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Digital Marketing Consultant, Trainer, Author and Speaker at SmartInsights.com
06 March 2006 09:32am
My main article this month is about online customer experience management - a concept I predict we will hear a lot more of this year as the focus of e-businesses turns more from customer acquisition to retention and growth.
Two of my articles for this month, were also featured in depth on this Forum and in the mainstream media. If you missed them, or want to look at the examples, see articles 3 and 4.
E-marketing Essentials are 5 'must read' articles from the previous month for digital marketers from the hundreds I scan.
They are sent to delegates to Dave Chaffey's E-marketing workshops who have opted-in to receive them. I have agreed with Ashley Friedlein of E-consultancy that I will post them here also in the hope that they may be useful for forum members who haven't seen these articles or news items.
1. Do you need an OCXO?
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We are starting to see more large brands creating a Chief Experience Officer (CXO) position. For companies with a large E-commerce team it makes sense to have one person with that role who controls the customer experience to achieve a consistent quality of experience across customer acquisition, conversion, retention and growth. Even for smaller organisations it is important that someone owns the understanding of customer satisfaction and loyalty drivers and resolution of problems with the customer experience.
Read 'Measuring and Managing the Online Customer Experience'
2. Are you ready for BigDaddy?
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Google is currently trialling and rolling out a major update to the scale
of its index. This will likely effect your position in Google's natural or
organic listings. This post references some of the implications.
Read 'Beware Google BigDaddy'
3. Charging for e-mail broadcast on horizon?
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Yahoo! has followed AOL in announcing that it will start trialling the
GoodMail system which involves a payment by the broadcaster of c2-3 cents /
1000 e-mails from the e-mailer to the web-mail service or ISP receiving
e-mails. In return, delivery to the inbox will be 'guaranteed'. This post
looks at the background of what is happening in the US and speculates on
when the changes may affect the UK.
Read 'Charging for E-mail'
4. Big-brands go missing on Google
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In February, BMW and Bigmouthmedia disappeared from the Google natural
listings - or did they? You probably read about the BMW Germany case in the
papers or saw it on the TV news. This post links to an example explaining
why BMW was barred by Matt Cutts of Google. At the end of the month there
was also discussion of whether one of the leading UK-based Search agencies
- Bigmouthmedia had also been barred, but it looks as if this wasn't the
case.
Read 'Google Bars BMW article'
5. WNIM - The Perfect Landing Page
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In my forthcoming What's New in Marketing article for the Chartered
Institute of Marketing, I have updated my article on landing pages which I
featured in this e-newsletter last month.
Read 'WNIM Article - the perfect landing page'
6. All articles
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Other postings from Feb.
Read all E-marketing postings
HTH Dave Chaffey
Managing Consultant at Layton Coombe Management Limited
09 March 2006 10:53am
Dave, I think that you have highlighted an important change in e.commerce, the move from Marketing led "Look and Feel" to Business led "Consumer Experience".
I think that it is even more important than you state; consumer experience is not just about retention, its also about sales.
In the insurance world that I know well probably 75% of the buying decision is made on the price, but whether the consumer will accept that price is largely dependent upon the experience that that person has had from lead acquisition marketing through the home page and the Quote & Buy process through to the moment of sale.
Get it right and consumers will pay what you ask; upset them in some way, even subliminally, and they won't buy however cheap you are. As this consumer experience extends to every aspect of a transactional site - often across many closely protected business fiefdoms - a person with overall responsibility makes a lot of sense.
Richard Coombe