Will Twitter Kill Emailing?

French Internet guru Henri Kaufman has been the first one to express to me this idea: Twitter will kill emails. Now this is the very serious Wall Street Journal that writes about it.

Micro blogging, Twittering, or Instant web, whatever you want to call it represents indeed a revolution. Freshness becomes the most fundamental value of the information. That's clear. Since I am twittering, and even if I own a Blackberry which technically allows me to read my emails at any time, my email accounts get stacked and I spend my week ends on deleting emails I don't even have the time to answer. With Twitter, if the information has gone to the second page of your thread, you are over with it. And it is fine, as it is the concept of it.

Little wonder that while email continues to grow, other types of communication services are growing far faster. In August 2009, 276.9 million people used email across the U.S., several European countries, Australia and Brazil, according to Nielsen Co., up 21% from 229.2 million in August 2008. But the number of users on social-networking and other community sites jumped 31% to 301.5 million people.

"The whole idea of this email service isn't really quite as significant anymore when you can have many, many different types of messages and files and when you have this all on the same type of networks," says Alex Bochannek, curator at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif.

That can make it harder to determine the importance of various messages. When people can more easily fire off all sorts of messages—from updates about their breakfast to questions about the evening's plans—being able to figure out which messages are truly important, or even which warrant a response, can be difficult. Information overload can lead some people to tune out messages altogether.

Such noise makes us even more dependent on technology to help us communicate. Without software to help filter and organize based on factors we deem relevant, we'd drown in the deluge.

Enter filtering. In email land, consumers can often get by with a few folders, if that. But in the land of the stream, some sort of more sophisticated filtering is a must.

It might take some time before the mass market use and apprehend the new medium. There are still a lot of people that has never heard about Twitter, or even worse,hundreds of thousands people that registered but have never understood how to use it.

But I firmly believe Twitter, or maybe more the Instant web, will for sure change the face of how people interract online.

Les dernières tendances du Web 2.0 par Loic Lemeur

Voici une vidéo de Loic Lemeur exposant les dernières tendances du web notamment l'Instant Web, et les conséquences pour les marques.

Uncertainty More Convincing

Experts are suppose to provide you clear answers within their expertise field. Since they are supposed to master their art, it is hard to believe that they would doubt about their own concept or strategy.

Nevertheless, it seems that experts are the most convincing while expressing uncertainty. Indeed, Whether it’s a person without established expertise in a given domain expressing very high certainty, or a person with clearly established expertise in a domain expressing low certainty," Tormala said, "the inconsistency is surprising. It draws people in. And as long as the arguments in a message are reasonably strong, being drawn in leads to more persuasion."

Tormala and Karmarkar studied this issue by giving consumers what purported to be customer reviews for a new restaurant. "Restaurant reviews provided a good setting for this research," Tormala said. "Like other consumer topics, they’re subjective, but there also are traditional markers of quality."
He said such attributes as ambience, service, and taste of the food can be described with enough detail to let people understand the reviewer's perspective, but still reach their own conclusions about whether the restaurant would be suited to their tastes.
Participants in one experiment read a favorable review of a new restaurant called "Bianco’s." Across experimental conditions, the main part of the review contained the same core comments about Bianco's, comments the researchers had pre-tested on a sampling of readers to make sure they were strong. In the main study, some participants were told that the reviewer was a renowned food critic who often contributed to a major regional newspaper; others were told that the reviewer was a network administrator at a local community college who kept a personal web journal — and normally ate fast food.
In addition to varying the supposed source of the review, the researchers varied the level of certainty expressed in it. In the high-certainty recommendation, the review was titled "Bianco's — a confident 4 out of 5," and the author expressed certainty about the quality of the food and the restaurant twice in the review (saying, for example, "Having eaten there for dinner, I can confidently give Bianco's a rating of 4 [out of 5] stars"). In the low-certainty recommendation, the title of the review was "Bianco's — a tentative 4 out of 5" and the author expressed uncertainty about these same points (for example, "Having eaten there only once, I don’t have complete confidence in my opinion, but I suppose would give Bianco's a rating of 4 [out of 5] stars").
"We find that when the regular, everyday person is extremely certain, that’s surprising to readers,' Tormala said. 'Conversely, when the expert is not so certain, that's surprising. In both cases, surprise increases readers’ interest in and involvement with the review, which is essentially a persuasive message, and this promotes persuasion. So non-experts get more attention and can have more impact when they express certainty in their messages. Experts, in contrast, get more attention and can have more impact when they express uncertainty."

Maybe uncertainty makes the expert more human, and hence, it makes it more real. It is impossible even for an expert to be right at 100%. As human sciences like business, sociology or communication are not mathematical sciences, there is always a part of unknown, which actually makes it understandable that there is uncertainty.

Le client captif

Il y a des moments où le client se trouve en situation d'attente, ou bien dans un environement clos où il n'a pas la possibilité de "s'échaper". Il devient client captif. C'est le cas par exemple lorsqu'il se trouve en voiture pour un long trajet, dans une fil d'attente ou encore dans une pièce d'attente.

Ces moments peuvent devenir des moments de communication privilégiées par les marques, même s'il existe un fort risque d'intrusion. L'idée est donc de proposer une communication de type divertissement.

Quelques exemples auquels j'ai pensé hier matin en allant au cabinet de radiologie:

• Une borne de téléchargement gratuite de film
• Une console de jeu vidéo en accès libre
• Distribution de produit alimentaire

L'intérêt réside aussi dans le fait où, à ce moment précis, le client n'est pas assujetti à la communication de concurrents potentiels. Son attention est donc grande, et c'est pour cela qu'il y a des opportunités de communication lors de ces moments où le client est captif.

Dannon Launches Dannonomics

I have been working with a friend of mine on a CRM project including a loyalty reward program for a cosmetic brand. The main focus is that the company doesn't own its distribution channels, and hence, it is quite difficult to set up a reward program. How do you keep a track of your customers' purchases?

Indeed, I don't know many brands that set up a loyalty reward program without owning their own channel. Meanwhile I have found out that Dannon has launched for its 90th anniversary a loyalty reward program called Dannonomics. Hence I have decided to pay a close look at it, to see how they have succeeded in knowing their customers' consumption.

The trick might seem simple, in terms of company's process, but a little bit acward on the customer point of view: The customer cuts the barcodes of its products and then send it by mail, in order to receive their coupons.

It might work for a food company like Dannon, which is already used to generate contests with this process, but for other companies out of the grocery shopping industry, I don't see this choice that obvious.

Dannonomics actually is not what we can call a "customer relationship management" program, because it is a one shot strategy, and doesn't consider the relationship on a long term. Though it will provide pretty good data about the success of the campaign.

I have had the chance to speak with the French CRM director of Danone to talk about their customer relationship management strategy, and did not seem that obvious they were very active on the topic, and creative. It was simply based on sending newsletters and magazines to people that registered online.

Now, I'd like to know if some of you knows about some brands that don't own their retail channels that have set up powerful loyalty reward programs. I'd like to share with you examples.

Les supermarchés en ligne: une alternative écologique

Le commerce électronique et le développement durable font souvent bon ménage puisqu'ils représentent les 2 tendances fondamentales de développement à court et moyen terme. J'ai récupérer un article de la FEVAD sur le site d'oxatis, une société proposant des solutions de e-commerce. Cet article explique que les supermarchés électroniques, tels que Auchan Direct, seraient des solutions plus écologiques de faire les courses alimentaires.

"Passer par internet aurait notamment pour effet de réduire par 8 les émissions de CO2. Ainsi, en 2007, et sur la base de 446 000 livraisons, les clients de Telemarket devraient permettre d’éviter l'émission de 6 583 tonnes de CO2. A titre de comparaison, pour absorber une telle quantité en rejets, il faudrait l'équivalent de 449 hectares de forêt, soit plus de la moitié du bois de Boulogne.
Et si l'achat par internet était finalement un bon moyen de consommer « écolo » ?

Pour les auteurs de l’étude, le caractère écologique de l’achat à distance fait peu de doute. Selon eux, «la livraison à domicile présente des bénéfices environnementaux spectaculaires pour la société». Voilà en tout cas un beau de sujet de réflexion sur lequel la Fevad travaille actuellement dans le cadre d’un projet d’étude consacré à l’impact du e-commerce et de la vente à distance sur l’environnement et le développement durable, dont les résultats seront connus courant 2008."

Cette étude date de 2007 et il est vrai que j'en avais jamais entendu parler avant aujourd'hui. Les sociétés proposant de faire leurs courses en ligne sont certainement encore loin d'avoir une rentabilité suffisante pour se développer rapidement à court terme, mais montre qu'elle possède des avantages aussi en terme environnemental.

Est ce que vous faites vos courses en ligne? Quels sont les avantages que vous percevez? Quels sont les inconvénients? Le sujet m'intéresse énormément et je serai ravi d'en discuter.

First Moment Of Truth

I am preparing a series of posts about the First Moment Of Truth as part of my reflexion about customer experience. Hence, the First Moment of Truth which has shown up for the first time in 2002 has been a real revolution in the retail world.

Procter & Gamble, who has been most of the time a trailblazer for a lot of trends in the retail industry, has been the founder of the concept. As P&G was the king of mass media advertising, with huge investment in TV spots, they found out that customers were making their decision process 5 to 7 seconds prior to picking up the product. Hence, this short period of time when customers decide to get your product versus your competitors’ must be managed in a proper way to optimize your conversion rate. Hence, Procter has cut its TV advertising budget by 25% the following years, and at some point were barely using TV advertising in its marketing strategy.

The goal was to create such an environment that the product would be more visible and desirable than your competitor’s. Hence you have different options to get the attention of your customers during the first moment of truth:
Merchandising: Negotiate a nice visible spot on the shelves. You could also try to get multiple facings or even get an end of the aisle display.
Promotion: Get a good promotion, noticeable.
The packaging: Work on the packaging to make it appealing.
Billboards inside the store section: If you need to advertise, it must be nearby the product emplacement.

Being efficient during this crucial period is harder than it seem. It requires a great knowledge of the customer. It also implies to have established a strong partnership with the retailer to insure the proper mix.

The first moment of truth is also crucial on a customer relationship management because it is the first time someone becomes an actual customer of the product. Hence it is important to secure a strong shopper experience because it might results ultimately in customer loyalty.

In the next posts, you will see that the concept has changed during the time, and that there are some other crucial moment that will impact the relationship between a customer and a brand.

Première publicité pour Twitter et Windows Phone

Voici la première publicité télévisée pour le Windows phone. Pourquoi est-ce que je vous montre cette vidéo? Aurais-je changé d'avis sur Blackberry et prêt à repartir pour Windows (j'ai eu pendant près d'un an un PDA équipé de Windows pocket)?

Simplement parce que c'est la première publicité télévisée parlant de Twitter. Je pense qu'on a encore pas mal de travail avant d'adopter Twitter en France, mais cela arrive, avec de plus en plus de société et de médias utilisant Twitter.

First Moment Of Truth

Le first moment of truth est probablement l’un des concepts les plus importants de ces dernières années dans le domaine du marketing alimentaire. Celui-ci fut développé il y a environ 5 ans par Procter and Gamble, qui par ailleurs est souvent l’un des précurseurs en termes de techniques marketing dans la profession. Ce fut ainsi Procter qui fut l’un des acteurs essentiels dans le domaine du category management ou encore dans la communication de masse.

Procter fut en son temps un des plus gros consommateurs de publicité télévisée pendant des années, avec des marques fortes tels que Mr Propre ou bien sûr Ariel. Mais avec le first moment of truth, Procter a changé totalement son fusil d’épaule. Si l’idée de la publicité télévisée est d’encrer l’image de marque dans la tête des consommateurs avant leur passage en hypermarché, le moment of Truth considère que le consommateur prend sa décision d’achat dans un rayon environ 10 secondes avant de le mettre dans son caddie.

10 secondes pour convaincre
Ainsi, quasiment du jour au lendemain, Procter baissa son budget de communication média (principalement télévision) de plus de 25%, et se concentra sur l’optimisation de ce court laps de temps de réflexion. Ainsi, le first moment of truth repose sur une étude approfondie du comportement d’achat du consommateur, avec un processus de décision très court (environ 10 secondes), et un travail en profondeur sur le « customer experience », l’expérience client. Car il s’agit bien de mettre en condition le consommateur dans ce laps de temps afin d’augmenter ses chances d’être choisi en linéaire.

Comme quoi, le first moment of truth. Se trouve un lien direct avec les sujets abordés sur ce blog : le travail sur l’expérience client pour les distributeurs (customer experience marketing).

Ainsi, les principaux leviers du first moment of truth sont :

• Le merchandising : avoir le produit placé idéalement pour que le consommateur le voit.
• L’approvisionnement : être sûr que son produit se trouve constamment en linéaire
• Une place dans le prospectus de l’enseigne : Etre dans le prospectus augmente les chances de ventes.
• Le packaging
• La PLV : avoir une PLV (publicité sur le lieu de vente).
  
  
  Par ailleurs, suite à cet article sur le first moment of Truth, voici un article intéressant que j’ai trouvé sur le site Internet du master marketing de l’IAE de Paris.
  
  J’avais d’ailleurs assisté à une conférence à ce sujet où le directeur d’Invivo expliquait son métier et les technologies permettant d’améliorer l’efficacité marketing en magasin.
  
  Eric Singler a créé sa société d’Etudes In Vivo il y a plus de 15 ans, après avoir été chef de produit puis chef de groupe chez Yoplait. Fort de cette expérience, il s’est lancé dans la création d’une société d’études spécialisée dans l’observation du comportement du consommateur sur le point de vente en grande consommation. Tous les grands groupes tels que Danone, L’oréal, Procter&Gamble sont des clients d’In Vivo. Sa société est aujourd’hui présente dans plusieurs pays.

Il est venu nous présenter sa société, et plus particulièrement nous éclairer sur sa vision du comportement du consommateur. A l’image de Procter&Gamble, il considère que l’analyse du comportement du consommateur classique n’a plus de sens aujourd’hui, mais qu’il faut bien distinguer le comportement du consommateur et celui du shopper.

Cette vision se matérialise d’ailleurs dans le type d’études même qu’il réalise pour ses clients, puisqu’il analyse le comportement réel des consommateurs dans une situation d’achat, soit, in situ. Ces études sont notamment réalisées dans le cadre de magasins virtuels ou par l’observation des comportements en magasin (prise de photos), par des techniques d’eye tracking ou encore le tachistoscope (diffusion d’image pendant quelques secondes) après la visite en magasin (entretiens).

De telles analyses permettent aux clients d’optimiser leur prise de décision (actions sur le prix, promotions, modification du packaging…) ou de mieux comprendre les raisons d’un succès ou d’un échec.

D’après son expérience et les études qu’il a pu mener jusqu’à présent, Eric considère que nous sommes tous à la fois consommateur et shopper, et que les préférences de marques peuvent basculer en fonction d’un certain nombre de critères, d’où l’importance d’un bon marketing sur le point de vente.

Les quatre attitudes fondamentales du consommateur :

• Le consommateur satisfait : abondance du choix, couverture de ses attentes, absence de risque perçu, qualité perçue
• Le consommateur ouvert : quête du bonheur individuel, ouverture mentale aux offres alternatives aux marques, développement croissant de l’innovation
• Le consommateur mature : défiant par rapport aux techniques de vente, désimpliqué par rapport aux produits de consommation courante, critique par rapport à la société de l’hyperconsommation
• Le consommateur sur-sollicité : hyper-communication publicitaire, hyper-sollicitation des fabricants et des commerçants

Les 3 attitudes fondamentales du shopper :

• Volonté de limiter le temps subi par rapport au temps choisi
• Un shopper stressé : difficultés financières (acheter = dépenser), surchoix de l’offre, illisibilité des linéaires
• Un shopper qui sature : les ressources attentionnelles des humains sont limitées, hyper-communication sur le point de vente, hyper-activité promotionnelle.

Or, ces consommateurs et ces shoppers sont les cibles de l’industrie de la grande consommation et des distributeurs. Ce qui compte, c’est de se démarquer et d’être vu, afin d’être présent dans le « first moment of truth ».

Le « first moment of truth » est une expression procterienne introduite en 2002 par l’ancien PDG de Procter&Gamble, Mr A.G. Lafley. Cette expression qu’on pourrait traduire littéralement par « le premier moment de vérité » désigne les quelques secondes nécessaires au shopper pour décider ou non d’acheter un produit sur le lieu de vente. Il correspond donc au moment crucial où le shopper prend sa décision d’achat en magasin.

Ce moment de vérité est si pertinent aux yeux des dirigeants de Procter&Gamble qu’ils ont mis en place il y a 4 ans un département « First Moment of Truth » chargé de réfléchir sur la manière de placer et de présenter les produits sur le point de vente.

Les 4 défis du first moment of truth :

• Tenir la position préférentielle : être proche du lieu de décision, casser le parcours visuel d’achat, bénéficier d’un emplacement privilégié en linéaire
• Capter l’attention : incongruité (éveiller un stimulus), accessibilité, pertinence
• Véhiculer un message immédiatement clair : parcimonie, hiérarchie, évidence, convergence
• Constituer un driver de l’achat : une promesse instantanément comprise, motivante et crédible

Twitter Creates Lists

This is a great news: Twitter has announced they will add a list feature to their social media platform. That has been a while I have been waiting for this feature because it really helps using Twitter in a much easier.

People have more and more complex life with information feed of different kind of nature:

• They could come from different type of media: It could be friend, it could be expert, it could be professional journalists, among others. Of course, it could also be brands.
• It could have a different frequency: It could be monthly posts, daily posts, or real instant web messages, which could be the core of Twitter, but will polluate others. Twitter has been based on instant messages, but at some point it created so much noise it helped spamming to spring up, and makes it hard to get valuable information while it isn't published numerously.
• They could also be attached to different points of interest: personnaly I am fan of basket ball and guitar. It is difficult to get a single feed where I will have my friends, business contacts, basketball news and guitar tips at once.

Maybe this new feature will help some Twitter users, which are not a lot to use frequently the service, to get back into the hype.

Videocamp Paris 3

Je me suis rendu samedi 10 octobre au Videocamp Paris 3, dans les locaux de TBWA, la fameuse agence de communication. L'événement fut organisé et animé par 3 spécialistes du web et de la vidéo, Philippe Jeudy, Henri Kaufman et Pierre Philippe Cormeraie

L'idée est simple: réalisé une "non conférence", ou plutôt des ateliers de réflexion afin de définir et comprendre l'avenir et l'actualité de la vidéo sur Internet.





L'occasion était de rencontré des noms familiers de blogueurs que je suis régulièrement mais que je ne connaissais pas, notamment l'excellent Mickael Guillois, évangéliste du web 2.0 pour l'agence ou bien Cyril Attias ou encore Emmanuel Gadenne.


Mon attente principale était tout d'abord d'apprendre sur le sujet que je ne maitrise pas forcément, mais surtout de comprendre les enjeux de la vidéo sur Internet, notamment vis à vis de la mutation de la télévision. En effet, alors qu'on pensait que
l'Internet allait sonner l'avènement de la vidéo amateur, on se rend compte que le public continue de plébisciter le contenu professionnel. Il n'en reste pas moins que l'Internet a changé profondément le mode de consommation de la vidéo.


Ce qui fut très intéressant fut notamment le brassage de différents protagoniste, avec des entrepreneurs, des producteurs de contenu pour la télévision, d'autres de l'Internet, des annonces, des agences de communication... Et cela a permis d'enrichir grandement le débat.

Aussi, il y a eu pas mal de présentation de nouvelles technologies vidéo dont je vois un avenir certain et intéressant dans le domaine du marketing et de la distribution, notamment les écrans 3 D et la vidéo augmentée. Mais j'en parlerai bientôt.


Mon seul regret fut cependant qu'on ne se soit pas assez orienté vers le consommateur, et plus précisément du mode de consommation de la vidéo. Il est clair que la vidéo sur Internet a profondément changer les modèles économiques et la valorisation des contenus, du notamment à la fragmentation de l'audience, mais il faut surtout se poser la question de comment les consommateurs vont utiliser ses contenus web en plus ou à la place du contenu traditionnel de la télévision.




En tout cas c'est une vrai réussite pour mon premier Barcamp officiel.Je pense que le format est très intéressant et j'aimerai certainement en proposer un sur le sujet du CRM et de la relation client. Qu'en pensez vous?

Auchan Velizy: The greatest French hypermarket

I have worked for 6 months at Auchan Velizy, the largest hypermarket in France in terms of sales, as a section manager. It has been a great honor to contribute to the transformation of the 20 years old store which decided to renew its whole concept.

The challenge was great: redefine the hypermarket format, whereas customers plebiscit more and more local stores. This year in October, Auchan Velizy launches officially its news store. I wanted to share with you the great pictures French magazine lineaires specialized in retails took from the renovated store.

90 million € have been needed and 3 years of construction to define a new version of the "everything under one roof concept", which actually inspired Wall Mart's founder Sam Walton.

Branding Websites: 3 Ways To Boost Your Effort

Websites are not only made for ecommerce. It is not because you are not selling online that you don't need a strong Internet presence. Hence, websites are also great branding tools you must take care of. Internet technologies allow you first to interact with your customers, to provide them a great multichannel experience (text, video, sound, chatting among others) and also to know them better thanks to data mining potential.

Hence your brand website needs to be thought in order to optimize your customer relationship management. Here are three great ways to boost your branding website:

1. Incorporate measurement. According to Peter Drucker, "You can't manage what you can't measure." Well said by one of the world's top management gurus. Developing website strategies without user insight is the equivalent of shooting arrows in the dark.

Partner with a marketing research firm that understands the power of actionable consumer insights that drive optimization. Measurement should go beyond site satisfaction research. While site satisfaction is important, studies show that it isn't directly linked with purchase intent. Make sure you are measuring key consumer metrics such as impact on purchase intent and brand opinion as well.

Once a base read on key metrics has been developed, create a strategy for optimizing your website based on what your consumers are telling you instead of basing your strategy on a hunch.

2. Avoid design pitfalls. Here are a few classic mistakes marketers make when designing their websites:

• Pay attention to key site usability characteristics such as page speed, appearance, ease of navigation, etc. Fill up the gaps between expectations and satisfaction. This will drive lifts in brand opinion and purchase intent.
• Make sure the homepage has clearly defined calls to action. Keep them limited to two to three. Visitors should engage deeper into the second page within 10 to 15 seconds. Visitors who claim to have not accomplished their goals on your website are less likely to purchase your brand.
• Go easy on the Flash. CRM Metrix has consistently observed negative reactions to too much Flash, with consistent drops in purchase intent and site satisfaction, especially likelihood to revisit. So use Flash sparingly, only where your visitors see benefits.
• Before going for a complete site redesign, consider preserving some characteristics of your current site for your repeat visitors. Consumers used to a certain structure don't like when they can't find the information they are looking for.

3. Capitalize on consumer engagement. A consumer visiting your website is a consumer actively engaging with your brand. Here are a few ways to make the most of their time on your website:

• Focus on driving repeat visits. It builds more than just traffic. Our research shows that repeat visitors are more likely to purchase your brand's products or services versus first-time visitors.
• Find the "golden web pages" that impact purchase intent the most and make sure your visitors are exposed to those web pages.
• Drive traffic from other media vehicles. Research shows that it lifts purchase intent, and by attracting multi-brand and competitive users to the website, there are opportunities for brands to acquire and/or convert customers and gain market share.
• If you offer incentives like coupons on your site, make sure you deliver as promised or else it will cost brand consideration. Special offers tend to be the least performing feature of a brand website, all too often leaving customers disappointed.

I totally agree with all these points. Now you need to evaluate how you manager your brand website and then you'll be able to improve the other component of your strategy.

Internet Advertising Now Bigger Than TV In The UK

The actual economical downturn has deeply affected marketing department and strategies. By cutting budgets marketers needed to find out new ways to advertise at a lower cost, optimizing their return on investment. Hence, traditionnal mass media communication channel like TV has been impacted by this crisis.

Spending on internet advertising in Britain grew 4.6 percent in the first half of 2009, outperforming the wider ad sector, which slumped 17 percent, and making it the country's biggest ad medium ahead of TV.

According to the report, the internet accounted for 23.5 percent of all spend, compared with 18.7 percent in the first half of 2008. Television accounted for 21.9 percent, press display for 18.5 percent and direct mail for 11.5 percent.

The IAB report said the internet had avoided the advertising slump in general media, due to the strong demand for paid-for search on sites such as Google and resilience shown by classified online ads.

The study abreaks down the online display market by industry category, with technology the biggest spender, accounting for 19.1% of the market, followed by telecoms (13.3% rising from 9.7% the previous year) and finance (13.2% up from 11.9%).

Social Media Marketing And Permission Marketing : The Return of Disruption

Social Media marketing is on the edge to become a major relationship medium for brands. The way it has been designed enable brands and customers to discuss, and interact in a very unique way, something which is not comparable to any other known medium.

Nevertheless, a French study shows out that French customers perceive social media marketing to be intrusive, and hence, are reluctant to its raise.

Permission Marketing
Seth Godin book “Permission Marketing” has changed deeply the way companies interact with companies, promoting one to one CRM techniques, and mainly pull marketing campaigns, asking for the customers’ permission to deliver promotional messages.

The concept is simple: due to the multiplication of media and brands, customers are overloaded with commercial messages which they are not asking for. Hence, in order to get the attention of customers and to optimize advertising budgets, you should set up a contract with the customer, to provide him an accurate and targeted messages, which will be delivered at the frequency and through the media he wants.

Social Media As A Permission Marketing Threat
Hence, when companies are discussing via social media, there is somekind of disruption that could appear. Of course, a customer could decide whether or not to follow a brand on Twitter or to become a fan of it on Facebook, but still, with community management springing up, brands are listening more and more to what is going on in social media.

I've attended a ecommerce diner where one of the invitee asked if social media users wouldn't feel oppressed by being watched by brands. If they talk about brands on social media, that doesn't necessarily mean he wants to discuss or even get in contact with it.

Community Management To Be defined

Is social media a threat for permission marketing? I believe that social media marketing experiences the same problems that occurred with emailing not so long ago. As the medium is relatively cheap and new, people are not really mastering the medium, and hence, are more in a disruptive mode. Moreover, there is a lack of tools to run this kind of techniques.

However, there are some ways to create bonds with customers thanks to social media marketing without being disruptive. When a customer adds a brand on its Facebook, it is a strong sign that he wants to establish some kind of relationship with the brand.

I believe this feeling of disruption results mainly of the large amount of messages spreaded on social media, which create a lot of noise.

That was the very same thing with emailing in the early age. The media was so cheap and easy to use spamming became an easy job. But permission marketing has been designed, which helped a lot to establish an ethical code to optimize the customer relationship. That would probably be the same with community management.

What do you think about it?

Zara Embraces Ecommerce

Zara has decided to launch an online store. Even though H&M has already done such a move, this is a great news because it shows how companies are moving fast toward a multi channel distribution strategy. Nowadays, it is important to provide a 360 degrees customer experience. Inditex vice president qualify this move as not important on a strategical point of view, but would allow Zara to enhance customer experience.

I don't agree. I believe that adding up an ecommerce platform changes dramatically the marketing approach. Hence the website will provide more product information, and will also provide more online advertising capabilities, thanks to more efficient keywords campaigns (based on a return on investment strategy, and not only to a number of contacts generated basis).

What do you think about it?

Social Media Marketing Fails To Convince Women

Social media marketing has showed up recently, but is on the edge to spring up fast. Of course, so far marketers are still struggling to figure out how to get the most of the new social communities to establish a strong relationship with customers.

Hence, a recent study explains that women, which are in most of the market one of the strong decision maker in one household, don't consider social media to be an important part of their decision making process.

Although marketers have paved major inroads to reach online audiences, their efforts seem to have gained little traction with female consumers, according to new research. A study by ad:tech Chicago and Q Interactive that analyzes how women engage online with brands finds that 75 percent of women reported that social networking sites have little bearing on their purchasing decisions.

Sites have "somewhat" of an influence over 21.9 percent and greatly influence only 3.3 percent of users. The data, which represents online survey answers collected from over 1,000 women from Aug 11 to 14, 2009, was presented yesterday at ad:tech Chicago by Matt Wise, president of Q Interactive, and Jonathan Ashton, managing partner for Agency.com, Chicago.

When asked what the most important factor in making a purchasing decision as a mother, price (47 percent) and quality (45.7 percent) topped the list.
Brand ranked fourth highest at 2 percent behind "other" responses (3.5 percent).

The underlying problem seems to be a lack of positive engagement. Although 52 percent of female users have "friended" a brand, feelings of neutrality (64 percent) and negativity (19 percent) were the most common reactions when women encountered brands online. Only 17 percent said the experience was positive.

Only 10 percent of women said that participating in brand-related activities, such as finding information (8.7 percent) and writing reviews (1 percent), was their most common social media activity. Sending private messages to peers (34.6 percent), sharing photos (13.4 percent), and chatting (12.8 percent) ranked as women¹s top-three social media activities.

Of course, those results might appear deceiving but they are just the result that social media marketing is still raising. The hype has gone, and we enter an era where the mass market is mastering the tools, and appropriating them in the every day life.

Also marketers should understand that socia media are not going to replace the consumption of other kind of media, and hence, people are not going to facebook as much as they are currently watching TV. There will be a normalization process which will occur soon, as TV consumption will steadily decrease.

These figures must be taking in account though, to match women's needs in their decision making process.

What do you think about it?
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An Army Of Influencers

Leaders of opinion are a common target for marketers and PRs. They are suppose to influence people in their purchase and lifestyle. But the Internet, and more specifically the Instant Internet has changed the concept of leaders of opinion.

First of all, anyone could become a leader of opinion, if he wants to. You don't need to be a star, highly educated or so. You simply need, as would say Henri Kaufman "a pen... And a good idea". Well, I should be more precised. You need an Internet access, and something to say.

Secondly, which results of the first point, there is an army of influencers. There is no minority which could influence people. The Internet has enabled anyone to post, to be seen on the web, and hence, anyone could influence its community. That is the reason why PR must reinvent themselves, and turn into community managers that would be able to understand and leverage this mass of people which communicate and speak about brands and products.

I wanted to share with you this article:Over 100 Million Consumers Worldwide are Word of Mouth Advocates, Ground-Breaking Research by Zuberance Shows

This article explains how the game has changed, and how there are millions of influencers that are playing an active role in the customer decision making process. And thanks to mobile Internet, it will become even more true.

Advocates’ Recommendations are #1 Influencer of Consumers& Business Buyers’ Purchase Decisions

More than 100 million consumers worldwide are Word of Mouth Advocates, a massive, highly influential, yet under-leveraged sales and marketing force, according to ground-breaking research by Zuberance, the leading online Word of Mouth marketing company.

Advocates are people who frequently recommend brands and products. Empowered by Social Media, millions of Advocates are:

• Evangelizing their favorite brands and products on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Bebo, LinkedIn, and on other social networks, online communities, and forums
• Writing positive reviews on sites like Amazon.com, ePinions, and Angie’s List plus on e-tailers’ and manufacturer websites. (TripAdvisor boasts more than 20 million reviews while Yelp has 5 million user reviews with positive reviews outnumbering negative by 6:1.)
• Posting positive comments about brands and products on YouTube, on blogs like Engadget and Gizmodo or even creating advocate blogs like ”Slave to Target”

In addition, millions of Advocates are spreading positive Word of Mouth about brands and products in face to face settings, such as offices, restaurants, golf courses, trade shows, and more.

”Army of Advocates”

”An army of Advocates is evangelizing companies, brands, and products online and offline, and these recommendations lead directly to purchases,” said Rob Fuggetta, Founder&CEO of Zuberance. ”Yet many companies are missing a major opportunity to increase sales because they are not identifying and mobilizing these influential Advocates,” Fuggetta added.

In the U.S. alone, about 30 million U.S. adult Internet users are ”Word of Mouth Influencers” - adults who are opinion leaders and whose advice is sought, trusted, and acted upon by other consumers, according to eMarketer.

Advocacy is a global phenomenon. According to GfK Roper, 80% of consumers surveyed in 25 countries across five continents frequently recommend brands and products to their friends and colleagues with the average consumer recommending 3.7 brands. The total adult population in the 25 countries included in the Roper study is more than one billion people.

Advocates are Brand’s Most Effective Salespeople

Advocates’ recommendations drive sales. Numerous surveys by independent market research firms have shown that Word of Mouth is up to five times more influential than advertising, email, and search engine marketing. According to a study by Forrester Research, Inc., 84% of business buyers said peers’ Word of Mouth recommendations influenced their purchase decisions while only 24% said blogs impacted their choices. In a global Neilsen survey, 78% of consumers said they trust Word of Mouth recommendations from other consumers while only 26% trust banner ads.

Key Findings of Zuberance Research

The Zuberance study found that:

• Approximately 40% of a company’s customers -- a surprisingly high percentage -- are highly likely to recommend the company and its products or services to friends or colleagues. Among the companies included in the Zuberance study, the percentage of company’s customers who are highly likely to recommend ranged from 25% for a business products company to 76% for a consumer electronics manufacturer.
• About 25% of a company’s customers are Advocates. This percentage can vary, depending on several factors including the type of company or product and how easy a company makes it for highly-satisfied customers to spread positive Word of Mouth.
• Depending on the size of its customer base, a company may have hundreds of thousands to millions of Advocates. For example, a consumer electronics company with 10 million customers may have approximately one to two million Advocates.

Ground-Breaking Word of Mouth Research

Zuberance’s findings are included in a ground-breaking, five-part research report on the power of Word of Mouth Advocacy. Entitled ”Mobilizing Advocates, Driving Sales Now,” the report is one of the most comprehensive ever on Word of Mouth Advocates. To date, Zuberance has surveyed over 100,000 customers across numerous multiple industries and verticals including automotive, consumer electronics, consumer software, housewares, travel and tourism, and business products and services. In addition, the report leverages research on Word of Mouth and Advocates by highly-respected market research firms. The first report in the Zuberance series - ”An Army of Advocates” - is available now at www.zuberance.com/research.

About Zuberance

Zuberance is a leading online Word of Mouth marketing company. Global 2000 companies and others are using Zuberance’s ground-breaking Word of Mouth marketing platform now to identify and mobilize their highly-satisfied customers (AKA ”Advocates”), cost-effectively increasing sales. Headquartered in San Carlos, CA, Zuberance is backed by Emergence Capital Partners, the leading venture capital firm focused on early and growth-stage Technology-Enabled Services companies. For more information, visit Zuberance at www.zuberance.com, call 800.962.0590 or email info@zuberance.com.

L'Iphone et la Customer Lifetime Value: Etude de cas

La Customer Lifetime value et son calcul sont au coeur de la stratégie de relation client. Ainsi, en prévisionnant les revenus futurs issus d'un client, on est capable d'adapter sa stratégie commerciale, par exemple en faisant une offre au prospect importante qui les convertira sur le long terme.


Je viens de lire l'artice suivant: L'iPhone, gouffre financier pour les opérateurs de téléphonie ?
Celui-ci expose le fort coût d'aquisition pour les opérateurs mobiles des clients Iphone. Ainsi, ces téléphones sont largement subventionnés. Orange a ainsi établi un partenariat avec Apple afin d'avoir l'exclusivité sur une période de temps donné afin de pouvoir assurer la rentabilité de son investissement de départ. Cependant, Apple est en train de modifier sa stratégie commerciale, mettant ainsi en péril la profitabilité des clients Iphone.

En effet, les très bons chiffres de vente de l'iPhone – 5,2 millions d'exemplaires vendus entre avril et juin – ne garantissent pas des revenus en proportion aux opérateurs. Par exemple, pour SingTel, un fournisseur d'accès océanien, le téléphone d'Apple plombe les résultats, avant impôts, de l'entreprise de 3 à 5 % selon les pays, note l'étude. "D'après nos recherches, aucun opérateur n'a augmenté sa part de marché, son chiffre d'affaire ou ses bénéfices grâce à l'iPhone", écrivent les auteurs. "Au contraire, certains opérateurs, comme AT&T et SingTel, ont dû envoyer un avertissement sur résultat à cause de l'iPhone."

COÛT D'ACQUISITION CONTRE REVENU MOYEN

Les opérateurs vendraient-ils l'iPhone à perte ? Pas exactement. Pour savoir si un téléphone est financièrement intéressant pour un opérateur, deux paramètres entrent en jeu : le coût d'acquisition de l'abonné, c'est-à-dire ce que l'opérateur débourse pour attirer le client (rabais sur le téléphone, campagnes marketing...) et le revenu moyen par abonné, à savoir ce que le consommateur rapporte à l'opérateur. Pour l'allemand T-Mobile, le coût d'acquisition d'un client iPhone s'élève à 317 euros, et le revenu moyen mensuel, à 77 euros. Les deux chiffres sont élevés : pour T-Mobile, un client iPhone coûte cher, mais il rapporte également plus qu'un autre. Sur le long terme, l'entreprise peut donc espérer réaliser des profits importants.

Les opérateurs ont été d'accord pour cette stratégie, car l'explosion des ventes d'Iphone leurs permettaient de mettre en avant leurs forfaits Internet mobile et de générer ainsi des ventes à valeur ajoutée (upselling).

Mais ce cas précis montre bien à quel point la notion de customer lifetime value est fondamentale en CRM. Car celle-ci peut soit permettre de gagner de fortes part de marché en étant plus aggressif que ses concurrents, soit mettre en péril la santé d'une entreprise. Reste alors aux opérateurs mobiles de développer des stratégies de relation client adapté, afin de garder ses nouveaux clients acquis, afin d'assurer un retour sur investissement suffisant pour ne pas perdre d'argent.

Branding To Lead Customer Behavior

I have attended the customer behavior class of SUNY Oswego as a student in 2004, which was held by Ashraf Attia. I usually refer to this experience as one of the most important one, which led me to work in the customer relationship management field. I deeply believe that companies aren't focused enough to both the decision making process and behavior of shoppers.

But what really matters in marketing is to influence customer behavior. “Successful brands are collaborating internally—cross-departmentally—with customers to create tangible behaviors that ultimately prompt purchase.”

Branding evolved in that way. Brands must not provide an image of what the product or service should inspire, but about the experience the customer will get.

A New Premise
The definition of branding is seldom agreed upon, yet “brand equity” is considered a measure of success. As a result, brand-focused marketing pros often feel misunderstood. Smart, capable operational executives can’t accept that the ultimate value of brands cannot be measured like every other function of the business.

The opportunity now is to redefine brands in terms that marketers and operational executives alike can embrace. That emergent definition is to base brands on the objectively measurable, real-time aggregation of everything marketers and their customers do together. That’s different from the old-school definition of focusing on awareness and influencing how customers feel.

Experts like author Jonathan Salem Baskin say branding is evolving away from artsy strategies that create “mental states” toward a behavior-based science. It’s all about creating measurable, valuable experiences.

Think of campaigns that prompt customer behavior—like when T-Mobile launched its myFaves campaign in 2007. The company prompted customers to call their top five numbers for free. It also prompted customers to think about who those five people were in their lives. It made people do something. Contrast this example with Verizon’s “It’s the network” campaign (which doesn’t prompt customers).

Baskin is steeped in brand advertising (Nissan, Limited Brands) yet questions the central tenants of traditional practices. He recently spoke on the subject at the Direct Marketing Association’s Leaders’ Forum and authored the book “Branding Only Works on Cattle.”

Now branding is important. This is the image which will vehicle the company. It should be managed properly. It remains difficult to scale the power of a brand objectively. But what is sure, it is that without brands, it would be hard to get into the mass market.

Now new tools could be used to measure your branding effort. The idea of branding score is common. But this new approach is great. Speaking about customer experience, branding has a great role to play in it.

Customer relationship management encompass branding, as the brands and what it vehicles is a vital part of the relationship between a customer and the company.

I really like this article, because it gives an other picture of how a brand should be conceived and managed.