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RE: Underlying web site usage growth has stalled?

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Subject:  RE: Underlying web site usage growth has stalled? Ashley Friedlein - Favourite
Author:   Ashley :   view profile | all posts by this author | add to favourites
Date:   13:46:45 9 September 2004
 
Yes / agree with all of above. What I find interesting is that when all of this shakes down, and all companies are online marketing savvy, and all customers are web savvy, your ability to attract customers, convert them, and keep them, will come back to the basics: your brand, the quality of your offering, the quality of your customer service etc.

There are already signs of this realisation e.g.:

- Affiliate Marketing. Affiliates get paid a commission on sales that occur on the merchants' sites to whom they refer traffic. So, of course, they send their traffic where they know (and they do know very precisely) conversions will occur. Once all of these merchants have sorted out their usability, optimised their purchase processes, improved their product information and so on (i.e. web site best practice), who then will the affliates send their traffic to? The ones that convert best. But which will convert best if all those sites are fully optimised already? The sites with the best brands, the best products / services, the best customer service...

- Price / shopping comparison and PPC. If as a merchant you don't want to pay top dollar for your search clicks (because it has become unprofitable, say) or you don't want to compete on price solely to list top of price comparison engines, then how do you still attract clicks / users when your offering isn't listed / ranked top? Because those users recognise your brand, the quality of your products / services, the excellence of your customer service...

- Organic Search. How can you improve your organic / natural search rankings? Having good content (that's being indexed) and credible people linking to you is a very good start. But why would they want to link to you? Because of your brand, the quality of your offering, the quality of your customer service...? Just maybe.

- Your valuable customers will find you online anyway. I had a very interesting conversation recently with an e-commerce manager at one the UK's leading (multi-channel) retailers. She’s looking for anything that shows that online marketing is actually worth doing. Current evidence they have is revealing that their customers would have bought from them anyhow and she is struggling to prove that it is effective in order to secure budgets for coming years. So if you're an established, multi-channel business with a decent brand perhaps you shouldn't be worrying so much about online marketing per se (assuming you have the basics sorted) but really focus on your brand, the quality of your offering, the quality of your customer service...


All pretty obvious stuff I guess, but perhaps it means that in a few years we'll see a strong return of the mass market TV advertising campaign coupled with major CRM projects - both areas that currently seem under threat from the measurable-accountable-flexible-fast-efficient world of e-commerce and online marketing?

Ashley
 
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  • Underlying web site usage growth has stalled?, Ashley , 7 Sep 14:22
    My understanding is that internet usage at work in the UK is on the up, broadband pentration is quite dramatically on the up (4 out of 10 internet users according to NOP), the inte ...
    • re: Underlying web site usage growth has stalled?, Alex Chudnovsky, 8 Sep 10:50
      Usage and penetration will raise as soon as people start streaming video and music on demand, start using email and instant messaging on the go using 3G phones. It might not rea ...
    • Underlying web site usage growth has stalled?, Colin Cooper, 9 Sep 10:12
      Does it matter if traffic is up or down? Provocative perhaps but where is the value in traffic for traffic’s sake? There are several good reasons why traffic being down can be ...
      • RE: Underlying web site usage growth has stalled?, Ashley , 9 Sep 11:00
        Hi Colin Yes, you are right that ultimately it is absolute values (sales values, number of registrations, uplift in brand metrics etc.) that are most important. Conversion rates ...
        • RE: Underlying web site usage growth has stalled?, Colin Cooper, 9 Sep 12:07
          Hi Ashley, It has been said that managing your boss is as important as managing the people who report to you! Communicating your objectives is an important part of this to get t ...
          • RE: Underlying web site usage growth has stalled?, Ashley , 9 Sep 13:46
            Yes / agree with all of above. What I find interesting is that when all of this shakes down, and all companies are online marketing savvy, and all customers are web savvy, your abi ...
          • RE: Underlying web site usage growth has stalled?, Alex Chudnovsky, 9 Sep 15:02
            >Maybe Google’s shares aren’t overpriced! At 140 P/E not overpriced? Maybe if you compare that to Yahoo or similar companies, but certainly not to companies that produce "real" ...
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