Easy Payments, the Latest Customer Strategy for E-Commerce Operators

The concept of easy payment was examined in relation to ecommerce discussing how this impacts on customers as well as financial institutions and merchants (E- commerce operators). It was discovered that, despite the fact that easy payment strategy opens up vast  opportunities for both customers and operators (merchants) benefit them at both ends, certain issues as  regards the security and guarantee of transactions need to be looked into. The author conclude that it is vital  for financial institutions as well as operators to try to come up with measures to safeguard their interest in the  implementation of the easy payment system so as not to run into a loss.

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Sources: Rashad Yazdanifard ,  Igbanor Stephenie Esimhenor , Ajibola Olatunde Micheal and Arash pour
Seyedi

QR Codes Connect Art on the Wall With Music on Your iPhone

Portuguese artist Nuno Serrão wants to make art viewing more stimulating by incorporating music through an iPhone app and QR codes.

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Source:Mashable

Taco Bell, Dunkin' Donuts and more test Facebook loyalty scheme

A loyalty scheme run by start-up Plink will give Facebook Credits to consumers in return for purchases at Taco Bell, Dunkin’ Donuts and others.

This aims to take advantage of the boom in virtual currency, which is currently a $2.1bn industry.

After registering a credit card with Plink, users are rewarded with Facebook Credits each time they make a purchase in participating stores - Plink then takes a percentage of each sale.

Customers can use the virtual credits to buy additional content while playing games like FarmVille and The Sims

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Source: http://econsultancy.com

7 Ways to Bring Your Community into the Content Creation Process

Content is a critical interface between ourselves and our community. It helps us achieve organizational objectives, reinforce our brand, and communicate key messages.

We, as community managers and content marketers, are well-positioned to create relevant, useful, and interesting content that serves both our audience’s needs and our goals. We live and breathe those goals, and we know our brand identity almost as well as we know ourselves. 

But just because we can do it all on our own, does that mean we should? The truth is, our brand belongs to our community as much as it belongs to us, if not more so. That identity is not a decree that gets passed down; it is shared and, more to the point, it is co-created. While we shape and communicate it, they are out there living it

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Source: http://www.contentmarketinginstitute.com

Negative Word-of-Mouth by Dissatisfied Consumers: A Pilot Study

While  marketing  scholars  have  emphasized  the  importance of customer satisfaction, few  studies  have examined in detail consumers' responses to  dissatisfaction. This study examines correlates of  one  possible response-telling  others about the  dissatisfaction-and  identifies variables that distinguish  this response from others. Variables investigated  include the  nature of  the  dissatisfaction, perceptions of blame for the dissatisfaction,  and perceptions of  retailer responsiveness. Marketing management and consumer behavior research  implications are discussed


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Source: Marsha Richins

Online word of mouth and consumer purchase intentions

Read here everything you need to know about online word of mouth for consumer purchase

Source: Gerard Prendergast, David Ko and Siu Yin V. Yuen

Social media: The new hybrid element of the promotion mix

The emergence of Internet-based social media has made it possible for one person to communicate with hundreds or even thousands of other people about products and the companies that provide them. Thus, the impact of consumer-toconsumer communications has been greatly magnified in the marketplace. This article argues that social media is a hybrid element of the promotion mix because in a traditional sense it enables companies to talk to their customers, while in a nontraditional sense it enables customers to talk directly to one another. The content, timing, and frequency of the social media-based conversations occurring between
consumers are outside managers’ direct control. This stands in contrast to the traditional integrated marketing communications paradigm whereby a high degree of control is present. Therefore, managers must learn to shape consumer discussions in a manner that is consistent with the organization’s mission and performance goals. Methods by which this can be accomplished are delineated herein. They include providing consumers with networking platforms, and using blogs, social media tools, and promotional tools to engage customers.

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Source: W. Glynn Mangold,  David J. Faulds

The Effectiveness of Electronic Word-of-Mouth Communication: A Literature Analysis

Electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) communication has been one of the most exciting research areas of inquiry. There is an emerging attention on the effectiveness of eWOM communication. The scope of published studies on the impact of eWOM communication is rather broad and the studies appear relatively fragmented and inconclusive. In this study, we focused on the individual-level eWOM research. We conducted a systematic review of eWOM research and identified key factors that are specific to the context of eWOM communication. We believe that this  literature analysis not only provides us with an overview of the current status  of knowledge within the domain of eWOM communication, but also serves as a salient guideline for future research directions.


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Source Christy M.K. Cheung , Dimple R. Thadani

33% of Companies Have a Mobile Marketing Strategy New Data

Mobile marketing is becoming a hot topic in the marketing community. Today, KingFish media released new survey data about mobile marketing. The new report, Mobile Marketing: Plans, Trends and Measurability, includes many interesting insights from marketers. You can download the report for the full research, but for an overview of the findings, we have selected seven interesting data points to share in this post
.


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Source: Kipp Bodnar

Most Companies Have Social Media Strategies

Three-quarters of companies currently have a social media marketing strategy, according toa new study from King Fish Media, Hubspot and Junta 42.


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Exploring the Link Between Customer Care and Brand Reputation in the Age of Social Media

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Source: Nora Ganim Barnes

Crisis Communication and Social Media

The rapid evolution of new media often results in the practice of public relations getting ahead of research.  The practice of crisis communication is ahead of research in terms of social media.  If you look at training seminars and webinars for crisis communication, social media is emerging as a “hot” topic.  A basic definition of social media is the use of technology to facilitate interaction and the sharing of information.  There is a need to elaborate and build greater knowledge about crisis communications and new media with an emphasis on social media.  So this section was developed to begin compiling information on the topic.


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Source: W. Timothy Coombs

Why young consumers are not open to mobile marketing communication

This paper explores young people’s motivations for using mobile phones. Older adolescents’ everyday use of traditional and new forms of mediated communication were explored in the context of their everyday lives, with data generated from self-completion questionnaires, diaries and mini focus groups. The findings confirm the universal appeal of mobile phones to a youth audience. Social and entertainment-related motivations dominated, while information and commercially orientated contact were less appealing. While marketers are excited by the reach and possibilities for personalisation offered by mobile phones, young people associated commercial appropriation of this medium with irritation, intrusion and mistrust. In other words, while marketers celebrated mobile phones as a ‘brand in the hand’ of youth markets, young people themselves valued their mobiles as a ‘friend in the hand’. This suggests that the way forward for mobile marketing communications is not seeking or pretending to be young consumers’ friend, but rather offering content that helps them maintain or develop the personal friendships that matter to them.
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Source: Ian Grant, Stephanie O’Donohoe

What motivates consumers to review a product online? A study of the product-specific antecedents of online movie reviews

In recent years online product review forums have been exerting an increasingly powerful  influence on consumer choice. Not surprisingly, several firms are becoming interested in  leveraging this phenomenon, proactively trying to induce consumers to “spread the word”  about their products online (Godes et al. 2005). Interestingly, however, even after one  controls for the variance in sales volumes, there appears to be substantial variance in  consumers’ propensity to discuss different products online. A deeper understanding of the  forces that motivate consumers to write online reviews is, therefore, emerging as a  question of both theoretical and practical significance.


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Sources: Chrysanthos Dellarocas,  Ritu Narayan

Effects of Word-of-Mouth Versus Traditional Marketing: Findings from an Internet Social Networking Site

The authors study the effect of word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing on member growth at an Internet social networking site and compare it with traditional marketing vehicles. Because social network sites record the electronic invitations from existing members, outbound WOM can be precisely tracked. Along with traditional marketing, WOM can then be linked to the number of new members subsequently joining the site (sign-ups). Because of the endogeneity among WOM, new sign-ups, and traditional marketing activity, the authors employ a vector autoregressive (VAR) modeling approach. Estimates from the VAR model show that WOM referrals have substantially longer carryover effects than traditional marketing actions and produce substantially higher response elasticities. Based on revenue from advertising impressions served to a new member, the monetary value of a WOM referral can be calculated; this yields an upper-bound estimate for the financial incentives the firm might offer to stimulate WOM.

The full article

Source:  Michael Trusov, Randolph E. Bucklin, & Koen Pauwel

Generating positive word-of-mouth communication through customer-employee relationships

Word-of-mouth (WOM) communication, ``informal communications directed at other consumers about the ownership, usage, or characteristics of particular goods and services and/or their sellers’’ (Westbrook, 1987, p. 261), has recently received renewed attention in the marketing literature (Anderson, 1998; Gilly et al. 1998; Money et al., 1998). Positive WOM communication has been recognized as a particularly valuable vehicle for promoting a firm’s products and services. Indeed, given its non-commercial nature, WOM communication is viewed with less skepticism than firm-initiated promotional efforts (Herr et al., 1991).


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Source: Dwayne D. Gremler, Kevin P. Gwinne, Stephen W. Brow, Emerald publications. 

Relationships between Blogs as eWOM and Interactivity, Perceived Interactivity, and Parasocial Interaction

The purpose of this research was to examine the effects of a political candidate's blog-a form of eWOM (electronic Word-of-Mouth)-on attitudes toward the website, attitudes toward the political candidate, and intentions to vote. The results showed that interactivity in the form of a blog significantly influenced attitude toward the website, but not attitudes toward the candidate or voting intention. However, perceived interactivity influenced all three dependent variables, but did not interact with interactivity, suggesting that these are two separate constructs. The effects were mediated by parasocial interaction.


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Source: Journal of Interactive Advertising: Kjerstin S. Thorson, Shelly Rodgers

How word of mouth advertising works

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Source: Ernst Dichter

Word of Mouth Research: Principles and Applications

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Source: Dee Allshop, Bryce Bassett, James A. Hoskins

The Cost of Reading Privacy Policies

Companies collect personally identifiable information that website visitors are not always comfortable sharing. One proposed remedy is to use economics rather than legislation to address privacy risks by creating a market place for privacy where website visitors would choose to accept or reject offers for small payments in exchange for loss of privacy. The notion of micropayments for privacy has not been realized in practice, perhaps because advertisers might be willing to pay a penny per name and IP address, yet few people would sell their contact information for only a penny.


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Source: Aleecia M. McDonald and Lorrie Faith Cranor,  A Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society