The boom of on-line selling in Europe

Today I read on sole24ore (www.sole24ore.it – which is the main economic newspaper in Italy) an interesting article about the growth of the on-line market in Europe. Some of the listed data were pretty surprising, in particular considering the major crisis the old continent is going through.
In 2011, for the first time, Europe has surpassed the US in terms of on-line sales, and it has become the first on-line market in the world. With an annual growth of 18% compared to 2010 (16% in the US), online sales have reached $260B (vs. $194B in the US). 240 million individual buyers have purchased online (out of an aggregated population of 740 millions) in 2011 with an average annual spending of $1.100. The main player that exploited this steady growth is the site Amazon which reached $17B of sales in Europe with a growth of $5B (!) from 2010, reaching its leader position in the market.

The sport articles category is the category that has experienced most growth (+31%, from $0.8B to $1.1B), while the country that experienced most growth has been Poland (+97% from 2010). Another data that I consider to be very interesting regarding the concentration of the online retailers is that the biggest players are growing much faster than the rest of the market. For example, the average rate of growth for the main 10 players (Amazon , Otto Group, Tesco Store , Staples Store, PPR SA , Home Retail Group,  Shop Direct Group, Apple, CDiscount.com, Suisse) has been 43% in 2011 and this particular group all together now embodies 45% of the European market (in term of sales).

Change of Apple's seach alogrithm

First it was Facebook that change your email address to @facebook.com
Apple did a even worse thing ....guess what?
They change thier search algorithm used by its iOS App Store, and thhis move may end up having a serious impact on app sales for some developers.

A developer is upset because sales of his apps had dropped by more than 30% as a result of the changes, which have caused some of  a developer's apps to disappear completely from listed results for key searches that used to surface these apps.

The biggest impact on sales appears to stem from the fact that the App Store no longer searches combinations of an app’s title and keywords what the developer inputs when listing an app. It only counts when it is being download by users. But there are some developers that were excited about the change, because it meant they weren’t being outranked by less popular apps that happened to have better-chosen names.

Will e-Marketers have to change the use SEO to get more traffic from Google to thier website down the road too?  It seems every big player from MicroSoft, Google, Apple is trying to control how internet works ... but are they trying to make it better to edge the other players out or are they just trying to edge out other players with thier domaince power? 
Well Apple have not offically annouced the changes and we e-marketers will always find a way to adapt to this changing industry.


http://searchengineland.com/apple-changes-ranking-algorithm-for-app-store-searches-125863
http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=B1641BA4-B561-DC29-7823FFACB4C3FAF1
Roy

The Digital Journey

Last week, I fortuitously ended up in a meeting between a client's digital marketing team for a food-centric website, and Cisco's director of marketing for Cisco.com and our social strategy.  The meeting topic was monetizing customer traffic, or conversion, and the client is having a tough time figuring out where to focus their efforts.  Their content is great- dynamic, relevant, and very useful.  Yet, short of a small online storefront, they don't really have a way to capture customer wallet share.

Cisco's Marketing Director shared our company's philosophy for website interactions with visitors: the Digital Journey.  Cisco has mapped out about 10 "digital journeys" that are as close to a "typical" interaction with our company as possible.  The layout of the website, SEO strategy, and all marketing accompaniments are created in support of these visitor journeys.  Cisco felt that it was such a critical piece of the digital strategy that there is a full-time employee whose entire job is to map these journeys and pick up where changes are occurring (ie, more people accessing from mbolie devices) so we can get ahead of the demand.

The Slide above shares some interesting stats about Cisco's website evolution, including the rapid increase in mobile access, paritcularly from tablet users.  Interesting also are the stats around search referrals and how many organic referrals are received- I'm sure this is a factor of the strong brand recognition and dominant market share position of the company.  It's a good thing that Google works so well on smartphones.....

Audience Measurement

Fred Wilson recently wrote a post about measuring the audience for a particular piece of content. Fred is thinking about it from the angle of usage for an app. It's relevant to marketing as well.

There's a lot of interesting nuance to measuring audience for any platform. The dream of digital marketers has always been that the experience is measurable and therefore effective. There has been a lot of innovation in tracking people around the web, on mobile and everywhere else an ad has been served. But, this has not ended the debate about which ads are the most effective. If a user clicks an ad after seeing the same ad (or another for the same brand/offer), which ad should get the credit? Should they split it? Should that split be even? Figuring that out won't happen until we all have chips in our brain measuring every thought and decision we make. At that point, I hope someone has a better use for those chips than measuring advertising.

The question for you is: will those chips will be ad-supported or subscription based?

Best Practices for Social Media Marketers

I recently came across a few interesting reads suggesting dos and don'ts for digital media campaigns that are based on recent research done by marketing pros. Some of the findings seem obvious, such as the point in an infographic produced by marketing agency BlueGlass that much emphasis should be placed on the quality of headlines for web content. Apparently only 20% of people go on to read what's beneath headlines since online audiences tend to scan content quickly and have little patience. As such, it's imperative that headlines are kept succinct and eye-catching.


However, there are a fair amount of wisdom nuggets that marketers fail to appreciate. Twitter messages are powerful nowadays, but they can be augmented by coordinating them with properly executed email campaigns. A new report by YesMail reveals that sending out emails to promote a brand on the same day its Twitter campaign is launched drives engagement as much as 50% higher. Also, Facebook campaigns should be deployed between 10 pm and 12 am, the window with the highest level of interaction. However, most of them are deployed between 11 am and 1 pm. This makes sense since I would imagine people are more likely to be active on Facebook at night rather than while they're at their work desks (for the most part).


Marketers also aren't utilizing weekends as much as they should, according to a Twitter study by Buddy Media. Twitter engagement rates are higher on Saturdays and Sundays, but only 19% of tweets published by brands in the study took place on those days. Buddy Media also notes that tweets published during the "busy hours" between 8 am and 7 pm perform best, unlike Facebook campaigns which are optimal during the "after hours" period as noted above. As for how to craft Twitter messages, Buddy Media suggests that tweeters keep them fewer than 100 characters, include links, and incorporate those hashtags (but be careful of excessive linking and hashtagging since too many leads to diminishing returns).


Furthermore, it's always okay to ask for help. "If you ask followers to 'RT' you’ll get a 12X higher retweet rate than if you don’t," Buddy Media reports. "But if you spell out the word 'retweet' that figure jumps to 23X." I wonder if such results are consistent with what most people experience.

Trends of Laptops, Tablets and e-Marketing

Google is likely to unveil a small tablet which seems to take a hardline punch on Amazon's Kindle ...Ouch! Ding Ding ...weighing 500 lbs Google VS 350lbs Kindle and the score is 1 VS 0 ...Like the Kindle Fire, the Google tablet is believed to have a 7-inch screen  — smaller than the iPad's nearly 10-inch display. It was Microsoft that planned to release its own tablets last week... If you guys notice the trend, it is the software players companies now rolling out with the coolest gadgets tablets now ...Well, Apple is exception! MS and Google is really up for the battle neck to neck ...the old school Dell, HP, the undead Gateway and Compaq are really losing market shares like me losing hair not only to them but also to foreign brands Samsung and Asus not to mention smartphones too!!! Remember the time when laptop aria? How about when it was thousands of dollars.. when you drool on it while caressing it in Curcit City while Geroge Micheal's song Carless Whisper was playing at the background?! If only I had that $4999.99  ...You will be mine!!! You  whispered to the laptop scerectly...Well, now most laptops are only $499 even cheaper during Thanksgiving if you are cheap enough to wait online like me...sparing the turkey's life! And most of us dont even want to look at it ...Love is cheap, eh?

Yes, we all want the tablets! IPads are so cool ... which one of us have not gone to an Apple store and did what we did back in the 90's with the laptops what I mentioned above ...only this time it is not Geroge Micheal's but Lady GaGa's song Paparazzi playing ... if u carry an Ipad ...everybody thinks you are cool...walk into a high end Channel store ...they will whopped out thier Ipad and show you thier new Summer and Fall Collections in your face! @@ ...

I am sure many of us will be doing Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris style Kung Fu just to get that $99 special sale for a IPad 2 ... it is the Love that it is worth fighting for ...isn't it? I would!
The question is : Will laptop be out phrased? Is it a marked death for the  laptop industry?
If you look at the online marketing trend now it is built with a GPS tracking ...imagine if you are walking near a store and out of the blue.... Bing! you cellphone has a message ..."Hey, stop by our store we will offer you 20% discount on all our stuffs because its you!"You rushed in and before you even step into the store ...another Bing! This time on your tablet ... Hey, dont go in there! We are across the street ...come over and we give you 20% discount and a Free mystery gift ...and you turn around and run over to the other store ...Bing! "Hey, you are almost at our store! What happened?! We will give you 30% off ..."  

How funny it sounds ... but I personally think it will be true... digital marketing will be split into 2 parts ... the technical part like Google Analystics studying the trend and trying to make out how you behave and react on deals... while the other part it will be like a hustler digital marketing ...

Hustler part:
When you are near a store they will probably send you a message either on your cellphone or tablet and enccourage you to use the scan to get a special offer, discount and a free gift

Techincal part:
They will be tracking you how you shop and react to deals such as what was in your wish list? Which website you been to? What are you looking ... and lastly how to get your attention and turn you into a sucker to buy the product.


http://news.yahoo.com/google-likely-unveil-small-tablet-show-140011527--finance.html


Roy

Rapportive…… Puts it all together…..

Friends, classmates, professors, colleagues, mom, boyfriend, artist, industry experts….How to keep up with everyone when they have blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google +,…..? We know we can’t keep up with everyone’s everything, and we still want everyone to check our posts and blogs…

The term Rapport refers to the communication or relationship between two or more people who share interests, backgrounds, stories, businesses, etc.

Not another account and activity to subscribe to, but rather a tool that integrates them and shows you the relevant information for each person at the moment you most need it, Rapportive was founded in 2010 to allow people to come together and share all that they have in common…..

By installing Rapportive, you can update your profile to include links to your accounts in AIM, Amazon Wishlist, Blogger, Foursquare, Google +, Twitter, Facebook……the list goes on and on to up to approximately 212 sites. With Rapportive, you can open an email from your friends or business client and see their latest online activity in social networks. They will also be able to see your most recent information as they read your emails. It is amazing how easy and useful it is to find things to chat about and find interests that you may have in common. Giving your client some advice on his upcoming trip to Vegas or telling your friend that you loved her blog will earn you some good extra points!   

MS says FB is worth IPO price... but will have to wait 12 mos!!

Today marks twhen Facebook underwriters can publish research reports, ratings and price targets on the stock.  About 10 different underwriters published their rating on FB today.  The lead underwriter who priced the deal at $38, Morgan Stanley, published a $38 price target.  These price targets are 12 month future estimates.  So effectively, MS is saying that in 1 year from now, the stock will be worth where they eventually sold it to investors in the IPO.  Incredible!!     

Let me know if you want to see a copy of the report.  Not sure how to attach it to this blog.  Its 90 pages.

1 bullish data point they cite:

Long-term mobile opportunity: Despite recent

concerns about mobile, we strongly believe that the

monetization gap that closed on desktop Internet will

ultimately close on mobile Internet, at which time

Facebook’s focus on user utility may appear prescient.

We look for Facebook to capture around one point of

incremental share of the global online ad market each

year, and expect smaller social sites to cede some

revenue to Facebook, implying that Facebook may

capture around 70% of social ad spending by C2015E,

or just over 20% of total worldwide display spending.

Facebook Raises Hackles on Email

I'm surprised that no one today has written yet about Facebooks' latest user policy change to making everyone's emails Name@facebook.com (you know, that email address you never use). While there is a lot of outcry over the change and it is true that Facebook could have better handled alerting its customers about the forthcoming change, this is a reminder that when you don't pay for a service, you are not the owner! You are the customer and at the whim of what the owner (Facebook) chooses to do.

Is the Droid The New King Of The Hill at Verizon?...

Sales for the iPhone have begun to slip at Verizon Wireless while the Droid is increasing. The iPhone however, is still the best-selling smartphone in the U.S. but for Verizon stories in the June quarter it was over taken by the Motoraola Droid Razr Maxx said William Blairs Anil Doradla..

Doradla has said the reason for this is that Verizon has been aggressively marketing its 4G LTE devices rather than the iPhone. He said many people who originally wanted an iPhone leave with the LTE Droid instead because they were talked into it from Verizon representatives.

Verizon representatives say they are just helping the customers but for Verizon it is more cost effective for customers to be on the Droid’s 4G network and subsidies are much less for the Droid Razr Maxx. Even with all of the sales representatives pushing the Droid Razr Maxx, I expect you will see iPhone right back on top when the new iPhone comes out. It is said to be out this fall.

Meanwhile, Michael Walkley, analyst with Canaccord Genuity, told Apple insider that his check of Verizon's retail channel indicate that the iPhone has not slipped from the top but the Droid Razr Maxx is close. Either way it is safe to say iPhone is losing market share be and could use the new iPhone as soon as possible.

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/26/apples-iphone-is-no-longer-verizons-bestseller/

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57460667-37/is-apples-iphone-still-no-1-at-verizon/?tag=mncol;topStories

New Connector Said To Be On The New iPhone… Confirmed

I’m always a little skeptical reading articles on people clamming to know what will be on the new iPhone but this one’s comes from a creditable source “Tech Crunch”. The connector that is currently being used is the 30-pin port but will be changing to a much smaller 19-pin port. This is said to give the iPhone more room inside. This will mean everyone’s old docking ports and accessories will be useless. I just hope that they use this extra room with a improved battery because if there is one complaint I hear more than any other it is battery life.

I will say that each year I read articles talking about what the new iPhone will look like and they are almost always wrong but usually for much less creditable sites. It will be interesting to see if this “Confirmed” article is right because Apple usually does an unbelievable job keeping everything a secret. Click the link below to see a picture of what it will look like…

 http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/20/confirmed-the-new-iphone-will-have-a-19-pin-mini-connector/

Wallaby Is The Best Credit Card Ever Made.. Get It Now While Its Free For Life..

Wallaby is a company that just came out which sounds to be finally a real way to effectively combine all your credit cards into one. Wallaby will combine all your cards and use the one which will gain you the most rewards or miles for every single transaction you make. Best of all they send you an actual physical credit card to use for all your transactions. It will also, let you designate which percentages of your spending should go to which card. They even have an app which will allow you to do everything from your phone. Finally, the first 1,000 users to sign up for the company’s beta will receive a lifetime membership benefit and the next 5,000 users get a free card for 12 months. Wallaby will cost $50 per year but looks to worth it.

                                                                                                                                   

http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/26/wallaby-combines-a-cloud-based-wallet-with-an-intelligent-physical-credit-card/?grcc=33333Z98ZtrendingZ0Z0Z0Z0Z0