Music is arguably one of the most popular things in the world (who doesn’t listen to music), but it isn’t exactly easy being a musician. That’s particularly true for indie artists who don’t have huge audiences and major record label backing.

The pains of the music industry, coupled with its overall sexiness as a business, have made the music space one of the most popular for startups.

One of the latest entrants hoping to be a panacea for indie musicians: Monkeybars. Targeting music, as well as films, books and art, Monkeybars thinks it has found the magic formula for using social networks to sell content.

Its concept: give indie artists the ability to sell their wares directly, and reward their fans when they recommend that content to friends. As Monkeybars’ CEO Tom Thimot sees it, “Right now, friends are constantly recommending content through social
networks, but they are not getting anything for it, while the
artists—from the popular to the undiscovered—continue to hand over large
percentages of their worth to third parties in order to have their
voices heard.”

Monkeybars biggest differentiator is that its reward is cash, not points that can later be used to redeem a physical or digital reward. Monkeybars calls those types of rewards “antiquated and meaningless.”

The big question, of course, is could something like this work? To be sure, although Monkeybars is billing itself as “the first e- and m-commerce platform that enables artists to monetize
and distribute content directly while rewarding their fans for sharing
and recommending it” the general concept isn’t exactly new.

There are numerous challenges. A big one: getting consumers to pony up for content. It isn’t always easy, and someone who has just discovered your music may not become a fan or customer immediately. There’s also the challenge of making sure that recommendations don’t lose their appeal because they’re effectively paid for. After all, there’s a huge difference between introducing a friend to a great musician and introducing a friend to a great musician through what amounts to an affiliate link.

From this perspective, it’s worth considering that new models for content distribution are warranted in the age of social networking, and there may be room for an affiliate-like model, but there will be a lot of artists and fans to whom the model doesn’t appeal.

In these times of recession, online gaming is a boom industry, as witnessed by Zynga’s IPO today.

The deal values Zynga, the maker of FarmVille and CityVille, at $9bn and is the largest US internet IPO since Google raised $1.9bn in 2004.

And new data from gaming firm Pando Networks gives further evidence of the continued growth of free-to-play games.

While the data only reflects Pando’s figures, it gives an insight into the growth of gaming worldwide since 2009.

The company has seen a 1024% boom in game downloads in Europe between October 2009 and 2011, with developing nations such as Turkey seeing a 534% growth in free-to-play gaming on the Pando platform in the past 12 months.

Pando CEO Robert Levitan said the popularity of massively multiplayer online (MMO) games is being driven by several industry factors.

These factors include the transition from a ‘paid’ to a ‘free-to-play’ business model as evidenced by Turbine’s Lord of the Rings Online and Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, as well as the release of new hit games such as League of Legends from Riot Games.

“We expect continued robust growth as traditional game publishers move to full digital distribution and embrace the free-to-play model,” he said.

A full list of worldwide stats from Pando Networks can be seen in this infographic.

MFI has relaunched as an online retailer, three years after its collapse into bankruptcy.

The new site went live yesterday with a 60% off promotional sale, and claims to offer ‘high quality, luxurious and affordable home furnishings with first class customer service’.

MFI used to be one of the UK’s biggest furniture retailers, operating more than 100 branches before its collapse in 2008.

More than 1,200 people lost their jobs as a result of the collapse, and 30,000 customers were left out of pocket. Private equity firm Walker Capital acquired the MFI brand for £250,000 in August 2009. 

In an interview with Insider Media, MFI commercial director Adrian Storr said despite its high-profile downfall, consumer feedback suggested that the brand would be welcomed back.

Storr said that by relaunching as an online only retailer the company avoided the cost of running shops, meaning MFI won’t have to sell at the same margins as its competitors.

The online only model has worked to revamp Woolworths and Zavvi, two other former high street retailers that collapsed during the credit crunch. Both brands were acquired by new owners and relaunched in 2009.

The MFI brand has been away for longer than Woolworths and Zavvi, but consumers will definitely still recognise it as a furniture retailer. That said, it has proved to be a difficult year for the homewares market, with Focus DIY, Habitat and HomeForm all falling into administration.

Though they were all primarily offline retailers, there are still some major players operating online, such as Homebase and Ikea, so competition is fierce.

We also reported last month on affiliate retailer mydeco.com’s new ecommerce site.

MFI appears to be promoting customer service as its key selling point, with a dedicated team on hand six days a week. This will be a key area for improvement, as MFI was synonymous with customer service issues up to its demise in 2008. 

Whether the brand can recover after leaving so many customers out of pocket three years ago remains to be seen.

As part of the Econsultancy / Foviance Multichannel Customer Experience Report, some 1,000 consumers were surveyed about their experiences when dealing with the banking industry.

Overall, it appears that when engaging with banking services, consumers have a far better experience using personal computers than any other touchpoint.

Using Toluna Quick, we found that 73% of respondents currently feel their overall experience when dealing with a bank is either “excellent” or “good”, but 83% cited these same experience ratings when it came to using a personal computer.

Image: How would you rate your most recent experience when using a desktop computer?

Tablets were also hard on the heels of this, with 71% of consumers rating their banking experience as “excellent” or “good” when using this particular type of technology. 

In comparison, just under three-quarters of respondents (74%) said that they had a “excellent” or “good” experience in-branch and 63%, when it came to using the telephone. 

Additionally, according to consumers, the most important attributes for a positive customer experience within banking is “efficient customer service”. Second was a “user-friendly and secure website”, followed by the competitive pricing of products. 

Image: In order to provide the best experience for you as a customer, what are the most important areas for your bank to focus on?

This echoes the overall findings of the consumer report, which covered multiple sectors, and found that the three most important attributes for a positive experience are ‘efficient customer service’, ‘low-priced products’ and ‘high quality products’. 

Consequently, customer service is definitely an area of focus for financial services, especially given that 69% of consumers would recommend a bank based upon the level of customer service they receive. 

Image: Would you be likely to recommend a bank based on good customer experience?

The PayPal brand has become synonymous with ‘online payments‘, and despite the fact that the company isn’t the newest kid on the block, it’s no surprise that it keeps growing like a weed as  commerce continues to move online.

John Donahoe, the CEO of PayPal parent eBay, however, thinks that online payments should make up a much greater percentage of global payments than they currently do and as a result, PayPal is aggressively working to expand its footprint.

One of the newest ways PayPal appears to be doing that is through a new offering called Access, which is reportedly set to be announced today at its X.commerce conference.

According to BusinessWeek, PayPal Access will “[let] people use their accounts in different Web stores without having to register at each one.” The details:

“You can create an account wherever you’re shopping without giving the merchant your information,” [a PayPal spokesman] said in an interview. By relying on PayPal developers to handle the innovation, Web retailers can make their sites easier and more functional without doing it themselves, he said. “These retailers don’t have the time and resources necessary to figure it all out.”

As reported by Reuters, retailers using PayPal Access will only receive a customer’s shipping address; PayPal will keep the rest of the customer’s information to itself. The logic: by eliminating the need for customers to complete a registration and provide personal information to a retailer, the retailer may see improved conversions.

That sounds nice, but currently PayPal apparently doesn’t have much support, if any, from retailers. And if the statements made by PayPal’s spokesman are any indication, it’s hard to see where such support will come from.

PayPal Access, as described, may on the surface offer some possible benefits to consumers, but it’s hard to see how putting a barrier between consumers and retailers will really benefit either in the long run. After all, few things matter less to retailers today than data. In offering a ‘solution‘ that aims to circumvent retailers’ normal registration process, PayPal is really keeping valuable data about customers out of retailers’ hands. That data, of course, tells them who their customers are. Needless to say, knowing who their customers are is absolutely crucial for retailers. This enables everything from more relevant email marketing campaigns to the creation of a better, more personalized user experience.

When coupled with the notion that developers should “handle the innovation” for retailers because “retailers don’t have the time and resources necessary to figure it all out“, it becomes clear that PayPal’s assumptions about online retailers may be slightly off. Put simply, many online retailers are far more sophisticated than PayPal is willing to give them credit for.

If PayPal is going to boost the number of transactions it handles, and compete more effectively with credit cards, it’s going to need to do better than this. Savvy online retailers are always looking for ways to strengthen their relationships with their customers. It’s hard to see how a PayPal barrier between retailers and customers will promote that.

Some of the most interesting data to be added to the Europe edition of our Internet Statistics Compendium this month focuses on how children are using the internet across the continent.

As social networking becomes more commonplace among adults and mobile technologies give all users more opportunity to get online without computer access, how are children responding to increased connectivity and more pull factors to use digital services?

Last month, the London School of Economics published their EU Kids Online report into European children’s use, risk and safety online. The data clarifies many assumptions about how children are responding to online developments, but there are plenty of surprises too.

General trends

The first surprise is the number of countries where daily internet use among youngsters is more frequent than that of their parents.

Today, all but 10 European countries see their children go online daily significantly more often than their parents.

This is interesting, as the general opinion of the internet among European children is not overwhelmingly enthusiastic, with just 34% of nine and 10 year olds saying there are lots of good things for their age group to do online.

Additionally, there are positive statistics in regards to the countries where children go online more regularly. The UK, Netherlands and Belgium are among the 13 countries where youngsters go online more often than the European average and develop more skills for doing so.

Social and mobile adoption

With 40% of nine to 16 year olds having looked for new friends online, unsurprisingly, social media is popular with children in Europe.

Even the nine to 12 age group (the youngest of the LSE study) sees 38% with a social media profile, while 77% of 13-16 year olds say they have a profile on a social networking site.

Certain age groups are more willing to flout rules against using social media imposed by their parents. For example, as many as 20% of European 13 year olds whose parents don’t allow social networking have admitted to having a profile anyway.

Mobile technology is certainly aiding these trends. In Greece, 50% of children go online in their bedrooms while nearly 80% access the internet via mobile devices. 

By comparison, children in Denmark are the most likely in Europe to go online in their bedrooms, but mobile internet use is less than 40% (below the European average).

Protection, safety and privacy

While the social aspect of internet use is an increasing lure for children, just 9% of European children admit to meeting up with people in real life who they first met online and 11% of those have been bothered or upset by the experience.

When it comes to negative content online, there are significant differences between countries in terms of how bothered young people are by it. For instance, children in Finland and Denmark see similar amounts of negative online material, but those in Denmark are far more likely to be upset by it.

Across Europe however, bullying affects children online most. 31% of European 11-16 year olds say they are very upset by online bullying and countries with higher instances of offline bullying see the most evidence of it taking place via internet channels.

There is also an interesting correlation between those who said they bully while being a victim of bullying. Comparatively, just 4% of non-bullies have been victims of online bullying, while 40% of those who bully online have been bullied back.

Yet, the LSE data which is perhaps of most interest to parents, trend watchers and digital specialists relates to the increasing abilities of European children to be able to control their online lives, by learning skills to lessen risk of being upset.

Children with more online skills experience less harm online. Nearly half of children block those that upset them, while 55% of 11-12 year olds who use Facebook know how to change privacy settings.

There is certainly an increasing desire among children to use social channels, and more of an opportunity for them to do so independently and without being granted permission. But it might not be too long before parents will be asking their kids how best to avoid negative content online.

Amazon has been doing battle with states over the collection of sales tax for years.

It has developed a strategy for dealing with states that propose legislation that would force it to collect sales tax as a result of its affiliate relationships: threaten to terminate affiliates in the state if the legislation is passed.

Sure enough, the e-commerce giant has consistently followed through on such threats. The result: Amazon affiliates either have to say goodbye to revenue, or flee to another state. And the states themselves don’t generate any of the revenue they thought they were losing out on in the first place.

When California proposed legislation that would force Amazon to collect sales tax, Amazon didn’t flinch simply because California is a large state that’s home to some 10,000 affiliates. It terminated those affiliates.

But the story doesn’t end there. Instead of going on with business as usual, Amazon cut a deal with the state: California will hold off on enacting its new law, and Amazon will start collecting sales tax on purchases made by California residents by 2013.

With a compromise in place, Amazon is inviting its California affiliates back. In an email, it tells former affiliates, “We are pleased to invite all California Associates whose accounts were
closed due to the prior legislation to re-enroll in the Associates
program.”

Affiliates who come back into the fold won’t have to change their IDs or account settings; Amazon preserved those. All former affiliates need to do is agree to the terms and conditions to re-enroll.

Obviously, this is good news for affiliates who remained in California and earned a substantial portion of their revenue from Amazon. But it’s not clear whether Amazon’s compromise will prove to be good news for anybody but Amazon.

Previous
case law makes it clear: a state cannot force an out-of-state retailer
to collect sales tax from its residents unless it has a presence in the
state.

So why did Amazon budge? There’s one simple reason: even after severing affiliate ties, it was widely publicized that Amazon actually has several wholly-owned subsidiaries in the state. That would making claiming that it didn’t have a presence in California very difficult.

End of story? Not quite.

As part of its deal with California, Amazon will team up with California and other states to push for a federal law that deals with the collection of sales tax at a local level. While it seems unlikely such a law would be a priority today, other online retailers should be wary.

Because it preferred not to sever all of its ties with California, Amazon is now effectively looking to create a system under which all online retailers have to collect sales tax in states in which they don’t have a presence.

In other words, if Amazon can’t have its way, other online retailers shouldn’t be able to either.

That could prove to be bad news for other online retailers, particularly small online retailers. The reason: while a federal law might, in theory, make collecting local sales tax less painful than if there was no federal law in place, it will still represent the creation of new complexity and regulatory red tape for online retailers.

Complexity and regulatory red tape that, under current law, is not necessary. Amazon, of course, is probably the online retailer that has the greatest ability to deal with and absorb the costs of that increased complexity and red tape, highlighting the fact that Amazon’s fight against affiliate taxes was driven far more by its interest in protecting its position than in protecting online retail.

That, of course, is not exactly a surprise, but online retailers that became used to the notion that Amazon was a reliable friend will need to quickly recognize that Amazon is now potentially a powerful foe.

In June, YouTube announced that it had hit the 3bn views per day milestone and was receiving 48 hours of new video per minute, while Garner listed online video as one of the top ten strategic technologies for 2011.

But in the staggering jungle that is online video, what can US brands do to make sure their content and distribution plans work together as an effective strategy? 

Here are my top five tips…

Content is king

Think about your audience, what do they like? They’re almost certainly not going to be interested in your corporate sales message. 

Your content is competing with everything else on the web so it has to be interesting, entertaining or useful if it‘s going to work. People can click-away more easily than ever before.

According to Mike Johnston, executive producer at Boss Creative in Seattle, WA:

Marketers forget they’re talking to real people. So often I feel liked the only guy in the room who’s worried about the poor slobs who’ve got to watch whatever thing is being talked about by everyone in the marketing and technical departments.

There are huge opportunities

ThinkThin uses video to drive recipe and coupon downloads, Aussiebum credited video with 40% business growth, Virgin Atlantic sold 30% more upgrades, while Zappos’ strategy uses video across product videos, brand marketing and customer service.

What’s everyone going to be talking about in your industry? There is room for any brand to be innovative here.

Define your objectives

Know what you’re aiming for. Don’t be afraid to have strong calls to action in videos, if people like what they see, you don’t need to hide behind the fact it was made by a brand.

According to Mark Robertson, founder of ReelSeo.com, 73% of US retailers feature video on product pages in Q4 2010.

But as Econsultancy’s Online Video Best Practice Guide explains, video can be used to achieve a range of strategic objectives, not just click-throughs. The key is to make sure you can measure how your content is working for you – who’s watching it, what they’re doing as a result, and how it’s spreading around the web.

Distribution needs careful planning and budget

Make sure your video looks great on every device (and avoid using YouTube on your own site).

YouTube is a great channel for reaching audiences though, but they won’t come just if you build it. Even in the social sharing space you need to invest as much in content seeding and syndication as production.

The future is mobile, social, interactive

Shared video is far more powerful than paid-for video advertising: users are three times more likely to watch a shared video than a paid video and shared views are viewed three times longer than paid views.

Beware of the vested interests that still want to sell interruptive ad spots.

According to Sarah Wood, COO at global social video platform Unruly Media:

Consumption of video and video sharing is on the up – and if brands can produce great content people will want to share that too. The ability to win advocates within a peer group like this is extremely powerful.

Taking full advantage of online video means moving away from old frameworks like corporate video, direct response and traditional segmentation. A recent article on the Econsultancy blog explores these ideas further. 

Purchasing stuff online is super convenient, and that explains why online retail is a multi-billion dollar a year market that continues to grow.

But if there’s one thing that isn’t always convenient about buying online, it’s delivery. Depending on how your package is sent and what’s being sent, if you’re not home, you might miss your package and be forced to wait another day (or two).

Recognizing that those little slips informing shipment recipients that
they missed a delivery and will have to wait for their goodies can be
really annoying, UPS is trying to innovate by launching a new offering
called My Choice.

Starting in October, consumers who sign up for My Choice will be
notified by phone, text or email the day prior to a scheduled delivery.

The notification will specify a four-hour window in which the delivery
will take place, giving consumers the opportunity to ensure they don’t
miss their package. It will also enable them to authorize the release of
the package with an e-signature or reschedule the delivery entirely.

My Choice also has paid components, as AdAge explains:

For $5, the package can be rerouted to another address or the nearest
UPS Store. A $40 annual fee gets consumers all of those benefits, along
with a delivery calendar showing the status of deliveries, the option to
select a two-hour window and the ability to provide instructions to
drivers about where to leave packages.

UPS believes My Choice is a “game-changer“, and says shippers think it
could be too. While UPS necessarily has to market its new service to
consumers directly for it to be successful, it believes shippers will
also want to promote it to their customers.

UPS CMO Alan Gershenhorn suggests that My Choice can “help drive sales
and deliver a better customer experience” for retailers, and points to
one multichannel retailer, QVC, which is already promoting My Choice to
its customers.

According to Gershenhorn: 

We’ve done a lot of analytics
with [QVC] to understand how many of their customers get deliveries on
the first attempt, and based on that, they’re very excited about what
this can do for their receivers. 

Needless to say, a delivery made on the first attempt is good for
everybody: shipping company, retailer, customer. The shipping company
boosts efficiency, the retailer fulfills an order as quickly as
possible, and the customer gets what he or she purchased when expected
with minimal hassle. Win-win-win.

From this perspective, there’s a lot for online retailers to like about
My Choice and how it could take some of the occasional pain away from
buying online.

The even better news: if My Choice is a hit, you can be
sure other shipping companies will launch similar offerings, enabling
retailers, through no investment of their own, to improve the ‘last
mile‘ of order fulfillment no matter who they’re shipping with.

Companies are losing out on billions of dollars and pounds in revenue due to a poor online experience, according to research published today by Econsultancy and Tealeaf. A global survey of more than 500 businesses for the Reducing Customer Struggle report found that companies able to quantify site abandonment estimate they are losing the equivalent of 24% of their annual online revenue due to a bad website experience. 

The research has found that companies typically have a much better understanding of what is happening at the top of the sales funnel compared to the bottom of the funnel around the point of conversion.  

While companies have a relatively good grasp of where people come from before visiting their website, and what they are most likely to do on their first visit, they have relatively little understanding about why customers abandon the shopping checkout and leave websites without converting. 

This focus on understanding customer acquisition and giving less emphasis to the rest of the sales and marketing cycle mirrors the marketing bias towards acquiring customers which has been a feature of the business landscape over the last few years.

As selling online has become more competitive, companies have belatedly been paying more attention to converting website visitors and retaining their custom. Companies are more aware that customer experience directly impacts their finances, as well as metrics such as customer satisfaction and loyalty. 

As a result of this, the customer experience management (CEM) industry is fast gaining momentum, with technology companies and agencies increasingly meeting demand for tools and services to give their clients a competitive edge.  

Geoff Galat, CMO of Tealeaf, said:

“This research demonstrates a clear link between online customer experience and revenue generation. Ebusinesses have much to gain from better online visibility, particularly at the bottom of the sales funnel, where conversion rates should be highest. A poor online user experience, coupled with a lack of visibility and understanding, translates into a significant amount of lost revenue as well as added costs due to increased inbound enquiries.” 

The research shows that most companies have a culture of reacting to problems only after customers have started to complain about something, rather than anticipating problems before they damage brand reputation and cost them significant sums of money.

The chart below shows how companies usually discover problems or issues with the customer experience.  

Part of the problem is that businesses find it easier to collect data about ‘what’ is happening on their websites, rather than actually collecting insightful information about ‘why’ something is happening.

This next chart shows which approaches or methods companies use to understand the online customer experience. Despite being used by a minority of companies surveyed, user testing and session replay technology are regarded as the most effective methods. Ultimately, companies need to ensure that they are using a blend of quantitative and qualitative tools or approaches to deliver ‘actionable’ insights. 

As well as looking at the tools used for improving success rates, the report focuses on the extent to which companies have the right processes in place to improve the experience. Only around half (49%) of companies have processes in place for prioritising problems and issues faced by customers online, and then addressing them.

One of the areas explored in the report is how companies approach social media content relating to customer experience issues. Only 20% say that tweets or comments are monitored by a customer service team, while 59% say that the marketing department monitors this. A third of companies (34%) say that there is an escalation procedure so the right team gets notified. 

The report also explores levels of online and offline integration within businesses. Only 3% of respondents describe the multichannel experience their companies provide as ‘excellent’, while just under a quarter (24%) say this is ‘poor’ (20%) or ‘very poor’ (4%). For the majority of companies surveyed (60%), the offline parts of their business have little or no visibility into individual customer activity and engagement.  

In the world of online retail, competition is growing and now you can often find the item you are looking for on multiple websites with similar price points.  

For this reason, it is important for retailers to improve aspects of their website in order to generate more sales.

We can also draw some comparisons if we look at the offline world. On the high street it is possible to find an item in a range of different shops; supermarkets start selling electronics, clothes shops start selling gifts and book stores sell DVDs.  

In order to survive, the top retailers will try to convince you to buy from them rather than their competitors.  Shop windows become more and more attractive, with the more expensive stores like Harvey Nicholls creating new elaborate and artistic window displays every three months.

Weatherspoons chooses appealing buildings to entice you to eat and drink at their establishments. Argos invests heavily in creating the easiest buying experience possible, with automated pay points and a fast collection service.

Why? It improves their conversion rates. For every visitor who enters its stores, they have found the best setup and business model to make people buy, and keep coming back to buy again.

The online world is similar in many ways to the high street – you attract visitors through search marketing, and you build your shop through web development. The missing piece is to find the best setup to make your visitors want to buy.

That is where online retail has a significant advantage. In the real world, you cannot test multiple versions of your shop to see which format is best, but online you can.

Just for fun, here are some interesting comparisons between the high street and online:

 1. Shop front = website design

The look of your high street store is very important for building trust with your customers. A store that looks unprofessional will immediately lead to visitors making assumptions about the quality of service and goods they should expect.  

They may question whether the store will offer a fair returns policy, or have competitive prices and many more things.

Similarly, when arriving at a website, visitors will make all the same assumptions based on the look of the site. This is a crucial moment at which a certain amount of trust can be lost or won. 

2. Customer service = usability

Image via PassiveAggressivenotes.com. 

It doesn’t matter how great your store is, if customer service is lacking. If you make it difficult for your visitors to find prices & pay points then they won’t buy. If you aren’t able to answer questions or let visitors examine the products, then you are in danger of them going elsewhere. 

The same is true online. You should aim to showcase your products and answer questions about them. It is essential to make the customer journey swift and easy.

3. Line of sight = above the fold

Stores purposely place items they want you to buy in your eye-line. They have banners high up to help you find your way around supermarkets.  You are shown offers in relevant places, and clearly in view. Cash desks are given bright lights or big signs to help you find them easily.

Online, this is the equivalent to placing products above the fold, and highlighting certain key elements such as prices, offers and purchase options.

4. Changing rooms & display items = images and descriptions

In stores, you are able to get involved with products, which ultimately helps you to decide whether to buy or not.  You are able to try on clothes and examine display items.  In examining, you can evaluate the cost versus the benefit of the product.

Online, this is much more difficult, and so it becomes important to help visitors to understand products in any way you can.  High quality images, videos, descriptions, testimonials, ratings, comparison’s – these are all ways in which we can help a visitor become involved with a product.  

The visitor must be able to gauge the benefit in order to buy, and if you fail to help them do this, you will not sell.

5. Clubcards & points = remarketing

Lifetime value is important to many high street businesses.  You want customer loyalty to keep your business turning over revenue each month, and an easy way to do this is through loyalty schemes.  

Why not offer discounts to regular customers? Why would they change supermarkets if they are saving points?

Online, you can send emails to your existing customer base displaying offers and reminding them they haven’t bought any beans in a while. You can display adverts to previous visitors offering cross sell items, or giving discounts if they choose to return.

6. Salesmen = behavioural targeting

Salesmen are able to offer a more personal service on the high street. They know the products on offer and their individual merits. By finding out a little about you, a salesman can offer you a small selection of options that will match your needs.  

It is much more likely you will find and buy a product when there is someone there to guide you, answer your questions and resolve any fears.

Online, this has been the most difficult piece of the puzzle for years, but we are able to serve unique content to visitors based on previous site and search behaviour, which means we can show products that have been viewed or searched for previously.  

This reduces the effort required by the visitor to locate items they have researched previously.

Many websites are offering product suggestions now, based on what other visitors bought or viewed after viewing the product you have selected. Instant chat options also breach the gap between online and offline, giving you access to a salesman.

Websites should always be designed
to deliver an engaging user experience. To succeed, marketers need an
understanding of how online communication works and they need to be clear about
how a business can serve the needs of its customers on the web.

The websites that are succeeding online are the ones that concentrate on the delivery
of quality user experience, functionality and added value elements such as
personalisation to really engage with visitors.

Savvy marketers are starting to
concentrate on the
4Cs of web
marketing (content, community, commerce and communication) and this is enabling
businesses to deliver exactly what web visitors are after and realise some of
the following key benefits:

1. Rapid go to market – in a controlled fashion

The great thing about a website is that you can tweak content and design whenever you want, at a relatively low cost compared to more traditional media.

This means that your company can launch a webpage for a product or service which has the right content and basic functionality and ensure this delivers results by refining over time through testing and further development.

Define which issues are development and which are maintenance and try to get rapidly to the maintenance stage for a well-defined project. Marketers have the freedom to move content around, test new ways of using images and video and go with the options that work best once the site is up.

2. Better integration with wider business processes

In this day and age, marketers are trying their best to make their websites emulate what consumers want. But they have to be careful not to lose sight of how the website will integrate with wider business processes and existing systems.

This is especially important in cases where there is an existing CRM tool. Or it might be that the site needs to connect up to outbound mailing systems so that marketers do not have to re-enter the same information in multiple places.

Finally, seeding information on social channels should also be considered. Reducing the number of times you need to login to publish your information is a key efficiency driver, allowing you to easily maintain all your channels.

3. Clear return on investment

Analytics provide marketers with the tools to assess how successful an online campaign has been and, most importantly, how they can improve results in real-time and for future activities.

By analysing certain aspects of a website, marketers can quickly personalise pages to better suit customer needs, for example tweaking a page that is experiencing high drop off. A little change can often make a big difference.

4. Making campaign microsites generate long-term value

As mentioned earlier, a site doesn’t need to be perfect when a product or service is launched; it just needs to have all the right content and basic functionality to be effective. This thinking can be transferred to campaign microsites too.

These are a common marketing tactic for many companies, but rather than creating a temporary resource that has a very limited shelf-life, smart marketers are realising that these pages can be absorbed into wider, lasting online strategies that add value to visitors and gain important search visibility.

5. Prioritising accessibility to bring improved usability and better search visibility

Accessibility is a fundamental part of any website these days. If you incorporate this into your strategy at the start of the project, then you will benefit from it in the end. It is much more expensive to go back and change at a later stage.

The deployment of accessibility standards and technologies can bring new benefits and opportunities for business advantage. Accessibility can also benefit a broader audience and improve website performance for users.

Improved access and usability in turn broadens your website appeal and actively improves your users’ experience online. It can also help you with search too as Google is increasingly favouring websites that have put the work in when it comes to accessibility. So not only will it help visitors to your site, it will help them find you in the first place.

Online video consumption has doubled in the space of a year, and this rate of growth may well continue for some time to come. It provides brands with a huge opportunity to engage consumers.

Smartphone penetration has helped, though I think the real reason why online video is doing so well is linked to the ease with which videos can be shared. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter are perfect for passing around videos.

So what should brands be doing about this? How can they make the most of this trend towards richer, smarter, more interactive video content?

I have 10 ideas for you to peruse, with plenty of examples, to show you what the smarter brands are doing. 

Branded Videos – M&S

The retailer has made a significant investment into this space. It uses Adjust Your Set to create around 700 branded videos a year. These videos come in many different shapes and sizes but often extend the discussion around product lines, and sometimes feature various ‘faces of M&S’, in this case Myleene Klass. Typically, they are not explicitly sales-orientated, as far as the content is concerned. 

Product Videos – ASOS

If you work in e-commerce and haven’t yet embraced product videos then you need to schedule a meeting. Product videos can significantly increase conversion rates and basket sizes. They can also help to reduce returns. Many types of videos can be outsourced to specialist agencies, but it might be best to create product videos in-house. Both Net-A-Porter and ASOS (shown below) have integrated product videos seamlessly.

User Videos – Firebox

User-generated videos filmed by customers are an incredibly compelling way of showing off a product. Firebox is the undisputed king of the user video: it has more than 50 videos for one product alone, and does a really fantastic job of displaying them along with ratings and stats (note that the user video shown below has had more than 42,000 views. Epic…). Light sabres are perfect for this sort of thing, though perhaps it is trickier to solicit user videos for less sexy products. 

Sponsored Videos – Fosters / Alan Partridge 

The Heineken-owned lager brand ponied up enough cash to persuade Steve Coogan and Armando Iannucci to create 12 new 11-minute episodes of an Alan Partridge show, called ‘Mid Morning Matters’. The videos have generated more than 4m views for Fosters, which is (sensibly) nailing its flag to the comedy mast. I think we’re going to see more of this sort of thing in the future, with brands underwriting the production of quality content from established acts. 

Clickable Video – French Connection’s YouTique

Here’s another trend that I expect to see more of: video with ‘click’ functionality. French Connection’s YouTique campaign is one way of using clickable video to drive engagement. 

Choose your ending ads – Tipp-Ex

Similar to the above, the ability to insert click functionality into a video means online advertisers can be incredibly creative, without resorting to lame intrusive formats. The Tipp-Ex ‘shoot a bear’ campaign has set the bar suitably high. It’s great fun and the execution is superb (it should win awards, if it hasn’t already). The Tipp-Ex channel on YouTube has amassed more than 45m views. A massive win, at least as far as awareness and engagement is concerned.

It’s even brilliant when it doesn’t work…

Hotspot videos for e-commerce – Westfield

Another way of using clickable overlays is to allow viewers to click on the things they see on the screen. This is known as ‘hotspotting’, and it is becoming more popular among fashion retailers. The Westfield Spring/Summer 2010 Fashion Video demonstrates how this works.

Viral Videos – Ford and Volkswagen

Have you experimented with viral video yet? Viral marketing is bigger than ever, and with cross-device video consumption massively on the rise we’re going to see more brands entering the fray. There are two distinct tactics employed by brands with budgets to spend: 

1) create video content specifically for the web / viral marketing, e.g. Ford Focus – The Doug Puppet

2) create Hollywood-quality ad campaigns and seed them on the web in advance of a TV release, e.g. Volkswagen ‘The Force’

Unruly Media’s Viral Video Chart provides more examples of brands that are embracing social video. We interviewed Unruly’s Sarah Wood recently, who provides lots of insight into social video marketing.

Augmented Reality Videos – AXA Belgium

There have been some fun AR executions lately. I particularly liked the video created by AXA Belgium, to extend a print ad campaign. Highly innovative. There are some other examples of augmented reality goodness here and here. 

User Testing Videos – Whatusersdo tests Boden

We reviewed the relaunched Boden website last year and included a user testing video, shown below. Listening to users is so important and video is one way of capturing a real-time view of how people react to your web experience. The background noise is as interesting as the statements they make. 

There are plenty of other applications for video, but the above constitute 10 of the more vital ones, at least as far as I’m concerned. What else can you use video for? Which brands are doing video well? Please leave your thoughts below.

The UK’s shoppers spent £4.9bn online last month, 20% more than in the same period in 2010, bringing the total spend so far this year to £10bn. 

This figure comes from the most recent IMRG/Capgemini e-Retail Index. I have a round up of these figures, as well as some recent stats from our E-commerce Statistics document… 

UK online retail (IMRG)

• The £4.9bn spent online in February equates to £79 per person. 
• As online shoppers stocked up in advance of duty increases, alcohol sales rose by 37% on January and up 25% on February 2010. 
• Other growth areas included clothing (up 34% on February 2010), home and garden (up 37%), and electricals (up 22%). 
• According to Jonathan Brown, John Lewis’ sales were up by 20% on the same period in 2010, with clothing sales rising by over 50%. 

Online payment trends (Cybersource)

• 94% of merchants accept credit and debit cards, while 41% of merchants accept PayPal payments. 27% of merchants accept payment in currency other than GBP, while 15% accept cards specific to non-UK regions. 
• Google Checkout payments have risen by 1% during 2010, and mobile payments have increased by 5% during 2010. 

E-commerce and delivery (Snow Valley)

• There was a slight increase in the speed of delivery during 2010, with 48% of orders arrived within two days, up from 46% last year. 
• 81% of orders arrived within the timescales given by retailers, though this has dropped from 91% in 2009. 
• Retailers are getting better at displaying delivery charges, with 34% showing this information on product pages, 43% on the shopping basket, while just 21% waited for customers to enter the checkout before revealing this information, down from 30% last year. 

Percentage of online shoppers that use social media (Econsultancy, How We Shop in 2010)

Social commerce (Immediate Future)

• 46% of online shoppers do not have a clear idea of what they want to buy when they go online. Emerging groups of shoppers, termed gatherers and collaborators, are spending time on social platforms researching and sharing information prior to making a purchase.
• 60% of UK online shoppers would be more likely to shop at a site that rewarded them for reviews or recommendations.
• Retailer incentives do not affect the credibility of customer reviews (32% think better of a brand that has been recommended, 30% when the recommendation has been rewarded).

A survey of 2,000 UK consumers finds that the majority of consumers head to the internet for their book purchases, and shows the extent of Amazon’s dominance of this market in the UK. 

According to the Toluna survey, almost 80% of respondents have bought books from the online retail giant, compared with just 8% for Waterstones. 

Where do people buy books? 

Almost 56% of respondents head online to buy books, while 23% use Waterstone’s, 23% buy books from supermarkets, and 21% use WHSmith. A higher proportion (58%) of the 16-34 age group are buying books online. 

There are some positives for offline booksellers from the survey results, with 43% claiming that they aren’t planning to buy books online in future. 

Which websites do they use? 

Amazon is the clear winner here, with almost 80% of respondents buying their books there, compared with just 8% for Waterstones and 4.5% for WHSmith. 

Why do people choose to buy books online?

Unsurprisingly, price is the key factor for 71% of consumers, and there is a perception that books can be bought more cheaply online. 

50% cite the convenience of online shopping, while 35% appreciate the improved choice on offer, and 27% find reviews and recommendations helpful. 

What can traditional booksellers like Waterstone’s do better online? 

With the decline of some booksellers like Borders, in the US and UK, the growing influence of the internet, e-books, and the dominance of Amazon, brands like Waterstone’s face a challenge. 

The decline of Borders wasn’t necessarily all about the internet, but the fact that the retailer outsourced its e-commerce activities to Amazon until 2008 tells its own story. 

Many offline booksellers have so far failed to establish an online presence as strong as that of Amazon, though Barnes & Noble in the US is one example of how this can be done. 

User reviews

Amazon is difficult to beat when it comes to user reviews. Almost any book you enter into Amazon already has at least a few reviews, but the same cannot be said for Waterstone’s. 

Waterstone’s and others should be more pro-active in attempting to gather more user reviews from customers, such as emailing post-purchase to ask for customers’ opinions, offering incentives to do so, or even using third party reviews providers. 

One thing Waterstone’s does well offline is to provide written recommendations from its staff of certain books, and this is something which could work well online. 

In the absence of reviews from other customers, this is one alternative that provides customers with help and ideas when searching for a book to read. This online review from Tom at the Brentford store is a great example: 

Use the multichannel advantage

One advantage that offline booksellers have over pure plays like Amazon is that they can offer a more varied range of services to customers. 

For example, they can offer collect in store services to web users, or else offer in-store ordering kiosks for customers who are unable to find what they are looking for in store.

Mobile

Waterstone’s has a useful iPhone app, but it does have its limitations, such as a clunky checkout process. By contrast, Amazon account holders can use 1 click ordering on the app to make smooth mobile purchases. 

The Barnes & Noble app is a great example, as it contains many useful features for offline shoppers, such as the ability to search for books using the phone’s camera. Great for price comparison. 

Free delivery

When asked how online booksellers could improve, 43% of respondents cited lower delivery costs.

In a price sensitive market like this, delivery costs can be a deal breaker, so free delivery offers can be an effective sales tactic. 

Waterstone’s now offers a clear free delivery offer on its homepage: 

The Book Depository has been a UK success story, and part of the reason for this is the simplicity of its offering. It offers free delivery anywhere in the world, and this has helped to establish it in foreign markets, and to compete with Amazon on price.