BCA

By Brett Thorne

Chances are that in the course of your daily web-surfing you’ve stopped by your competitor’s

website before. Maybe you just wanted to compare the layout of their site versus yours.

Maybe you wanted to see how recently they had updated their blog or get some information

about what sort of inventory management they use.

What many small business owners don’t realize is that there is a trove of valuable information that

can be gleaned from scouring your competitor’s site, subscribing to their social media channels and

joining mailing lists. There is a whole industry that centers around competitive intelligence, and if you

have a decently sized budget, you may want to contract some work out to one of these organizations.

Using a private investigator

These companies will send out one of their private investigators to legally scrounge for

information on your rival’s competitive practices including invoices, contracts and customer

lists. That can include everything from calling your competitor to gain information on pricing

and shipping rates to digging through the company’s trash.

If you’re not interested in hiring out that kind of help, you can do plenty from your office chair.

First of all, subscribe to your rival’s Twitter and Facebook feeds. These will give you good

information about what products and services your rival is pushing, what sort of specials they

are running and the general day to day info about the company.

Check the Free Services

Use free services like changedetection.com and femtoo.com to track changes to your

competitor’s site. This information will give you a good idea of what the company is planning

to do in the future. If they have a “Meet the Staff” page or something similar that they just

added five new salespeople to, this might indicate that they are expecting higher sales or

experiencing rapid growth.

Finally, sign up for mailing lists. This is possibly the most valuable free tool you can use.

Being on a competitor’s mailing list is like being on the inside. You’re now privileged to all

the information they want their customer base to know about. You can get a glimpse at the

company’s plans for the next month, including sales, promotions, events and new product

launches.

Legal search techniques can be very effective

These practices are completely legal and they can help you get a leg up on the competition if

you utilize them correctly. Plus, they’re a heck of a lot cleaner than digging through their trash.

From: e-Marketer

People like me” vs. the experts

Social media has put power in the hands of the consumer, giving everyone a publishing platform to push out their thoughts and feelings to the world at large. This has given great power to word-of-mouth, typically considered the most trustworthy form of marketing. But social behavior is changing as it matures.

The GlobalWebIndex “Annual Report 2011,” which includes data from Trendstream and Lightspeed Research, outlines a shift in consumer behavior on social media. As usage of social sites increases around the world, the landscape is maturing. According to the report, usage is shifting to focus on distributing content rather than creating it. Social media users disseminate and share professionally created content more often on microblogs, social networks and video-sharing platforms.

But the human element remains key to engendering trust. Internet users worldwide reported a nearly 50% increase in their trust of social network contacts giving product recommendations, and a 21% increase for microblog contacts. Even though many of those contacts are likely sharing some professional content with or alongside their personal recommendations, professional sources of information like newspapers and TV barely gained any trust over the same period.

Confidence rises in trust of experts

But Edelman’s “Trust Barometer” report for 2011 shows, for the second year in a row, an apparent decline in trust of a “person like me” (from 47% in 2009 to 43% in 2011) and a concomitant rise in trust for experts.

That survey polled college-educated consumers ages 25 to 64 who are in the top 25% of household income relative to age group in their home country and who follow business news and public policy. The opinions of such an affluent, highly educated, highly informed group cannot be extended to the general population.

Query focuses on consumer issues

Further, Edelman asked about trust in “information about a company,” a different query than product or brand recommendations. The inclusion of answer choices like “a financial or industry analyst” or “government official” orients the question more toward investor than consumer issues.

Other research tends to support the traditional view that word-of-mouth from friends, family and other peers is still the most trustworthy way of getting information about products and services. Teen influencers told Ketchum in May that friends with their top source of information. The importance and trustworthiness of customer reviews has grown, especially when shoppers feel they are authentic peer opinions. And social media users say dialogue and comment quality are key to trust on social sites. They’re also even more likely than the average consumer to place trust in friend and family product recommendations.

From World Advertising Research Center

Traditional forms of communications like word of mouth, direct mail and newspapers enjoy higher levels of trust among US consumers than social media and other online services.

ICOM, part of Epsilon Targeting, argued in a study that social networks, internet forums, blogs and similar tools have added considerable complexity to the world occupied by more established channels.

Based on a survey of 2,569 adults, it reported 57% of people regarded friends and family as a reliable source of information, falling to 26% for newspapers and 22% for corporate websites.

Television posted a score of 20%, with brochures and flyers on 18%, radio on 16%, email on 12%, third-party internet sites on 11% and mobile phones on 9%.

Web 2.0 portals generated relatively modest figures, coming in at 8% for blogs, forums and Facebook, and just 7% for YouTube and Twitter.

When asked to name preferred providers of news and updates relating to personal care, food and cleaning products, 36% of the panel chose direct mail, with newspaper inserts on 29%, the net on 12% and email on 10%.

“The coveted 18-34 year olds prefer, by a wide margin, to learn about marketing offers via postal mail and newspapers rather than online sources such as social media platforms,” the study said.

It added: “The preference among 18–34 year-olds for receiving marketing information from offline sources led by mail and newspapers is two to three times greater than online sources such as social media.”

Elsewhere, 40% of contributors selected DM in the financial sector, as did 38% for insurance, 35% for charity campaigns and 28% concerning travel.

The last of these markets was the only one to see another type of media assume the lead, as the web registered a rating of 19%.

Taking credit cards as an example, 70% of participants agreed branded email had an influence on purchase decisions, a perception that stood at 60% for mail shots, 41% for internet display and 19% for TV spots.

In terms of recall for these financial products, however, 33% mentioned television commercials, with DM on 27%, email on 22% and web banners, pop-ups and equivalent formats on 19%.

“The upshot is that regardless of the demographic, marketers need to deploy a multichannel campaign for topmost customer engagement,” ICOM argued.

“Social media, like many forms of communication, should be incorporated as one component of a broader strategy.”

Equally, while emerging mediums like Foursquare, GoogleBuzz, Loopt, Blippy and Groupons deserve attention, brands must ensure they have a presence in all of the areas frequented by their target audience.

“The proliferation of channels presents marketers more opportunity than ever to engage customers, understand their desires and meet their evolving needs,” the report concluded.

“At the same time, it challenges marketers to abide ever more fervently by the first commandment of marketing: know thy customer.”

Data sourced from ICOM; additional content by World Advertising Research Centre  staff, 27 August 2010

From World Advertising Research Center

Consumer groups that are typically regarded as “minorities” by marketers will grow to become the majority of the US population over the next three decades.

At the ARF’s Audience Measurement Conference – covered in more detail here – Dr Robert Groves, director of the US Census Bureau, argued several seismic shifts are now underway in the country.

Census forecasting growth from 310 million to 439 million

“Between 2010 and 2050, the US population is projected to grow from 310 million to 439 million – an increase of 42%,” he said. “And one in five US residents will be aged 65 or older in 2030.”

Moreover, Groves suggested that by 2042, groups that are generally categorised as “minorities” – like Hispanics, Asians and African Americans – will make up the largest number of people living in the US.

As a forerunner of this trend, the 2010 Census is aiming to reach 309 million individuals in six different languages, in the form of English, simplified Chinese, Korean, Russian, Spanish and Vietnamese.

Language assistance guides to be provided

While this is expected to cover 97.8% of potential contributors, a further 59 “language assistance guides” will help respondents speaking Punjabi Romanian, Tigrinya and a range of other languages.

Even then, its overall penetration will come in at 99.7%, and in a bid to engage the remaining possible participants the Bureau will look everywhere from grassroots organisations to multinational corporations.

In just one example of the future challenges that will face researchers, an attempt by the Bureau to provide bi-lingual surveys has resulted in highly specific difficulties.

“Some people start filling out the Spanish column, move to the English, and switch back to the Spanish,” said Groves.

The marketing campaign for the Census started in January, the first stage of a $350m effort that is unique in its goal of impacting “absolutely everyone.”

Despite the contrasting backgrounds of the consumers featured in the Census, other factors may play a more decisive role in segmenting the population, according to Groves.

“Socio-economic conditions are our greatest differentiators,” he said.

From World Advertising Research Center

 Behavioral economics can help marketers overcome a variety of obstacles related to both price and broader market competition, McKinsey, the consultancy, has argued.

 McKinsey argued that marketers have actually displayed an “inadvertent leadership” in this area in the past, in the form of offers like “three for the price of two” and “extended layaway plans.”  What has been lacking, it suggested, is a systematic approach, largely as most firms simply used these tactics because they worked, rather than basing them on an in-depth understanding of shoppers.

 Among its recommendations for companies looking to exploit the insights from this emerging discipline is to “make a product’s cost less painful.” Consumers , it argued, can both pick between brands and decide against all the goods available, and often “value a dollar” differently depending on the specific item they are considering.

 Retailers have long-since realized that allowing customers to put off paying for acquisitions can increase their propensity to buy as this tactic offers both financial and emotional benefits.  “Even small delays in payment can soften the immediate sting of parting with your money and remove an important barrier to purchase,” McKinsey’s report said.

 Secondly, positioning a product or service as a “default” typically heightens the probability that it will ultimately be selected, particularly when individuals are presented with a wide variety of alternatives. What is important is to ensure that a default constitutes a “good choice for most people,” and eliminates the need to make difficult decisions.

 This is crucial because the pleasure from being “given” something, which is how defaults are generally perceived, typically results in a stronger attachment than if someone has actively identified a brand. In the absence of defaults, marketers must avoid creating a “choice overload”, which make it harder for consumers to find a preferred option, and thus discourages them for reaching the end of the purchase funnel.

 A “choice overload” can also generate a “negative halo” effect, as picking one brands inevitably incurs a penalty, in the form of foregoing favorable characteristics offered by  other similar rivals. “Reducing the number of options makes people likelier not only to reach a decision, but also to feel more satisfied with their choice,” McKinsey said.

 Finally, it is crucial to understand that while everyone has a different budget, each person has a maximum price they would be willing to pay for certain goods. Marketers can, however, exert an influence in this area by repositioning their brands, often in ways that can initially seem counter-intuitive.

 For example, increasing the price of a product can change perspectives about its quality, while making a more expensive alternative available can lead to an alteration in perceptions of value. Sony, for example, found that , with its headphones, “consumers buy them at a given price, if there is a more expensive option—but not if they are the most expensive option on offer.”

 McKinsey’s own research has also revealed that when deciding on an ice cream, brand consideration typically take primacy, followed by flavor, and then price. “Organizing supermarket aisles according to the way consumers prefer to buy specific products makes customers both happier and less likely to base their purchase decisions on price,” its study concluded.

 Data sourced from McKinsey, additional content by WARC staff.