015.

Swift, JL 1999, ‘Integrity: Marketing Yourself for Success’, Journal Of Management In Engineering, 15, 2, p. 24, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 9 April 2015

Taylor, KA 2003, ‘Marketing Yourself in the Competitive Job Market: An Innovative Course Preparing Undergraduates for Marketing Careers’, Journal Of Marketing Education, 25, 2, pp. 97-107, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 9 April 2015.

Twitter, 2015. Accessed 9 April 2015. Available at: <www.business.twitter.com/>

Forbes, 2013. Accessed 9 April 2015. Available at: <http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2013/08/06/14-ways-to-make-your-blog-get-real-attention/>

Using E-Commerce to increase business

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We’re now in 2015, and as expected, internet sales make up a higher percentage of retail sales than ever before, currently at 6.70% in the US as of 1st January 2015 (Ycharts, 2014).

For exclusively internet retailers, that’s great news, their pool of potential customers is growing year on year relative to their high street counterparts. Not the same for the high street retailers, who have already been taking a hit from rising rents and out-of-town rivals (FT, 2013) and the effect of online will only increase this trouble.

40% of small businesses in the US currently have a website (Huffington Post, 2014). Launching an E-commerce function for these existing, or new, websites can have a positive effect on the business’ sales. There are several benefits of operating your business online, including savings in order processing and operational costs, attracting customers who cannot reach your high street store, and improving your offering through the data that you can collect from online customers (NIBusinessInfo, 2015).

E-commerce has already proved itself to be a hugely popular form of buying and selling and is used by hundreds of big businesses around the world. It is also especially popular with consumer-to-consumer (C2C) transactions through websites such as eBay and Amazon. On these websites customers have to deal with factors such as fear of seller opportunism and information asymmetry (Jones & Leonard, 2014). These factors can lead to lack of confidence from the buying party, something that is not generally associated with business-to-consumer sales (B2C).

For a small business, e-commerce can instigate growth in sales and leads. An increased potential customer base as the website becomes transactional nationally, or even globally, and could generate orders from anyone, anywhere. E-commerce brings the additional benefit of not having to take orders over the telephone, therefore saving on operational and order processing costs.

There is a good reason why the majority of big businesses use e-commerce, especially B2C companies. The ease of use that e-commerce gives consumers over telephone or in-store purchasing means that it is far preferable to use. When one company in any market makes this advancement, all others must follow the same model fast or be at risk of being left behind. Something any business looking to expand and grow would be keen to avoid. Combining this with a strong, positive marketing strategy can attract a range of customers to the website and ultimately to purchase the goods or services on offer.

For small businesses, there are various options for e-commerce available. Several businesses offer e-commerce and hosting for a small monthly fee, and if they were to work with a large e-commerce company, such as PayPal, they would be instantly recognisable as a reputable and trustworthy business, alleviating fears that are often associated with C2C transactions. Alternatively, a computer savvy business owner could set up their own e-commerce system, although this is likely to have several associated costs and would not necessarily be recognised as trustworthy.

Couple this with the ability to reach a much larger customer base, nationally at least, allows a business to quickly expand.

In the 21st century, consumers expect almost everything to be right at their fingertips, and the majority of what they purchase is no different. E-commerce gives ease of use that is unmatched by any other form of purchasing and leaves businesses favourably viewed by customers. Yulin et al (2014) found that people are more likely to purchase online from companies that allow e-commerce compared to those that require telephone orders. From this perspective, it is definitely something to think about for aspiring entrepreneurs and small businesses as they try to expand their reach.

 

References

Financial Times (2013). Accessed 12 April 2015. Available at: <http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/eced567c-cc65-11e2-bb22-00144feab7de.html#axzz3X6vXJbjs>

Huffington Post (2014). Accessed 12 April 2015. Available at: <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-brown/small-business-gets-serio_b_4639875.html>

JONES, K, & LEONARD, L 2014, ‘FACTORS INFLUENCING BUYER’S TRUST IN CONSUMER-TO-CONSUMER E COMMERCE’, Journal Of Computer Information Systems, 54, 4, pp. 71-79, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 12 April 2015.

NI Business Info (2015) Accessed 12 April 2015. Available at: <https://www.nibusinessinfo.co.uk/content/benefits-selling-online>

YCharts (2014). Accessed 12 April 2015. Available at: <http://ycharts.com/indicators/ecommerce_sales_as_percent_retail_sales>

Yulin, F, Israr, Q, Heshan, S, McCole, P, Ramsey, E, & Kai H., L 2014, ‘TRUST, SATISFACTION, AND ONLINE REPURCHASE INTENTION: THE MODERATING ROLE OF PERCEIVED EFFECTIVENESS OF E-COMMERCE INSTITUTIONAL MECHANISMS’, MIS Quarterly, 38, 2, pp. 407-A9, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 12 April 2015.

Advertising on Social Media – Posting success?

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In today’s blog, I will be investigating the use of advertising on social media platforms, and whether companies are getting a return on their investment.

In the past year it has been well documented that social media users do not make purchasing decisions based on what they have seen or read on these various platforms, with a whopping 62% of Americans claiming that it has ‘no influence at all’ (Gallup, 2014).

Is this really the case though? Are consumers sub-consciously buying based on what they have seen and read? What do the businesses say? Do they see an increase in sales as a result of a social media campaigns? Or are they just throwing money away?

Fisher (2009) had reached a different conclusion five years earlier. In a study of 17,000 internet users, 70% of them used social media to get information, and 49% have made a purchase decision based on the information they found through social media sites. When you consider Facebook has 1.3 billion active users (Statista, 2015), half of these is a big potential target audience. Leung, Bai & Statura (2013) found that in the hotel industry, social media was a very effective marketing tool. Perhaps not so much from advertising, but certainly reviews and customer feedback.

AdRoll, cited in Marketing Land (2014), found an interesting statistic shown below. Last summer, mobile accounted for 6.51% of ads on Facebook, but contributed 8.25% of click throughs. They also found that advertising on social media were 8.1x more effective when using a desktop, and 9.1x when using a mobile. Given that there is currently a rapid shift towards mobile (Twitter, 2015), web advertising on social media is a no-brainer.

Untitled

$5.1 billion was spent on social media advertising last year, with Facebook claiming $2.96 billion in advertising revenue (Altimeter Group, 2014). Not figures that suggest an ineffective industry. Could it possibly be that companies cannot afford to not have a social media presence? Dao et al (2014) found that in South East Asia, social media advertising was having a positive effect on the consumers’ perceived value of the company, in informativeness, entertainment and credibility. Maybe there is a case that if your competitors are using social media, you will simply be left behind.

Salesforce, cited in Adweek (2014), surveyed 5000 companies across the US and found the following trends about their marketing strategies:

  • 71% said mobile marketing is now a ore part of their business
  • 68% include mobile marketing in their larger business strategy
  • 66% say social media is integral to their business
  • 66% have a dedicated social media team

All of these point towards a general trend in increased advertising use across social media.

From a personal point of view, I know I am more likely to respond to advertisements on social media than any other web format, whether that be through Facebook, Twitter, or others. On the other hand, I would also classify myself as someone who is not responsive to social media advertisements, one of the 62% that Gallup claims.

A lot has been made over the years of the sub conscious effect that adverts can have on purchasing decisions. Maybe this is what marketers are aiming for when they spend $5 billion on advertising, maybe they are trying to avoid being left behind by competitors, or maybe social media advertising really is an effective and measurable way of reaching your customer base.

 

References

Adweek, 2014. Accessed 29 March 2015. Available at: <www.adweek.com/news/technology/70-marketers-will-spend-more-social-media-ads-year-162291>

Fisher, T. (2009) ROI in social media: A look at the arguments: Journal of Database Marketing & Customer Strategy Management (2009) 16, 189–195. London: eModeration Ltd

Gallup, 2014, Accessed 29 March 2015, <http://www.gallup.com/poll/171785/americans-say-social-media-little-effect-buying-decisions.aspx>

Leung, X, Bai, B & Stahura, K. (2013) The Marketing Effectiveness of Social Media in the Hotel Industry: A Comparison of Facebook and Twitter. Accessed 29 March 2015. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research

Statista, 2015, Accessed 29 March 2015. <http://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/>

Twitter, 2015. Accessed 29 March 2015. <https://about.twitter.com/company>

Van-Tien Dao, W, Nhat Hanh Le, A, Ming-Sung Cheng, J, & Der Chao, C 2014, ‘Social media advertising value’, International Journal Of Advertising, 33, 2, pp. 271-294, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 29 March 2015.

Vlogging – Changing the gaming industry?

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Video blogging, or vlogging, as it’s come to be known, has exploded in popularity over the past few years. Using YouTube, anyone can set up a vlog, from which they can discuss any topic whatsoever, to whomever is willing to listen. A phenomenon that is becoming increasing popular, especially with school aged kids (Snelson, 2015), it looks set to overtake blogging as a way for individuals to share stories and experiences and offer their opinion on various matters.

The focus of this blog is to look at how this phenomenon is changing the gaming industry. The gaming channel on YouTube currently has 78.1 million subscribers. Let’s look at PlayStation 4’s three biggest selling games so far (GiantBomb, 2015):

  • Call of Duty: Ghosts
  • Watch Dogs
  • FIFA 14

A quick YouTube search of each title is below. Starting with Call of Duty: Ghosts:

Vlogging Ghosts

The first shows three of the top four results to be from Vloggers, two from ‘Ali-A’, and one, the top response, a walkthrough vlog by ‘TheRadBrad’.

For Watch Dogs:

Vlogging Watch Dogs

All four top results for Watch Dogs are vlogs, again ‘TheRadBrad’ features, as well as ‘VanossGaming’ who we shall look at later.

Finally, FIFA 14:

Vlogging FIFA 14

Again, a search filled with vloggers, this time ‘W2S’, commenting on the popular ‘ultimate team’ format you can play within the game. ‘W2S’ appears to be so popular that his channel is second in the results list.

 

So from where did this rise come about?

The rise of vlogging is largely down to the rise of YouTube. On YouTube, a user can find almost any video imaginable, and fast became the most popular video upload site in the world.

 

Why blog when you can vlog?

Part of the rise of vlogging has to be attributed to the speed at which it can be created. To write a typical blog can take hours. This is not the same with vlogs, which can be completed within minutes. This makes them especially popular with school aged bloggers, where a few years ago they may have written their thoughts, they now post videos of themselves, something that generally their peers find easier to connect with as well.

 

Have vlogs overtaken blogs in the gaming industry?

Let’s not underestimate the number of blogs there are out there on games and the gaming industry itself, it still makes up a huge part of the commenters market and is the most common way for the ‘experts’ to voice their opinion (compared to magazine articles, journals etc). That so many are switching to vlogging is no surprise. Vlogging offers one substantial and unique advantage – you can be playing the game while commenting. This allows a new level of connection between viewer and vlogger and helps the viewer feel a part it.

 

Ksiolajidebt is a FIFA vlogger and has been for a few years over many editions, he has amassed almost 9 million subscribers, who mainly watch clips of the game in which he comments over. These comments often have a comedic value that the viewers can relate to, whether it is about a glitch in the game, a comparison on real life or something else. He has recently branched out his vlogs to include other games, and more general topics, often chosen by his viewers.

 

Another example is VanossGaming, with 11.8 million subscribers, stretching right across the gaming industry. It’s tag line of ‘gaming, comedy and more!’ is quite typical of vloggers, accessible to such a wide audience, one of their most popular videos has a whopping 19 million views, a huge amount for the gaming industry, when you consider that, unlike music, even the most devoted fan is unlikely to rewatch many of the channel’s videos.

 

Vlogging is not strictly a gaming tool. Vloggers are increasing in numbers across the Internet, and some people are able to make a fortune just by commenting on their day, or what they have seen in the news, or random topics, just by recording short videos. Being very quick and easy to view makes the protagonists likeable and relatable. School students can find other student vloggers very relatable and as they are the biggest users of YouTube, they drive the majority of demand. Some current popular vloggers currently are PewDiePie (35.7m subscribers), jennamarbles (14.9m subscribers), and zoella (7.7m subscribers).

 

Overall, due to their ease of their creation (and how easily they can be reshot), vlogs have become a hugely popular form of commenting, and it is a phenomenon that is likely to grow and grow. Expect to see vloggers in all areas in the future, whatever your work or hobby is.

 

 

References

Giantbomb (2015). Accessed 02 April 2015. Available at: <http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/poltergeist13/lists/top-25-best-selling-games-ps4/90849/>

Snelson, C 2015, ‘Vlogging about school on YouTube: An exploratory study’, New Media & Society, 17, 3, pp. 321-339, E-Journals, EBSCOhost, viewed 2 April 2015.

 

Companies on Twitter – The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly

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Most companies are on Twitter nowadays, some do it extremely successfully, some might wish they never made an account, and there are others, which frankly you wouldn’t have known signed up. The fact of the matter is though, Twitter allows businesses to target a huge, wide reaching base of customers with 140 cleverly written characters. All age ranges and demographics can be reached cost effectively, and it has never been easier for customers to talk directly to a company.

So what are the dos and don’ts of Twitter? What should companies be prepared for when they sign up? How can companies increase brand awareness without consumers passing it off as boring advertising?

Well first let’s start with history. Not too far in the distant past, 2011 to be precise, Audi launched their new R8 with an advert in the primetime slot of the American Superbowl. Watched by over 100 million worldwide, this advert ended with a hashtag, the first to ever be used in a TV advert (ignitesocialmedia, 2011). The effect this had was an explosion on Twitter, Audi got a whole lot more than just a 30 second advert, this reached millions across the ‘Twittersphere’ and got people talking, a real plus for brand awareness (win-win).

But what about a don’t? Well nobody is immune to bad Twitter campaigns. Take McDonald’s for example. Back in 2012 they launched the hashtag ‘McDStories’, trying to get customers to talk about great experiences they’ve had at McDonald’s restaurants. It backfired horribly. ‘McDStories’ went viral as customers shared their worst McDonald’s stories, not discounting times of food poisoning, and the company were forced to ride out the barrage of tweets that resulted (Business Insider, 2012). A bad campaign for sure.

So what about the ugly? What could a company do that would be considered ugly by twitter users and commenters alike? Well, using disasters wouldn’t be a good place to start. Exactly what Bing did back in 2011, after the Japanese earthquake. Bing proposed that they would donate $1 for every retweet, up to $100k. Admirable right? It didn’t take that way, it was seen as an attempt to create brand awareness out of a disaster, not something well received, and another ‘anti-bing’ hashtag was set up, which gained many more retweets. In the end the company issued an apology and paid the $100k, saving as much face as they could (Business Insider, 2012).

So there’s an example of a good, bad and ugly Twitter campaign. But what do the experts have to say about it? Is there a real guide to using Twitter? Well with approximately 73% of the Fortune 500 companies being on Twitter (Barnes et al., 2012, cited in Swani, Brown & Milne, 2014), there must be, surely? Bennett (2013) speculates some immediate don’ts. “If you’re not prepared to chat online, then you’ll not get the business benefit of Twitter”. “Budget time and resources” he says, “create a Twitter strategy and stick to it”. Sound advice. Etter (2014) states that Twitter is ideal for a company looking to raise their public relations and corporate social responsibility. As we know this has some potential drawbacks though (see McDStories above).

If you are looking to market on Twitter, experiments completed by Jin & Phua (2014) suggest that using celebrities to promote your brand has a positive impact, although probably costly, and there’s no guarantee it’ll come off. 1-800 flowers use of Justin Bieber to promote their flowers on Mother’s Day resulted in 75,000 retweets and over 50,000 favourites (Brandwatch, 2014). Huge brand awareness.

Another option is focusing on real-time marketing, but there have been instances of this backfiring, such as The Huffington Posts ‘irrelevant and ‘racist’ tweet “Uganda be kidding me” upon Lupita Nyongo’o’s academy award win (imediaconnection, 2015). If real time marketing is to be used, it needs to be good.

Having read around, I’ve compiled my own list of dos and don’ts for a company looking to start up on Twitter:

Dos: Don’ts:
· Have a clear strategy before you start· Look for a unique selling point

· Engage with customers that ‘tweet’ you

· Keep it relatable to the brand or core values of your business

· ‘Tweet’ regularly

 · Use disasters to try and increase brand awareness· Leave customers unanswered

· Send a ‘tweet’ without checking the content

· Be aware of possible connotations of a ‘tweet’

Overall, Twitter can make or break a business. There’s no such toolbox for success though, and the ‘Twittersphere’ that exists can ‘jump on the bandwagon’ either way, causing unprecedented positive feedback or the very opposite, 280 million active users (Twitter, 2015) aware of the small mistake that your company has made. You only have to think of the potential for sales if you get it right though…

 

 

References

Bennett, B 2013, ‘Using Twitter in business’, NZ Business, 27, 5, p. 53, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 28 March 2015.

Brandwatch, 2014. Accessed 28 March 2015 < http://www.brandwatch.com/2013/10/celebrity-twitter-endorsements-regulations-allegations-and-selling-out/>

Business Insider, 2012. Accessed 22 March 2015 <http://www.businessinsider.com/13-epic-twitter-fails-by-big-brands-2012-2?op=1&IR=T>

Etter, M 2014, ‘Broadcasting, reacting, engaging – three strategies for CSR communication in Twitter’, Journal Of Communication Management, 18, 4, pp. 322-342, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 28 March 2015.

Ignite Social Media, 2011, accessed 24 March 2015, <http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/social-media-examples/social-media-marketing-examples-of-super-bowl-xlv/>

Imediaconnection, 2015. Accessed 28 March 2015, <http://www.brandwatch.com/2013/10/celebrity-twitter-endorsements-regulations-allegations-and-selling-out/>

Jin, S, & Phua, J 2014, ‘Following Celebrities’ Tweets About Brands: The Impact of Twitter-Based Electronic Word-of-Mouth on Consumers’ Source Credibility Perception, Buying Intention, and Social Identification With Celebrities’, Journal Of Advertising, 43, 2, pp. 181-195, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 26 March 2015.

Swani, K, Brown, B, & Milne, G 2014, ‘Should tweets differ for B2B and B2C? An analysis of Fortune 500 companies’ Twitter communications’, Industrial Marketing Management, 43, 5, pp. 873-881, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 28 March 2015.

Twitter, 2015, accessed 26 March 2015, <https://about.twitter.com/company>

Email Marketing: Benefits and Drawbacks

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Email marketing is a common feature in almost all businesses in the 21st century. There are some that use it exceptionally well, for example, Amazon, and others, who could improve.

The benefits of a well-designed and well implemented email campaign are clear to see. A business has the capability to reach a huge, wide stretching audience at minimal cost, generating new leads, creating sales, and creating interest in the company and industry. Amazon are a firm who have utilised email marketing very effectively and are widely considered to be market leaders in this area. As Amazon have shown, emails can be used not only to generate new leads for a business, but to also follow up on purchases and engage in general communications with the customer. By-and-large, customers appreciate communication, especially when it relates to online purchasing. Order confirmations and shipping confirmations are considered commonplace in the marketplace now and are expected from customers purchasing online.

The benefits of email can also be considered its drawbacks. A business has the capability to reach a huge, wide stretching audience at minimal cost, generating new leads, creating sales, and creating interest in the company and industry. The problem here is, that if all businesses are using email marketing to generate new leads and create sales, then customers start to receive a huge number of emails from various companies, and the effectiveness of any individual email is greatly reduced.

To overcome this, a campaign needs to be able to stand out amongst the crowd. The design and layout of the email becomes far more important, and it needs to be readable across all devices, whether that be PC, tablet or mobile. Also, the subject line becomes very important, those customers who are being inundated with emails are unlikely to open all of them and use any call-to-actions unless the subject line is inviting and engaging.

Another key issue, and one that is being slowly addressed by Google among others, is spam mail. It is possible for companies to buy lists for of several million different email addresses and then have access to sending email to these addresses without subscription or approval from the email user. Many companies use this to reach as many people they can. It is similar in a lot of ways to cold calling, in the sense that the recipient has no awareness of it beforehand.

Customer opt-in is a great way to increase the customer base of a business. This is most commonly done through having customers opt-in when they sign up to the businesses website. Having gained the customers email, the business has freedom to contact the customer regularly through newsletters, promotional emails, new products etc. and if they have a strong email brand, they are likely to retain these customers. Companies must have an opt-out solution though for users who do not wish to receive emails. If a company is receiving a high number of opt-out requests, it is likely that their email campaign is failing, and it’s a case of back to the drawing board for them. This permission based marketing makes up a large part of corporate emailing today.

Kumar, Xhang and Luo (2014) researched the effect of permission based marketing, finding that customers were not reluctant to engage with companies at all, providing they were asked for consent beforehand.

Overall, despite its drawbacks, companies cannot ignore the usefulness of a well laid out, well designed, email campaign. The opportunity to generate new leads and sales at such a small cost is invaluable to a company, especially one that is trying to grow. Engagement with a customer cannot be undervalued.

KUMAR, V, XI, Z, & LUO, A 2014, ‘Modeling Customer Opt-In and Opt-Out in a Permission-Based Marketing Context’, Journal Of Marketing Research (JMR), 51, 4, pp. 403-419, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 25 February 2015.

Amazon Order Confirmation: An Event Triggered Follow Up

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In this blog I will be reviewing and analysing the chain of triggered emails that arise from a purchase on Amazon’s online store.

A recent tech purchase I have made resulted in three follow up emails. The first, an auto confirmation email, thanking me for my purchase and giving me information such as a rough delivery date. A second email was received a day later to tell me that the item had been dispatched and was currently in transit, confirming the exact delivery date of my item, allowing me to ensure I was at home, had it been too big to post through the door. A third email, sent a few days after delivery, focused on gaining a review of the product from me to put on their website.

Mohammadi et al (2013) commented on this in their journal ‘Email Marketing As A Popular Type Of Small Business Advertisement: A Short Review’. Their research focused on the concept of building customer loyalty and recovering lost customers through follow up emails. For example, if someone visiting a website added an item to their cart and then left for whatever reason, a gentle reminder sent in an email that they had an unfinished cart may prompt them to return and complete their purchase. Mohammadi et al commented on how this should not be done in a sales pitch format, instead using a customer service approach. The benefit this brings is that customers do not feel pressured into making the purchase, potentially creating a better relationship between company and customer.

The Amazon email chain that I received was set out in a very relaxed, customer service orientated way. None of the three emails pressed me to make a further purchase, however all linked back to their website several times in each email, including advertisements to new or hot products on their website. The landing pages for these links were clear and concise, with further links to many personalised and generic site pages.

Through the sheer size of online sales, and the size of their customer base, Amazon have acquired huge experience in email marketing and it is expected that they would be leaders in this field. As a result, by and large they followed Mohammadi et al review to email marketing.

If you would like the journal published by Mohammadi et al, you can find it here: http://ajbasweb.com/old/ajbas/2013/March/786-790.pdf

Mobile Data Challenge: Big Data for mobile computing research

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The article I read,  the Mobile Data Challenge, was set up by Nokia to analyse smartphone usage of a number of participants over three and a half years. Data was collected on a number of different usage indicators: call logs, SMS, GPS and Bluetooth to name a few.

The aim of the study was to understand levels of usage of smartphones amongst average people. Those in the study were mainly in their 20’s and were fully aware that they were part of the study. Each knew they could opt out at any point.

A second challenge was also conducted in parallel to the Mbile Data Challenge; the Lausanne Data Collection Campaign. this was aimed at creating the groundwork for a study of European mobile data usage.

The data itself was collected throughout the day on the smartphones, uploaded overnight, and then processed and anonymised ready for analysis from the researchers.

Collecting the data from both of these studies required considerable effort and man hours from the team at Nokia, given the vast amount of data that was out there.

Something that can be taken away from this is the applications that having vast amounts of data can have on a wider scale. The data itself could potentially be invaluable to businesses looking to target individuals. for example, a form of personal advertising would create both a higher consumer interaction and a cheaper, more efficient form of marketing for the business.

From a phone/network provider point of view, this data could be used to personalise customer offers, as they can show exactly how much data/callling/messaging is being done by the user and what specifically, would be good for them.

If you would like to read the original article, you can find it here:

http://www.idiap.ch/~gatica/publications/LaurilaGaticaEtal-mdc12.pdf

This is a brief overview of the article and I aim to return to it in the future.

Reference:

Laurila, Juha K., Daniel Gatica-Perez, Imad Aad, Jan Blom, Olivier Bornet, Trinh-Minh-Tri Do, Olivier Dousse, Julien Eberle, and Markus Miettinen. “The mobile data challenge: Big data for mobile computing research.” In Proceedings of the Workshop on the Nokia Mobile Data Challenge, in Conjunction with the 10th International Conference on Pervasive Computing, pp. 1-8. 2012.

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