Week Ten - eConsumers

1. In Chaffey 20008, chapter four, three types of social behaviour are identified. These are the track, hunter and the explorer. What are the characteristics of these customer behaviours and how in particular might you encourage them to purchase online?
A tracker knows the exact product they want to purchase. They use online shopping sites to track a product down and check the price, availability, delivery time, delivery charges or after-sales support. This type of buyer requires very little persuasion to purchase online.

A hunter doesn’t have a particular product in mind but knows the types of product they are after. For example, a television or a laptop. They use online shopping to a find suitable products, compare them and decide which one to purchase. This type of buyer needs more help, support and guidance to reach a purchasing decision.

An explorer doesn’t have a particular product in mind but may have a well-defined shopping objective, a less-resolved shopping objective or no shopping objective at all. This type of buyer has a range of possible needs and many uncertainties to be resolved before committing to purchase. Suggested gift ideas, guides to product categories, lists of top-selling products and information-rich promotions could encourage them to purchase online.

2. Given that the main fears about using the Internet are security and privacy, what can organisations do to reassure customers?
In order to reassure customers, organisations could offer a 100% security guarantee, which means that customers pay nothing if unauthorised charges are made to their card as a result of using their services. Organisations should also state on their website that they are committed to ensuring the privacy of customer at all times when using their websites. Contact details of the organisation should be posted on the site in an easily accessible and clear position to give customers peace of mind and allow them to contact them if they have any concerns.

3. Onsite information processing can be divided into 5 stages: exposure, attention, comprehension & perception, yielding & acceptance and loyalty. What do you think is meant by each of these stages?
• Exposure: Customers must be exposed to content long enough in order to process it. If content is not displayed long enough the message will not be received.
• Attention: Customers have a limited attention span and therefore only pick up the main messages from a website. Therefore movement, text size and colour are helpful in gaining customers’ attention.
• Comprehension & Perception: Customers must be able to interpret the combination of graphics, text and multimedia on the website clearly and accurately. The design should be familiar to the customer so that they will interpret it according to previous experience and memory.
• Yielding & Acceptance: The information presented must be accepted by the customer. Some customers will respond to emotive appeals, while other will make a more clinical evaluation based on the text.
• Retention: Customers must be able to recall their experience. A clear, distinctive site design will be retained in the customer’s mind, therefore increasing the likelihood of a repeat visit.

4. How can (online) customer loyalty be improved?
Organisations need to retain high-value customers for life by building strong emotional and rational bonds. They must find out more about their needs, serve them and then offer relevant incentives to keep them coming back. The five determinant of loyalty include:
• Quality customer support
• On-time delivery
• Compelling product presentations
• Convenient and reasonably priced shipping and handling
• Clear trustworthy pricing policies.

5. It is very cost effective to conduct online market research, but there is also potential for sampling errors. The article extract below shows that 78% of women would rather have a pet than a husband. Do you think this figure is accurate? Give reasons for your answer.
The figure is not accurate as the majority of listeners to the radio station are females between the ages of 23 to 49. Furthermore, the younger-aged women are less likely to have a husband at that particular stage in their life, and are more inclined to vote for a dog instead. Therefore, they have a biased response rate. Marketers must carefully plan their research first before conducting it. As research can be very costly and time consuming, it is important that sampling questions and segments are chosen correctly to avoid any data biasness.

6. As more and more services can be delivered via mobile devices, there is already talk of the post-PC consumer. What impact will this have on marketing?
Marketers will be faced with the same marketing dilemmas as they have with previous technology such as radio, television, computers and i-phones. Dealing with a post-PC consumer should be exactly the same. Marketers need to continue to be adaptable to the new technology and develop marketing strategies and campaigns to suit the new type of consumer. Marketers must not be afraid of change and should move with the market in order to stay in the game.

7. Watch the 1800 Flowers video. How does 1800 Flowers optimise fresh delivery of flowers in all states of America?
In order to optimise the fresh delivery of flowers in all States of America, 180 Flowers controls delivery tightly. They control distribution by working closely with florists around country to manage quality, delivery and all aspects of the experience with perishable products.

8. Watch the Yahoo video. What are the key elements of a social network that are identified?
The CIO of Version Telecom says that giving people creativity makes a job fun. When people enjoy their job, they are more likely to go above and beyond. The key elements that he states are:
(a) Ask people to propose ideas in order to identify new opportunities in the business.
(b) Give people the opportunity to try and fail quickly. Quick failures are easy to resolve and cost the business less money. It facilitates quick learning and puts the business on the right course to get the right solution.

9. In addition to answering the questions this week, you should read widely on the subject. Visit some online blogs such as clickZ, Wired, Techcrunch and find some scholarly articles using Google Scholar. Search for articles on online relationships and loyalty, communities and social networks, buyer behaviour online, trust, loyalty and online customer motivation. You wont be able to cover all of these areas, so concentrate on finding a couple of journal articles and briefly describe the key points in them.
Does online relationship marketing enhance customer retention and cross-buying?
For full document, visit the following link: http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.ballarat.edu.au/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hjh&AN=34319968&site=ehost-live

I found this journal article on EBSCO Host when searching for articles on ‘online relationships’. The key points in the article are that customer loyalty is more difficult to achieve in the online context than in the offline one. The integration of Internet technology with the customer loyalty concept is rarely discussed in the relationship marketing literature. The article also uses a model that examines the relations among relationship-bonding tactics, perceived relationship investment, perceived relationship quality, customer loyalty, customer retention, and cross-buying. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of relationship marketing as it positively influences online customers' perception, then their loyalty, and ultimately, their actual purchase behavior.

Between Friends
For full document, visit the following link: http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.ballarat.edu.au/ehost/pdf?vid=8&hid=108&sid=794be57e-0216-457c-bcf2-d5b155a24aa6@sessionmgr111

I found this journal article on EBSCO Host when searching for articles on ‘online social networks’. The article outlines the growth of social networking sites worldwide. It revealed that the idea of a social graph, a representation of a person's network of friends, family and acquaintances, gained popularity in 2007 as online social networks grew. Facebook claims that they have more than 64 million active users, with 250,000 more signing up each day. These companies tried to commercialise the social connections by permitting outside developers to build applications that access user's networks. According to Facebook, they also advertise user's contacts in accordance with the user's online buying habits. Some of these networks include Blogosphere, Comment Flow, Twitter Social Network and Virtual Marketing.

Week Nine - New Media & The Brand

This week we learnt about the two basic levels of brand awareness: brand recognition and brand recall. Once consumers are 'aware' of the brand, it is crucial that there is a strong brand image to further push consumers to adopt the product.

Brands ultimately influence our buying decisions. They also tell 'stories' about people and make people feel a certain way. For example, the people who drive BMWs or who wear Rolex watches. Consumers are spending less time using traditional media such as television, radio and newspapers, and are spending more time online. Therefore it is crucial that we, as future marketers, must be familiar of new media that consumers use to target our product/service to.

Week Eight - Reflection on Learning

This week we learnt that people and processes are vital in the provision of services. For example, the 90/10 service and sales rule states that communication with customers can account for up to 90% of sales transactions whereas price and product accounts for approximately 10%. We discovered the importance of having a balance between automated services, such as email notifications and virtual assistants, and customer service. Staff must receive adequate training in order to achieve high levels of customer satisfaction.

I enjoyed the Microsoft training video. The moral of the video is that no matter how people do business, they should focus predominantly on their customers as they are the key to providing cash flow and shareholder value. I found the 'awkwardness' between the two men was hilarious! The Microsoft interviewer held his stance and conducted himself very well.

Week Eight - Real People or Virtual People?

1. Read all of the notes.
2. Watch PowerPoint.
3. Watch video.
4. Complete survey.
5. Download the new Google web browser (Chrome) and try it out. What do you think of it?
I am quite impressed with Google's Chrome browser. It took less than two minutes to download and install onto my laptop. The features that I like about it are the minimalistic user interface and the merging of the address bar and search bar. It still has all of the features of other web browsers (and more!) but it is simplified into icons including 'back', 'forward', 'reload' and 'homepage'. The additional tabs that I thought were useful were 'control the current page' and 'customise and control Google Chrome'. The latter tab included applications such as history, bookmark manager and downloads. I found that the history application was very useful as it listed all of the previously browsed web sites by date and time order. You are also given the option to clear your history (I hear a sigh of relief from many people!!) Finally I thought it was a nice touch to allow users to personalise their browser. As a result, my browser is 'pretty in pink'. Hopefully my boyfriend appreciates my good taste!

Week Seven - No exercises to be completed

Week Six - Reflection on Learning

This week we viewed a YouTube clip by Seth Godin titled 'All Marketers Are Liars'. Basically it outlined that in order for customers to talk about a product or service, it needs to be remarkable. The product needs to be delivered in a relevant, personal and anticipated way to people who actually want it. It also needs to be positioned in the right place, time and in the form that people want to get it.

We learnt that an important key element in promotional marketing is word-of-mouth. It is free, effective (as long it is positive) and doesn't require valuable resources (e.g. sales force). 'Flipping the funnel' is a method of getting a message distributed.

Google is certainly an innovative service that has change the way that many marketers think and do business.

Week Six - All Marketers Are Liars: The Need For Meaningful Messages

1. When talking about Yahoo auctions, what did Seth Godin mean by 'billion dollar decisions do not have anything to do with technology'?
Seth Godin states that marketers and decision makers spend extensive amounts of revenue on advertising. Yahoo did the same to promote its auction website. However, Google had no sales-force to promote their service. They developed a magnificent search engine that delivers personal, relevant and anticipated messages to people who want them. Word-of-mouth is their key promotional element. They do not need to spend a dime on promotion as customers do it for them.

2. What has storytelling got to do with cat food?
Seth Godin used the example of Fancy Feast cat food to demonstrate the concept of ‘storytelling’. He explains that people do not buy Fancy Feast for their cat, but buy it for themselves and their well-being. They want a story to tell. For example, people do not buy Chanel No. 5 for the perfume itself, but buy it so they can tell a story about their wealth, status and good taste.

3. Explain the concept of funnel marketing. How would 'flipping the funnel' help the marketing of a product?
A funnel is very wide at the top and narrow at the tip. Not everything can come out the bottom all at once. Funnel marketing is the process of offering something of high value and little or no cost to customers. Once marketers have captured the interests of customers, they can then start varying the weight of the value and costs accordingly. Funnel marketing is a successful concept as customers already have an idea of what they are buying. As long as they feel that the last step in the funnel is worth the price, they will always be open to pay the higher prices in the future.

The essence of 'flipping the funnel' is that for most companies, friends and customers are under-used assets. Network marketing leverages the single most powerful form of advertising: word-of-mouth. It is about flipping the funnel and turning it into a megaphone.

4. What does the term 'remarkable' mean in the context of purple cows?
The word ‘remarkable’ means giving customers something worth talking about. For example, if people have seen one cow, they have seen hundreds. There is nothing special or remarkable about them. However, if people saw a purple cow, they are mostly likely to take interest in it as it is a story worth telling. Marketers need customers to keep talking about their products to produce and maintain demand.

5. As eMarketers we all want 'happy surfers'. Godin talks about the fashion/permission complex. He lists four parts to the fashion/complex. They are:

1) Make it (the message) worth listening to.
2) Tell it to the people who want to hear.
3) Tell their friends.
4) Get permission to tell about your next fashion.

Can you think of an example from your experience that demonstrates the fashion/permission complex?
An example of the fashion/permission complex is Sri Chinmoy Races. It is an event company that offers a smorgasbord of quality running, swimming, triathlon and multi-sport races Australia-wide. I heard about the event company at a Health & Wellbeing Festival. As I enjoy running I took interest in their message. A lady from the registration tent asked if she could take down my details to send me email updates about upcoming races. I told my friends and family about the events as they are also interested in running. I now participate in the races on a regular basis.

6. Thinking back to last weeks lecture, give an example of an 'idea that spread', and an example of marketing 'that is broken'. What elements of the promotional mix did your examples include?
IDEA THAT SPREAD
An example of an idea that spread is Facebook. It is a social directory that was introduced to help people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and co-workers. I first heard about it from my friends and decided to sign up as another way to stay in touch. It now has more than 130 million active users. Facebook’s key element of the promotional mix is word-of-mouth. Minimal amounts of revenue are spent on promotion.

THAT IS BROKEN
Some years ago Coco Cola tried to introduce a new Coke. Even though they did extensive market research and people seemed to like the taste of the new Coke, the product still failed. The reason why is because there was nothing wrong with the original Coke and people didn’t want to give up buying it. Coke would have used advertising, sales promotion, PR, sponsorship, packaging and word-of-mouth to promote the new Coke. However, due to poor planning the product did not succeed.