Archive for February, 2009

Marketing Strategy, Multichannel, Ratings & Reviews, User-Generated Content, eCommerce

Sam Decker How UGC Impacts Every Corner of Your Company

February 25th, 2009 by Sam Decker Chief Marketing Officer

You’ve seen the case studies – user-generated content has a positive impact on conversion and other e-commerce metrics, and when we talk to e-commerce managers every day, they get it.

But the complete value of user-generated content – your customers’ direct input – lies beyond just e-commerce results. We’ve seen UGC have an impact everywhere from the customer service desk to the CEO’s office. In this series of blogs, we’ll explore how Bazaarvoice clients have seen real value across their organizations. You can read more on the “cross-functional impact” area of our site.

Directors of Marketing think daily about their brand’s positioning and messaging, how to best reach target audiences, and how to best promote – and measure – products and services. Collecting customer input on your site gives marketing directors insights into what is most important to them, and we’ve seen user-generated content improve advertising content and results throughout the channel – email, catalogs, online advertising, and more.

Providing authentic content for all marketing and advertising channels

Customer input creates great ad copy. QVC featured top-rated products on their broadcast, and business-to-business marketer Treatment Abroad, which matches surgeons around the world to UK prospects, created a compelling marketing piece. Samsung featured customer reviews in their pre-Super Bowl email campaign.

And UGC drives online advertising, as well. When they tested review content in their Google ads, Office Depot saw a 196% increase in their paid search revenue. Intuit prominently featured customer reviews in the largest online promotion of customer reviews – ever. And there are multiple case studies showing how reviews improve email results.

Improving partner and media campaigns

BrandVoice allows manufacturers to syndicate their customer reviews to retailer sites, increasing results for both parties. By syndicating reviews to OfficeDepot.com, Kingston doubled conversion, and review volumes exponentially increase for branded products on retailer sites.

Bazaarvoice’s new sponsored Stories campaigns enables brands to engage with consumers on targeted media sites, sharing content across the media site and the brand’s site – and retailers can get involved, too.

Impacting offline purchase decisions

Not all purchases are made place online, so Bazaarvoice products extend beyond the web. Recent analysis with Cars.com showed that product reviews help Cars.com drive “intent to buy“. Our newest solution, MobileVoice, lets customers read online reviews on their mobile phones, allowing them to get customer reviews from anywhere – in the store, in the mall, or even in transit.

There are dozens of ways user-generated content impacts marketing – and the rest of your business. Customer oxygen can impact your entire organization – and we can prove it.

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Customer Centricity, Marketing Strategy, Ratings & Reviews, Research, User-Generated Content, eCommerce

Sam Decker Ratings & Reviews #1 Content Tool to Get Reluctant Shoppers to Buy

February 23rd, 2009 by Sam Decker Chief Marketing Officer

We know from multiple studies that consumers are turning to one another more and more for input and recommendations on purchases they’re considering, but we have only been able to hypothesize on the increased demand for and effect of this content in the current economy. Research we’re releasing today with JupiterResearch and Rich Relevance clearly proves that peer-generated content, including ratings and reviews, is still highly valued by all consumers but is much more impactful to shoppers with tighter pocketbooks and more reluctant to spend.

The study finds that consumers are planning to spend less this year. Accordingly, we know that retailers are feeling the consumer’s pain and don’t have budgets to purchase and utilize all of the tools they would like, so they must choose right the first time. The study results confirm what many retailers have already discovered, Ratings & Reviews have been and continue to be consumers’ most used and most trusted peer-generated content tool outside of the standard site information provided by retailers and manufacturers.

Key findings from the study:

  • 48% of consumers plan to spend less, primarily in the automotive sector (50%), travel (46%), and CE (43%).
  • This group plans to do more due diligence, looking for more information in more areas than the other groups (42% will visit 3 sites or more)
  • Many of those reluctant to spend can still be positively influenced – 61% report that their confidence can be increased via online shopping resources
  • 77% cite reviews as being useful in making a recent purchase
  • Ratings & Reviews are the top ranked Content Discovery Tool for driving consumer trust and loyalty
    800 consumers were surveyed on their changing propensity to spend this year and on what tools they plan to use to help them feel more confident about their buying decisions.

The results showed that many consumers are planning to spend less (49%), more consumers are now going online to research their online AND offline purchases, and that very few of them have made up their mind on price (33%), brand (23%), and store/retailer (16%) associated with their purchase. 61% of those who said they were more reluctant to spend said their confidence could be increased if presented with the right information online.

This information should be empowering to retailers and manufacturers.
They have a clear opportunity to influence and win new customers, even in this challenging economy. The reality is that consumers know the data they need exists online, and they will find the content whether on your site or somewhere else. Check out how Amazon’s heavy adoption of social commerce content and tools has helped them gain market share during the past couple quarters.

Customer Ratings & Reviews Are Top Ranked Content Tool
77% of all those surveyed cite reviews as being useful in making a recent purchase, making it the most used peer-generated content (ranking even higher than the actual Manufacturers website). 81% of this of those who said they plan to reduce their spend said they used ratings and reviews to make past purchases and that they are the top ranked tool that would make this group more confident when considering a purchase. 

As JupiterResearch states in the study, “Retailers must consider user generated content as a base line component of their overall offering and use it not only to enhance product descriptions, but to augment search and navigation experiences, enliven marketing messages and improve organic search results. In fact, some forward thinking retailers are beginning to incorporate the content consumers write about products in the original product descriptions to make them more accessible or consumer-focused. Furthermore, multichannel retailers can use this valued content in their stores, catalogs and other channels to bring the voice of the customer to all aspects of their customer interactions.”

Learn more at upcoming Bazaarvoice events
Patti Freeman-Evans, vice president and research director at Forrester Research, will join Bazaarvoice and richrelevance in a series of retailer events to share consumer intelligence and online marketing strategies based on this research. For more information or to register for the New York event on March 3, 2009 or the San Francisco event on March 26, 2009, visit https://www.bmmreg.com/Engaged/.

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Word of Mouth

Sam Decker Dilbert’s Pointy-Haired Boss Makes Big Mistake

February 22nd, 2009 by Sam Decker Chief Marketing Officer

There’s been enough said about the Belkin fraudulent reviews topic (read my post here). But Scott Adams took another shot at the idiocy of posting fraudulent reviews in his cartoon here:

If you’re working for the pointy-haired boss, run away as fast as you can! :-)

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User-Generated Content, Word of Mouth, eCommerce

Chad Bockius Tech Decision Makers Seek Social

February 20th, 2009 by Chad Bockius Former Director of Product Marketing

Hill and Knowlton recently released their annual Tech Decision Makers study.  The goal of the study was to evaluate how technical decision makers are choosing vendors and solutions.  The study was conducted by interviewing top executives across the US, Canada and UK.

Part of the study asked participants to share their criteria for choosing a technology providers.  Credibility/reputation is as important as a superior product and customer service.  Great products and service will lead to a great reputation but companies need to think about how they spread the word.  In a close second to the first set of answers was previous experience, internal recommendation or an external recommendation. Technical decision makers are talking about their experiences and the companies that can tap into this resource will accelerate their brand recognition in the market. It’s also important to recognize that Sales/Marketing Materials or Presentations are at the bottom of the list.  This is the table stakes of starting a conversation. A great commercial or marketing slick is not going to push anyone over the edge in making a decision.

As a B2B organization you know that you have to reach your customers where they are seeking information. Hill and Knowlton found that over 50% of tech decision makers use personal experience and word of mouth as their most important source of information. Let’s assume for now that you are already delivering a great experience for your customers. How are you helping them spread the word? Are you still using polished testimonials that marketing put together? Your customers see right through this. Testimonials lack the emotion and authenticity that we all seek today. Trust in organizations is at an all-time low. Companies that tear down walls and open up conversations are already seeing massive benefits. This was a topic we wrote about back in 2007 and is becoming even more important today.

IBM is the perfect example. Here you have an organization of over 300,000 employees. They have a killer brand. And despite all of this they started a dialogue with their customers early in 2008. I can also tell you that more and more businesses are recognizing this need. It seems like every week we are having conversations with companies that are exploring how to leverage Social Commerce to deliver ROI in B2B.  What I can tell you is that Social in B2B is here to stay, it is delivering measurable value, and it is reshaping how these companies think about marketing. It isn’t about marketing to customers it is about marketing with your customers.

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Social Commerce Summit

Sam Decker Top 50 Reasons Why People Are Coming to the Social Commerce Summit

February 16th, 2009 by Sam Decker Chief Marketing Officer

Registrations for the 2nd Annual Bazaarvoice Social Commerce Summit are picking up. The attendees from last year know this is a must-attend event. But remember, we’re capping this year at 300 to maintain productive networking. So I wanted to remind you to register now!

Every attendee I talked to last year said it was the best conference they attended all year. Take a look at the video and see what they mean:

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However, we know times are tough. We’ve talked to some who really want to go, but they need help convincing their CFO or boss to travel to Austin. So, we’ve pulled together a list of reasons and justifications people have used and are using to attend the Summit. These are some reactions from last year’s events from clients, and some reasons we’ve heard from brands and retailers who are coming this year. And perhaps a few we added ourselves! While all all them are nearly true, the first half+ may be more helpful for reasons you can bring to your boss. Keep the second half for your own self justification. :-)

  1. I don’t know what I don’t know.  I want to talk to my peers in the space and pick their brains on what has worked for them – and what hasn’t.
  2. I want to learn from and network with Bazaarvoice’s cutting edge clients
  3. Our marketing budget got slashed and we need to learn how to use UGC to market economically and effectively.
  4. It’s a great opportunity to see how UGC is impacting the bottom line for BV clients.
  5. I want to be ahead of Web 2.0.
  6. Every element of the Summit is 100% relevant to my business.
  7. Our goal is to integrate all our channels and I need to know how to use UGC to do this.
  8. We want to lead the pack in social commerce, not fall behind our competitors.
  9. Almost everyone has Reviews. What I want to know is, “What’s next?”
  10. We need to figure out how to make this work for our brand.
  11. I need to better understand all the ways to use Bazaarvoice Workbench, alerts and reports.
  12. My CMO wants me to figure out how to measure ROI.
  13. Austin is a cheap flight.
  14. This conference represents 50 percent of my job responsibilities.
  15. This conference is half the price of other conferences, and double the relevance.
  16. We know how to execute the fundamentals. We don’t know where things are headed.
  17. I just took over management of Ratings & Reviews and I don’t even know what it is.
  18. I’d love new and exciting social commerce ideas and inspiration.
  19. I will figure out how to reach our influencers and maximize their impact on sales.
  20. I want to see what the competition is doing.
  21. I will learn more about proving social commerce ROI.
  22. I need a smarter/better way to evangelize social commerce within my organization.
  23. I want to meet my Community Manager.
  24. This is one of those rare conferences where you learn something new.
  25. I’m just starting to use UGC, and I’ll get to learn the ropes from the best of the best.
  26. We need new ways to connect with and engage our community of loyalists.
  27. I need to understand why employing UGC is anywhere near as good as pay-for-performance… especially now!
  28. I want to know how _________ uses Bazaarvoice.
  29. Top executives from top retailers and manufacturers will be in attendance.
  30. I can network with the Who’s Who in social commerce.
  31. I’m a new client who is still implementing the BV solution; I’d like to engage with other customers to learn more about their experience.
  32. It’s like getting an MBA in social commerce.
  33. After meeting with the Bazaarvoice team face to face, I’m sure we can get more out of them!
  34. We need to add more cowbell to our marketing strategy.
  35. We get to play “Chicken S**t Bingo.”  This I’ve got to see!
  36. Finally, a conference I can attend in blue jeans and cowboy boots!
  37. I hear Bazaarvoice throws an awesome party!
  38. They say it’s an informative party. They’re breaking the laws of physics.
  39. I’ve been meaning to see a beer donkey before I die.
  40. BBQ will transform me into a better manager.
  41. I can win the mechanical bull contest, and I’ll bring you back the reward.
  42. This will make me the hero who proves that social marketing works for our company.
  43. It’s the only conference left.
  44. By April, I’ll be so sick of snow that I’ll need the spring thaw in Texas.
  45. Everything is bigger in Texas, so the Summit must be HUGE!
  46. Two days; 4 pounds of BBQ; 16 different flavored margaritas; 256 new friends; 65,536 new ways social commerce will advance your business.
  47. Ze Frank (www.zefrank.com) is speaking and I look forward to his unpredictability.
  48. The voices in my head are using word-of-mouth to tell me to attend. Listen to them.
  49. This conference will “complete me.”
  50. The Summit is on the University of Texas campus. That proves it’s educational.
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Marketing Strategy, MobileVoice, Research, Social Commerce Summit, User-Generated Content, Word of Mouth, eCommerce

Brett Hurt Our Economy’s Slow Climb to Recovery and Social Commerce

February 15th, 2009 by Brett Hurt Founder and CEO

BusinessWeek logoEvery week, I enjoy reading BusinessWeek and one of the highlights is James (Jim) Cooper’s weekly article on the economy.  When I initially started to read Jim’s article, many years ago, I had to struggle through it.  Even though I earned my MBA from Wharton, some of the concepts were difficult to understand and my “pattern recognition” took awhile to form.  I’m glad I stuck with it, as it has helped me understand business trends more quickly.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the consumer in this economy, given that consumers drive about 70% of our economy in the U.S. and a large share of the world’s economy (most notably China’s).  We are the world’s largest shopper.  This week’s article by Mr. Cooper really hit the nail on the head, leading me to believe that the recovery is going to take a lot longer than initially assumed.  This may be old news to some of you, but I have been consuming the data as it becomes available and seeing consumer saving increase so dramatically is a real turning point.

I believe that social commerce will shine in a gloomy time like this.  Consumers have always feared “buyer’s remorse“.  With U.S. unemployment at 7.6% and rising, in addition to the multi-trillion dollar decrease in consumer wealth, purchases will be scrutinized like never before.  And I believe customer ratings and reviews, as well as all forms of customer-generated content (and word of mouth), will be leveraged like never before.  From reducing returns to increasing sales, it is clear that social commerce reduces buyer’s remorse.  This isn’t just a U.S. trend, as the economic problems are global and buyer’s remorse is a common human behavior, and I believe this is the driver behind Sam’s recent post on UK consumers flocking to social commerce.

If you missed Sam’s post in November on Amazon, I recommend you read it.  They were one of the few retailers online that recently announced stellar results during such a challenging retail season.

Our clients have been stepping up their pace of innovation with social commerce.  You can see it reflected in our many blog posts in the last two months, especially the one from Heather about the unprecented number of holiday promotions we helped drive with our Community Managers.

This will be a huge year for social commerce.  Our company is signing clients at a faster pace than ever before.  Innovation is accelerating rapidly, and not just online.  The ROI is very proven.  And I’m proud of the way we are helping our clients in such a challenging time.

Come join us from April 27-29th in Austin at our Social Commerce Summit to discuss how the best are leveraging social commerce.  We sincerely look forward to seeing you there.

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Community, Ratings & Reviews, User-Generated Content

Sam Decker Brits shop reputation first, products second

February 13th, 2009 by Sam Decker Chief Marketing Officer

Every now and then, an article confirms what we already knew: Customers seek information online regarding their purchases. A recent Internet Retailing article, “Online reputation now a key deciding factor with Internet shoppers,” provided some great stats outlining just that. Sixty-five percent of consumers research a retailer’s reputation before purchasing, according to the article. Furthermore, these consumers are happy with consistent levels of customer service across the board, whether online or in stores.

We also learn a little bit about Brits and their online habits. Over 45 percent now read online reviews or recommendations. Interestingly, 32 percent are willing to publish an online product review, while only 19 percent would be willing to mail a letter to a retailer.

And it isn’t just the young folks who are jumping into the online social commerce world. Internet Retailing found that 70 percent of those over 55 research companies and products online before making purchases.

Oliver Maus, CEO of 1&1 Internet, concludes that Britons are learning to “do their homework before they buy online.” This is great news for social commerce, and the idea that customers are just as eager to “contribute as they are to consume market intelligence” means we can only expect things to get bigger from here on.

Important Stats:

65 percent of consumers check into an Internet retailer’s reputation before making a purchase. Most are now happy to receive the same level of service online as they do in-store.

46 percent of Britons now read online reviews or recommendations on a specific product before purchasing.

32 percent are willing and able to publish a review online — but only 19 percent would be prepared to write a letter to a retailer.

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Marketing Strategy, Partners, Ratings & Reviews, User-Generated Content

Brant Barton UK retailer Boden personalizes consumer search options

February 11th, 2009 by Brant Barton Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer

This blog post was guest-written by Bazaarvoice Community Manager Anna Skaya and Business Development Director Adam Salamon.

By now, we all know that customers trust other consumers when making purchase decisions. In the world of apparel, this is just as critical, as the same clothes may fit one person completely different than another. To help customers take advantage of all the tools at their disposal, one of UK’s most personal brands, Boden, has combined the power of search with the power of their customer community to power what we are calling Social Navigation – the ability to discover and buy products based on what other customers have said.

A bit about Boden - Founded in 1991, Boden is a premier provider of stylish fashion in the UK, US, and Germany. Their brand features clothing for men, women, and mini, and they ship more than 3,000 orders every day from their warehouse in Leicester. The quirky and lively voice of the brand makes them a standout in the sometimes-monotone retail space.

Bazaarvoice Ratings & Reviews went live in early January 2009 on Bodenusa.com, and customers reacted positively, and fast! Within just four months, almost 650,000 reviews were being served daily, and more than 90% of their products were reviewed. Because of the success of the US implementation, Ratings & Reviews were added to Boden.co.uk in May 2008.

Boden, with the help of Bazaarvoice and their search provider, SLI, has now taken personal search to a new level – SLI has now integrated Bazaarvoice social tags into their faceted navigation. Specifically, a customer can now refine their search by specific dimensions or tags (seeing products that are for an age group or social occasion for instance). We are now soliciting this data on the submission page, thus a customer can search for a product and refine that search by saying they only want to see products that are “Top Rated by Age” or “Number of Reviews.” This essentially takes the ability of social search or social navigation to the next level by allowing visitors to refine results based upon attributes that are most relevant to their own buying profile. Try it for yourself – type in ‘shirt dress’ in the search bar and see the search results on the left-nav outlining reviews.

In addition, Boden will soon launch a new navigation attribute where users will be able to search by body type (pear-shaped, apple-shaped, etc), giving social search a whole new parameter. We will be adding these questions onto the submission page and launching the feature in the spring.
Boden is now a great example of what we can do by combining reviews and search, and one of a few UK companies that has embraced social navigation (look for another great example soon from a major UK retailer – Comet). At the end of the day, this should help customers make the right product decisions, align their expectations, and make them more confident when making purchases.

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BrandVoice, Case Studies, Marketing Strategy, Ratings & Reviews, Research, User-Generated Content, eCommerce

Mike Svatek BrandVoice drives exponential review volume for Dell, Epson, and Kingston

February 10th, 2009 by Mike Svatek Chief Product Officer

This blog was guest-written by Scott Koester, Bazaarvoice Product Manager.

BrandVoice is taking off in a big way with manufacturers, and we’re pleased to see some great results.

We recently turned “on” BrandVoice for Dell, Epson, and Kingston on a major consumer electronics website and on OfficeDepot.com. These manufacturers had been gathering their own product reviews on their sites for several months; however, product reviews had been average on the retailer sites.

As soon as we started syndicating reviews via BrandVoice to retailer sites, review volumes on these sites dramatically increased for these products, with Dell seeing a 34X increase in number of reviews, going from about 32 reviews per product up to more than 1100 review per product.

In every case, BrandVoice helped each brand show way more reviews per product versus other competitive products in the product category. Epson products, for example, had 33X more reviews than other products in their category. Kingston now shows 7X more reviews than their competitors, and Dell product reviews show up 55 times more than other reviews in their categories, on average.

This online visibility increases product visibility on a retailer’s site. Just like brands fight for “shelf space” and placement within a store, product reviews can help products stand out more to research-driven consumers. Consumers trust products that have customer reviews, and higher review volumes lead to higher sales conversions.

If you’re a manufacturer capturing product reviews on your site, ask your online retailers how you can syndicate your reviews to their sites. And if you don’t yet capture reviews on the products you create, what are you waiting for?

Read more about how BrandVoice drives review volume increases, and also read how Kingston doubled its conversion with BrandVoice at OfficeDepot.com.

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Community, Customer Centricity, Marketing Strategy, Multichannel, Ratings & Reviews, User-Generated Content, Word of Mouth

Heather Brunner Free People engages with their community and blogs their Top Reviewer

February 9th, 2009 by Heather Brunner Chief Operations Officer

This blog was guest-written by Lisa Tu, Bazaarvoice Community Manager.

Free People is a contemporary clothing line based out of Philadelphia, PA whose apparel represents femininity, courage, and spirit. Not only is this retailer known for their artistic and beautiful apparel, but they also build their community around the FP Blog and, more recently, customer reviews.

A strong leader in the apparel industry, Free People really takes their customer’s feedback to heart.  They identified key influencers as Top Reviewers in their community. Out of this group, they reached out to their #1 Reviewer, ‘beachcat,’ for an extensive interview which they later used in an entire blog post dedicated to her. Free People dug deep and really spent time getting to know everything about ‘beachcat’—from her favorite article of FP clothing, to what her perfect Valentine’s Date would be. They also collected photos of her in FP products and then featured them in their Flickr Style Event set, a campaign where customers can send pictures of themselves styled in FP gear.

Engaging with your community is a key factor in building brand loyalty and trust with your customers. Free People realized their Top Reviewers weren’t just your average shoppers, but true advocates of the FP Brand, or what we call ‘The Influentials.’ Not only do they give constructive reviews, but they also help encourage potential customers to make confident buying decisions. This in turn helps the retailer build new relations and helps FP merchants gain insight for product enhancements as well.

Free People launched a similar campaign last year featuring Jaime’s Faves, an FP Store Manager that they featured on their blog and website. The success of this campaign encouraged them to take it to the next level. This time around they realized that although store employees are great advocates for the brand, word of mouth is also extremely powerful when it comes from everyday people—your customers.

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