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 January,
2002
Volume 11, Issue 4
In This Issue
The current economic environment has consumers pulling back some of
their spending.
In addition, they don’t see the economy returning to normal until the
second half of 2002, and many have changed some buying behaviors since
September 11. That’s according to the Consumer Intentions and Actions
Survey conducted by BIGresearch, which interviewed over 7,100 consumers
between January 6-10th.
"It certainly looks as if the events of September 11 have had a
profound effect on the types of products people are buying and their
behavior patters. Consumers appear to be more grounded in their homes and
more practical and less impulsive when purchasing products,’’ said Joe
Pilotta, Ph.D., vice president of research for BIGresearch. "If these
patterns continue, it could have a profound effect on retail strategies
developed for a pre-September 11 world,’’ said Pilotta.
Some key findings from the survey show that since September 11, 44.8%
of people are spending more time with family and 39.2% said they are more
practical when making purchases, while only 5.6% said they are less
practical and more impulsive.
Regarding the current economic climate, 62.9 felt it would take from 6
months to more than a year for the economy to get back to normal.
Cleveland’s JEK Analytics economist Jack Kleinhenz, Ph.D. of JEK
Analytics, an economic advisor to BIGresearch, argues that "consumer
spending is growing-better than in past recessions— but the extent of a
potential rebound is unclear."
Consumer confidence was static from the December numbers of 62.4% being
confident or very confident vs. 61.8 in January. The general uncertainty
towards the economy that consumers are feeling appears to have created a
desire to put their financial houses in order, as expressed by their
financial plans for the next 3 months, which are lead by paying down debt
46.3%, increasing savings 38.1%, and decreasing overall spending 37.5%.
All is not lost for retailers; as the move on behalf of many consumers
to spend more time with family has also created a desire to buy furniture,
home appliances and electronics. Over the next 6 months, 17.6% plan on
buying furniture, 14.7% home appliances and 20.1% TV’s/VCR’s/DVD’s.
In addition, 13.1% also plan on spending more on groceries and 18.4% on
home improvement supplies over the next 90 days.
"The current economic environment has created some hurdles for
many retailers but discretionary purchasing power is improving due to
lower energy prices. As incomes increase, consumers will return to normal
spending patterns with some new precautions. Retailers, distributors, and
supply chain vendors will just have to adjust to these new buying
behaviors,’’ said Kleinhenz
Complimentary top line findings are available at http://www.bigresearch.com/.
(Contact: BIGresearch, Phil Rist, 614/846-0146, prist@4prosper.com; JEK
Analytics, Inc., Jack Kleinhenz jekanalytics@prodigy.net)
Table of Contents
The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB)unveiled new guidelines to sharpen
the accuracy of audience measurement in hopes of propping up the
struggling online ad market.
Based on a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the new rules zero in on ad
impressions, clicks, unique visitors, total visits and page impressions.
Eleven major portals, destination sites, ad networks and third-party ad
servers provided input for the report.
Advertisers pay according to the number of times an ad is clicked, but
how the counts are tallied varies. Advertisers complain that some
measurements show a higher total count than the actual number of users who
viewed an ad.
Among the targets of IAB’s new rules are "spiders" and
"bots," software that enables Web sites and search engines to
cruise the Web and categorize what they find. Some publishers include such
finds - or "hits" - in tallying the number of times a site is
visited.
The IAB, in its voluntary guidelines, urges the use of filtration
techniques to winnow out these hits. "Filtration of site or
ad-serving transactions to remove non-human activity is highly critical to
accurate, consistent counting," the IAB said in its report.
The report also recommends improved counting of ad impressions, which
are measured by responses via server-initiated or client-initiated
delivery systems. A server-initiated system uses the site’s Web content
server to count ads and client servers utilize the user’s browser.
The IAB report should serve as a wake-up call to clients, publishers,
agencies, research organizations and ad-serving companies about the
importance of standardized measurement practices, said Adam Gerber of the
American Association of Advertising Agencies.
"We can’t stress enough, however, that this announcement means
nothing if there is not quick adoption, and continued refinement to
address evolving technology and advertising solutions," he said.
The full IAB report and PricewaterhouseCoopers study can be seen at http://www.iab.net
Table of Contents
In these budget-cutting and cost-conscious days many companies are
downscaling their marketing budgets. Advertising may be more readily cut
from a budget but PR is something a company has to address in all economic
climates. Here are two sets of tips from leading PR consultants that can
help you with either your in-house set up or outsourcing needs:
Take a look at how well your Web site’s PR area is set up. Here’s a
great list of features it would be good to include:
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online press releases
with hot-links to all relevant Web media at the press center
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downloadable digital pix of key company executives and spokespeople
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audio clips, for use in radio, TV and Web news media
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video clips, for use in same
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virtual reality "walk-throughs" of select products and/or
services
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quotable company white papers
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quotable company position statements
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links to official text of proposed legislation pertinent to the industry,
along with corresponding links to company positions on that legislation
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a text chat room with optional video support for company press conferences
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a quotable archive of such press conferences
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a green light, if possible, for journalists who’d like to conduct
interviews via email questionnaire
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download availability of select,
quotable text documents in Adobe Acrobat format
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a sign-up for company email
alerts, featuring newsletters with quotable sources, press releases, and
where applicable, company stock performance updates and other financial
info
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P a link to the site’s
investors’ domain, where applicable
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P suggested story ideas for editors,
writers and journalists
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free newsfeeds that can be added
to the company site
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voice and email data for all key
PR personnel
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(Joe Dysart, (805) 379-3841, joedysart@aol.com)
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'Location, location, location’
is out! Are you paying for the view from your agency’s conference room
instead of results? A prestigious address does not make an agency do
better work or increase the chances of media coverage.
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Agencies love to drop names of
contacts, but these may not be the right reporters, editors and analysts
for your company. Experienced pros develop new relationships as needed.
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Look at their clip book, but
don’t be too impressed, especially by clips for big name clients. See
what they’ve accomplished for clients that are about your size and
budget. The people showing you past results should be the same people who
will do the actual work on your account.
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Make sure that your agency has a
conceptual understanding of your company, the technology and your
marketplace. Have them visit your Web site on their own time before the
first meeting.
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You can find marcom alternatives
through networking, referrals, online searches (use key words such as PR,
tech PR, outsourced PR, marcom, etc.), or look at press releases from
similar-sized tech companies in industries related to yours. Agencies that
advertise or attend trade association meetings will recoup those costs in
their fees.
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Pay attention to the
"structure" of the first meeting. Does the agency listen to you,
or are they in "sell" mode? If they don’t listen, can they
really understand and meet your needs?
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Outsourced providers are a limited
resource, often working simultaneously for several clients. Make sure they
have the bandwidth to take on additional work for your account and can
meet your deadlines.
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Chemistry counts - you’ll have
regular contact with your agency. Nobody will ever provide a bad
reference, so trust your gut instinct. Marketing communications is an
investment. Selecting a source that matches your company’s
culture/personality is likely to give you the best return.
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(Jon Boroshok ,978-502-1055, jb@techmarcom.com)
Table of Contents
Internet users who get a ticket for a parking violation in San
Francisco will be able to take some of the pain out of settling the fine
through a new Web-based payment service.
Online parking ticket payment should take less than five minutes,
according to CityServices, the City and County of San Francisco’s
e-government portal.
The Web-based service is available this week, CityServices said in a
statement Monday. Drivers can pay the ticket via the Internet using a
major credit card, and must add a $2.75 transaction fee to "cover the
cost of electronic processing."
According to the organization, San Francisco hands out about 2.4
million parking tickets each year.
CityServices’ other e-government services include online property tax
payments, building inspection permits, and birth and death certificate
requests. However, the portal is yet to add other traffic violation
payment services online.
CityServices is on the Web at http://www.CityServices.SFGov.org.
(Contact: Bill Cull, CityServices, 415/572-3468)
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UPS introduced an electronic return label technology yesterday that
lets businesses e-mail shipping labels to customers who want to return
merchandise. The service is available through UPS’ Online WorldShip
software, the company said. Customers can click on a link in an e-mail to
access the shipping label, print it onto a regular sheet of paper and send
the package with the returned merchandise back using UPS. The e-mail also
contains information, including lists and maps, about UPS drop-off
locations in their area, as well as a receipt
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This finding was summarized in the Ifra Trend Report: (www.ifra.com)
According to analyst Andreas Pfeiffer, delivery of news content as
digital files formatted to look like print publications (as in NewsStand,
qMags, Zinio and Olive Software) has numerous advantages over news that is
merely displayed on Web sites.
People are accustomed to this style, making browsing through such an
electronic publication much easier and faster than navigating a Web site
for the same amount of information. And digital pages have archival value,
preserving stories for future reading, unlike Web sour-ces that change.
"We still have a lot to learn from printed publications," he
says, and "‘pure’ information isn’t everything." (The
Pfeiffer Report 4 Jan 2002) http://www.pfeifferreport.com/trends/ett_newsstand.html
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Video-on-demand, or VOD, has long been the subject of hype. But
according to a new study, VOD might not cause people to throw away their
VCRs or kiss Blockbuster goodbye, after all.
The study, recently released by Jupiter Media Metrix [NASDAQ:JMXI],
said the U.S. VOD market will expand to $641.9 million by 2006. However,
the majority of VOD revenues will come from people who watch pay-per-view
(PPV) movies, not from video rentals or box office receipts, the company
said.
Lydia Loizides, Jupiter analyst, said expectations for VOD have not
been realistic. "You will not see ‘Lord of the Rings’ on VOD the
same time it is in the theaters," Loizides said."The success of
VOD will fall into the cable operators’ hands. It is not just about
having a video service or a set-top box.The things that are important are
how the cable operators market and price these services."
Pay-per-view movies have not been wildly successful, according to
Loizides. She said the reason is, ease of use and convenience are not
enough for consumers.
"When they get their bill at the end of the month, they must be
able to see the value."
The Jupiter study found 28 percent of U.S. online consumers are
interested in purchasing VOD services from their satellite or cable
company. While 45 percent of online users rent a video at least once a
month, only 6 percent order a pay-per-view movie or event.
One reason for the continued popularity of video rentals is the finding
that VCRs are in three times as many households as advanced cable systems
that can deliver PPV or VOD. The Jupiter study predicted that VOD will
surpass PPV due to greater ease of use.
The Internet continues to lag behind cable as a delivery platform for
movies, the study found. Only 11 percent of consumers said they were
interested in watching films online, and 31 percent said their Web
connection was too slow to watch video.
Jupiter Media Metrix is at http://www.jmm.com.
(Contact: Ryan Oettinger, Jupiter Media Metrix, 917-534-6226/)
Table of Contents
The total number of Internet addresses worldwide fell in December for
only the second time in nearly six years, according to a survey by
Netcraft.
Netcraft, which has tracked Internet registrations and Web site
activity since 1995, cited a fall-off in domain name speculation as the
primary factor driving the decrease.
"Domains bought during the rampant domain-name speculation of late
1999 are now coming up for two-year renewal, and many are being
abandoned," Netcraft writes in its survey summary . "For
example, over the last three months the number of .com domains has dropped
by about (130,000) though earlier quarters this year still saw
increases."
Esther Dyson, a long-time Internet entrepreneur and former chairwoman
of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), agreed
with Netcraft’s interpretation.
"People aren’t paying $5 million for just the name
‘pets.com’ anymore," Dyson said, adding that the dot-com crash
had caused a huge drop in the "perceived value" of attractive
generic domain names.
Netcraft also predicted that the drop off in domain-name speculation
would boost the percentage of Internet addresses that are
"active" at any given time on the Web.
Former ICANN President Mike Roberts said that during his tenure with
the organization that manages the Internet’s addressing system, no more
than two-thirds of all registered domain names were being actively used at
any time.
As recession-induced belt-tightening prompts speculators and casual
buyers to offload unused .com properties, that trend may begin to reverse
a bit, Roberts said.
The Netcraft survey is at http://www.netcraft.com/survey.
Table of Contents
THE
DATABASE DILEMMA
You can attract people to your web site, gather thousands if not
millions of leads online. Your direct mail programs pull in real buyers.
Your call center takes orders. Next you launch an email marketing campaign
and a weekly HTML newsletter. Your direct mail department has a buyer
database that doesn’t include email addresses. Your call center can
access the main database but they can’t enter any new information. Your
email database is housed at your email service bureau in a world unto
itself. Your web site gathers useful behavioral data as it tracks users
with cookies set in place.
You are rich with data and poor on integration. One database does not
know what the other has in it. One database does not know how to talk to
the other. Were these databases to be put together you could find out if
your current customers surf your site, have called your call center,
signed up for your newsletter, read it, and if they bought anything
online. Once you found out who all those folks are, you could profile them
and go out into the world of other databases and see if you could find
more like them.
Some companies can boast of having done this. Some companies would not
know how to do this. It may not be a technological issue, it’s probably
more a cause of political, bureaucratic or outsourcing problems.
As an email maven, I see clients being led down the path of separate
databases all too readily. It’s easier than ever today to work with an
email service bureau you access from the Web. The same company will give
you a "Subscribe Now" button that captures email addresses from
those who sign up at your web site. Great, you think. I’ll build this
list and pump out my emails. Next you add any email lists you already
have. Now the isolation begins. That "Subscribe Now" button is
also attached to an "Unsubscribe" option. Every time you send
out email, people can unsubscribe or subscribe. There are bouncebacks
(undelivered messages) that the service bureau system deletes for you.
Your email list is a living organism breathing in and out names 24 hours a
day. How will you ever integrate it with databases you have elsewhere?
If there is little you can do at the moment to integrate all your
lists, the best way to protect your email list’s integrity is to make
sure it’s properly dated and source coded while you learn more about how
to optimize your various databases. Email may seem inexpensive on a per
name basis, but when you get up into the hundreds of thousands carrying a
lot of "dead wood" names becomes expensive and drags your
response numbers down.
Database integration is an ongoing challenge for the direct marketing
community. If you’ve got a success story to tell on how well you’ve
handled it, please let us know. We’ll share it with our readers.
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