Study: 83% of ALL Holiday Shoppers Influenced by Reviews « Marketing Pilgrim

Of the 92 percent of consumers surveyed by Channel Advisors that say they read product reviews, only three percent say they weren’t swayed by such reviews. That suggests 83 percent of consumers are influenced by online reviews.

A surprising 67% said they would purchase an identical product from an unknown website if the retailer offered a better value, meaning low pricing and free shipping, typically.

So the issue is, what is the balance between low price or free shipping and recommendations as drivers of user behavior. One might suggest low price and free shipping mostly always win when recommendations are favorable.

One might also suggest that favorable recommendations will fail to outweigh price and free shipping.


http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2010/09/study-83-of-all-holiday-shoppers-influenced-by-reviews.html

Amazon Said to Plan Film, TV Web Service With Studios

Amazon apparently is trying to create its own Web-based content service featuring TV and movie programming, as part of its shift to sales of digital goods. In principle, the approach is the same as Amazon has taken with books, where it sells both physical versions and digital versions.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-09-01/amazon-said-to-plan-film-tv-web-service-with-studios.html

eBay to Ban Google Checkout: What About That PayPal-Android Deal?

eBay sats that third-party checkout solutions, like Google Checkout, will no longer be supported on eBay after June 30, 2011. eBay says that other checkout solutions (besides PayPal) are only used less than 10 percent of the time on eBay.com.

As with all such decisions, one suspects a heightened sense of competitive threat is playing a large role in eBay's thinking.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/223346-ebay-to-ban-google-checkout-what-about-that-paypal-android-deal?source=feed

The Generational Culture Gap: Marketing Implications

Different generations have attitudinal orientations that affect the creation of marketing messages.

Gen X military recruitment ads, for example, have focused on “risk, the individual, and personal conquest,” for reasons related to the attitudes Gen X consumers tend to have.

Millennials, on the other hand, value teamwork. So marketing messages pitched to millennials have to hightlight the meaning of the choice and the teamwork.


http://millennialmarketing.com/2010/09/the-generational-culture-gap/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MillennialMktg+%28Millennial+Marketing%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Social Commerce: In Friends We Trust

Social networks generate very-large numbers of pageviews and longer times on site than other sites, which has made them attractive for advertisers. But some say social networks actually aren't like traditional media, meaning traditional advertising and campaigns might not work as people think they will.

The gist of the argument is that social networks are about users communicating with other users, making marketing messages a bit of an intrusion.

None of that seems to be slowing advertiser interest, though.


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User-Generated Content More Important, at Least for Google Rankings

While search engine providers have talked about fresh content for years, Google Caffeine's emphasis on freshness gives user-generated content a lot more weight. Maintaining a good ranking according to Google's algorithms now requires that at least some of the page's content is fresh and dynamic, which indicates to Google that the page is still relevant.

Adding customer reviews or user-generated questions and answers can obviously help provide fresh content.

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What's the Next Game Changer in Digital Marketing? Mobile

Mobile devices, will be the "number-one platform for persuasion" in 10 to 15 years, predicts BJ Fogg, director of Stanford University's Persuasive Technology Lab. "If you want to influence people, it will be more important than the Web, than TV."

But we are only at the beginning of a long learning curve, for practitioners and end users. "We're going to see a lot of failure," he said.

Others might argue that is why there is at the moment so much optimism about all forms of mobile marketing, communication and commerce. But it will take a while. Many will find they are "too early" in the market. Just about all of us will find we didn't understand the medium very well.


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