Baby Boomers Get Connected with Social Media
Emarketer
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=...
Living longer and richer lives, they go online to stay in touch
Baby boomers have always been good communicators, as evidenced by their presence at sit-ins, protests, demonstrations and “happenings” in the 1960s. So it was inevitable that boomers would check out social media sites.
Creating and renewing personal connections online is the biggest draw for these boomers,” said Lisa E. Phillips, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, “Boomers and Social Media.” “About 47% of online boomers maintain a profile on at least one social network, according to several sources. Their contacts include family, friends and co-workers of all ages.”
Burst Media reported that 47.5% of online boomer respondents had a social network profile in June 2009. In September of that year, Deloitte found 46% of boomer respondents said they maintained a social network profile—an important difference from simply creating one and forgetting about it.
Boomers’ social network presence has grown steadily since Deloitte’s 2007 survey, when only 30% said they maintained a profile on a social network. In that period, millennials’ use of social profiles remained fairly steady—and heavily penetrated—at 71% in 2007 and 77% in 2009.
Facebook is the favorite social network for boomers, as both comScore and Anderson Analytics data show.
Boomers expect that technology will help them live longer and better lives and keep them connected to family, friends, co-workers and, eventually, healthcare providers,” said Ms. Phillips. “To fulfill these expectations, boomers are turning to social media, where they keep up their offline social connections and make new ones. Online marketing messages that help them build on their connections—and foster other online relationships—will get their interest.”
Coupon Use Skyrockets
Adweek By Nancy O’Leary
http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display...
In one of the most telling signs yet of new consumer frugality, annual coupon use is on the rise for the first time since 1992, according to Inmar, a promotion transaction settlement company. Coupon distribution last year hit the highest level recorded since Inmar began tracking trends in 1988.
For the first time in 17 years, consumers used more coupons than the year before; 3.3 billion packaged goods coupons were redeemed, a 27 percent increase over the 2.6 billion redeemed in 2008. The increase in coupon use began in October 2008, as the U.S. financial crisis took hold, and led to five consecutive quarters of double-digit growth.
“There’s no great hard-core data about whether there is a fundamental shift in consumer behavior but looking at the culture at large, we’re seeing and hearing about a fundamental shift toward back-to-basics, with people doing more to save money,” said Matthew Tilley, director of marketing for Inmar’s promotion services division.
As evidence of that, Tilley underscored the health of freestanding inserts, a coupon staple in Sunday newspapers. “FSIs continue to make up almost 90% of coupon distribution and over half of all coupons redeemed are from FSIs. That big dog grew at an even faster rate than overall coupon growth last year, a 36% increase to the overall growth of 27 percent,” said Tilley. “Despite the readership decline in newspapers, people are still willing to go back to their Sunday newspapers for coupons.”
Tilley doesn’t foresee coupon redemption continuing at current levels but expects growth of 3-5 percent annually in the foreseeable future.
The increase in coupon redemption goes hand-in-hand with an increase in distribution. Brands issued 367 billion coupons, at an average face value of $1.44, indicating their embrace of the promotions in these tough times. “Brands saw coupons as a key to maintaining brand strength,” Tilley said. “If they reduced their promotional presence, they stood to lose sales to lower-priced competitors and store brands.”
Food-related coupons dominated the first half of 2009, while ones for non-food drove distribution and redemption in the second half. Tilley said that in prior years, particularly 2008 — when redemption levels were decreasing — the industry saw increases in the face value of coupons. Now, he said, the industry is seeing a complete reversal in the face of soaring demand: Brands are mitigating the cost of increased redemption by maintaining face values and keeping expiration periods in check. In 2009, face values declined by a penny, reversing a multiyear trend of increasing values. Expiration periods were shortened by 10 percent last year, after years of virtually no change.
Categories that traditionally haven’t been heavy users of coupons, like alcohol marketers, increased their coupon distribution last year.
While still a small factor, online coupons also contributed to the rise in coupon distribution and redemption in 2009, with Internet distribution up 92% and consumer redemption of these coupons up over 36%.
Is Digital Coupons Rise Print Inserts’ Demise?
By Erik Sass Media Post
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?f...
Digitally-delivered coupons are growing fast while printed newspaper inserts are increasingly threatened, according to separate surveys by Coupons.com and the Newspaper Association of America. The findings of the two surveys suggest newspaper coupon inserts could be in danger of experiencing the same long-term decline that has afflicted print classifieds.
Things are looking up for digital coupons, according to Coupons.com, which said its digital coupon business grew 170% in 2009, compared to 2008, in terms of the volume of savings.
Coupons.com network reached $858 million in 2009, up from about $320 million in 2008 and about $140 million in 2007, for a total increase of over 500% in just two years.
Overall, 45 million consumers used digital coupons in 2009, up almost 20% from 38 million in 2008; in percentage terms, that represents an increase from about 12% to 14% of the total U.S. population.
Of this group, 13.1 million are exclusive digital coupon users, meaning they don’t clip coupons from the newspaper — up about 39% from 9.4 million in 2008. In short, while the overall number of digital coupon users and the number of digital coupon-only users are both increasing, in proportional terms, the latter is increasing faster, suggesting some print coupon users may be abandoning the old format for digital.
Loyalty Programs Need to Engage
http://www.cmocouncil.org/news/pr/2010/0...
A new report from the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council report indicates that marketers are under-valuing perks, discounts, deals and additional service opportunities, as customers give them high marks. Both customers and marketers agree that deeper engagement and personalized contact drives loyalty.
61% of marketers believe that loyalty program participants are the best and most profitable customers. And, an almost equal number of respondents (65%) view customer loyalty program investments as a very essential, or a quite valuable part of the marketing mix.
· 13% of respondents believe they have been highly effective in leveraging loyalty and brand preference among club members
· 20% don’t even have a strategy for this
· 25% admit they have not mobilized brand loyalists to become active advocacy agents
The study also reveals that marketers are mostly inducing loyalty with discounts or free products and premiums rather than quicker, better service or improved customer handling:
· 39% of respondents view discounts and savings as the key member benefits
· 34% view free products and premiums as essential incentives
· 33% are committed to offering points for merchandise redemption as a further motivator
Despite these challenges, investments in loyalty programs will continue as nearly 80% of marketers are committed to maintaining or further funding loyalty programs as customer retention and relationship building vehicles. Over 34% report they are significantly increasing their commitments, and 45.9 are maintaining their current commitments. Just 4% expect to discontinue their programs.
Online channels dominate expected investments as nearly 60% of the marketer respondents said they planned to make better use of the Web and new community and networking tools to grow and develop loyalty programs. Other key actions for generating a greater ROI from club members include:
· Personalizing interactions and target messages (51%)
· Increasing frequency and relevance of communications (39%)
· Gathering more insights and intelligence for better customer handling (38%)
· Adding new benefits, incentives and inducements (36%)
· Studying industry best practices and making adjustments accordingly (19%)
When it comes to in-depth profiling of customers, the vast majority of marketers still only aggregate and analyze limited customer data sets.
· 73% collect basic demographics and
· 68% track the location of members
But critical insights are not being leveraged:
· Advocacy rates (14%)
· Brand loyalty and attachment (27%)
· Personal preferences (31%)
· Satisfaction levels (33%)
· Product preferences (38%)
Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council, says, “… without a deeper customer insight, marketers will be limited in their ability to do meaningful predictive modeling, market segmentation and revenue forecasting. Better understanding of customer behaviors, predispositions, intentions and preferences enables more effective and relevant messaging… “
Acquiring and retaining motivated and engaged participants is the number one problem facing 46% of marketers. Other obstacles and issues include:
· Measuring marketing value and effectiveness (42%)
· Collecting, integrating and maintaining customer data (41%)
· Deriving valuable insight and intelligence (38%)
· Delivering more personalized offers and inducements (34%)
· Creating more customized communications (33%)
Digital marketing channels are taking precedence in ways marketers promote their loyalty and rewards programs. Nearly 60% rely on web sites, nearly 60% on email, 47% on word-of-mouth, 46% on point-of-sale information, 42% on direct mail, and 39% on a sales or service representative. Most member communication is monthly (30%), while 20% interact with members on a daily, weekly or bi-weekly basis.
Consumers report they see value in loyalty program membership:
· 79% of consumers surveyed say they are very, or pretty, satisfied with their loyalty and rewards program experiences
· 70% want to see more discounts and savings
· 52% want more compelling personal deals and offers as reward for steering their business to loyalty program operators
· 58% say they want more compelling personal benefits and services, as well as more relevant offers or individualized deals
While social media also tops the list of investments for marketers, consumers report that point-of-sale information, service representative interactions, company web sites and word-of-mouth are the primary sources for learning about loyalty clubs:
· 65% acquired information about the programs in retail environments compared to only
· 4% in social media networks,
· 3% in blogs and
· 11% in online advertising.
Too much spam and junk email topped the list of negatives associated with loyalty and rewards program membership (44%), followed by:
· Too many conditions and restrictions (38%)
· Rewards that lacked real value (37%)
· Members having a hard time redeeming points or rewards, program membership lacking value, as well as communications and service not being personalized or targeted specifically for members
Neale-May concludes that “… the economy is not a big driver of program participation… figuring out ways to deliver added value to those willing to repeatedly purchase your products and services, advocate your brand… actively respond to offers and incentives, is critical to marketing effectiveness.”|
Additional facts and figures from the report
· It is estimated that there are 1.8 billion members of loyalty programs in the U.S.
· Marketers spend about $2 billion annually on operating these programs
· The average U.S. household is enrolled in 14.1 loyalty and rewards programs, but is only active in 6.2 of them
Top U.S. loyalty program memberships ranked by industry, reports Colloquy, include:
· Financial Services 422 million
· Airline 277.4 million
· Specialty Retail 191.3 million
· Hotel 161.8 million
· Grocery 153.3 million
· Mass Merchants 124.8 million
· Casino/Gaming 106 million
· Department Stores 92.8 million
· Drug Stores 73.9 million
· Fuel/Convenience 51.2 million
· Restaurant 13.7 million
· Car Rental and Cruise Lines 10.7 million
· All other types 127.9 million
Led by Facebook, Twitter, Global Time Spent on Social Media Sites up 82% Year over Year
1-22-10 – Nielsen
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/glob...
According to The Nielsen Company, global* consumers spent more than five and half hours on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter in December 2009, an 82% increase from the same time last year when users were spending just over three hours on social networking sites. In addition, the overall traffic to social networking sites has grown over the last three years.
Globally, social networks and blogs are the most popular online category when ranked by average time spent in December, followed by online games and instant messaging. With 206.9 million unique visitors, Facebook was the No. 1 global social networking destination in December 2009 and 67% of global social media users visited the site during the month. Time on site for Facebook has also been on the rise, with global users spending nearly six hours per month on the site.
U.S. Growth in Average time Person on Facebook and Twitter Outpaces Growth of Overall Category
People in the U.S. continue to spend more time on social networking and blog sites as well, with total minutes increasing 210% year-over-year and the average time per person increasing 143% year-over-year in December 2009. Year-over-year growth in average time spent by U.S. users, for both Facebook and Twitter.com, outpaced the overall growth for the category, increasing 200% and 368%, respectively. Among, the top five U.S. social networking sites, Twitter.com continued its reign as the fastest-growing in December 2009 in terms of unique visitors, increasing 579% year-over-year, from 2.7 million unique visitors in December 2008 to 18.1 million in December 2009. However, month-over-month, unique visitors decreased 5%
Australia Leads in Average Time Spent per Person on Social Media Sites in December
When narrowed by individual country, with 142.1 million unique visitors the United States had the largest number of social media and blog users in December, followed by Japan, which had 46.6 million unique visitors during the month. Australia led in average time per person spent, with the average Australian spending nearly 7 hours on social media sites in December. The United States and the United Kingdom came in a close second and third, with 6 hours and 9 minutes and 6 hours and 8 minutes, respectively.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/02/0...
Mobile phone operators in Britain have teamed up with digital market research firm comScore to measure mobile Internet usage in the first exercise of its kind, which they hope will jump start the mobile advertising market.
Advertisers are keen to target consumers via mobile phones, which have the advantage of being both highly personal and location-aware, but have been held back by factors including a lack of hard data about mobile media consumption.
According to IT researcher Gartner, global mobile advertising revenues likely reached about $530 million (338.4 million pounds) last year, and could jump to $13.5 billion by 2013.
Mobile operators own key data about how their customers use phones, but until now have been reluctant to exploit that knowledge for fear of raising privacy concerns.
“We got together a coalition of the willing and we said ‘Let’s try something,’” said Henry Stevens, who is responsible for mobile advertising at telecoms industry body the GSM Association (GSMA), at the launch of Mobile Media Metrics.
Stevens said it took almost three years of talking to get the project off the ground, but eventually Britain’s five mobile operators agreed to provide anonymised Internet usage data to create the new product. He said the GSMA hoped to repeat the exercise in other markets after Britain, which was chosen for its market size and relatively mature stage of development.
The data from Telefonica’s O2, Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile and 3UK showed that 16 million people in the UK accessed the Internet from their mobile phone in December. hey viewed a total of 6.7 billion pages and spent 4.8 billion minutes online.
The top sites visited were Facebook.com, Google sites and Telefonica sites — with comparable numbers of visitors — but in terms of page views and minutes spent on the site, Facebook was far and away the most popular.
Media buyers said transparent measurement would make it possible to plan mobile advertising campaigns and gauge their success in the same way that they do for other media.
“Basic audience metrics are the starting point,” said Bob Wootton, director of marketing and advertising at British advertising industry association the ISBA, at the launch of the new product late on Thursday.
Currently, about three-quarters of mobile advertising spending comes from sellers of mobile content such as music, games, ringtones or wallpaper, according to Nick Lane, chief analyst at research firm mobileSquared.
“The big brands need to start coming in and spending money,” he said.
It is unclear, however, whether mobile operators — who have failed to profit significantly from the distribution of music, video or data over their increasingly crowded networks — will benefit from a lift to the mobile advertising market.
Rory Sutherland, UK vice-chairman of advertising agency Ogilvy, said there was a danger carriers would find themselves once again acting as “dumb pipes,” as in the case of video.
“The benefits fall quite markedly to consumers, who enjoy many new ways of watching television, the money falls to content owners or advertisers or platform owners or the people who do the billing,” he told Reuters.
“But then the costs of transmission fall to the actual network owner … which may then find itself faced with an enormous bill for upgrading the network
