In 2012, 60% of marketers' digital advertising budgets will be devoted to online branding, according to a survey conducted by ad tech company Vizu. It found that 64% of markets will increase their online brand advertising budgets, with more than a fifth saying they planned to increase them by 20%. (Comparatively, only 56% of marketers said they planned to increase their online direct-response budgets.) Similarly, 60% said they were re-allocating dollars away from direct-response and into brand initiatives.
"Brand advertising is becoming a bigger and bigger part of the digital experience," Jeff Smith, chief marketing officer at Vizu, tells Marketing Daily.
Smith gave three reasons for the increases. First, more consumers are migrating online. Whereas 10 years ago, digital initiatives were a key way to reach younger consumers, the medium is more widely used by many age demographics.
"It's no longer this selective channel to reach younger people," he says. "It's an imperative to reach the target audience in total."
Second, many marketers are being asked about their "social media strategies," which is based in digital marketing.
"Social in itself is just another tactic, but it's taken on a life of its own," Smith says. "Whether or not they thought about social, their organization is asking them about social."
Finally, Smith says, the space offers better measurement than many previous brand advertising channels. This third factor, however, also comes with a downside. According to the survey, a third of marketers felt they were "drowning in data" when it came to online advertising, leading to what the company called a "metrics morass."
The solution, according to Smith, is to be clear about a campaign’s objectives and measurement before launch.
"What too often happens is the brands don't set that objective up front and they don't define the metric that's going to be measuring (the campaign)," he says. "(As a result), they get agencies reporting back any data they have."
Marketers, Smith suggests, need to set their goals and define the information they want reported back to them, and then ensure that all of their agencies (creative, media, digital, database, etc.) are on the same page and speaking the same language at the outset.
"It's really important regardless of what aspect of the campaign it is -- to get everyone on the same page, looking at the same data and using the same language," he says.
(Source: Marketing Daily, 01/09/12)
As a salesperson, you can thrive with buyers and purchasing departments if you follow these simple approaches: Be yourself, be professional, and be engaged in genuinely wanting to help the buyer and their company. If you can't do these things, then you shouldn't be selling. If you are not sure if you're already doing these things, then I hate to tell you this, but you're probably not.
Don't walk around telling people you care about them and that you are so concerned about helping them. The salespeople who truly do care and are concerned let it come out in their actions day in and day out. Other people see it and do not need the salesperson to offer a verbal alert to it.
This year, retail industry sales will rise 3.4 percent to $2.53 trillion, according to the National Retail Federation -- slightly lower than the pace of 2011, in which sales grew 4.7 percent. Many economists estimate that real U.S. GDP will rise approximately 2.1 to 2.4 percent.
"Over the last 18 months, retailers have been on the forefront of the economic recovery -- creating jobs, encouraging consumer spending, and investing in America," said NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay. "Our 2012 forecast is a vote of confidence in the retail industry and our ability to succeed even in a challenging economy. Retailers have played a key role in driving growth, but to continue this momentum we need Washington to act on proposals that will spur job creation and unleash the power of the private sector."
Shay announced NRF's forecast to 24,000 retailers and their partners at NRF's 101st Annual Convention and Expo on Monday in New York. During his remarks, Shay discussed how continued growth in the retail industry will result in additional jobs, greater innovation and increased consumer value. But he warned that the private sector can't do it alone and Washington must take steps to support growth, including reforming our corporate tax system to enhance U.S. business' competitiveness, enacting sales tax fairness to level the playing field between brick-and-mortar and online retailers, and reforming our visa system so more foreign travelers can come to the U.S. to spend money and help spur growth. Shay and NRF's Chairman -- Macy's President/CEO Terry Lundgren -- outlined the industry's priorities in a letter to President Obama last week.
Though retailers ended last year on a strong note with holiday sales rising 4.1 percent over 2010, many factors will continue to influence the expected slowdown in consumer spending, but none remain more cumbersome than the stalled unemployment rate and lack of newly-created jobs. A number of factors contributed to NRF's 2012 economic forecast, including:
• Employment: The number of Americans out of work is at its lowest level in nearly three years, and the rise in employment and hours worked should bolster income and spending.
• Income growth: Consumers are constrained by modest growth in income. Congress extended the cuts in payroll taxes and unemployment benefits for only two months. While these provide a lift, consumers may act cautiously until both are approved. Income is predicted to lag consumption on a year-over-year basis.
• Housing: While most of the economic reports dealing with housing have shown a little more strength, these reports should be treated with caution, as some of the improvement is due in part to unseasonably mild weather. NRF expects home sales and construction will improve slightly in 2012 with low interest rates and affordability at an almost 30-year high.
• Inflation: Increased costs have been a drain on consumer purchasing power due to extraordinary agricultural commodity price inflation as well as high oil prices due to global geopolitical tensions. NRF expects inflation to slow down near a two percent range. Rising gas prices may also put pressure on spending.
• Consumer credit: Easier lending standards are expanding consumer credit. Revolving credit appeared to break out from its holding pattern showing a big surge in November, which indicates consumers have confidence to take on debt.
• Consumer confidence: Confidence continues to rebound from August lows but remains fragile given volatile financial market conditions and anemic housing markets.
(Source: National Retail Federation, 01/16/12)
Helping to drive adoption in recent months has been the iPhone 4S, launched in October.
The popularity of the latest Apple handset is underscored by the Nielsen research, which shows that among people who bought devices in the fourth quarter, 44.5% in December said they got an iPhone compared to only 25.1% in October. Among new iPhone acquirers, 57% got the 4S.
Conversely, Android's share among people who bought smartphones in the last three months of 2011 dropped from 61.6% to 46.9%. Struggling BlackBerry dropped from 7.7% to 4.5%.
Even so, Android managed to strengthen its position as the most pervasive mobile operating system among all smartphone users in the fourth quarter. All told, 46.3%. of smartphone owners surveyed owned an Android device, up from 42.8% in the prior quarter. Apple's iOS platform increased its overall share slightly to 30% from 28.3% in the third quarter.
By contrast, BlackBerry slipped to a 14.9% share overall in the fourth quarter from 17.8% in the prior quarter, while Microsoft's Windows Mobile and Windows Phone platforms dropped to 4.9% from 6.1%. Microsoft, of course, has launched an ambitious effort to reverse its continuing slide in the smartphone market with the new lineup of Lumia devices developed in partnership with Nokia.
How well consumers respond to the Nokia/Windows Phone handsets will be unclear until sales results come in later this year. But Wal-Mart's decision to offer the entry-level Lumia 710 for free with a two-year contract suggests that pricing will not necessarily be a barrier to Microsoft making headway in the smartphone battle in 2012.
(Source: Online Media Daily, 01/18/12)
There are four verbal communication rules to remember in sales:
-- Use descriptive language
-- Use short sentences
-- Avoid buzz words and jargon
-- Avoid tag questions and qualifiers ("I guess," "I hope," "sorta," "probably")
When preparing your sales presentation, keep your points focused, so you don't ramble on in long sentences. Adding tag questions (like "I think this is a good proposal, don't you?") weakens your position, and using words like "umm" and "like" and "you know" detract from what you are saying.
Think about what you really want to say, and then say exactly what you mean.
In 2010, cars beat out light trucks by almost 400,000 units, a 51.7-48.3 split.
Analysts credit an improving economy, stable fuel prices and more efficient truck powertrains for the surge in trucks. In December alone, trucks outsold cars by more than 100,000 units.
"With fuel prices tame, pickups sales should outpace the rest of the market in 2012," said Anthony Pratt, Polk's top analyst.
For decades, cars far outsold light trucks, even after the emergence of minivans and more comfortable SUVs in the 1980s. In 1990, cars accounted for 67 percent of the U.S. market.
But trucks gradually closed the gap and during the go-go years from 2002 to 2007 outsold cars, peaking in 2004 with a margin of more than 1 million units -- a 54.2-45.8 split.
But as sales collapsed in 2008 under the dual weight of soaring gasoline prices and an economic crash, cars regained the majority.
(Source: Automotive News, 01/09/12)
The survey-based study by Power puts Hyundai at the top among a field of 33 brands, with Ford in second (the reverse of Polk's top two), and tied with Honda. The study takes a broad view, noting that one in three new-vehicle owners who switched brands did so not because they hated their vehicle but because their previous brand just didn't make the type of vehicle they wanted next.
That said, another driver for auto apostasy was dissatisfaction with the previous vehicle, including such issues as cost of ownership or maintenance, too many problems with the vehicle, and the vehicle didn't retain sufficient resale value.
The study, in its ninth year, is based on responses from 117,001 new-vehicle buyers and lessees, of which 73,733 replaced a vehicle that was previously acquired new. It was fielded during two periods last year.
Raffi Festekjian, director of automotive product research at J.D. Power and Associates, told Marketing Daily that automakers need to do a balancing act by both keeping retention as close to the ideal 100% as possible, while conquesting as many new owners as possible from competitors.
"In general it's important to realize that it's important to have a balanced relationship between retention and conquest. In an ideal world you'd want both numbers to be 100, but achieving that scenario is impossible," he says.
But he adds that Hyundai and Kia have done "a really good job fitting into that relationship between retention and conquest." He says Kia is in the top three in conquest, and Hyundai is in the top five. "So is Fiat, which is a new brand that has just come in (so all of its buyers are conquests), and you have Scion as well."
The industry average for retention improved by one percentage point to 49% in the study. J.D. Power's loyalty leader Hyundai improved its retention rate by four percentage points from 2010 to 64% in 2012, per the study, which says the automaker's retention rate is principally due to loyalty among owners of the Elantra compact sedan and Sonata midsize car.
"Hyundai’s increased retention rate is shaped by its expanding model lineup, as well as the fact that perceptions of the brand's quality and appeal have continued to improve during the past decade," said Festekjian.
Ford and Honda had customer retention rates of 60%. As in Polk's findings, Jeep posts the greatest improvement in customer retention rate from 2010. J.D. Power says the Chrysler, LLC unit improved by 17 percentage points to 51% percent in 2012.
Nineteen of the 33 ranked brands improved their customer retention rates from 2010, while 14 have declined, according to the firm.
Not terribly surprising, the study also finds that women and younger people, those between 23 and 47, are less brand loyal than older consumers and men.
"Women and younger vehicle owners are more likely to experience changes in their life circumstances, including growth in household size or changes in income levels, that would lead them to purchase vehicles that better accommodate their new lifestyle," said Festekjian.
J.D. Power says Honda, siblings Hyundai and Kia, and Mercedes-Benz do particularly well at retaining women. For Gen X and Y, Ford, Kia, Lexus and Mercedes-Benz perform particularly well in customer retention.
(Source: Marketing Daily, 01/12/12)
