Google Trend Tool

Google has updated its trend tool to offer something potentially even more useful to our clients than straight search volumes. It is now possible to refine by category, location and seasonality, It also provides the top related searches and rising searches.

http://google.com/insights/search/#

Root of All Evil - Bloggers!

It is official the root of all evil are Bloggers. They beat UFC. And even though Lewis Black did not send down this punishment I think all blogers should have to line up and take their turn in the octagon with UFC's elite. So I guess that inlcudes me right now. And I am friends with a UFC fighter and let me tell you he would beat my a*#!!! So Ivan if for some reason you read this please be kind, remember it does not take much to send me to the ground in pain, no need for you to work up a sweat.

But for those of you in our industry watch the episode there are some great lines about the popularity and absurdity of blogging and even twitter.

A Change of Heart

So this upcoming week will be a time of change for me. A time to catch up on all the books I've been wanting to read. A time for me to attempt establishing an exercise routine only to realize once again that as a nerd, physical activity should be kept to a minimum. A time for me turn on my Xbox 360 for the first time in months so I can make it get the red ring of death once and for all.

You see, my two month old iMac had a bit of a hard drive issue this weekend. It is now in the care of an Apple Genius, a Weezer glasses-wearing arrogant tech twirp who will fix my computer while listening to Jack Johnson and drinking coffee from Bauhuas because it doesn't taste the same unless someone with uncomfortably tight jeans makes it.
Without my steadfast companion at my side, I'm forced to do all the things that I normally would be avoiding thanks to the sweet embrace of internet addiction.
Alright, ranting over.

You Want To Do A Lip Dub

And this is only with one person. Imagine an entire office!


Lip Dub: Journey's Don't Stop Believing from Julia Allison on Vimeo.

WOM Marketing Stats To Share With Your Clients

Here are some great word of mouth marketing stats for you to use in a presentation, share with a client, or bust out with during a meeting to show your WOM marketing smarts. This list was compiled by The Fresh Chat blog and also inlcudes the research sources - how thoughtful of them!

If you were ever unsure of the power of word of mouth (WOM) consider these following facts:

• Recommendations from family and friends trump all other consumer touchpoints when it comes to influencing purchases, according to new data from Publicis media network ZenithOptimedia. (AdAge, April, 2008)
• According to a global Nielsen survey of 26,486 Internet users in 47 markets, consumer recommendations are the most credible form of advertising among 78% of the study’s respondents. (Nielsen, “Word-of-Mouth the Most Powerful Selling Tool”)
• Most word of mouth is positive. Across all of Bazaarvoice US clients, 80% of product ratings are 4 or 5 stars out of 5. Across all of Bazaarvoice UK clients, 88% of product ratings are 4 or 5 stars out of 5. (“J Curve,” Bazaarvoice and Keller Fay)
• Online social network users were three times more likely to trust their peers’ opinions over advertising when making purchase decisions. (“Social Networking Sites: Defining Advertising Opportunities in a Competitive Landscape,” JupiterResearch, March 2007)
• The two leading reasons people contribute content to social shopping sites are the need to feel part of a community (31%) and recognition from peers (28%). (IBM Institute for Business Value, August 2007)
• Consumers trust friends above experts when it comes to product recommendations (65% trust friends, 27% trust experts, 8% trust celebrities). (Yankelovich)
• 86.9% of respondents said they would trust a friend’s recommendation over a review by a critic, while 83.8% said they would trust user reviews over a critic. (Marketing Sherpa, July 2007)
• When asked what sources of information they are “very likely” to consult before making a decision about their entertainment options, 62% named Web sites with user reviews as their top choice, even beating out a knowledgeable friend (59%). (Marketing Sherpa, July 2007)
• 91% of US adults regularly or occasionally seek advice about products or services. (BIGresearch)
• Adult Internet users surveyed chose recommendations from friends as the one type of promotion they consider most worthwhile. (DoubleClick)
• Review users noted that reviews generated by fellow consumers had a greater influence than those generated by professionals. (comScore/The Kelsey Group, October 2007)
• 64% of consumers reported wanting to see user ratings and reviews, based on a study of 5,000 online shoppers. (Forrester, 2008)
• 94% of UK online researchers use online customer reviews. (JupiterResearch/Bazaarvoice, January 2008)
• 71% of online shoppers read reviews, making it the most widely read consumer-generated content. (Forrester)
• Compared to a base group that didn’t read or contribute product reviews at all, people who read a review were 30% more likely to purchase a product and visitors who wrote a review were 80% more likely to convert, based on analysis across several Coremetrics clients. (Coremetrics, reported in BtoB, March 2007)
• In an online survey of 4,000 consumers, 70% said they had done internet research on “everyday grocery products,” and 63% said they had done so for health and beauty products. (Prospectiv, 2007)
• Among the 46% of respondents who had posted or planned to post reviews about their online shopping experience, 88% said those reviews either were, or would be positive. (Nielson, 2007)
• Almost two-thirds (62%) of consumers read consumer-written product reviews on the Internet. (Deloitte & Touche)
• 70% of online consumers said they use the Internet to research everyday grocery products. (Prospectiv, 2008)
• Of merchants who adopt customer reviews, 58% said improving customer experience was the most important reason for adding reviews to their sites, followed by building customer loyalty (47%), driving sales (42%), and maintaining a competitive advantage (37%). (eTailing Group, 2008)
• By 2020, 84% of marketers agree that building customer trust will become marketing’s primary objective, and 82% agree that collaboration with customers will prevail over marketing. (1to1 Media survey of the 1to1 Xchange panel, April, 2008)
• 11% of retailers reported a 20% or more overall increase in conversions as a result of adding reviews to their sites, 21% reported an 11% to 20% increase and 5% reported a 1% to 10% increase. (eTailing Group, 2008)
• Ratings and reviews is the second most important site feature behind search and online buyers who cite ratings and reviews most useful site feature has more than doubled from ’05 to ’06. “Retail Marketing: Driving Sales Through Consumer-Created Content” says retailers who adopt ratings and reviews as a differentiator and retention strategy will gain market share. (Jupiter)
• 42% of consumers said they prefer being able to find the answers they need online on their own if they had a question or wanted help while shopping online. (Harris Interactive, May 2007)
• The share of traffic to question-and-answer Web sites has more than doubled from 2007 to 2008 (HitWise, 2008)
• Yahoo Answers had 25.3 million visits in February 2008 (comScore Media Metrix, March 2008)
• 42% of 1,179 online consumers surveyed have left a site without purchasing multiple products because they couldn’t get a question answered about one of the products in their shopping cart; 41% decided not to make a planned purchase because they couldn’t readily find a piece of information about the product or service. (JupiterResearch, September 2007)
• Shoppers who browsed the site’s new “Top Rated Products” page, which features products rated most highly by customers, had a 59% higher conversion rate than the site average and spent 16% more per order than other browsers of products. (Bass Pro Shops)
• Shoppers who browsed the site’s “Top Rated Products” page, which features products rated most highly by customers, had a 49% higher conversion rate than the site average and 63% more per order than other site shoppers. (PETCO)
• Giving shoppers the ability to sort products within a category by customer rating led to a sales increase of 41% per unique visitor. (PETCO)
• A large apparel retailer saw site-wide conversion rates increase by 90% (Q1 07 vs. Q1 06) just months after launching Bazaarvoice Ratings & Reviews. (Bazaarvoice customer case study)
• MarketingExperiments tested product conversion with and without product ratings by customers. Conversion nearly doubled, going from .44% to 1.04% after the same product displayed its five-star rating. (MarketingExperiments Journal)
• Conversion rates are higher on products with less than perfect reviews (less than 5 stars) than those without reviews at all, indicating that the customer feels that the product has been properly reviewed by other customers. (Burpee)

Making Your Video Go Viral

Last week we discussed Dan Greenberg's article, "The Secret Strategies Behind Many “Viral” Videos" that he posted on TechCrunch late last year. He gave an impressive list of things his team does in order to make their clients' videos go viral. Our discussion about whether or not it's ethical to promote a video using these tactics started with the deck below....

Being Viral

view presentation (tags: videos viral pr)

Towards the end of our discussion we all agreed that our work doesn’t stop with adding a video to YouTube and crossing our fingers it goes viral, there is much more work to do beyond that. We also agreed that we wouldn’t feel comfortable promoting our clients’ videos with some of the shady tactics that Dan describes.

In order to help us develop a 'menu', if you will, of viral tactics for our clients to choose from we've decided to develop our own video and viral strategy using all the tactics we feel are ethical and smart to make our video go viral. I am now going to open this post up for Video Ideas - please post your ideas in the comment section below!

Global Warming, I Has It

If you like LOL Cats and care about the planet, you are going to lurve
Global Warming Hates Kittens

Cleverly disseminating global warming information, these little kitties have one request:

“Save me from global warming!”

Also qualifying for the “Peculiar Green Post” award is Puma’s collection of shoes representing endangered species.

Now, go forth and be green.

T-Minus 9

The unofficial countdown to my wedding.

Developing a Social Media Plan For Your Business In 5 Steps

Just read this article and it sounds a lot like what Emil and I presented at the Seattle Podcamp Unconference a few weeks back. We spoke about 3 steps: Listen, Engage, Build a Relationship. In the article below they included "Preparing" and "Measuring" and offer up a bunch of new websites for doing this. All add these new sites into the PR Resources section this week!

Check it out here: http://mashable.com/2008/07/10/how-to-develop-a-social-media-plan/

T-Minus 10

The unofficial countdown to my wedding.

Put Some What? Where?!

In an industry where words are everything, we spend a lot of time counseling our clients on exactly which ones to use. When trying to cultivate or support an exact brand image, every word, phrase or punctuation choice is important. Good slogans or taglines support brand recognition and adoption, while bad slogans earn scorn and ridicule from the masses (particularly from those of us in the industry) before passing quickly from our minds.

Good ones are:
GE –We bring good things to life (memorable, succinct, conveys powerful brand messaging about the type and quality of products as well as what they enable)
UPS – What can brown do for you? (underscores their cornerstone value proposition of service, while solidly tying the brand to their logo for added recognition)
Nike – Just Do It (encourages the athletic mindset of “get out there and play or run or race or train or…” and appeals to the spontaneous side of us all)

Bad ones are:
Easily forgotten


On a recent vacation I found myself enjoying a “Pig in a Puppy”* at King’s BBQ in Kinston, NC where I saw signs for their Oink Express food delivery service. Being a fan of the “Pig in a Puppy” and being very interested in learning how to get one delivered to me at home in Seattle, I began flipping through the brochure. Unfolding it all the way, I learned that their tagline (I kid you not) is:

“Put Some South In Your Mouth, Ya’ll!”

Once I got over the misspelled colloquialism and a big case of the giggles, my mind immediately began evaluating the tagline for its validity in driving brand recognition. And while at first, it definitely makes me chuckle, I think it’s a great tagline for King’s BBQ’s Oink Express:
The rhyme is memorable but not obnoxious, it includes a call to action, highlights their key offering of southern food, closing with “ya’ll” lends credibility to their claim of expertise in southern food and endears them to the target audience and the (probably unintentional) double entendre adds intrigue and edge.

So with the combination of good food and a creative tagline, the Oink Express gets two snouts up from me. Next time you’re craving hushpuppies, collard greens or banana pudding, you know who to call for some south in your mouth.


*A “Pig in a Puppy” is a chopped pork barbecue sandwich, where the pig is placed in between two slices of a very large hushpuppy, rather than a bun.

T-Minus 11

The unofficial countdown to my wedding.

T-Minus 12

The unofficial countdown to my wedding.

Tapping Into Americans' Faith in Innovation

One of the toughest issues facing consumers these days is rising gas prices. The people are angry…very angry!

The Wall Street Journal discusses the aggressive marketing strategy used by companies such as ExxonMobil. By painting themselves as part of the solution to our growing energy crisis, oil companies have come under harsh criticism from Greenpeace and other environmental groups.

Don’t shoot me, but higher gas prices may help us in the end because money may be the only motivator which will actually result in a behavior change. How else are we going to get people to drive less, invest in hybrid cars and generally consume less?

$5.00 gas…here we come.

T-Minus 13

The unofficial countdown to my wedding.