18 percent of site visitors report being influenced by social media to visit a website. Forsee Results’ research also showed that the resources companies put into social and mobile media and the results they receive vary wildly. Spending more money does not automatically lead to higher numbers of visits to websites, brand awareness or sales.
It is also ShoppeSimple Network’s findings that companies seem a bit confused about their objectives when it comes to social and mobile media. Internet Retailer Magazine surveyed 400 U.S. companies (19 percent of them retailers) in December 2009 and January 2010. It found that 74 percent of companies wanted social and mobile media to drive traffic to their websites, while only 56 percent wanted it to increase sales. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? We think so!
So from my seat, I see three distinct merchant groups emerging in this new world called Social and Mobile Media.
The First Merchant Group sees a big marketing opportunity because of the sheer volume of people active in social and mobile media. We are talking primarily consumers on Facebook, Twitter and mobile smartphones. Merchants see social and mobile media as a new way to increase reach and purchase. They see social and mobile as new media channels to market their products. But they tap into social and mobile media by doing the same stuff they have always done: promote, advertise, get noticed, make noise and do the traditional approach to marketing which is classic PUSH. We don’t see this as being particularly effective social or mobile marketing as consumers have or are turning off to this type of PUSH messaging.
The Second Merchant Group (a very small but growing group) recognizes that there is something different going on. They see social and mobile media as a new way to interact with their customers, prospects and stakeholders. A different kind of contact strategy is emerging. A communication channel, which is more intense and personal. More social just like having a conversation with your customer, and then moving these engagements into advocacy status. These merchants recognize that this socially engaged conversation changes the way they communicate and how they do business with their consumer. These merchants also pay attention to customer acquisition and couple this interaction with a Sustaining Social Customer Relationship Management solution.
The result for this second group of merchants is a social and mobile commerce channel that is already paying dividends for merchants using the ShoppeSafe Daily Deals and Sustaining Social CRM marketing service. Learn more about this here.
The Third Merchant Group is what I have defined as the “Extreme Coupon” group. Made famous by the TV show on the TLC cable channel called “Extreme Couponing”. With the advent of the social coupon sites (Groupon/Living Social/ShoppeByLocal and others) and digital coupons, small businesses are leveling the playing field with the behemoth national brands like never before.
It is sort of obvious, you just don’t build a $3 Billion dollar Social Coupon industry in just two years (estimated to be $6 Billion 3 years from now) if this social coupon industry isn’t a serious wave to catch. So where do you think this market share is coming from? What do you see in your site trend analyses around Daily Deals or Social Couponing? Have you done a Daily Deal or Digital Coupon for your business? What was your experience? Good, Bad or Terrible? Is this marketing approach even in your marketing vocabulary? If it isn’t…it is exactly why the Small Business Market (SMB) is jumping onto social and digital couponing so quickly and in such a big way and why they are using it to level the marketing playing field maybe with your business.
But when you analyze each of the three distinct groups something is missing from each. Each group has a singular focus around new customer acquisition. Nothing wrong with that but each group misses a huge opportunity to form a stronger long-term bond with their customer. Each should solidify both customer acquisition (front-end) and link it with a Sustaining Social Customer Relationship Management (CRM) marketing service (the back-end).
So how do you do this? That’s exactly how ShoppeSafe can help your business.
We provide the front and back-end Customer Acquisition and Sustaining Social CRM marketing linkage which will be driving new business for you in less than 10 days all at an affordable monthly rate.
ShoppeSafe provides your business with the ability to engage in social and mobile conversations with your consumers using a Daily Deal digital coupon engine multiple times a day, 365 days a year and deliver these deals to wherever your consumers are. Plus, we provide your business with a Sustaining Social CRM marketing service to keep both your new customers engaged with your brand and their “Trusted Referrals” buying from you wherever they are on the web or on their mobile smartphone.
You know a phenomenon is thriving when it becomes a reality-TV show. Enter the new TLC series called “Extreme Couponing” which points toward an important truth about today’s digital marketplace: Coupons and Daily Deals play a key role in the choices many consumers make, and marketers must be savvy about making use of them.
“Daily Deal and digital coupon use, while once perceived to be limited to a small segment of the population, may very well be adopted as the norm going forward,” stated an Epsilon Targeting survey.
Digital Coupons and Daily Deals Go Electronic
Meanwhile; the emergence of new digital channels for Daily Deals and digital coupons has further broadened the market according to a report by Morpace Omnibus which found 67 percent of respondents saying they’ve used digital coupons they accessed via the Internet. NCH also tracked a 37 percent jump last year in the number of digital-coupon offers–“the largest increase of all digital coupon media types. Mobile couponing, in which consumers use their smartphones to download digital coupons at a store or elsewhere, is also taking hold. Leading up to last year’s holiday-shopping season, an InsightExpress poll of smartphone owners found that 19 percent found they accessed coupons and deals via those devices.
In an Epsilon Targeting survey if consumers do start to feel better about the economy and their own finances, this won’t necessarily pull down their elevated interest in digital coupons. The aforementioned found 48 percent of U.S. respondents saying they’ll be more likely to use digital coupons than they were in the past, “even with the end of the economic recession.”
The rise of digital coupons is helping expand the base, partly because of digital’s upscale tilt. In the Morpace Omnibus survey, 71 percent of those with incomes of $50,000-plus said they use online digital coupons, vs. 61 percent of those making less than $50,000. A Coupons.com report earlier this year cited data showing that consumers who print out digital coupons have average household incomes of $105,000; people in households with income of $100,000-plus “are twice as likely to have redeemed digital coupons printed from an online source than adults with household income less than $35,000.”
Attracting New Customers
If a digital coupon or Daily Deal simply lets consumers save money without otherwise altering their behavior, then it will be a bust for marketers. But it’s clear that digital coupons or Daily Deal can shift people’s choices. One telling bit of evidence: In a Simmons DataStream report last fall, “fully 30 percent of adults said they are drawn to a store they don’t normally shop because of a digital coupon,” up from 26 percent at the start of 2008. A Knowledge Networks report last month, drawing on research by its National Shopper Lab, said 46 percent of people who redeemed a digital coupon “were prior non-buyers of the product,” as were 34 percent of those who redeemed a print coupon from a traditional free-standing insert.
For consumers, though, it’s not purely a matter of dollars and cents; people seem to draw pleasure from the sensation of being shrewd shoppers. In the NCH survey, for instance, 29 percent of respondents said they’re using more digital coupons for “the enjoyment of saving.” As Valassis’ put it, “Savings are sexy now. If you’re a marketer, you’ve got to respond to that consumer sentiment or you’re going to lose your position in the market”. Excerpts taken from Mark Dolliver – CMO.com
So what if your business had an opportunity to plug your Daily Deal or digital coupon efforts into a Sustaining Social CRM marketing service? Not only would you acquire new customers but you would be able to continue managing these relationships which will lead to additional frequency of ordering, higher conversions, increased average orders and more brand impressions multiple times a day, 365 days a year all with consumer permission.
ShoppeSafe Daily Deals engine plus its Sustaining Social CRM marketing solutions provides your business exactly this type of front and back-end marketing service.
ShoppeSafe is doing this for some of the largest ecommerce and multi-channel brands both domestically and internationally. But you don’t have to be a large merchant to use our service and get tons of benefit out of it. We have all types of small businesses using our services as well.
Why not check out ShoppeSimpleNetwork.com to learn more about our ShoppeSafe Daily Deals platform and Sustaining Social Customer Relationship Management marketing services. Then simply get in contact with us for a quick presentation on how we plug into your business.
We would be happy to present what we do through a Go2Meeting. Simple give us a call 612-349-2740 or emails us at sales@shoppesimplenetwork.com
Best,
Jeffery
Jeffery Giesener
CEO/Founder