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Would you buy one?

It’s been a mad year and next year is set to be even more crazy.

2009 has seen luxury good sales boom, e-commerce sites explode and the final mass adoption of digital video and e-ink.

Mobile internet has taken off thanks to Twitter, Facebook and the iPhone. Social has started to be more powerful than most could have hoped and TV has gone down hill so fast it’s breathtaking.

2009 retrospective

Early this year we predicted a few things that have happened, some clever and some obvious. BBC iPlayer has seen an amazing take up across the country and handled 70 million requests in October,  which is about 7 Petabytes of data or 12.5 Gigabytes per second.

Top 10 key changes in 2010

1. The end of free. Well at least as we know it owing to a drop in ad revenue and cold feet amongst media owners.
2. A new media monster. As the old guard struggle to reorganise, one or two new, media goliaths will take over, buying paid content from the old order and giving it out for free to meet the needs of us consumers.
3. Mobile web will overtake fixed line. For key content mobiles will become the only way to access key info, buy stuff and keep in touch.
4. Visualisation goes mainstream. With the increase in e-commerce traffic the only way to get your head around the numbers is to change your view. Being able to represent numbers in new, visual ways will be coming to a vendor near you soon.
5. The customer will become king. Crowds are causing even more trouble for corporates, as I type, Eurostar is suffering huge PR issues; surely it’s time to wake up to what your customers want?
6. Content strategy is the new usability. Too much emphasis has been placed on cool tech recently such as augmented reality, but these are just shiny bows on a box of rubbish. Clients and customers will wake up to the power of well organised content.
7. Data will kill UK networks. As the iPlayer shows, and to some extent the iPhone, when people get going, they really get going. Streaming video and large file transfers are going to carry on causing the biggest customer satisfaction issues as networks fail over the sheer volume of traffic.
8. No one will beat Apple. When it comes to technology that has completely changed the world, the iPhone is an amazing example, and no matter how hard people try (Palm) no one can get close.
9. e-ink will become the norm. We all love our Kindles, those who have them that is, and finally there is some competition, which means cheaper, better ebooks for all. Migrate newspapers from print to digital and you have a new outlet for old media. Shame about the latency of stories though.
10. Measure your customer’s empathy. Stats, conversion and marketing data standalone to offer a crutch, but only when you bring these together can you really measure how successful your business is. 2010 will see customer empathy ratings used as the standard metric for success.

We will have a review in the summer of 2010 and see what’s on, what’s not and what needs to be added.

customer insight, e-commerce, information architecture, market research, usability design future, Our news

 I don’t ordinarily consider gossip-blogger Perez Hilton a source of social marketing insight but on this occasion he twittered a report by Sysomos - a US based organisation specialising in media monitoring - and its actually quite interesting.

 

Sysomos analysed more than 11.5 million Twitter accounts, indexing user profiles and looking at the frequency of status updates and behaviours over a period of time. There is plenty of data to mine through but some key findings of note include:

 

• 21% of all registered users have never even posted a Tweet;
• More than 50% of all updates are publishing using tools, mobile and Web-based, other than Twitter.com;
• 65% of Twitter users are under the age of 25 ; and
• Just 5% of users - or Power-Tweeters as we shall call them - account for a massive 75% of all activity.

Twitter has experienced explosive growth in recent months and this report is essential reading in helping to understand why.

 

Read the report here

 

Blog, Community, customer insight, e-commerce, internet research, market research insight, research, social networking, Twitter

In January I made a few predictions about what the year had in store for the digital world. One that I did not put in but have talked about for ages is the end of free online services.

Basically as ad spend decreases and take up of online services increases, something has to give. A recent story on the BBC website shows BT’s new aggressive stance on asking iPlayer to pay for bandwidth.

More of the same will come as people watch more video, save more photos and re-post more content via social networks. Add to this the cut throat pricing of broadband, reduced advertising revenues and suddenly you are looking at an unsustainable business model.

So, a quick review of my predictions from January:

1. Video on Demand finally gets in to peoples homes for real (iPlayer) √
   
2. Video on Demand gets a new name (iPlayer) √
3. Interactive TV advertising (Sky green button) √
4. BT Vision moves from Microsoft to open platforms (Or Sky goes onto xbox 360) √
5. DRM free VOD (can’t win them all!) x
6. Mobile web (go go iPhone, Nokia and Andriod) √
7. Nokia Tube turns out not to be an iPhone beater (yep I own one, it’s pants) √
8. iPhone Nano (By Autumn, I promise) x
   
9. Mac tablet (See above) x
   
10. No one buys Twitter (still) √

So 7 out of ten is not bad considering we are only at the start of June. And whilst you may or may not agree with all of these it’s pretty interesting to see how fast things change.

Another foot note from January was my prediction that Apple would start to slip form wonder kid to main stream business and given the recent launch of new iPhone, this seems to be happening.

Although I would hate to see Apple done anything than succeed as I love how Steve has turned a business round by giving customers what they want! And that’s where we are, helping you give your customers what they want, although I am no Steve Jobs, I know we can help you make a big difference.

Let’s see where we are in another 6 months:

1. Windows 7 is just as rubbish as Vista?

customer insight Design, future, Interactive TV, Microsoft, Mobile, Predictive, Twitter

Older users get connected on Facebook

Facebook for silver surfers

For a long time a large number of people have been disagreeing with me on the future of Facebook.

Normally one for predicting the demise of such sites, I have felt for a long time that Facebook would become a destination for more than just the youth audience, after all how many over 60’s have mastered iPods and Skype?

The answer is of course loads. Just because they are not the current target market, does not mean they won’t adopt a great piece of technology if it meets their needs.

US research findings

In some recent research data released by Neilsen and reported on Net Imperative Facebook users aged between 50-64 year old increased by +8.3m compared with under 18 year old visitors  who only grew by 1.7m in 1998.

These figures make some compelling reading and highlight the fact that older users are switching on to new ways of keeping in touch and are not shying away from new technology as many people think.

UK growth market

The UK should learn from this growth and prepare to welcome an ever growing population of older customers onto channels that young, naive digital thinkers write off of non-starters. In a country where there are more over 60s than under 18s, who can afford to ignore such trends?

Want to know more?

If you are interested in finding out more on how the older generation interact online and what impact other social media channels can have on this market just call Chris, Kelsey or Laura on 0207 1991 321.

customer insight, market research Facebook, future, over 60

Chris Averill, managing director of we are:london will be presenting as a keynote speaker at the Vignette Middle East Web Convention in Dubai on Monday 27 April.

Chris will be presenting the latest findings from their Middle East research consortium study, that will present the latest view of the Internet landscape

Social networking and it’s potential impact on Middle Eastern culture and business will also be covered as Chris demystifies what the West think they know and what Arabic and Muslim cultures actually want.

Further details can be found at Vignette’s website

arabic research, customer insight future, Internet, Twitter

$236m spent on retail online trading in 2008

Oman’s internet users spent $236 million (Dh866 million) in 2008 on retail e-commerce, according to a latest report by Arab Advisors Group.

About 40.2 per cent of adult internet users in Oman have used e-commerce.

The report estimates the number of those using e-commerce to be more than 158,000 - which is around 5.62 per cent - of the population in Oman.

The new survey was conducted by the Arab Advisors Group in January. It covered internet usage in areas of e-commerce, cellular and Pay TV as well as habits of the online community in Oman.

About 20.7 per cent of the total 696 respondents use special software packages like Skype and GoogleTalk to make calls through the internet, the report shows.

(source - Gulfnews.com)

arabic research, customer insight, e-commerce e-commerce

We love surveys. They are quick to create, garner invaluable insight and make us all feel that we really do understand our customers. But there is a problem, one which you have probably experienced many times, and that is inappropriate questioning during my online experience.

Yep, it sounds a little complicated, but really it’s about asking the right questions at the right time. Why ask someone at the end of the checkout process who well their visit went, when they are bound to answer well as they have just completed the task they came to your site to do?

Or even better, why ask someone how well things are going today with their visit when they have only just got to the site?

Our favourite is a survey that ran in the UK recently that asked customers why they were leaving and what could be done to improve their experience. Answer; nothing we all leave once we are finished!

Now of course there are some fantastic solutions to this dilemma that use amazing algorithms to track customers across your site before intercepting them at the critical point. But these are very costly to set up, run and report on, too much for most mere mortals whose dwindling budget can not cater for such expenses.

Opt-in, email out

The answer to our prayers took some finding and a little developing. The result is an enterprise level tool at a self serve price that allows us to do this:

1. Customer enters site, opt-in questionnaire is offered to xx%
2. A few simple questions are asked to understand their reason for visiting the site and their email is captured
3. They are then sent a post-visit email survey that they must complete within 24hrs of their visit

This emailed survey is linked to the initial opt-in, seamlessly joining both sets of data and is used to measure everything from what they actually did to how well it worked and their likelihood of return or recommendation.

High success rates guaranteed

The best part is that the users visit to the site is hardly interrupted and their attention is focused on completing their tasks not rushing through a survey. The resulting data is very high quality as we are able to compare initial drivers against actual tasks and outcome verses perceived success.

We have also seen a very high uptake of this type of survey due to the fact that it can be completed at a more appropriate time and in reflection rather than prediction.

Given the huge costs savings that this mini-enterprise survey provides, more and more clients are now running quantitative and qualitative research projects together, combing online surveys with lab based or remote usability studies.

customer insight, internet research, market research, usability research Internet, usability

Driving people to websites is still the main objective of most marketing campaigns, and why not, surely that’s the end goal of all marketing.

But what happens to people once they get to the target site seems to be less important to many campaigns, as is the measurability of those converting from prospects to customers once they arrive.

National Express has successfully shown the power of multivariate and now we are putting behavioural targeting at the heart of their future, online business.

It’s about customers, content and profit

On average over 80% of a typical marketing budget is wasted as this percentage customers arriving on a site can’t find what they want and leave to go through another route, usually your competitor.

If you present information to a customer that matches what they are looking for, they will get through your site quickly and easily. Bearing in mind that many customers don’t complete their tasks on their first visit, presenting them with content that matches their previous visits to your site will, again, ensure their tasks are completed as easily as possible.

When prospects are presented with content that targets their behaviour, without it being intrusive, they are much more likely to become customers, and existing customers are much more likely to be loyal and therefore profitable.

One site fits all

The cost of creating micro-sites and campaign sites, that have short life spans, is hard to justify, particularly when a company has invested a large amount in a single, main site that should meet everyone’s needs.

Behavioural targeting allows you to customise a site to meet both a customers needs and those of the business.
For example, a financial firm is running a campaign to sell a new product or rate, and this will probably feature on the homepage hero space. However, other campaigns are running at the same time and need that space too, so either five of them share, on rotation, with a 20% chance of being seen, or compete altogether and get lost.

An example

The customers route to the site, in relation to the campaign for example , “Eurodutch bank low rate mortgage at 2.8%”, is likely to be through a search engine [Eurodutch mortgages]. A user following the search results would either be taken  to a microsite, through paid search, or to the homepage, through natural SEO.

Microsites are out, too costly as we know and the homepage has some information on this campaign but it’s battling for space with insurance, savings and investments.

Behavioural targeting allows the site to dynamically change the homepage to show content on the new mortgage, effectively acting as a microsite,  and because we know where the customer is in the country, also up-sell home insurance, as our data from CRM and collected online, shows the majority of new customers in this region are likely to buy both together.

The same technique can be applied to people coming from banners and affiliate links, or email newsletters and viral campaigns. In fact it can be used for anyone coming in from any route, Facebook, Twitter, blogs and texts.

Learned behaviour

Tracking and understanding what an individual is doing on your site allows you to speak to them directly when they come back, targeting content based on what they looked at, searched for or did on your site.

Presenting additional benefits for a specific product, on the homepage, to someone who has looked at that mortgage on the site before, along with a comparison chart of competitor products and an application form is much more likely to convert them as opposed to making them hunt through the site to find it on their own.

This learned behaviour can also be used to understand how wider groups of customers are using the site and create delta segments, where a wider set of behaviours are used to present content to first time users.

For example, customers coming in to a travel site from affiliates such as newspaper promotions will often group based on the quality of the paper. Daily Mail readers are more likely to be women and after more of a bargain then Times readers.

However, this profile is based on a very wide audience segmentation presented by each newspaper and may well not reflect the type of user that has linked to the travel site.

The solution is to track, over time, where customers are coming from and what they are looking at then buying, then use this data to customise the homepage accordingly. This approach will give instant uplift in sales without presuming to know what the customers want and can be applied to time of day, geo-location and a range of other metrics that to date have been difficult or impossible to attain.

customer insight, user centred design e-commerce, Predictive, usability

Here’s a great example of how we all do things in “real life”.

Happy holidays

A recent survey of UK adults for a travel industry consortium found that nearly 70% valued word of mouth over price.

The big barriers to holiday bookings include hidden prices or extras that only appear at the final stage of booking.

A lack of contact options to find out more detail about a holiday or venue also rated a a real issue, whilst 35% of people still have trouble actually booking the holiday, having battled through all of the above.

Beach holiday anyone?

For many the above issues are know issues. Those who choose to bury their head in the sand and chuck cash at driving traffic will gain nothing in the down turn, except some difficult questions from their CFO.

Samson vs Goliath

But those who embrace the challenging market place and deliver what customers want will build loyalty now and reap the rewards as the market grows. Small firms such as Sovereign.com, with whom I jsut booked, will no doubt be best placed to take on the mass market firms like Expedia.

They have a reasonably easy to use site, great value products but more importantly a person on the other end of a phone who can tell you all the things you need to know.

What next?

The approach needed varies by company size and budget, but firstly you need to know what you customers really want, so run a survey or read their feedback or call them up and ask.

Secondly you need to provide what they want effectively; small companies can afford to employee a few people to answer phones, large companies need to invest in intelligent content presentation, driven by FAQs, search and call centre input.

Thirdly, and this has been proevn time and time again, don’t hide prices or try to trick you customers. If value is not the key decision point for them, then show the cost upfront and sell them the dream.

It works, I know as we have just parted with the better part of £3k for a holiday in Tenerife of all places.

customer insight, e-commerce e-commerce, Travel

As unlikely as is it may sound, now is the time to spend money on your website with particular focus on your customer’s experience. Chris Averill, MD of we are:london explains how a small spend now will result in a much larger return on investment in the very near future.

As reported early this year, companies like M&S saw a big rise in online trading up to and including Christmas, whilst their high street stores saw a worrying drop in over the counter sales.

Yeah, I know everyone knows about this, but what most don’t or aren’t thinking about is the fact that as money gets tighter for marketing budgets, less is invested in their websites and more in advertising to drive customers their.

Recently I wrote about the fact that most sites waste  up to 80% of their marketing budget as only 20% of people achieve their tasks online. Combined with the finding of a recent research project by Harris Interactive that shows more than 50% of people who experience problems with online shops will not return to that site, more often than not dropping that brand for a rival.

This makes for some interesting reading, and what worries many of our clients the most is the fact that the first budgets to go are in web development.

So to combat this, we have partnered with Maxymiser to provide a range of rapid prototyping tools and reporting services that allow us to help you try out new ideas online, with very little spend and guranteed results.

If you would like to find out more about:

• User centred design
• Rapid prototyping
• A/B testing
• Multivariate testing / research
• Eye-tracking
• Dynamic content deployment

Then contact Chris or call on +44 207 1991 321 after all we are here to help you succeed.

customer insight, e-commerce, usability research, user centred design e-commerce, Internet, Predictive, SEO, usability