Marketing Travel to Women: Do Travelers Trust Online Reviews?

It’s the travel season.  I recently booked rooms in far-flung places where I had to rely on online reviews to steer my decisions. I looked for high ratings, seemingly honest guest reviews and photos that travelers had taken.

Do consumers trust online reviews for hotels?  Yes, of course they do, and they trust online reviews more than brand websites and ads.  TripAdvisor recently celebrated an impressive new statistic:  the travel review site reached 100 million reviews and opinions this month.  The reviews include more than 2.5 million accommodations, restaurants, attractions, and local businesses in more than 116,000 destinations.  Central Park in New York has more than 12,000 reviews!

 Here are some of the findings from Trip Adviser:

95% of travelers say reviews are trustworthy.

78% of travelers say reviews help them feel more confident in their booking decisions.

74 percent of travelers say that they write and post online reviews because they want to share a good experience with others.

53% of travelers won’t book a hotel that has no reviews.

35% of new reviews on TripAdviser are submitted by Facebook-connected travelers.

5% claim the hotel was not as good as the reviews implied, but 80% say the hotel met their expectations based on the reviews.

What signals a trustworthy review?  Travelers look for the number of reviews, pictures and images, and the quality and detail.  And all hotels should respond to hotel reviews.  I gave the Hard Rock Hotel in Chicago high marks because they have an active social media presence and will respond to guests on social media.  It sets them apart. Almost 90 percent of hotel general managers agree that it’s critical for their staff to manage, respond to, and monitor hotel reviews on user review websites like TripAdvisor, Yelp, Google+ Local, and Travelocity.

To find out how to spot a fake review, check out the infographic from Olery.

Marketing to Women: In 2016 44% of Retail Sales Impacted by Web

Whether we buy online or research online, all retail is going to be impacted by online activity.  Not ten years from now, but just a couple of years from now.  How can that be, you ask, when only 5.4% of retail sales were reported as e-commerce in the fourth quarter of 2012?

Well, here’s the news bulletin.  While online retail sales are a smaller portion, many of today’s sales are web-influenced.  In fact, 70% of consumers research online before they make an in-store purchase.  And the average shopper may be using 10.4 sources of information to make a purchase decision.   Social media and mobile continue to become important  influencers in this shopping behavior.

Moms continue to be the heavy shoppers and one-third of all moms own a connected device.  Moms spend 6.1 hours per day on average on their smartphones – that’s more than magazines, TV or radio.   62% use shopping apps and 46% took action after seeing a mobile ad.  Mobile usage is growing among moms.  It’s  40% higher today than in 2009 for these mobile moms.  The statistics for moms shopping on tablets are off the charts - 97% made a purchase using their tablet in the last month.  And 46% actually want to receive information while they are in a store.

Warning to Retailers:  many retailers have been shown to be slow to adapt, and are without tablet websites or iPad sites.  When you don’t keep up, you are giving the competition the edge and giving iPad shopping startups a shot, like Pickie or Fab.com or others.

For more statistics on shopping, read more here.

Marketing to Moms: Four Things to Consider Before Developing an App

Considering an app to market to moms?  A recent study found that 97% of moms made a purchase on their tablet in the last month and they’re spending significantly more time on their tablets than laptops. There’s a huge opportunity for brands to provide value for moms on their tablets.

One way to make the most of moms on tablets is by developing an app for your brand. However, developing an app, especially for the first time, is not an easy task. It requires a big budget, skilled engineers, and dedicated marketers to build a useful, powerful app.

So before you begin, there are 4 key things to keep in mind when planning to develop a new app:

App functionality – In order to be truly effective, apps must be smart, innovative, and provide value to the customer. Know when your customers will be downloading the app and why they need it at that moment. Determine the use case scenario and keep it top of mind throughout all stages of development. Also know that you don’t have to include all potential features in the first release of the app. Prioritize the essential elements and add additional functionality in future releases.

Operating systems – You don’t need to develop an app for all platforms to be successful. Rather, understand the devices before choosing one or a few. First, narrow down your options by knowing which device your target audience uses. For example, about 51% of moms own an iPhone, iPad, or iPod, compared to 52% of teenagers owning an Android. Second, understand the pros and cons of the various platforms. Windows is known for its flexibility and provides a great user experience. Apple has fewer models and screen sizes so testing is easier. However, a rejection from Apple’s App Store means more time and money to make improvements. With Android, though, it’s easier to get apps into the Google Play store. On the down side, there are many Android models and testing on all of them is nearly impossible. Finally, testing on various devices requires lots of Quality Assurance (QA), not only for the first release but also to maintain the app as devices update their operating systems. Don’t forget to budget for ongoing QA as you develop your plan.

Pricing model – Will the app support your core business or will it be the sole revenue stream? If your business has other revenue sources, you may offer the app for free because it builds mobile presence and authority for your brand. If this will be your main revenue source, the app itself might be free but perhaps it will generate revenue through an eCommerce engine or paid membership. While some paid apps are very successful, tablet users have been shown to prefer free apps with ads to paid apps. Paid apps accounted for only 23% of all tablet app downloads in 2012. Does your app offer something that customers will pay for or does it offer another value to your business?

Download strategies – Marketing your app and getting customers to download it provides a huge challenge. Make sure your app is searchable within the app store. You can do this by choosing the most relevant keywords. What will customers be looking for when you want them to find your app? Find out and use those keywords. Note, you are limited a specific number of characters for keywords. For Apple, keywords must be less than 100 characters. Another download strategy is through email marketing. Email your existing customers and include a direct link to the app store so they can download the app immediately. Make it easy for them to find and download. Also consider integrating a social sharing element into your app so users market the app for you.

Creating an app may or may not be worth it for your business, but after thinking through each of these topics you should have a better idea of your approach and strategy. For more insights on the habits of moms on tablets and how to build the best app strategy for your brand, download the white paper, “Tablets 101: A Primer for Mom-Focused Brands.”

This guest post is by Katie Petrillo. She is the B2B Marketing Manager at Punchbowl, where she writes about marketing to moms for the Punchbowl Trends blog. Follow her on Twitter @PunchbowlTrends and find her on Google+.

Marketing to Women: Will Retail Stores Disappear?

Can you imagine a time when brick and mortar stores are just window shopping venues for online shoppers?  Some retail experts are prognosticating a time in the not-too-distant future when stores will become glorified showrooms because of the rise in internet commerce.

Actually, some online-only stores are actually experimenting with opening retail operations. Among those famous online names are EBay and Etsy who are testing temporary stores, while Piperlime, the Gap Inc. unit that was online-only for six years, opened a SoHo store last fall. Bonobos plans to keep opening stores, and Warby Parker, the eyeglass brand, will soon open a physical location.  These companies see these showrooms as catering to consumers who like the social nature of shopping – and need to touch and feel items before they purchase them.

Back to the experts – some say the way of the future will be smaller stores, carrying little or no inventory, with an efficient showroom model.  Consumers will see the product, make a selection and have it shipped to them the next day.  Some of these stores are testing the water now.

Today’s Showrooming and Sale Surfing

Today, showrooming refers to consumers that look at a product in store and then buy it online for a cheaper price.  A recent study found out that the top retailers at risk for showrooming (read buy it online or at another discounter) are Bed Bath & Beyond, PetSmart, ToysRUs, Best Buy and Sears.  Target seemed to do a little bit better.

Research shows that when shoppers were asked how many products they researched while in the retail store with their mobile device within the past 3 months, 80% indicated that they had researched at least 3 products with 43% had researched 5 or more products.

For all those showroomers, there are many shoppers that stay home,  start online and purchase online.

Will Brand Loyalty Survive?

According to a new study from InContact and Harris Interactive, 56% of consumers said they would be at least somewhat likely to switch brands based on customer service options, and a quarter do not feel any loyalty to any type of brand. These value shoppers are actually looking for more than price.  One of the value factors is customer service contact points and flexible timing for customer service.  Brands will need online, offline, social, and 24-hour hotlines to endear consumers.

Are You Marketing to Women? You Need to Lean In Too!

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg

The idea of “lean in” is not a new one.  Lean in means to press forward like leaning in to the wind so you won’t be blown over – or leaning in because you are more than interested, involved – all in.  In the past few weeks, you need to have been in a cloistered retreat to miss all the hoopla over Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s new book “Lean In:  Women, Work, and the Will to Lead.”  Sheryl Sandberg is an amazing woman who tells an engaging story about the workplace today and women’s own responsibility in moving up in business.

But marketers need to “lean in” as well.  Marketers need to recognize the power and influence of the women in the consumer arena and to greet that knowledge with more intuitive marketing that allows today’s women to see themselves in marketing.  Marketers need to be “all in” on the importance of women as consumers.

Here are just a few facts that support marketers “leaning in” on the subject of women and their purchasing behavior.

1.  One-third of Women are Single and Independent.   This is a growing group of women who think being independent is their most important life goal.  They have more disposable income than other women.  They are well educated, growing in management and happy to be single.

2.  Breadwinner wives are the highest wage earners in 40% of marriages.    From 2007 to 2011, women’s contribution to household income grew from 44% to 47%.  Male dominated jobs suffered the most in the past recession and women were more stable in their jobs.  Women now compose half of the workforce and are moving up the ladder.

3.  Women don’t think marketers understand them.  Women make 85% of all consumer purchases and yet, 91% of women don’t think marketeres understand them.  Women want authenticity, transparency, honesty and accurate portrayal.  Families are not longer nuclear, and women don’t measure success by how clean their laundry is.  It’s no surprise that only 3% of advertising agency creative directors are women.

4.  Marketers need to embrace women’s tools – social media and smartphones.  The newest figures out on social media usage from Pew show that the percentage of female internet users exceeds that of men (75% vs. 63%, respectively).  A new study by Weber Shanadwick provides richer insight on this social usage.  Here are some facts you can’t ignore -

• 86% have a social media account/profile with 2.2 accounts on average
• 81% Facebook is by far the most prevalent social media account
• Women spend an average of 12 hours per week using social media (nearly 2 hours/day)
• 19% say some of their best friends they know only through Facebook or Twitter

And why is this important?  Well, social women are social and have influence with friends.  They tell friends about products and services at a higher rate, they like or recommend services online, and they post comments and write reviews about products and services online.  And they post pictures or images online.

Oh, and smartphones are the most important tools in women’s handbags.  50.9% of smartphone users are women and we are using smartphones to stay in touch with our families and friends, interact on social media, and shop, shop, SHOP!!  If women can’t easily find you on their mobile phone or if you are not competitive, she will move on to another source.  Moms are on their phones six hours daily and  readily admit that their smartphones are more important than sex!

5.  Women buy based on emotion and facts. Okay, everyone does.  But marketers don’t seem to understand that in many arenas.  In purchasing decisions, 83 percent are willing to spend more on a product or service if they feel a personal connection to the company. One fifth of respondents said they would pay 50 percent or more if they felt the company put the customer first.  And yes, we have crushes on companies.  Who are those companies?  Think about your own list.  Mine includes Apple (oh, yes even if Samsung is making competitive products), Amazon (I smile when I see a box), Nordstrom’s (even my husband knows this is my brand), and Costco (a Saturday shopping pleasure).

So what’s a marketer to do?  Portray women accurately, don’t talk down to us, appeal to our emotional side, allow us to discover things about your brand, surprise us once in awhile, lavish us with great information and advice and like any good marriage – communicate, communicate, communicate.

Marketing to Women: For Emails, Timing is Everything

The timing of sending email campaigns is equally as important as the content.  There are definitely some things you should learn about your consumers and their email habits.  Different categories and businesses have distinct patterns.  It is important to look at the patterns of your emails.

Some consumer products find Friday, Saturday and Sunday as the most important time – maybe coinciding with weekend shopping trips.  B2B marketers find mid-week as the most important days because Mondays are busy and Fridays are more focused on weekends.

The hour of the day that emails are opened is important as well.  You need to think about what your consumers are doing.  Between 5 and 6 p.m., they may be stuck in traffic.  Later in the evening, they may check their emails again.

Emails have the best result within one hour of sending.  That’s when more than 23% of emails are opened.  The second hour it’s 9.52%, the third hour is 6.33% and four-hour is 4.8%.   The open rate is nearly zero 24 hours after delivery of an email.

Mobile Email Opens

So, you know all those stats about women reaching for their smartphones first thing in the morning?   Based on an analysis of more than 150 million emails sent between August 2011 and September 2012, a TailoredMail study shows that 14% of all opens and clicks on a mobile device occurred from 6AM to 8AM. The second-biggest peak, at 12% share, occurred between 6PM and 8PM.  Not surprisingly, the third time was around lunchtime.  It makes sense, doesn’t it?  We reach for our phones first thing in the morning.  We may check emails at lunch when we are away from our laptops.  And then in the evening, we are checking our phones during commutes or when we get home.

Social Media and Emails

Some 57% of marketers believe that social media will affect their email marketing, according to a MarketingSherpa survey.  Some of the things to think about are making social sharing options easy to use, allow “likes” from the body of your emails, and integration of messages across social media to encourage interaction.

Related articles

• 4 Ways Marketers Can Integrate Email and Social Marketing (neolane.com)

 

Marketing to Women: Why Chinese Love Logos

One of the most interesting articles I read this week was Why the Chinese Love Logos.  Trust me, it has something to do with marketing and branding.  The Chinese are hardwired to appreciate the strength of a logo because it is basic to their thought process because they read in pictures, ideograms.  Each Chinese character originally was a picture.

In today’s world, a logo creates the visual vocabulary for brands.  Logos are ideograms because they carry more message with them that just the image.  A logo is a visual shortcut that should engender all the properties and associations of the brand.  Take all the great logos that communicate more than just a name – Nike, Mercedes, Apple, Coca Cola, Starbucks, McDonald’s, Target, Ralph Lauren, Chanel  - and you will see that they share some common elements.

Milton Glaser, the legendary graphic designer, says that four things make for a great logo:  uniqueness, adaptable in various mediums, appropriate to the brand, and a timeless nature. A great logo is a communication game so above all else a logo must be memorable!   And usually that means it must be simple.  Logos can change over time.  That’s why Betty Crocker is younger looking now and even the Pillsbury doughboy has lost a few pounds.  Your logo is not your brand, but it is the flag you wave.  Logos that appeal to women typically appeal to everyone.

Here’s an interesting comparison of a timeless logo.

Marketing to Women: Get a Mobile Mindset for 2013

Nielsen has released a new report containing facts on how US consumers use different forms of media and devices. The information on  the top 8 activities performed on mobiles is fascinating, or at least I think so.

The top activity is texting, consuming 14.1% of our time.  Messaging (texting, email and instant messaging) compose 14.1% of our time, or one-fifth of our time on our mobile devices.  The lifeline for most of us is our texts and emails.

The second most consuming usage is social networks because we evidently all have FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), so we spend a whopping 10% of our time on social networks.  Actually dialing someone up and having a conversation only consumes about 5.5% of our time.   The other usage is consumed with browsing the internet, listening to music, using maps and our camera.  The mobile usage differs from our computer usage – which is geared to a variety of other activities.  One thing is the same – we spend a lot of time on social media.  Computer usage of social media is 20.1%, versus 10% of our mobile time.

And in terms of usage, 56% of mobile users have smartphones.  Eighty-five (85) million of us use social media apps on our smartphones, compared with 164 million have access to social media from their computers.

The bottom line is that each month, consumers are spending more time with more media, across all devices, and smart marketers need to understand the role of mobile in our daily lives.  We use mobile to stay connected, to manage our schedules, and the shop.  Some 78% of us use our smartphones to find a store, 63% check prices online and 22% comment on purchases.

Marketing to Women: 2013 is Year of Content

Move over advertising!  Content is a brand’s best friend in 2013. That’s really hard for a reformed advertising exec to say.  But the writing is on the wall.  Or on the digital horizon.  In our New Year’s 2013 Psychic Predictions and Prognostications, most of the predictions had to do with content:  brand as publisher, curation for brand authority, quality content to improve SEO, inbound marketing, importance of “content strategist”, and the growth of visual content.

The truth is that great content has always been a wildfire for brands.  This video from Content Marketing World makes the point.

Gilad de Vries, in a Forbes guest post, wrote a intriguing argument on the lack of emotional resonance of digital ads versus the storytelling ability of content marketing.  He called digital ads “incredibly weak branding vehicles” that “never truly create the kind of emotion experience that gets consumers excited about your brand”.   Of course, the advertising side of me wants to offer an argument that digital ads are not really a stand-alone medium.  They operate much like a directional outdoor board, pointing the way to your website.  But there is truth in his statement.  His argument continues that the only true branding mechanism online is content marketing.  That’s where we certainly agree – content marketing does allow brands to tell their story – and to include the consumer in the circle of brand love and shared experience.  It’s not just one tool – like Facebook or a blog – it’s the integrated and consistent storytelling that fulfills a brand.  Its shared interest with your consumers.

I love his definition of content marketing:

Content marketing is a strategy with two obvious pillars: content and marketing. ‘Content’ means the creation of original content or the curation of content for the benefit of your audience. ‘Marketing’ means getting people to discover and engage with your content.

And here is where is gets sticky.  The content has to be of such quality that your prospective consumer will seek you out.  They will discover you – and in the discovery – it becomes their own.  Content marketing is reaching a common ground with your customers without selling to them.  And it’s about true relevance.  It has to be important to your followers.

 

Related articles

• 2013 Marketing to Women: Psychic Predictions and Prognostications! (jamiedunham.wordpress.com)
• 10 Ways Brands Will Win With Content Marketing in 2013 (mashable.com)

2013 Marketing to Women: Psychic Predictions and Prognostications!

I don’t have a crystal ball for 2013.  I don’t know if Facebook will continue to grow – or if retail stores will start to shrink because of online shopping. I subscribe to the John Naisbitt philosophy that “the most reliable way to anticipate the future is to understand the present.”

But in the spirit of the season, I thought it would be fun to gather some of the best predictions in one place for your reading pleasure.  Tell me if you think they are psychic, premature or PR poop!

Inside Facebook 2013 Social Media Predictions for Facebook, Google+, Pinterest and more. Some good input here.   Facebook users will continue to be disenchanted as Facebook tries to ad advertising value.  Google+ will become more business and local friendly.  Pinterest and other visual media will continue to grow with visual content.  Pinterest launched business pages and will soon open to third party developers.  Peer reviews will continue to be integrated into brand operations.

Forbes 2013 Marketing Predictions:  Content Marketing and Social Business  Great thoughts about the growing importance of content marketing.  We have to give customers valuable content that they want.  I am a big believer in the concept of brands as publishers.  The idea that a constant flow of curated information gives brand authority.

Hubspot 8 Insightful Marketing Predictions for 2014 and Beyond.  Hubspot correctly points out the overlap in search, social and content as SEO influencers.  It’s more than keywords.  It’s about high quality content.  And for those who think email is dead, think again.  In 2013, it will be more personalized and targeted.  Marketers will need to segment their lists and personalize content.  Marketing will be seen as more of a revenue generator.  In 2013, CMOs and senior executives will allocate more resources to creating a strong inbound engine — generating interest, traffic, leads, and conversions — to support the demand generation engine. And here’s a big one – marketing “campaigns” will decline as more marketers take advantage of the power of real-time communications to grow business. In 2013, buyers instantly engage with brands on their websites, talk back via social media like Twitter and Facebook, and follow breaking news in the markets they are interested.

Content Marketing Institute Social Media and Content Marketing Predictions for 2013.  ”My prediction is that the “Content Strategist” role will become an important part of the marketing department in more than just a handful of brands. Michael Brenner,  Senior Director, Integrated Marketing and Content Strategy, SAP.  Yes, it’s about content.  And content includes more visuals – videos, pictures, creative graphics.  And as much as I like infographics, they may have reached their peak.  As Pinterist, Instagram, Slideshare and YouTube continue to grow, we have to think about visual content.
And as mobile usage soars, we need to understand how to maximize content for each type of screen.  Responsive design is really important for web sites.

Search Engine Journal B2B Marketing Predictions of 2013.  Inbound marketing becomes more important.  It’s less about push and more about providing information that your prospective customers seek out.  It’s about responsive design of websites – and shut my mouth, maybe a return to targeted direct mail to stand out from the online clutter.

Media Post 2013 Predictions from Online Ad, Marketing Experts.  The term is “opt-in push” here, allowing consumers to feel more comfortable allowing brands to recognize location, intent and preferences through devices.  Six experts weigh in here on the death of static web pages, campaign integration, integration of search with display advertising, Google dominance in search and the continuing complexities of SEO, and the death of the term “social media campaign.”

PSFK 2013 Predictions.  This is a great compilation by PSFK of thought leaders on a variety of subjects.  One of my favorites is George Parker – The Continuing Bastardization of the English Language.  He tell us that Shakespeare created 1700 words which included advertising!  And puke.  But today we use words in advertising like “artisanal pizza”; get a grip copywriters!  Shantell Martin thinks there will be more personalization with hand-drawn images.  Tom Evans of Saatchi LA thinks brands will become more focused on creating campaigns that engage the consumer based on their interests and passions—as opposed to which social network they prefer.  Yeah!

Forbes Google News Crumbles and More 2013 Media Predictions.  Ashley Harrison says 2013 will be the year that mobile consumption finally raises the bar on both advertising and publishing in the digital age.  It’s a year of change.  Mobile devices will become the #1 way to read news.  I received my final print Newsweek in the mail, and I was a little relieved that they had faced up to the change.   I made a cake from Gourmet Live, the replacement for the venerable Gourmet magazine, that re-invented itself last year.  The gap between consumer time spent and spending on mobile (10% and 1% respectively) creates a truly significant opportunity for advertisers and platforms alike. As digital publications and super blogs get smarter and begin to tap into online and mobile advertising, it will become a major revenue stream for the top players worldwide. In the past year alone, newspapers have lost $13 in print revenue for every dollar earned in digital revenue