International Digital Marketing

When first online supermarkets were launched … they were a flop. After a long silence, the online food and grocery shopping has started to evolve and increase its popularity during recent years, thanks to ongoing development of e-commerce, Internet and mobiles. However, despite of the potential they have, the online supermarkets still reach only a small niche market.

What could bring the online grocery shopping experience closer to the mainstream?

Constantly evolving market

According to International research company IGD, the amount spent on online food and grocery shopping will reach £7.2 billion by 2014. Currently 64% of UK users have done online shopping yet according to the Office for National Statistics, only 13% have bought groceries. In Spain e-commerce is booming, but only 10.7% of the consumers have purchased groceries online. E-commerce in Italy had an estimated value of 10 billion Euros in 2009, but the online food and grocery shopping accounted only for 1.9% of the total.

In France, with a turnover of 250 million Euros, the online supermarkets represent only a small part of the French e-commerce (25 billion Euros). The amount of cyber buyers (24 million in 2009) is increasing, even though the “cyber-markets” are considered to be too expensive with 13% Internet price premium.

Online grocery shoppers

The report Online Shopping 2009 by IGD states that 30% of the online grocery shoppers purchase less often than once a month and 61% visit more than one online supermarket. 49% would like to try alternative store, yet half of users have not done so because they believe it takes too much effort to do . 34% of the surveyed wants to shop only in supermarket and 7% prefers online purchasing for food and groceries.

Convenience is the main motivation for online grocery shoppers to buy online, since it takes less time and physical effort. Overall it is perceived as a more organized shopping experience and means avoiding the queues. 61% of the current and potential online shoppers also stated that having free delivery would definitely increase their motivation to buy groceries online.

The main concern blocking the online grocery shopping is quality. Consumers do not trust companies to deliver them the freshest products and newest sold-by-date if they purchase online.

Best practice – Digital supermarket

Tesco supermarkets in South Korea decided to take it a step further to reach number two position in the country. Instead of opening more physical stores, Tesco concentrated on virtual shopping by creating digital supermarkets called Homeplus in metro stations.  The objective was to bring virtual shopping directly into consumers life. The decision was made after market survey revealed that many consumers concentrated on journeys to and from work without having time to do grocery shopping.

The company designed big screens that looked exactly like physical store shelf where users could use their Smartphones to scan the QR codes and put the products in their shopping cart. When the shopping was done, the groceries were delivered to user’s home once he returned from work.

Online shopping between November 2010 and January 2011 increased 130%, while the number of clients increased 76%. Homeplus itself became the number one online grocery store.

Multi-channel shopping experience

There is great potential in online grocery shopping, since it represents currently only a small percentage of e-commerce and there is a lot of space for growth. Consumers are already using different channels and technologies to shop online and this can be extended to online supermarkets. By offering consumers a possibility to use mobile technology, they are able to purchase on the go, and by bringing online grocery shopping into the physical world, like Tesco did in South-Korea, companies can increase awareness and offer consumers a digital in-store experience.

The future of online grocery shopping looks bright if users are given an online shopping experience that brings them the most perceived value. By offering online shoppers different purchase channels, consistent quality, free delivery and greater choice of products, companies can turn online supermarkets from a niche into mainstream.

Social Networks killing E-mail marketing? No, integration of the two is possible – and even recommendable. According to a study by GetResponse, e-mails containing social media sharing options such as Facebook or Twitter generated a 30% higher CTR than e-mails without them. What is even more promising is that the e-mails including at least three different sharing options had a 55% higher CTR. A very significant result, yet the study states that only 11.2% of e-mails currently offer three or more sharing options.

But why to limit to simple buttons in the end of the e-mails, when there are so many other possibilities to integrate e-mail marketing with social media? If just inserting few buttons can be so successful, imagine what other tricks can do!

Top seven tips to integrate e-mailing and social media:

1. Publish Facebook competition winners in the company newsletter

You acquire a double advantage, because besides of additional incentives of social media competitions, the Facebook community becomes part of your e-mail subscribers.

2.  Promote exclusive offers in Facebook and Twitter – that are only available for e-mail subscribers.

Subscribers want exclusive advantages for their loyalty. Reserving certain privileges for only this group, the perceived value of your e-mail subscribers program increases and gives motivation for other users to join. Since social media is highly viral, the information will spread quickly.

3. Include links to the best web versions of your Newsletters to Facebook and Twitter.

This tactic increases amount of people reading and clicking your Newsletter, even more than just adding “like” buttons.

4. Include “like” buttons in newsletters and promotions, but offer users a reason to use them.

A study by Nielsen Norman Group showed that students used much more the “share” option, when they got benefits from it. For example, “share this in Facebook and find out what your friends think about this product”, “Share this in Twitter so your friends know where to find you”

5. Encourage your subscribers to ask through Facebook or Twitter.

Unfortunately, the subscribers cannot answer commercial messages, so show them the dedication of your customer service by encouraging them to ask questions through social networks.

6. Include questions that were published in Facebook and Twitter in your e-mail and answer them.

If a company is active in social networks, it develops constantly a big base of frequently asked questions and answers that should be included in communications.

7. Create a mail group that includes Twitter followers and send them additional information through email.

Twitter followers appreciate the personal perspective the 140 characters offer, so offer them information that awakens their curiosity.

There has been talk about death of E-mail marketing after the emerge of social media, yet both ways of communication can complement each other and create considerably better campaign results. Another additional benefit of these strategies is creating a strong up-to-date database by encouraging social media users to implement their personal information into the company database.

Capturing social media users (Twitter followers, Facebook fans, bloggers…) personal data is complicated, because of the contact permission issues, yet if they give it voluntarily this can create a considerable amount of leads. Not to mention the possibilities the data capture brings for customer loyalization programs.

According to the Google Mobile presentation I participated in December, in Q1 2010 mobile search queries from high end phones on Google grew 62% over the previous quarter. Concerning the e-commerce, Google mobile searches on shopping-related keywords have grown 2500% in the past three years. It is clear that instead of only focusing on desktop SEO, there are real possibilities in mobile SEO that should be taken advantage of. Companies are still strugling with the “normal” SEO and do not have time/resources/expertise to mobile optimize. It means that including mobile optimization into the strategy can improve considerably the campaign results with a lower cost, since there are less competitors bidding for the mobile search keywords. For now.

Mobile optimization in a nutshell:

1. Separate Campaigns
2. Optimize Your Keyword List
3. Create Compelling Ad Text
4. Bid and Budget for Mobile
5. Track Your Performance
6. Optimize Mobile Website
7. Test, test & test

Very interesting point that came up during the presentation was the difference between website SEO and mobile SEO. Even if the mobile SEO is still taking its baby steps, after trial and re-trial Google’s conclusion was that different strategy and separate campaigns are the best way to guarantee stronger results.

Why to use a different strategy:

• Location based targeting: Desktop is primarily used in one location, while mobile is used in multiple locations.
• More refined targeting and creation of personal experience: Desktop SEO is for the masses, but in mobile SEO there are different networks and devices that can be separated.
• More correct ad format to provide the best user experience: Desktop is usually used in times of leisure, while mobiles are mostly used in times of need (except games, social networks etc.)
• Best method to interact with users: With desktop only website based internet can be used, while with mobiles there are both website based internet and apps available.

Why to target mobile separately:

Separate campaigns mean you can isolate performance on mobile and then optimize keywords, ad text, bids & budgets without affecting your desktop campaign.

• More control: Set bids and budgets just for mobile, run separate reports to track results and optimize more easily.
• Relevant messaging: Include messaging with a strong mobile call-to-action and use relevant ad formats.
• Better targeting: With Google AdWords you can target different carriers and devices.

Examples:

• Location extensions – ads are relevant to the user’s location
• Click to call – users click the number to connect to your business
• Mobile site links – mention you have a mobile site.
• Click to download – users click to download pdf, free app, information…

If you are also using Yahoo!, one feature the company has is its new mobile oneSearch^TM service. For example, searching for ‘Cinema’ shows a list of cinemas close to user’s location providing him their address and phone numbers. When user clicks the ‘Call’ link next to a number, a call dialogue box opens on the phone.

Bid & Budget:

Ads appear on high end mobile devices as the default, but the competition in mobile search is stronger for fewer ad slots (5 on mobile vs. 11 on desktop). However, for now the price is still lower than with desktop, because of the smaller volume of bidders.

Competitive bidding:

• Ads appear above the search listings
• A maximum of two slots
• High visibility and higher CTR.

Non competitive:

• Ads appear below search listings.
• A maximum of three ad slots.
• Users have to scroll to see ads, lower visibility and CTR.

Get spidered and indexed by mobile search engines:

Mobile optimization does not work, unless you are spidered and recognized. Main issues that may cause your site not  appearing in the search results are:

Spiders may not be able to find your site

The spider must crawl your site before it can be included in the search index. If you just created the site, search engines may not yet be aware of it. If that’s the case, submit your site to major mobile search engines for quick spidering.

• Google Sitemaps (BETA)
• Yahoo! Submit Your Mobile Site

Spiders may not be able to access your site

Some mobile sites refuse access to anything but mobile phones, making it impossible for spiders to access the site, and therefore making the site unsearchable. For example with Google, the crawler for mobile sites is “Googlebot-Mobile”. If you would like your site crawled, allow any User-agent including “Googlebot-Mobile” to access your site. Please note: Google may change its User-agent information at any time without notice. That is why it is good idea to verify first that it really handles Googlebot in here.

Search engines cannot recognize your mobile URLs

Once spider crawls your URLs, it checks whether the URL is viewable on a mobile device. Pages that are not viewable are not included to the mobile site index.  Make sure that your URLs’ DTD declaration is in an appropriate mobile format such as XHTML Mobile or Compact HTML.  Mobile search engines  have more trouble digesting invalid code, so to be safe use 100% valid XHTML 1.0 code. It will assure that mobile search engines will not have any trouble with your site. For more information, see the Mobile Webmaster Guidelines.

It is also a good idea to ensure that each of your pages has at least one incoming link.

To be honest I thought it was hard to beat the American Idol house parties Ford organized in U.S to push people to test drive their cars, but I must admit Europeans can indeed do it better. In 2008 the car brand Dodge wanted to introduce three different models in Belgian market,  but it was facing a very competitive and challenging market. With a quite low brand awareness in the country, Dodge could not just place their new models in the showroom and expect people to come, test drive and buy the cars nor it could invest in a highly expensive (and not so effective to be honest) broadcast television commercials to boost the sales. It was obvious that if people were not coming to the dealers, the car had to be taken to the people.

What to do?

The agency Proximity BBDO came up with a very interesting test-driving concept: Car Bungee-Jump. The brand Dodge organized a 10 city tour in Belgium and dared people to have a 50-meter bungee jump in a new Dodge Viper. Inside the car were cameras filming people’s reactions (most of the people were screaming) and these videos were then edited, posted on the campaign website and made shareable.

And yes, it worked:

1. These buzz creating test-drives drove over 10,000 people for one of the stops
2. The test-drive videos generated over 50,000 views on YouTube and GarageTV
3. Site traffic increased, with over 35,000 unique visitors
4. 10% of site visitors opted in, 5% requested more information and 1% visited a showroom & test-drove the car

All this without a single ad, TV-commercial or direct mail.

What makes this great is that even if the organization of Car-bungee jump, website and pushing the videos viral might have its cost for sure, it could never be as expensive as Ford’s campaigns and sponsorship with a cost of millions. The great thing about Social Media is that if you have a great concept that can go viral, it will not cost you an arm and a leg. Depending on your budget, combining the viral concept with strong online campaign can boost the brand awareness and increase the effectiveness of your strategy. Just come up with something new and exciting that integrates online and real world and gets people out of their houses. And of course, do not forget to cover your back with strong legal bases. Come on, stop being boring and take advantage of the possibilities a real online buzz can create.

See the Dodge Car Bungee Jump video here.

With 43% of South Koreans maintaining an online profile or blog site and 90% of Korean twenty-somethings logging into a social network daily, the market seems like a perfect Social Media playground. Searching for a stronger position in Asian markets, Coke decided to experiment in South Korea with a new strategy. Instead of one-off promotions, Coke preferred to study their participants and reach out for them when they knew each influencer’s tastes and interests.

“Lots of companies are engaged in blog marketing nowadays, and we, as bloggers, do get lots of requests,” admitted Eun Ju Kim, one of Coke’s Korean mommy bloggers. “But Coca-Cola Korea was different. The company really listened to us from the beginning. The company fully allowed me to enjoy the area that I was most interested with and share my experience through my blog. Lots of people ask me how to become a Coke blogger.”

To build a sustainable blogger outreach program the company wanted to find out how Coke could better communicate with local bloggers, especially young mothers.These influencers were introduced to the company through special blogger-only events and their opinion and advice was asked. Was it easy? No. Did it need patience? Yes.

It did not happen overnight: Coke has devoted 2 years to build relationships with powerful bloggers who are important local “digital influencers.” The company contacted these 8 “mommy bloggers” tagged as “Coke friends” back in 2008, and they voluntarily become Coke evangelists connecting Coke with Koreans who visited their blog.

“These women are not simply in charge of a onetime event or project but are vitally important stakeholders,” declared Kenth Kaerhoeg, group communications director for Coca-Cola’s Pacific Group in Hong Kong. “Each blogger has been paid careful attention to, various brand and company information appropriate to each blogger’s interest and inclination has been continuously provided, involving them into a variety of marketing and corporate events, therefore enabling them to share unique and exciting Coke experiences.”

After two years Korean families are talking more about (and drinking) Coke. The company is planning to expand the blogger dinner parties into larger programs involving also young bloggers also in other Asian markets. The company has already created social-media programs in China, Singapore, Australia and Japan, particularly to promote Coke in the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai.

I found today an interesting article by Ed Keller, CEO of the Keller Fay Group revealing the 7 strategies Google uses to increase the word of mouth. During the School of WOM, conference organized by WOMMA in Chigago last week, Jim Lecinski, Google’s Managing Director U.S. Sales and Service, talked about the seven strategies Google uses to get the positive buzz going:

1. Pose a Challenge to the Community

By challenging the community, the users will respond, embrace the challenge, share and create something big. Participants share it with their friends, viral marketing gets going, media gets interested, more people hear about it. A snowball effect, I would say. An example: The “YouTube Symphony Orchestra“. Contestants were challenged to download a score and upload online videos for their audition. In four months time (December 08-April 09) 3 000 musicians from around the world auditioned and only 96 were selected to join the orchestra conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. More than 1 million watched the concert on YouTube.

2. Hold a Contest

Who does not like winning? The contest Doodle 4 Google received more than 30,000 entries from under 12-year-old students from over 20,000 schools in U.S. The idea was to create their own Google doodle, “logo” that shows in its homepage, inspired by the theme, “If I Could Do Anything, I Would…”. The finalists were chosen via online voting and the winner, a 9 year old girl, was selected by judges. Her doodle was featured on the Google home page and she received a $15,000 college scholarship and a $25,000 technology grant for her school. Investing in the future and education gave a very positive image of Google.

3. Give a Gift

Free gift? Yes please. Everyone likes a gift and tells all friends about it. Therefore the word about “Free Wi-Fi for the Holidays” Google offered from November 2009 until January 2010 with Virgin America and 54 airports across the U.S. spread like a bushfire. Even having a WIFI at the airport is not so evident, so a free WIFI is surely worth talking about.

4. Surprise Them

Google is famous for its ever changing doodle in its home page. To celebrate Pacman’s 30^th anniversary in May, Google created the first interactive Pacman-doodle. For their immense surprise and delight, the visitors could play Pacman in Google’s homepage. I happened to be one of them and absolutely loved it! And yes, I told all my friends about it. People love unexpected surprises!

5. Draft on Advertising

Why only use advertising when you can follow and expand “the story” with something interactive? Usually avoiding mainstream advertising, the Google ad “Parisian Love” on the 2010 Super Bowl surprised many people. It is a story of two people meeting, falling in love, getting married, and settling down to start a family in Paris – all told via the Google search. However, the point of this advertising was to create a follow up for it and push the audience to use the Search Stories Video creator that allows users to create their own story via search terms, add music, preview, and upload it to YouTube for everyone to see.

6. Let Others Tell Your Story

You already have fans out there, people who love your brand. Let them tell your story, they might even do it better than you do! Google wanted to spread word on Apps, a Google’s web-based hosted software alternative to Microsoft. To motivate the users to talk about Apps and create a user fan base, Google created a special website where users could share their own story and tell the world why they have “Gone Google.” The company gave away “Gone Google” laptop stickers, bumper stickers, mobile phone stickers, luggage tags, etc. Fans loved them and were proud to spread the word of the new software.

7. Invitation Only

More exclusive it is, more you want it. The “scarcity” strategy Google uses for new product launches such as Google Voice and Google Wave creates demand even before the actual product launch. Only a limited number of people can participate and each one of them has only a limited number of invitations they can offer to others. People who have the new product feel special and love talking about it and people who have not been invited yet start searching for someone who still has these invitations. My friend passed me the exclusive Google Wave invitation, asked in Facebook if I liked it and suddenly I started getting mails begging me to send an invitation. IPhone had similar effect in Europe: my friends and colleagues were travelling to U.S. only to buy the new iPhone. We all were jealous when we saw it “live” and rushed into stores when it was finally available in Europe.

What I like about these strategies is that they are actually old marketing tactics with innovative twist focused on word of mouth. There is no need to be a technology guru to apply these in your industry. “Go Google” and modernize the old tactics that work!

You have finally identified your key influencers in the blogosphare, now what? The question is delicate since even if you want to promote your product, you need to forget the usual sales speech. Wrong approach might be perceived in a negative way, since no one likes to be sold to. The strategy should be based on relationships NOT selling.

But what to do? Think “Out of the Box” like Nokia does.

To promote Nokia’s navigation tools and accessories, the company decided to use a different strategy to reach its key influencers. Sexy sports cars were dropped at five different bloggers doorsteps and the quest begun. All bloggers were given Nokia navigation tools they could use in different missions. At first the bloggers had to find the car keys, then a enigmatic box, then another group of bloggers on bikes…The adventure ended at a hotel where all participants could try out all the toys and watch a little video of their journey.

The result is quite impressive: Nokia identified its key influencers, surprised them and gave them something to talk about. 1000heads created a great video case study, #NokiaNav: The Story in Full, which has already 2,500 views in Youtube. I recommend watching the video, since it shows a great example on how to create a real bond with the key influencers by moving the virtual relationship with bloggers into a real-life relationship. In the end of the video the viewers are directed to a special Nokia dedicated site.

Well done, Nokia.