Marketing Research

Are wearable devices wearing out their welcome?

Phillip Nones Branding, Business, Manufacturing, Marketing, Marketing Communications, Marketing Research, Sales , , , , , , , , , ,

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So-called “wearable” interactive devices – products like Fitbit and Apple Watch – aren’t exactly new. In some cases, they’ve been in the market in a pretty big way for several years now.  Plenty of them are being produced and are readily available from popular retailers.

And plenty of consumers have tried them, too. Forrester Research has found that about one in five U.S. consumers (~21%) used some form of wearable product in 2015.

That sounds pretty decent … until you discover that in similar consumer research conducted this year, the percentage of consumers who use wearables has actually declined to ~14%.

The findings are part of Forrester’s annual State of Consumers & Technology Benchmark research. The research involves online surveys of a large group of ~60,000 U.S. adults age 18 and over, as well as an additional 6,000 Canadian respondents.

Not surprisingly, the demographic group most likely to be users of wearables are Gen Y’ers – people ages 28 to 36 years old. Within this group, about three-fourths report that they have ever used a wearable device … but only ~28% report that they are using one or more this year.

Forrester’s research found the same trend in Gen Z (respondents between 18 and 27 years old), where ~26% have used wearable devices in the past, but only ~15% are doing so currently.

The question is … does this mean that wearables are merely a passing fad? Or is it more a situation where the wearable technology isn’t delivering on consumer expectations?

The Forrester research points to the latter explanation. Gina Fleming, leader of Forrester’s marketing data science work team, put it this way:

“Younger consumers tend to have the highest expectations for technology and for companies. They tried these devices, and oftentimes it didn’t meet their expectations in their current use case.  Young consumers tend to be early adopters, but are also fast to move on if they’re not satisfied.”

One interesting finding of the survey is that among the older cohorts – respondents over the age of 36 – their usage has increased in the past year rather than decreased as was found with younger respondents.

Among the respondents who currently use at least one wearable device, there are no real surprises in which ones are the most popular, with Fitbit and Apple Watch heading the list:

  • Fitbit: Used by ~40% of all current wearable device users
  • Apple Watch: ~32%
  • Samsung Galaxy Gear: ~27%
  • Microsoft Band: ~21%
  • Sony SmartBand: ~19%
  • Pebble Smart Watch: ~17%

Looking to the future, although marketers of wearable devices might be happy to see positive trends among older consumers, the usage levels in broad terms tend to be significantly lower than with younger consumers.

It’s within that younger group where the high degree of “churn” appears to offer the biggest opportunities – as well as risks – for wearable device purveyors.

What about your own personal experiences with wearables? Have you found yourself using wearable devices less today than a year ago?  And if so, why?

Quick-change artistry: Masculinity goes from “alpha-male” to “alta-male” inside of a generation.

Phillip Nones Demographics, Marketing, Marketing Communications, Marketing Research, Social Commentary , , , , , , , , ,
Alpha-male: Venezuelan actor Alejandro Nones
Alpha-male: Venezuelan/Mexican actor Alejandro Nones

Many people contend that changes in society are driven by many influences – not least movies and music. Certainly, the popular arts reflect the current culture, but they also drive its evolution.

This view was underscored recently in the results of field research conducted by a British- and Singapore-based survey firm Join the Dots for Dennis Publishing, which has just launched Coach, a magazine in the U.K.

The magazine’s audience consists of men who are committed to lifestyles that make themselves “healthier, fitter and happier.”

The research aimed to figure out what are today’s characteristics of being “male.” An in-depth qualitative focus group session with men aged 22 to 60 helped establish the set of questions that was then administered in a quantitative survey of ~1,000 respondents (including women as well as men) between the ages of 25 and 54 years old.  The survey sample represented a diverse mix of family status, sexual preferences, incomes, professions and interests.

The survey questions focused on the habits and aspirations of men … and the results showed how far we’ve come from the heydays of the “alpha-male” barely 25 years ago.

The researchers contrasted good and not-go-good alpha-male stereotypes (self-absorbed … unwilling or unable to talk about insecurities or vulnerabilities) with a new persona they dubbed the “alta-male.”

The alta-male is a man who values work/life balance and finds personal fulfillment as much in self-improvement as in material wealth.

Additionally, the alta-male tends to reject male role models from earlier generations, instead opting to establish their own identity based on a myriad of diverse influences.

Of course, it’s one thing to aspire to these goals and quite another to actually attain them. The study found that two-thirds of the respondents are finding it difficult to achieve the satisfactory work/life balance they desire.

On the other hand, alta-males tend to be more adaptable, and they’re willing to embrace uncertainty more than the alpha-males of yore.

Even more strongly, alta-males are seekers of experiences, which they value over “mere money” – despite recognizing that it takes money to partake in many such life experiences.

Perhaps most surprising, the study found little difference in perspectives between older and younger male respondents.

It turns out that older men are just as likely to have an “alta-male” attitude towards life.  So clearly, the culture has been rubbing off on them, too.

From my own personal standpoint (as someone whose been around the track quite a few times over the decades), I sense a similar shift in my own personal perspectives as well.

What about the rest of you?

Condé Nast Traveler and its readers weigh in on America’s friendliest and unfriendliest cities.

Phillip Nones Marketing Research, Social Commentary , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The usual suspects … and a few surprises as well?

cntPeople say there’s wisdom in crowds.

If that’s the case, then the ~128,000 people who participated in the Condé Nast Traveler Readers’ Choice Awards survey in 2015 must count for something when it comes to which cities are America’s friendliest.

… And the survey results show that if you want to find America’s friendliest folks, head south and west.

That is correct: Of the ten cities rated the most friendly, just one is located in the Northeast … and absolutely none are in the Midwest.

For the record, here are the ten friendliest American cities based on the Condé Nast survey:C

  • #1 Charleston, SC — America’s friendliest city
  • #2 Park City, UT
  • #3 Savannah, GA
  • #4 Nashville, TN
  • #5 Austin, TX
  • #6 Santa Fe, NM
  • #7 Asheville, NC
  • #8 Jackson (Jackson Hole), WY
  • #9 New Orleans, LA
  • #10 Burlington, VT

Of course, there are also the ten unfriendliest cities as determined from the same survey — no doubt the subject of just as much curiosity.

Those seem to be just as clustered — but elsewhere — primarily in the Northeast, but also a few in California.  And Detroit, too:n

  • #1 Newark, NJ — America’s unfriendliest city
  • #2 Oakland, CA
  • #3 Atlantic City, NJ
  • #4 Detroit, MI
  • #5 Hartford, CT
  • #6 New Haven, CT
  • #7 Dover, DE
  • #8 Wilmington, DE
  • #9 Los Angeles, CA
  • #10 Baltimore, MD

I have no earthly idea if these rankings are accurate or not; it’s actually well-nigh impossible to have a definitive listing based on a ranking criterion that’s so subjective.

But having lived in both Nashville and Baltimore — and having visited 13 of the other 18 cities — I do get a sense of where the Condé Nast survey respondents are coming from.

How about you? Do you think that any of these cities are unfairly ranked?  And what other cities do you think should have made it on either list?  Like New York City or Philadelphia, for instance?

Incidentally, the 2016 Readers’ Choice Survey results are currently being tabulated and are due to be published in October.  It will be interesting to see if there are any big changes in the listings …

E-Mail Marketing: On the Subject of Subject Lines …

Phillip Nones Advertising, Business, Content Creation and Content Management, Creative and Production, Direct Marketing, Marketing, Marketing Communications, Marketing Research, Sales , , , , ,

emWith groaning inboxes, is it any wonder why so many e-mail messages get ignored by their recipients?

Indeed, with it costing so little to send an e-mail – especially when compared to the “bad old days” of postal mail – it’s too irresistible for marketers and others to deploy hundreds or thousands of e-mail missives at a pop, even if the resulting engagement levels are so paltry.

And therein lies the problem: The “value” of such e-mails diminish to the point where recipients have a very good idea of their (lack of) worthiness without needing to open them.

In such an environment, what’s the the likelihood of something important inadvertently slipping through the cracks? Not so great.  And so users go on their merry way, hitting the delete key with abandon.

Faced with these realities, anything senders can do to improve the odds of their e-mails being opened is worth considering.

As it turns out, some of those odds can be improved by focusing on the e-mail’s subject line.

We know this from research conducted recently by e-mail platform provider Yesware. As reported this week in Fast Company, Yesware’s data scientists took a look at ~115 million e-mails of all kinds, gathered over the course of a 12-month period, to see how open rate dynamics might be affected positively or negatively by differences in the subject line.

ywThe Yesware analysis was carried by analyzing most- and least-used words and formats to determine which ones appeared to be more effective at “juicing” open rates.

As the benchmark, the overall e-mail open rate observed across all 115 million e-mails was 51.9% and the overall reply rate was about 29.8%. But underneath those averages are some differences that can be useful for marketers as they consider how to construct different subject lines for better impact and recipient engagement.

The findings from Yesware’s subject line analysis point to several practices that should be avoided:

Subject line personalization actually works against e-mail engagement.

It may seem counterintuitive, but adding personalization to an e-mail subject turns out to suppress the open rate from 51.9% to 48.1% — and the reply rate goes down even more dramatically from 29.8% to 21.2%.

Yesware surmises that this seemingly clever but now overused technique bears telltale signs of a sales solicitation. No one likes to be fooled for long … and every time one of these “personalized” missives hits the inbox, the recipient likely recalls the very first time he or she expected to open a personal e-mail based on such a subject line – only to be duped.

“First time, shame on you; second time, shame on me.”

Turning your subject line into a question … is a questionable practice.

Using a question mark in a subject line may seem like a good way to add extra curiosity or interest to an e-mail, but it turns out to be a significant turnoff for many recipients. In fact, Yesware found that when a question mark is used in the subject line, the open rate drops a full 10 percentage points (from 51.9% to 41.6%) – and the reply rate also craters (dropping to 18.4%).

It may be that turning a subject line into a question has the effect of reducing the power of the message. Yesware data engineer Anna Holschuh notes that posing a question is “asking a lot of an already-busy, stressed-out professional.  You’re asking them to do work without providing value up front.”

On the other hand, two subject line practices have been shown to improve e-mail open rates – at least to a degree:

Include numbers in the subject line.

Subject lines that contain “hard” numbers appear to improve the e-mail open rate slightly. Yesware found that open rates in such cases were 53.2% compared to 51.9% and the reply rate improved as well (to 32%).  Using precise numbers – the more specific the better – can add an extra measure of credibility to the e-mail, which is a plus in today’s data-rich environment.

Use title case rather than sentence case.

Similarly, Yesware has found that the “authority” conveyed by using title case (initial caps on the key words) in e-mail subject lines helps them perform better than when using the more informal sentence case structure.

The difference? Open rates that have title case subject lines came in at 54.3%, whereas when using sentence case in the subject line resulted in open rates at just 47.6%.

Similarly, reply rates were 32.3% for e-mails with subject lines using title case compared to 25.7% for e-mails where the subject line was sentence case — an even more substantial difference.

Generally speaking, e-mail marketing succeeds or fails at the margins, which is why it’s so important to “calibrate” things like subject lines for maximum advantage. The Yesware analysis demonstrates how those tweaks can add up to measurable performance improvements.

Online shopping insights: Why is the in-store pick-up option so popular?

Phillip Nones Advertising, Business, Marketing, Marketing Communications, Marketing Research , , , , , , , , ,

With online shopping so popular these days, why are consumers electing to pick up the merchandise they’ve ordered at the store?

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While it isn’t a pervasive practice, a study published recently by consumer analytics firm Connexity/Bizrate Insights finds that more than 30% of online shoppers have used in-store pick-up at least once during the past 12 months.

Even more surprising, perhaps, is that ~13% of respondents reported that they had considered abandoning a purchase because in-store pick-up wasn’t offered as an option.

As it turns out, people choose the in-store pick-up option for four major reasons:

  • To avoid paying shipping charges: ~55% cited
  • For the convenience: ~43%
  • Need to receive the order quickly: ~36%
  • Shopping online to ensure the item is available: ~29%

At first blush, I wouldn’t think that “convenience” means having to drive to a store versus having the product delivered right to the house. But perhaps “convenience” in this sense is related to product availability – avoiding a fruitless trip to the store only to find out after-the-fact that the desired product isn’t in stock.

But the other reasons cited make good sense, too. Everyone understands the desire to save money – if not on the product itself, then by avoiding shipping charges.  And if a quick drive to the store gets you the items compared to waiting a few days for the shipment to arrive, that’s understandable as well.

The Connexity findings underscore how important it is for retailers to align their e-commerce setups to allow for in-store pick-up – especially if the economics don’t allow them to offer a free shipping option. There’s simply too much competition from online-only retailers to afford losing sale to them based on any of the four factors listed above.

Tech meets traditional: Digital marketing drives more phone calls by far.

Phillip Nones Advertising, Business, Direct Marketing, Marketing, Marketing Communications, Marketing Research, Media, Media Consumption , , , , ,

CCIn a classic case of marrying tech with traditional marketing, digital channels are driving more calls to businesses than ever before.

What’s more, digital channels are now responsible for nine out of ten phone calls made to companies as a result of promotional efforts using the ten most popular marketing channels.

These findings come from the 2016 Call Intelligence Index published by Invoca, a phone call tracking and analytics firm that evaluates phone call activity across 40 industry segments.

Invoca’s 2016 evaluation covers more than 58 million phone calls generated from ten marketing channels — six of them digital and four of them “traditional offline” channels.

According to Invoca’s analysis, the biggest single source of phone queries is mobile search — representing nearly half of all phone call volume. But the next five channels that follow in line are all digital as well, as can be seen in this list:

  • INMobile search: Drives 48% of phone calls to businesses from marketing channels
  • Desktop search: 17%
  • Desktop display advertising: 11%
  • Content / review websites: 9%
  • Mobile display advertising: 3%
  • E-mail marketing: 3%
  • Total digital channels: 91%

 

  • Radio advertising: 3%
  • TV advertising/infomercials: 2%
  • Newspaper advertising: 2%
  • Directory advertising: 2%
  • Total non-digital channels: 9%

Comparing the 2016 results against a similar analysis conducted by Invoca in 2014, digital marketing channels have continued to rise in prominence — from representing 84% of the total phone call activity to 91% today.

The Invoca research also finds that phone calls are supplementing digital interactions, which is the result of consumers shifting between various different digital channels as they go about their research — often employing several different ones during the same mission task.

One of the biggest jumps in digital channel usage is in the automotive segment, where it’s clear that a big shift is underway from offline to digital channels — particularly mobile. The automotive industry experienced nearly a 120% increase in digital sources driving phone calls in the current Invoca research compared to the previous one.

So there’s no question that digital now “rules” when it comes to marketing channels. But far from causing the demise of a traditional channel like a phone call — as some people predicted not so long ago — digital channels have simply changed where the consumer might be just prior to heading for the (smart)phone.

Is an online survey always the “slam-dunk” methodology for field research projects?

Phillip Nones Business, Marketing Research , , , , , ,

srIt’s been quite a long time since I’ve received an invitation to participate in a telephone research survey. And postal mail surveys?  I haven’t been asked to participate in one of those in eons.

It isn’t hard to understand why. Online surveys have become the “default” option for quantitative research.  Not only has digital shaped the way people interact, communicate and shop, online research has plenty of advantages over the more traditional survey methods.  It’s cheaper … it’s faster … it can be quite engaging … and it’s in line with modern behavior.

But being involved in market research in my business, I’m also finding that online surveys have their drawbacks — and it’s becoming more evident with each passing year.

The biggest problem? We’ve seen online survey participation rates crater in recent years as more “stuff” crams people’s inboxes.

When you’re forced to deploy survey invitations to thousands of e-contacts in order to obtain a few hundred usable responses, that’s a symptom of a pretty big problem.

And it leads to another potential concern: Will the respondent pool be representative of the required population?

We’ve known for a long time that certain groups tend to be underrepresented in terms of Internet or digital engagement. And now … to that we can add those people who suffer from “inbox overload.”

In the B-to-B world especially, it isn’t uncommon for a manager to receive 150+ e-mails in a single business day.  Not surprisingly, the great majority of them are trashed without any sort of recipient engagement whatsoever.

… And there goes your research invitation and online survey link.

Online spamming is also contributing to lower online survey participation rates as more people become concerned about the potential dangers of spam mail, thus hesitating to engage with unsolicited e-mails.

On the other side of the coin are the people who have become “professional respondents.” As the financial incentives to participate in surveys have become more lucrative, some people are in the business of survey-taking as revenue-generating proposition.

One wonders how “engaged” these people really are as survey takers — or if they care at all about the topics being studied.  “A mile wide and an inch deep” is more their style.

pst

Ironically, the sum total of these concerns seems to be making phone surveys (the CATI kind — computer-assisted telephone interviewing) the “new-old” alternative to online surveys.

CATI surveys are more expensive and more time-consuming. But in some cases, they may represent the difference between the success or failure of a research endeavor.

What’s more, employing a phone methodology can provide better control over the survey process, along with greater depth and “nuances” regarding the insights gleaned.

Am I going to be recommending CATI telephone survey methodologies to our clients going forward? In most cases, the overall economics — the price-to-value equation — still heavily favors online survey methodologies.

But the gap between them is narrowing … and I can easily envision at least some instances where a return to the classic methodologies of the past may be just what’s needed in the present.

Online ad blocking grows ever-more popular.

Phillip Nones Advertising, Business, Marketing, Marketing Communications, Marketing Research, Media, Media Consumption, Publishing , , , ,

abThe ad blocking phenomenon on the Internet shows no signs of abating.

Underscoring this, marketing research and forecasting firm eMarketer has just published its most recent ad blocking stats and forecasts for the United States. It projects that ad blocking adoption will continue to rise by a double digit rate in 2016 to reach nearly 70 million users.

If those projections turn out to be accurate, it will mean that ad blocking will now be used by more than 26% of all Internet users in the United States, up from ~20% just a year earlier.

And for 2017? Those forecasts are looking a whole lot like this year, too; eMarketer forecasts that ad blocker adoption will grow to more than 86 million users by the end of 2017.

[For the record, eMarketer defines a user as an Internet user of any age who accesses the ‘net at least once per month via a desktop or laptop computer, tablet, smartphone or other mobile device that has an ad blocker enabled.]

eab

According to the eMarketer analysis, the incidence of ad blocking is substantially more common on desktops and laptops; ~63 million people will use an ad blocker on these types of devices this year compared to ~21 million who will do so on a smartphone.

One reason for this is that ad blockers typically don’t work on apps, which is where mobile users spend much of their time. Moreover, some of the most irritating aspects of desktop/laptops advertising, such as ads with video and sound, are the kinds of advertising less likely to be served on mobile devices.

eMarketer expects many more people to begin installing ad blockers on their smartphones, however — to the tune of an increase of over 60% this year.

These projections must be alarming to publishers and advertisers. Paul Verna, a senior analyst at eMarketer, notes this:

“They’re seeing immediate revenue losses and [they] would be remiss to downplay what amounts to a large-scale rejection of their main monetization model.”

Separately, an analysis by Juniper Research sees more than $27 billion in advertising revenues lost over the next five years as a result of ad blockers.

Of course, that’s a far cry from the estimated ~$160 billion that digital advertising represents today.  But significant nonetheless.

As if on cue, The New York Times has just announced that it will introduce an ad-free subscription option. Reportedly, the publication will begin to offer subscriptions that cost more than a regular digital subscription, along with giving subscribers the option of opting out of seeing advertising if they wish to do so.

At present, NYT subscribers who use ad blockers are technically violating the publisher’s Terms of Use agreement — although I seriously doubt many people have had their knuckles rapped for doing so.

For now, all the Times does is kindly request that users “white-list” the NYT site so that the ads will appear even though an ad blocker has been installed.  According to news reports, about 40% of the people notified have actually done so.

Presumably, the new subscription option is targeted at people who really do wish to avoid seeing online advertising — and are willing to pay a premium for the benefit.

One wonders how much of a dollar premium subscribers will be asked to shell out for the privilege of keeping their screens from being inundated with advertising. (At present, annual NYT digital subscriptions range from ~$140 to ~$200.)  Will users balk at the higher rates?

Clearly, we’re in the middle of this movie … and it’ll be some time before we see how things shake out in the online media advertising game.  What are your thoughts about spending more for an ad-free subscription … and do you even have any online pay subscriptions at all?  (Many of my friends and business colleagues don’t.)

What’s behind Microsoft’s $26 billion purchase of LinkedIn?

Phillip Nones Business, Economics, Employment, Human Resources, Marketing, Marketing Communications, Marketing Research, Media Consumption, Publishing , , , , , , , , , , ,

LI MCAt first blush, it appears almost ludicrous that Microsoft Corporation is offering an eye-popping $26 billion+ to acquire LinkedIn Corporation.

The dollar figure far eclipses any previous Microsoft acquisition — including the $9 billion+ it paid for Nokia Corporation in 2014, not to mention what the company paid for Yammer and Skype.

What’s also acknowledged is that none of those earlier acquisitions did all that much to further Microsoft’s digital and social credentials — and in the case of Nokia, the financial write-downs Microsoft has recorded have actually exceeded Nokia’s purchase price.

So what’s different about LinkedIn — and why does Microsoft feel that the synergies will work to its advantage better this time?

In a recent Wall Street Journal column, technology journalist Christopher Mims noted that such synergies do exist — and in a much bigger way.

That includes Microsoft Office, the productivity suite that’s now delivered almost exclusively online. And then there’s LinkedIn’s database of over 400 million subscriber professionals.

Put those two elements together with a strong strategic vision, and you have the potential for some pretty amazing synergies.

When you think about it, LinkedIn’s users are essentially Microsoft’s core demographic. And it isn’t something that’s replicated anywhere else in Cyberspace.  Here’s Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella talking:  “It’s really the coming together of the professional cloud and the professional network.”

Acting on its own, LinkedIn hasn’t been all that successful in leveraging what is arguably the most comprehensive and powerful database of business professionals ever compiled in the history of mankind.

While it consists of self-contributed information that hasn’t been “vetted” by outside parties, it’s still the single most comprehensive and valuable repository of information about business professionals — anywhere in the world.

I view the dynamics of LinkedIn as something like the Wikipedia. Wikipedia has become so pervasive, it has driven traditional encyclopedias from the scene.  And while we all know that there can be misstatements of fact — or omissions of facts — from Wikipedia entries, it’s also become the quickest and easiest place to go for information that’s “accurate enough and complete enough” for most any type of informational query.

In similar fashion, LinkedIn is making personnel databases like Dun & Bradstreet that are less robust and accessible only by subscription increasingly obsolete.

And yet … with all of this powerful data at its fingertips, up to now LinkedIn hasn’t been all that effective in leveraging its vast trove of data in way that goes much beyond using it as a personnel recruitment tool.

Try as LinkedIn might to create “stickiness” by offering communities of users based on job function, shared industry involvement and the like, to this day only about one-fourth of LinkedIn’s ~400 million users come to the site on a monthly basis.

The reality is that the vast majority of people continue to access LinkedIn only when they’re in the job market — either as a seeker of talent or seeking a new position for themselves.

In the wake of the pending Microsoft acquisition, those dynamics could change quickly — and in a big way.

One way is in how LinkedIn could begin to provide a big boost to Microsoft’s CRM services. Many companies use such products to identify and track sales leads; in fact, having such a tool is almost a prerequisite for any successful business of any size at all.

As of today, Microsoft languishes behind three other CRM software providers (Salesforce.com, SAP and Oracle). LinkedIn’s own product (LinkedIn Sales Navigator) is essentially an also-ran in the category.

But bringing together LinkedIn’s extensive personnel database with Microsoft’s CRM capabilities looks to deliver data and reach that would be the envy of anyone in the market.

So … it is certainly possible to understand why Microsoft might see LinkedIn as its strategic “ticket to ride” in the coming decades. But two questions remain:

  • Does the acquisition business potential match with the $26 billion+ Microsoft is paying for the buying LinkedIn?
  •  Will Microsoft do a better job of integrating LinkedIn with its other products and services when compared to the disappointing results resulting from its other acquisitions?

We’ll need to check back over the coming months to see how things are come together.