Fun, interesting and informative – I promise!
Hello everyone!
Great news, I’m doing a webinar next week – and it’s going to be a blast!
February 4th 10:00 AM PST
PowerReviews has been working with Lauren Freedman, president of the much acclaimed e-Tailing Group, in a fully comprehensive study of the interest in and use of customer reviews in the shopping process from both the customer and merchant perspectives! Imagine, Lauren and I talking excitedly about the same thing – now that is a combination you don’t want to miss. Told you this was going interesting.
We have been working on this project for months now with the first half of our efforts having already been “released” a few months back regarding the discover of the Social Researcher – shoppers who have fully adopted and integrated the use of customer reviews in their buying decision process.
Adding to this first phase of research will be what we learned from speaking with 19 merchants that offer reviews on their websites. And those that know me know how I feel about all the biased data points flying around these days so rest assured that these merchants are not all PowerReviews‘ clients. In fact, we went to great lengths to include merchants that have developed their own in-house systems as well as those that use other 3rd party solutions.
I would be doing my job if I did not at least have a little teaser here, so here you go:
One of the merchants in our study has determined that customers that write reviews have a significantly higher repeat purchase rate. Any idea what that rate is?
10%
15%
20%
30%
Well, sign up, tune in and find out!
I’m kind of a big deal
I don’t know how to put this, but….
I’ve been going to Shop.org for what seems like and e-commerce lifetime, since my early days at Wine.com. And whether here or at e-Tail or any major conference for that matter, I have always been a little put-off by what I call the practice of “Badge Graffiti” by Bazaarvoice – the adding of funny often silly strips to the bottom of the conference badge. For the record, I have felt this ways for years –not just since I joined PowerReviews, so please hear me out before you just chalk this up to sheer competitive jealousy. And I promise, there is a surprise ending to this story.
A conference badge does more than just provide entrance into conference halls and sessions, they serve as a communication tool, too. Over the years, my badges have been additionally decorated with strips that read SPEAKER or CHAIRMAN along with others among the crown with additional strips that can read BOARD MEMBER or even PRESS. These additional strips serve, of course, an additional function – there are indicators. They are proudly worn be those among of who have made additional commitments to the event often working days on their presentations or perhaps volunteering hours each month as volunteer Board Members for the good of the group. In addition, these strips help point out to the masses people who are available to them as resources or conduits for funneling feedback into the event organizers. I guess what I am trying to say here is that I have always thought the use of additional strips on badges should be respected and not defaced.
But this time, when I saw the first sign of “badge graffiti” I decided not to give in to my usual immediate gut reaction. In fact, I decided to investigate this issue first-hand, up close and personal and determine if maybe, just maybe, I was reacting a bit too sternly here. So that very first day of the show, I strutted on over to the Bazaarvoice booth and asked if I, too, could have a cool strip to add to my badge (especially since at this show I had no additional strip of my own, a “nobody” this time out! Smile.)
Come to fine out, their selection of funny strips was unexpectedly large as I never really paid attention over the years to all the different ones. So following my best instincts and straying true to my open-minded approach to this investigation, I asked if they would pick just the right strip for me. And so they did – and I feel so much better now.
I must confess, I have been wrong, wrong, wrong all these years, these strip can be fun, witty, inspirational, and perhaps even Freudian because according to my distinguished colleagues in the customer reviews space…..
I’m kind of a big deal.
Greetings from Orlando!
Yesterday’s Marketing Summit by Channel Intelligence (CI) “unofficial” launched the start of the 2008 event conference season for both retailers and vendors alike. And what a kick-off it was.
The morning sessions were filled with fantastic insights from CI including some predictions for 2008 – I’ll let you contact them directly for those stats! What I found, though, of particular interest were two topics that I want to quickly pay homage to here.
First, there was Joe Dew’s talk about “Adding CPA to Your Comparison Shopping Campaigns.” Since Joe works for Shopping.com, a player in our Shopping Portal Space, I was keenly interested in this session. Joe was informative, concise and his push for adopting more of a CPA approach towards comparison shopping portals really caught my eye – because that has been our approach on our Buzzillions site since the very beginning! Glad to see that our approach to providing the best source of relevant traffic to our clients at NO RISK and only pay for real performance is having an immediate and positive impact!
And, of course, I must make specific mention about yet another outstanding industry panel led by one of our closest and dearest friends, Lauren Freedman, President, the <a hef=”http://www.e-tailing.com/”>e-tailing group</a>. In this latest effort of hers, Lauren addressed Product Content and What Drives the Consumer to Purchase based on the fantastic insights derived from her recent research effort with ARS e-commerce and the resulting published white paper. I am going to let you pour through this enlightening and “must read” paper yourselves and not give away all the details here. Download your own copy today at: <a href=”http://www.arsecommerce.com/ecommerce/”> http://www.arsecommerce.com/ecommerce/</a>
In closing, just wanted to say “hats off” to our friends at Channel Intelligence for this real “show starter” of an event!
Okay folks, I got to go, the Shop.org show is about to begin!
PS. Stay tuned for your invite to our February 4th webinar where Lauren will be sharing with all of you the insights she gained from our sponsored research efforts about the Hidden Truths: Customer and Merchants perspective about customer reviews today! And, yes, there is resulting white paper on this effort, too!
Imitation is the best form of flattery
If you haven’t yet seen it as is just launched, make sure to check the new Bazaarvoice website with their adoption of our terminology as well as our product design.
I am glad to see that they now seem to finally understand the real power of our review solution, structured around Pros and Cons and Best Uses to best capture the voice of “people like me.”
This new website with its “tip-of-the-hat” to the way we do business might explain why we have heard from two prospects this week that Bazaarvoice “offered them a couple of different pricing packages over the past weeks, with the final one being ‘whatever PowerReviews is offering.’”
Again, congratulations to Bazaarvoice for their beautiful, new and very informative website.
Kilroy Was Here!
I’m back from vacation just in time to celebrate the New Year stateside.
But before I let my memories of the beautiful Dominican Republic slip away, I want to share with you one more astounding technology moment which I encountered that surpassed even my earlier Facebook incident (please see my previous post).
There I was, hanging at the airport, ready to leave paradise after 6 glorious sun and fun filled days in Sousa when BAM! Kilroy was here – or at least his 2007 cousin.
Following that unseemly tradition that people have been doing for uncountable decades by writing on road signs, painting on rocks or engraving into picnic tables, there caved into one of the posts in this very remote little airport was the Y2K version of Kilroy Was Here: someone had inscribed their MySpace URL into the wooden pole. In fact, it was more than just one person, but dozens of people wanting desperately to brand this spot with their entire identity – their MySpace page.
I find the ramifications of this huge. Where one’s send of self has morphed beyond their given name to a solitary cyberspace page that encapsulates more than just that name, but an entire ever expanding and highly expressive identity.
Once I saw that I knew it was time for me to leave the island as I am sure that the island is not big enough for the three of us (Facebook, MySpace, Jay).
Wishing you and yours much happiness and success in the New Year! See you in 2008!
