Jasper Bell

Now is the time to embrace showrooming

A new TNS study across 43 countries suggests that 21% of shoppers use smartphones in store to 'showroom', 43% read reviews, 31% compare prices and 25% seek advice before they buy from friends and family.

This phenomenon has put the fear of God into many within the retail industry, woken businesses up to the link between the high street and internet and made retailers aware that they are not ready to service this reality.

We’ve seen Jessops and HMV go into administration in recent months and Best Buy shrink. The culprit? Supposedly showrooming.

by Jasper Bell 13 May 2013 10:09am 3 comments

The opportunities and challenges of international customer engagement

European ecommerce is thriving as infrastructure, laws, and consumer preferences evolve, while the advent of the multichannel consumer and rise of the smartphone are all contributing factors.

In short: buying online has become quicker, easier and more social.

This trend is driven by two fundamental changes, the increased access today’s consumer has to digital retail experiences and offers and in turn the heightened access retailers and brands now enjoy to their audiences.

Let’s explore these two changes in turn.

by Jasper Bell 20 February 2013 10:38am 0 comments

Using social media to widen your sphere of influence in B2B

Thought social media was the reserve of consumer marketing? Think again.

B2B marketers looking to build relationships with buyers are rapidly wising up to the possibilities of social media and the need for a tightly managed, segmented social ecosystem.

The traditional B2B buying cycle is changing beyond recognition. More people, more job functions and more territories now need to be influenced over a over a longer time period and these varying personas have different needs, expectations and triggers.

by Jasper Bell 17 January 2013 14:03pm 0 comments

B2B insights: striking a balance in the age of big data

The greatest challenge for business brands seeking to drive customer value in today’s multichannel world is understanding.

Whilst consumer brands have historically taken a more forensic approach to mapping customer touch points, analysing behaviour and building personas in order to understand how, when and where people are engaging with them and where the opportunities lie, many of today’s business brands fail to explore customer needs closely enough.

The paradox? Data remains both one of the biggest opportunities and biggest headaches facing B2B marketers today. The sheer volume of data businesses have access to is seen by many as an obstacle.

How will we capture it? How will we measure it? What are the legalities? We can’t afford a failed organisation CRM effort!

by Jasper Bell 16 November 2012 09:21am 1 comment

E-commerce is dead, long live distributed commerce

In July 1995, Jeff Bezos boxed up the first book ever sold on Amazon.com from his Seattle garage. Amazon.com set the standard for e-commerce; people searched, bought and received, and told others about the experience they’d had.

Then eBay arrived, offering goods direct from both retailers and consumers through one central platform.

The rest, as they say, is history.

by Jasper Bell 31 July 2012 12:29pm 4 comments

From user coercion to customer immersion

Selling has become tougher. Consumers are more sophisticated and competition more aggressive. We now use multiple touch points and we’ve become immune to age-old models of closing.  

In this new age of cynicism, how can marketers cut through and deliver more valuable, immersive experiences and what research techniques should underpin these?

Consider this, just 5% of the brain represents what we consciously process and traditional market research can access. What we subconsciously process accounts for the remaining 95%.

So, if our subconscious is smarter and faster than our conscious mind, why doesn’t more of today’s user experience and communications planning seek to tap into subconscious emotions?

by Jasper Bell 04 July 2012 09:23am 3 comments