After a healthy 12.6% increase to $176.2 billion in 2010, U.S. online retail sales are expected to reach $278.9 billion in 2015.
Online shopping will continue to cannibalize in-store shopping as consumers become more familiar and begin, in many cases, to prefer the convenience of online shopping, Forrester says.
Increased Internet connectivity via devices like smartphones, tablets and game consoles will also drive growth, as well as new e-commerce models like flash sales (i.e. Gilt Groupe, Neiman Marcus Mid-Day Dash), daily deals (Groupon, LivingSocial) and digital downloads of media (Netflix, iTunes), all of which have enjoyed rapid adoption in recent years.
E-commerce growth in 2010 was driven primarily by existing online shoppers who increased their online spending in traditional categories like books and media, and also began to purchase in less popular categories like furniture and home appliances. Thirty percent of growth was attributed to the 5.5 million consumers who shopped online for the first time in 2010.
E-commerce now makes up 8% of total retail sales, says Forrester — 11% if grocery sales are excluded from the equation.
In Europe, online sales grew by 18% in 2010 compared to 2009, and they are expected to grow 13% in 2011, Forrester stated in a separate report. The number of online buyers in Europe is expected to grow from 157 million to 205 million by 2015; total sales are forecast to reach 133.6 billion euros.
Chris Boorman is the chief marketing officer and senior vice president of education & enablement at Informatica. He is responsible for Informatica’s global voice to the market, which includes corporate, partner and field marketing.
The thinking about social media in corporate marketing departments is rapidly evolving. Initially, social media was seen as yet another broadcast opportunity for pushing messages out into the world, and for many companies that view persists. A social media consultant recently said that even today, when he approaches potential clients for the first time, they typically refer him to their PR agency, because “they handle Facebook for us.”
There’s nothing wrong with using social media as a tool for disseminating marketing messages or trying to establish deeper relationships with current or potential customers. However, there is another use of social media which may prove to be more powerful over the long term: listening to the voice of the customer by data mining social networks.
Currently, CRM systems create customer profiles to help with marketing decisions using a combination of demographics and prior behavior, primarily historical buying patterns. These systems essentially enable companies to see their customers in the rearview mirror.
The customer data available via online communities like Facebook is both richer and more forward looking. A financial organization with access to such data would not only know that a customer had a checking account, savings account, two CDs and a mortgage, but also that the same customer was interested in golf or gourmet cooking — information that could be useful in planning future marketing initiatives. Every minute of every day, Facebook, Twitter and other online communities generate enormous amounts of this data. If it could be tapped, it could function like a real-time CRM system, continually revealing new trends and opportunities. Here’s how.
Tapping Social Media Data
The good news is that with today’s technology, this data can be tapped. But the process is not without its challenges. The data stream is a prime example of “Big Data.” Dealing with data sets measured in petabytes is a challenge in itself, and there is a serious problem with the signal-to-noise ratio. At my company, we estimate that at best, only 20% of the social media data stream contains relevant information. But before this problem even arises, companies face the issue of identifying their customers among the millions of participants in any given online community.
The Problem of Customer Identity
Most companies approach the problem of finding customers on social sites through the slow, arduous and expensive process of participating themselves. On Facebook, for example, businesses can gain access to the profiles of anyone who clicks the “Like” button on the company’s business site (depending on each customer’s privacy settings). With the right pitch, offer or game, companies can gradually gain an enhanced understanding of a subset of their social customer base.
With new matching technology that’s now available, the process is faster and more comprehensive. For example, matching technology uses artificial intelligence to figure out whether a given “John Smith” in a company’s customer database is the same individual as a particular John Smith on Facebook. The algorithms that accomplish this are extremely sophisticated, and they work. In fact, matching technology has been successfully used by law enforcement agencies to locate criminals.
If a company has one or two key pieces of information about its customers — e-mail address is often the most important — that company can accurately identify them on a social site and extract a substantial amount of data, including both profile data and transactional data that can reveal relationships important for marketing purposes. (Again, the amount of data available for any given customer depends on that customer’s personal privacy settings.)
Putting Data to Work
The second problem with social media is transforming data that is potentially useful into data that is actually useful. Social media data is generated by an entirely different technology stack than the transactional data that typically feeds CRM systems. Accordingly, it is stored in entirely different formats. That data can be transformed into a useful format with Master Data Management (MDM) technology.
MDM is the process of managing business-critical data, also known as master data (about customers, products, employees, suppliers, etc.) on an ongoing basis, creating and maintaining it as the system of record for the enterprise. MDM is implemented in order to ensure that the master data is validated as correct, consistent, and complete.
MDM has been used for more than a decade by companies that want to integrate disparate databases for a 360 degree view of their customers (or product portfolios, for that matter). It is equally effective in integrating social media data into existing CRM systems, and filtering that data for relevance.
What this all means is that companies can achieve important process improvements with bottom-line significance. For example, they can:
Obtain behavioral data that will allow them to more appropriately target segments for better marketing results.
Obtain data on personal preferences and interests to move closer to a true one-to-one relationship with their customers.
The disciplined use of demographic and historical customer data has enabled large numbers of companies to substantially increase the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns. Social media data will enable marketers to take targeting to the next level. It’s Big Data, but today’s technology can handle it.
Everyone is looking for a way to make their resume stand out in today’s job market. One way to do that is by giving your resume some visual appeal. Well-designed resumes with color and images can attract attention over those with plain old text.
That’s not to say everyone should add pictures to their resume. A graphical layout might not be for everyone, nor appropriate for every profession and industry. And if you don’t have an artist’s eye (or a favor to call in to a graphic designer), attempting something like this might not work out to your advantage.
But if you know what you’re doing, and need a little inspiration, here are 10 digital resumes with some very cool visuals.
1. Give the Reader Your History
A key element of a resume is your professional background — where you started, where you are now, and the places in between. Resumes with maps or infographics provide the same chronology of information, but with a bit more flair.
Michael Anderson’s infographic resume turns his employment and academic history into a colorful visual journey.
Ozgur Alaz thought to plot his job history on Google Earth rather than on a list of text bullets.
2. Aesthetics Matter
In traditional resumes, the formatting and layout are important. Readers gravitate toward resumes with eye-pleasing fonts and structure. They also lean toward resumes with ample white space throughout the document. Resumes that visually feel like they will take a long time to read usually get put aside.
These graphical examples use design compel the reader to explore it now, rather than later.
Pau Morgan turned her CV into a clean, modern chart that is engaging, yet easy on the eyes.
Graphic designer Tudor Deleanu brings color and texture into what would otherwise be a simple list of previous employers.
3. Make It Personal
Traditional resumes can be “humanized” by a well-written cover letter. Graphical resumes can add a whole new dimension by visually introducing the person behind the experience.
Federico Moral went with an anthropological theme, placing his skills into the timeline of human evolution.
Francis Homo turns his own silhouette into a frame for his achievements.
Brandon Kleinman adds a really creative twist by making a short presentation out of his Facebook photos.
4. Use Graphics to Inform
Images can be used to tell an employer something about the resume before the first word is even read. The message could be “I’m a game designer,” or “I work in the food industry.” An image related to the profession or industry sends a message right away and can encourage the reader to learn more.
Illustrator and animator Sean McNally pours his gaming roots into this clever CV.
Designer Jason Takeuchi built this artful resume template around food — a great way to introduce yourself to those in the restaurant biz.
Conclusion
Deciding between a traditional text or graphically designed resume really depends on your profession and industry. Just throwing an image on the page will do little to set your resume apart from others. There has to be some thought behind the message you want to send. When incorporating design elements, remember to keep on task and consider the reader’s first impression.
What other resume design tips are important to keep in mind? Leave us your comments.
Social Media Job Listings
Every week we put out a list of social media and web job opportunities. While we post a huge range of job listings, we’ve selected some of the top social media job opportunities from the past two weeks to get you started. Happy hunting!
For food and drink brands, crowdsourcing new products and flavors makes perfect sense. Not only does it increase engagement, it gives the people that consume the products a say in their development. That interaction makes them more likely to shell out cash when the item hits shop shelves.
Thanks to social media, it’s become easier to to ask your customers to contribute to product development or collaborate on other creative endeavors. Not only is it doable, it’s been done, and with great success, by major brands.
“This trend is a direct reflection of the new meritocracy caused by the rise of the social web. Now everyone had the same power to not only consume but also produce things,” said John Winsor, founder of Victors & Spoils, and the author of Baked In and other books about co-creation. “Brands can use the power of their digitally connected consumers to co-create new products or face the wrath of those same consumers as they go into competition with them.”
We spoke to three major brands — Ben & Jerry’s, Coca Cola’s vitaminwater and Dunkin’ Donuts — to find out more about their recent crowdsourcing campaigns. If you are interested in the new people power that connected consumers wield, then read on for some delicious insight into how each campaign went down.
Ben & Jerry’s is no stranger to fan feedback; some of its best-selling flavors were born from customer suggestions, but in 2010 it took the concept a step further with the “Do the World a Flavor” competition.
Fans were able to invent their own variety of the popular ice cream via a fun online “Creation Station.” Finalists won a trip to the Dominican Republic to see a sustainable fair trade cocoa farm and the winning flavor was produced as an official Ben & Jerry’s product.
The specific aim of the contest was to raise awareness for fair trade ingredients, and with around 10,000 new flavor suggestions from the U.S. alone, Ben & Jerry’s achieved that goal. We asked Sean Greenwood, “grand poobah” of public relations for Ben & Jerry’s about the “Do the World a Flavor” competition:
Why did you opt for crowdsourcing for the campaign?
It’s always a tremendous opportunity for us to tap into our fan’s passion, creativity and their own interpretation of “Peace, Love and Ice Cream.” Our incredible fans come up with some great flavors. Cherry Garcia, Chunky Monkey, Chubby Hubby? Ever hear of those? Yep, all from our fans. The crowdsourcing offers an opportunity for fans to participate and create some fun, and as Jerry says: “If it’s not fun, why do it?”
How was the campaign a success for you?
It was a tremendous global opportunity for us to talk about our belief in the fair trade model. Since then, we’ve been hard at work making our own flavors using still more fair trade goods and communicating Ben & Jerry’s commitment to transition to using all fair trade ingredients, globally, by 2013.
Do you think crowdsourcing will be big in the future as a way for fast moving consumer goods brands to engage their audience?
I think any chance that companies have to connect with their fans in a fun manner is golden. For us, in this program, crowdsourcing was the hot fudge, whipped cream and nuts on top of our sundae!
Dunkin Donuts has run two very successful “Create Dunkin’s Next Donut” contests in the past, allowing fans to design their own perfect pastry product. Last summer they tried something a little different.
To promote the “mixology” potential of its Coolatta drinks, Dunkin’ Donuts asked fans to collaborate on a playlist of summery songs that would go well with fan’s favorite Coolatta flavors.
The campaign netted 300,000 new Facebook fans while over 40,000 Pandora users added “The ultimate Coolatta summer music mix!” to their list of stations and spent nearly 14,000 hours listening to the station.
We quizzed Ben Smith, interactive marketing manager for Dunkin’ Donuts, about the “Flavor Boogaloo” project:
Why did you opt for crowdsourcing for the campaign?
Allowing our Facebook fans to help us create an upbeat custom Pandora channel dedicated to playing, “The ultimate Coolatta summer music mix!” was a great opportunity to connect with our fans in a meaningful way while highlighting Coolatta mixology.
We leveraged Pandora as the home to the “The ultimate Coolatta summer music mix!” because of its reach and appeal.
How was the campaign a success for you?
The campaign was designed to raise awareness of Coolatta mixology and encourage Dunkin’ Donuts fans to try our Coolatta products throughout June and July, while also increasing engagement on the Dunkin’ Donuts Facebook page. We found the greatest success engaging with fans through sparking fun discussions of the best songs of summer and Coolatta mixology on Facebook and Twitter. As a result, Dunkin’ Donuts was able to achieve and sustain a high level of engagement throughout the campaign.
Year over year, Dunkin’ Donuts has seen double-digit growth throughout its frozen and iced beverage category.
Do you think crowdsourcing will be big in the future as a way for fast-moving consumer goods brands to engage their audiences?
Before jumping into the conversation on our social media channels, we always listen to what our fans are saying. Social communities are interactive by nature and listening to what our fans want to hear is how we have been able to engage with them in a meaningful way. By listening and participating in an ongoing conversation with our fans and followers, we have developed programs and promotions that are fun and interesting, while also encouraging brand advocacy with our fans’ and followers’ network of friends.
We will continue to provide our fans with a superior social media experience, and if we remain authentic and committed to listening to our followers and engage them as we have, I see our number of followers continuing to increase, especially as we continue our brand’s growth and expansion throughout the country.
Coca-Cola-owned Glaceau brand vitaminwater gave its fans the vote with a “flavor creator lab” on its Facebook page. The goal was to come up with a brand new variety of drink. Fans could vote for their favorite flavor, play games and answer quizzes to help determine which “functional benefit” the beverage should offer and even have their say on the design of the label.
The winning flavor — named “connect” — hit shop shelves in 2010, after 40,000 Facebook users had created unique label designs via the lab. Participants spent an average of approximately seven minutes engaging with the application. Matt Kahn, Senior Vice President of Marketing for vitaminwater, reveals the thinking behind their social strategy:
Why did you opt for crowdsourcing for the campaign?
Vitaminwater has always had a very loyal, interactive fan base and once the brand joined Facebook we heard more regularly from our consumers. At the time, the vitaminwater flavor creator program was a natural next step — it allowed for us to bring more exclusive content and real programming directly to our fans.”
How was the campaign a success for you?
The vitaminwater flavor creator was a three month, three step program that allowed us to have a two way conversation with our consumers. We gave our fans the tools to help develop something they were passionate about — in the end, we heard loud and clear what it was that they wanted when it came to vitaminwater.
Do you think crowdsourcing will be big in the future as a way for fast moving consumer goods brands to engage their audience?
Vitaminwater was among the first companies to use social networking to give fans such level of control over product innovation — a variety of vitaminwater was actually made by our fans, for our fans. Crowdsourcing was a great way for us to tap directly into our consumers — we were able to get them information faster and interact with them directly.
Conclusion
For savvy brands, product development has moved from a sterile lab to the social web and become a fantastic marketing opportunity. If brands want to engage today’s connected consumer, they need to get social and start listening.
“Today there is no choice. It’s either collaborate with your consumers using co-creative and crowdsourcing tools or perish,” Winsor said. “There will be collateral damage for those who don’t want to play.”
Did you take part in any of the campaigns above? Do you see crowdsourcing playing a big part in the future of food and drink product development? Have your say in the comments below.
The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.
Quick Pitch: Socioclean crawls through your Facebook profile photos, groups and wall posts, and alerts you to anything inappropriate.
Genius Idea: In a 2009 Harris Interactive study for CareerBuilder.com, 45% of employers questioned had used social networks to screen job candidates. Thirty-five percent of them decided not to hire a candidate based on what they found.
When this study started to generate press, Priyanshu Harshavat started to think about a way to help job candidates get their social profiles in shape before they were virtually audited by potential employers. The result is Socioclean, a program that scans social profiles for 5,000 words and phrases that are racial, profane, drug-related or alcohol-related.
After a user gives permission for the program to assess his Facebook profile (for now Socioclean is only offered for Facebook — other social networks are on the way), he receives a letter grade and a list of inappropriate items from his profile. Each item has a link to that item on Facebook so that he can easily delete it.
As a generally inoffensive person, I was shocked at how many flagged terms that Socioclean dug up from my profile. Wall messages left by other people were my biggest offense (I got demerits for “beer,” “booze cone” and “hell,” among others). The program also reminded me about the “Aaron Burr, you son of a b**ch” group I had joined sometime during my freshman year of college. I posted one mildly offensive status message to my profile before testing the program, naively thinking that it wouldn’t have much to find otherwise, and it found that as well. Most of my infractions were things that I would never have noticed, and many were innocent — discussing about a bon “fire,” for instance, was flagged as “aggressive.” But it definitely didn’t miss anything. There were enough flags to earn an overall grade of a “D.”
Businesses like Reputation.com and Brand-Yourself also help polish online reputations, but these startups are taking an SEO approach that helps push down negative and pull up positive search results for your name. Socioclean is the only service we know of that focuses on deleting offensive items from your social profiles.
About 5,000 other people and I have run our profiles through the program at no cost. To help make it profitable, the company is currently courting job website and dating website partners. The hope is to offer a social profile scrub as an option to applicants and daters to make them more successful on their respective online services. Socioclean’s developers also created a version of the product for employers who want their employees to self-monitor their social profiles.
Yet another potential revenue source is to sell site licenses to universities to use in their career services departments. Some universities have already expressed interest in helping spruce up their graduates’ online resumes — Syracuse University, for instance, purchased subscriptions to Brand-Yourself for 4,100 of its graduating seniors.
Even if schools decide to teach students to set their Facebook privacy settings instead of similarly embracing Socioclean, there are likely enough situations in which a squeaky clean profile is necessary — college applications, job applications, dating and professional networking included — to keep Socioclean in business.
The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.
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