Econsultancy has published a freely available trends briefing about digital trends in South-East Asia, based on the second Digital Cream Singapore event for senior client-side digital marketers held in November.
Key issues for those attending were the lack of resources and skills, and the challenge of creating mobile-ready environments.
It’s the New Year, that means that career goals are top of mind. Many employees are looking to move up or move out.
Freelancers and consultants are looking to ensure that 2013 is more prosperous than 2012.
When it comes to moving one’s career forward, job titles often matter.
Even if we’d like to believe that they matter less and less each passing year, your ability to succeed may be based, in some part, on what goes under your name on your business card.
Product videos are a great way to improve conversion rates online as they reassure the customer by helping them make an informed purchase decision.
One of the main problem with ecommerce is that you can’t hold the product in your hands before you buy it, which is why offering free returns is such a great selling point.
But video is also a great way to limit the impact of returns, as it gives customers a full view 360 degree of the product.
We’ve previously blogged best practice tips for ecommerce product videos, and recently looked at the rise of video in 2013.
With this in mind, here’s a round up of some stats showing how product videos have improved conversion rates for six online retailers…
Live chat is still a relatively new customer service channel, though it’s proving to be an increasingly popular method of communicating with brands.
Stats from BoldChat show that more than 65% of US online shoppers have used live chat, up from 50.4% in 2009.
The figure is slightly lower in the UK but still growing at 53%, up from 41% in 2011.
The same research shows that 31% of respondents would be more likely to purchase after a live chat, however this stat should be treated with a decent amount of scepticism, as it’s difficult for people to accurately predict their future purchase behaviour.
If you need to create a social media marketing plan for your business in 2013 you’ll be smart to cut these three strategies completely out of your budget, providing they meet these “tough love” performance criteria.
This is the year when content marketing and social media focuses like a laser on leads and sales. Or else.
Major internet companies like Google may pleased that the French government told a major ISP that it must stop its automatic filtering of ads for subscribers.
However, make no mistake about it: the dispute over Free’s ad blocking is a reminder of what’s at stake as more and more consumers seek ways to opt out of online advertising.
Ad blocking software, of course, is not new. Publishers have watched its popularity rise over the years, and while there is debate over just how much revenue publishers lose each year to ad blocking, it’s widely seen as a significant threat.
Thanks in large part to the popularity of the open-source model, companies of all shapes and sizes have access to technologies that would have cost six and seven figures to develop in-house a half a decade ago.
From high-performance data stores to countless software libraries, there are plenty of open-source technologies that make building a sophisticated web-based service far less costly and time-consuming than it would have been.
Following are my personal thoughts on what will be interesting and important in the world of digital marketing and ecommerce for 2013. As is traditional for my trends, there are around seventeen of them.
I haven’t spent too much time on giving extensive justification for any of these; they are based largely on the many conversations I have with industry influencers and practitioners.
Many are really just notes, or bullet points, but I’ve tried to give links to further information if you want to delve deeper. They are in no particular order though I’ve started with the more ‘strategic’ stuff.
As ever, I’d be very interested to hear your thoughts, or feel free to post a link to your own trends or predictions.
Almost a quarter (24%) of UK shoppers used their mobile while in-store to compare prices in the run-up to Christmas, according to a new survey from Foolproof.
The process, known as ‘showrooming’, means that retailers have to come up with new ways to encourage customers to make a purchase in-store.
Alarmingly for some retailers, the survey of 1,000 adults also found that 40% of showroomers, or one in 10 of all shoppers, bought items from a competitor after comparing prices on their phone.
Unsurprisingly the habit is more prevalent among younger shoppers, with 39% of 18-39 year olds actively engaging in showrooming over Christmas compared to just 18% of shoppers over the age of 40.
Over the last three years I have been involved in many pitches to win new SEO clients and we are often asked how we can really tell if what an agency says it can do is actually true.
With this major question in mind I thought I’d share with you some of our thoughts and experiences that we think might help you if you do find yourself looking for a new SEO agency.
This check list is a good list of questions to ask prospecting agencies when in the process of selecting your new SEO agency partner.
We’re coming towards the end of sale season, but businesses are still sending out emails to tempt customers into making a purchase.
Normally the retailer is specific about the amount of money off each product, however recently we’ve noticed that some businesses are sending emails with ‘mystery’ discount coupons, which basically means you don’t know how much the discount is for.
Yesterday Dell sent one of these emails, which attempts to lure you in with the offer a discount that could be anything from 10% to 50%. The problem is you only find out what the discount is once you get to the checkout.
The mysterious coupon is presumably supposed to make the customer so curious that they can’t help but click on the call-to-action on the off chance they are rewarded a half price laptop, but personally I find it to be an incredibly annoying offer.
The BBC’s drive to become the world’s foremost digital broadcaster took another step today with the launch of a new Sport app on iOS.
We’ve followed developments at the Beeb with interest over the past 12 months, with iPlayer updates, mobile sites and apps being unveiled on what seems like a fortnightly basis.
One of its most impressive launches was the Olympics smartphone app, which offered a great user experience alongside a massive amount of content.