Understanding trade promotion optimisation

Over at Media Hunter, Craig has posted an interesting introduction to the field of trade promotion optimisation. Its a fascinating field that could seriously benefit from an integrated online approach.

Australia Leads World in Average Time Spent per Person on Social Media Sites

Still not taking social media seriously as a significant contender for consumer attention?

A recent Nielsen survey reports that Australia led the world in average time spent per person on social media sites in December 2009.

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.

Almost seven hours per person per month spent on social media. That’s a lot. Especially when you consider another Nielsen survey in 2009 revealed that long-established traditional media like newspapers and magazines are only gaining our attention for an average of 8 to 12 hours per month.

Australian’s now spend an average of 16.1 hours per week online and 3.7 hours per week on mobiles. The booming smartphone and about-to-explode iPad market will only see our online engagement continue to climb.

Once again, the question is….does your marketing reflect the new hierarchy of media consumption or are you still casting your bait where the fish no longer bite?

97% of client’s purchasing decisions influenced by websites

A new US survey indicates what a huge impact websites have on client’s ultimate purchase decision. 97% of the 200 buyers surveyed admitted that a provider’s website influences their purchase decision.

The RainToday.com survey included more than 200 buyers responsible for more than $1.7 billion in professional services purchased, such as accounting and financial consulting; architecture, engineering, and construction services; human resources consulting; IT consulting and services; legal services; management consulting; marketing, advertising, and public relations; and training services.

According to the survey, 74% of buyers report the service provider’s website holds at least “some influence” over their ultimate decision to buy services from the provider, while only 3% of the 200 buyers surveyed say a provider’s website has no influence whatsoever over their purchase decision.

The message is clear: if you aren’t taking your web presence seriously yet, you are losing serious business.

Marketers see most potential in social media, video & SEO

Forrester Research put out a great report on US Interactive Marketing Spend recently showing where marketers believe effectiveness will increase and decrease in the next three years.

The three biggest expected INCREASES were in Created social media, Online video and Search engine optimisation (SEO).

The areas predicted to have the biggest DECREASE in marketing effectiveness were Newspapers, Yellow Pages, Telemarketing and Radio.

(information sourced from SEOMOZ)

Marketers see greater potential in interactive channels

Twitter Starts Testing Features for Businesses

From Ben Parr at Mashable

We know that Twitter believes that businesses are central to helping grow and monetize the microblogging service; recent integrations with Citysearch and LinkedIn have foretold its interest in the space.

Today though, Twitter (Twitter) has begun to take its biggest steps in providing new features to businesses and monetizing those features. In a blog post, the company announced that it has begun beta testing its first feature made specifically for businesses: “Contributors.”

An explanation of the contributors feature

Contributors is a feature that focuses on creating more authentic engagement for business accounts. With Contributors, a business account with multiple contributors (say, for example, the @Twitter feed) can add the specific user that tweeted on behalf of the business to the byline.

Here’s Twitter’s explanation of the new feature in testing:

“The feature we are beta testing is called ‘Contributors’ – it enables users to engage in more authentic conversations with businesses by allowing those organizations to manage multiple contributors to their account. The feature appends the contributor’s username to the tweet byline, making the business to consumer communication more personal; e.g. if @Twitter invites @Biz to tweet on its behalf, then a tweet from @Twitter would include @Biz in the byline so that users know more about the real people behind organizations.”

The other big revelation by the company is that Contributors is just the first of several business features, some of which will be visible by users, and some which will be internal for businesses.

Twitter’s getting serious about ramping up its business presence. This may just be the beginning of the Twitter business model. We’ll have more answers soon enough.