Neurological study: Bad websites causing ‘web-stress’
26.02.2010 von Martin Meyer-Gossner
Kategorie: English Content, Featured Stories, Webstrategie
Bad designed websites and slow loading times are causing ‘web stress’ for internet users. This is the result of a new neurological study by CA in cooperation one of the leading customer experience and consultancy consulting firms Foviance. The study even shows that bad websites have a negative effect on the users health.
During the study, which was conducted at the Glasgow Caledonian University, volunteers (eight women and five men between the age of 25 and 42 years) were wired up to sophisticated neurological and physiological testing equipment (incl. an Electroencephalography cap) which was used to monitor brain wave activity. The volunteers carried out a series of everyday online tasks such as finding and buying a laptop PC and travel insurance. During the test the internet connection was slowed down to increase the stress factor.
With the generated data, CA and Foviance found the two most stressful points of the online sales cycle which caused a high level of ‘web-stress’: search and checkout. Although the volunteers completed the purchase, more than three quarters of customers will abandon the site in reality. And it took the volunteers up to a minute to recover from that ‘web stress’.
This result corresponds with CAs Web Stress Index study. In 2009 CA interviewed 2500 consumers. The key finding was that slow loading websites were a frustrating experience for 92% of the repondents. No wonder that volunteers in the experiment were leaving bad websites, or wanted to call the company’s hotline
“The results of this study sends out a clear message – businesses need to reduce ‘web stress’ and improve the online experience of their customers if they’re going to maximise returns from their web channel” (…) It’s not just about website design or internet connection speeds – the performance of a website is dependent on the performance of the web applications that support it. Businesses need an Application Performance Management (APM)** solution which not only provides real insight into how customers are experiencing their web applications, but will proactively manage the performance and availability of these applications. This translates into better customer service, improved brand loyalty and increased sales.”
Kobi Korsah, Director, EMEA Product Marketing, CA
And Foviance adds…
“Consumers have very high expectations of web applications and web sites – to be always available and instantly responsive. This experiment simulated the experience of underperforming web applications for our volunteers. The results show that when online expectations aren’t met, people quickly become agitated, confused and have to concentrate 50% more than normal. All these problems can be detected and prevented as long as businesses take a proactive approach to measuring the customer’s experience of web applications.”
Catriona Campbell, Director and Founder, Foviance and leading behavioural psychologist
Spot On!
In the summer of 2009, Akamai already revealed that 2 seconds is the new threshold of acceptability for eCommerce websites response times. The study showed that 40% of consumers won’t wait more than 3 seconds for a web page to load before leaving the site. This study by CA and Foviance makes this clear again: Corporations should have a close testing eye on the essential features (loading time for search and checkout) in order not to affect online shopping revenues. Especially if you bear in mind that online retail is predicted to grow to 320 billion EUR in 2011. More information can be found in this video on the CA study.
Lead Generation: Combination of social web tools and email marketing is powerful and cost-effective
25.02.2010 von Martin Meyer-Gossner
Kategorie: English Content, Featured Stories, Sales, Webmarketing
All marketers know how much effort and tactical knowledge it needs to generate high quality leads. And everybody tries to find the silver bullet in order not to push too much budgets the wrong way. Finding the right tactics becomes more complex with the rise and importance of the social web.
An annual report by Hubspot “2010 State of Inbound Marketing” has asked 231 marketers, and shows that pull marketing tactics like blogging, search and social media generate cheaper leads than traditional outbound efforts. If companies devote at least one-half of their budget to inbound marketing like social web activities -compared to the same outbound marketing budget spending- they can save up to 60%.
Some more interesting findings…
- The average cost per lead from inbound marketing was significantly less.
- The rate of customer acquisition declines steadily with the rate of blog posting.
- Direct mail is still most cost-effective among outbound strategies. Only 37% generated leads for less than average.
- Social Networking is key! Over 40% of customers using Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook and company blogs have generated a customer from that channel
- Businesses rated every inbound channel more important than any outbound channel for lead generation.
- B2B customer acquisition with LinkedIn was most effective. B2C businesses did best with Facebook (7 out of 10 found a new customer using social networks).
Spot On!
Tactics that are not cost-effective are not supported with spending any longer by companies, concludes the report. Inbound tactics get more value share of general lead generation budgets, outbound tactics loose money. It is not surprising that email marketing is still popular as a tactic. The Merkle report “View from the Social Inbox” states that social media hasn’t replaced traditional e-mail among users. 71% of respondents are spending 20 minutes or more weekly with traditional email – 42% of social networkers check their email account four or more times a day.
So, the combination of email marketing and social web tactics seems to be powerful and cost-effective for lead generation.
Do you agree?
News Update – Best of the Day
25.02.2010 von Martin Meyer-Gossner
Kategorie: Daily Top 3
What kind of advertising is better for campaign conversion for companies? Search or advertising? A recent Eyeblaster study states the combination of both.
“72% of the conversions of cross channel search and display campaigns are a direct result of the display channel while only 28% are the result of the search channel”.
And if we think a bit further, then we might ask if engagement creatives will be the most powerful future of advertising conversion? What do you think?
As mentioned in a post some days ago, augmented reality can offer great customer service or even be used as a sales tool in terms of visualizing products that people might want to buy. Lego shows how this could be integrated in the POS sales strategy…
Commercials in the 60ths have been recorded live. Should not commercials in our todays world of real-time be recorded like this? I doubt somebody can talk as professional as this car dealer today. Most of the social web workers are probably better in writing as quick as he speaks…
News Update – Best of the Day
24.02.2010 von Martin Meyer-Gossner
Kategorie: Daily Top 3
The Fortune 500’s companies embrace the social web more and more. The use of web 2.0 tools continues to increase. The fastest growing tool was Twitter in 2009. This found the study “The Fortune 500 and Social Media: A Longitudinal Study of Blogging and Twitter Usage by America’s Largest Companies”.
The key findings:
- 22% of the 2009 Fortune 500 have a public-facing corporate blog.
- 86% of these blogs link directly to a corporate twitter account – more Fortune 500 corporations have Twitter accounts, but do not link directly from their blogs.
- 35% have active Twitter accounts (post within the past thirty days)
- 50% of the top 100 companies have a Twitter account.
- 80% post regularly on their Twitter accounts. the number one, Exxon Mobil, does not have a Twitter account.
- The insurance industry has the most Twitter accounts (13).
- 19% is podcasting
- 31% integrate online video into their blog sites
Now, compare the data with the top 100 companies social web strategies The new Burson-Marsteller Fortune Global 100 Social Media study gives some insights and shows that the use of Twitter goes up. It is the top social media platform of choice among the Fortune Global 100.
- 65% of the largest 100 international companies have active Twitter accounts
- 54% have a Facebook fan page
- 50% have a YouTube channel
- 33% have corporate blogs.
Interesting for me to see is that only 20% make use of all four platforms to engage their customers or business partners. And there are also regional differences: Companies in the United States and Europe are more likely to use Twitter or Facebook than corporate blogs. Businesses in Asia-Pacific are more likely to utilize corporate blogs than social networks.
The new MINI Countryman just launched thneir first exclusive commercial video. The slogan for their new car: Life is out there. Go live it. And once you have seen the spot you know what mmakes the difference between offline and online.
Smile = the key to social business success
23.02.2010 von Martin Meyer-Gossner
Kategorie: English Content, Featured Stories, Webstrategie
For years, the world has thought about the key that perfectly describes what makes business people successful. One of the most important factors is an anthropological challenge (in my eyes) that should be so easy to be implemented for all businesses …and still can so seldomly be found in our social web world.
We business people just have to…
S = Social customer thinking is smart!
M = Market and measure constantly!
I = Invent, improve, innovate and stay involved!
L = Listen to your customers (…or just leave it)!
E = Engage your (potential) customers!
If you read these eight links, integrate the ideas in your business strategy, live it and go out -offline and online- to embrace customers, then these customers will pay back – with a SMILE.
Don’t you think?
PS: Sending you all a smile with this post!
Reloaded – Personal Web Manager
15.02.2010 von Martin Meyer-Gossner
Kategorie: English Content, Webstrategie
One of my most popular posts was my vision of the personal web manager. Most of my friends or business cotacts even thought that my next business follows this idea and invitations to next web generation events followed.
And yes, I still think and know from C-level executives that it would solve one of their biggest problems when getting engaged in the social web: Having more time when they need it in the future while staying in contact and up to date in the social web world!
Now the vision of the personal web manager is reloaded. Gina Trapani tries to “work against” the idea in her post Work Smart: Mastering Your Social Media Life with a new solution named “funneling”. And thus, she brings the value of my personal web manager vision back to live. Most comments go against her vision and obviously, I have to disagree as well.
Nevertheless, watch the video and maybe rate her funneling against the personal web manager…
The problem of personal productivity versus being a “perfect” social median remains unsolved. Vision are there, the world wants this problem to be solved and someone will realize the personal web manager business model in the future. Don’t you think?
Twitter bei KMU noch nicht angekommen
12.02.2010 von Martin Meyer-Gossner
Kategorie: Social Media
Auch wenn viele in der Businesswelt über die Vorteile von Twitter sprechen, wie weiteres Informationsmedium, Kundenbindung und -service, Adressierung von Sales-Promotions, Erweiterterung des Marketing-Sprachrohrs, und so weiter. Twitter bietet bei richtiger Nutzung viele Möglichkeit, aber…
Bei den kleine und mittelständische Unternehmen ist Twitter noch nicht wirklich angekommen. In Deutschland zeigt sich hier ein ähnliches Bild wie in UK. Zu diesem Ergebnis kommt eine aktuelle Befragung im Rahmen des vom Netzwerk Elektronischer Geschäftsverkehr entwickelten Online-Ratgebers zum Thema Website-Gestaltung.
Nur 10% der 1.600 teilnehmenden Unternehmen setzen Twitter als “multimediales Element” ein. Dabei sind in 91% der befragten Unternehmen weniger als 50 Mitarbeiter beschäftigt. Die Gründe hierfür könnten mannigfaltig sein. Die Befragung kommt in ihrer Aussagekraft an diesem Punkt zu kurz. Wäre es doch gerade interessant zu wissen, ob Resourcenmangel, mangelndes Interesse oder fehlendes Wissen die Gründe für den nicht-Einsatz von Twitter sind.
Mittels 12 kurzer Fragen wurde überprüft, welche gestalterischen, organisatorischen, technischen und rechtlichen Anforderungen die Website der befragten Unternehmen erfüllt. Die Antworten ermöglichten den Teilnehmerinnen und Teilnehmern individuelle Handlungsanleitungen zur Verbesserung ihrer Website zu erkennen (und bei besonderem Erfolg auch an einem Website Award teilzunehmen).
Entwickelt wurde der Ratgeber vom Netzwerk Elektronischer Geschäftsverkehr im Rahmen des vom Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Technologie (BMWi) geförderten Projekts “KMU-orientierte Website-Gestaltung”. Er ermöglicht Unternehmen, online und in wenigen Schritten eine kostenlose Einstiegsberatung zur professionellen Gestaltung Ihrer Unternehmens-Website zu erhalten.
Social Micro-Payment: Flattr = Paid Trend mit Zukunft?
12.02.2010 von Martin Meyer-Gossner
Kategorie: Webstrategie
Die meisten meiner Follower und Fans werden mitbekommen haben, daß mir die Verwirklichung des Paid Service Gedankens sehr am Herzen liegt. Es wird Zeit, daß sich auch wertvoller Content vermarkten lässt.
Aber bitte nicht die Diskussion um Paid Content, sondern weiterhin zukünftig bei Paid Service bleiben. Was die Verlage nun über Jahre nicht geschafft haben, will nun Peter Sunde schaffen – Gründer von The Pirate Bay. Sein Projekt heißt Flattr.
Flattr ist ein Social Micro-Payment Vision, die bisher noch nicht am Gedankenstart war. Aber sicherlich nicht nur den Micro-Content Anbietern gefallen dürfte…
Flattr läuft in der Beta und man kann sich als Content Anbieter um einen Account bewerben – Email Adresse abgeben genügt. Gleich vorweg: Reich wird man damit nicht!
Wie funktioniert Flattr?
Der Internetnutzer zahlt einen fixen monatlichen Obulus. Wer die Seite eines Content-Anbieters besucht, findet neben den Inhalten einen Flattr-Button. Wenn der Inhalt gefällt, wird geklickt. Am Monatsende werden die Klicks des Nutzers gezählt und der eingespielte Betrag entsprechend dann unter allen Empfängern anteilsmäßig verteilt.
Spot On!
Die Idee klingt gut. Der Teufel steckt in der Umsetzung und die hat es in sich. “Every month the Flattr User pays a small fee.” Wer bezahlt denn da eigentlich? Eine Vorauszahlung für Content, den ich vielleicht gar nicht bekomme oder konsumiere? Soll das eine Art Donation-System sein? Hmmm, ist das ein gangbarer Ansatz?
Und dann mag ich gar nicht ausdenken, wie sich das auf die positiven Kommentare in Blogs und RTs auswirkt. “Hey, ich hab schon bezahlt. Lassen wir das mit dem RT oder Kommentar mal…”
Oder liege ich mit meiner Sichtweise falsch…? Nochmal die Idee ist irgendwie cool, aber auch bis zu Ende gedacht?
News Update – Best of the Day
11.02.2010 von Martin Meyer-Gossner
Kategorie: Daily Top 3
“Markets are conversations” tells us the Cluetrain Manifesto. Let’s check some Facebook fan pages from well-known watch brands. The engagement of the audience is interesting to compare. While some manufaturers seem to have a PR channel like Tissot with less conversation happening, Omega gets the tone right and can really pick up a lot of ideas and thoughts for their marketing. And Baume & Mercier speaks in a French marketing language to their audience – a reason why not many people are talking to each other?
UK SMB companies obviously don’t embrace Twitter for their business strategy. A new study suggests that only 26% have a Twitter presence.
The old becomes new? Funny commercial from a brand that is associated with an old generation in my eyes – Old Spice.
Augmented Reality – the future of customer service?
09.02.2010 von Martin Meyer-Gossner
Kategorie: English Content, Featured Stories, Webstrategie
The customer service world around us is changing with the social web, new technologies, and especially mobile apps. The question is how much this is effecting our perspective of the real offline world around us. A new technology is evolving that is beginning to connect the offline and the virtual world from a customer perspective as it will offer some new form of customer service. The term is Augmented Reality (AR).
It is a technology that brings your visual experience and information from the web or networks together, and by doing this enriches daily situations with relevant data from the web – and in more and more cases the information provided will come from the user.
The competition for users and companies has already begun. We have augmented reality browsers like Layar, explaining us instantly which famous buildings are surrounding us. Or, another AR browser named Wikitude that starts to become one of the most-wanted AR browser apps (not only for iPhone users) and gets nominated for one award after another. With wikitude.me shops and service providers of all sorts can already use this cool service to make themselves visible in the offline world by geo-tagging their office or location with simple online entries. If somebody is new in a city, this person can find a laundry or the next wine shop much easier in the future – just by using an AR browser app.
There are products like T-shirts projecting interactive games with AR. Digital cosmetic mirrors where women in cosmetic shops can see in real-time what a new eye-liner or make-up is looking good at them without testing it in reality. Adidas will launch a series of shoes, each printed with an AR code on the tongue which give you access to an interactive game that changes on a montly basis. Is this the customer service of the future?
Now, just imagine what this technology could do for customer service in the future. Wouldn’t it be a positive effect when we get immediate feedback on health information about the food and drinks we consume?
The following short film, called Augmented (Hyper)Reality, shows us a world some time ahead, where augmented reality is part of our daily offline life. We see what the actor sees, from his own perspective, and get to know the oppotunities that AR might offer to our daily life. OK, if we agree to getting networked completely…
The interesting acknowledgement for companies will be the advertising part of the film – although in some way it might be shocking…
Spot On!
The complete overkill seems to be the massive sea of logos flooding our sight in the beginning. Although the above examples might seem an exaggerated view of a futuristic branding scenario, it gives some idea on how the world might change customer care in the future. And you never know if this will be really happening, or not. Today, this all might sound strange to us but just think about how common the use of artifical medical help is for us, or how often we use the navigation system in cars today.
And then, think about the options when combining location based advertising with augmented reality. This opens a complete new world of customer care…
Don’t you think?
