Posts Tagged ‘Keller-Fay’

Books, Marketing Strategy, Social Commerce Summit

Sam Decker Bazaarvoice Summit Cliffnotes #5: Ed Keller, CEO of the Keller Fay Group: Understanding the Power of Influencers

August 1st, 2008 by Sam Decker Chief Marketing Officer

This is the fifth in our series of key takeaways from some of the presentations and panel discussions offered at the Social Commerce Summit in May 2008.

Ed Keller, CEO of the Keller Fay Group and author of The Influentials, is an expert on measuring word of mouth.

Based on his research, Ed made six points about America’s word of mouth conversations:

  1. WOM spans categories and industries
  2. WOM is mostly positive (63%)
  3. WOM has impact – people are very likely to believe and pass along recommendations, and customers are more likely to buy or seek additional information because of word of mouth
  4. Customer-based WOM leads to better outcomes – people on the “receiving” side of WOM are more impressed by advice given by a true customer of the brand
  5. Marketing and media are a key part of WOM – nearly half of brand conversations refer to marketing or media (advertisements, etc.)
  6. When it comes to conversation, not all consumers are created equal – 10% of the population (influencers) account for one-third of all WOM

Ed pointed out that there is a misunderstanding that influencers are all elite members of society. In fact, influencers are actually those who tend to both listen and talk a lot. They exist across countries and socioeconomic groups. Influencers are well-connected, well-informed individuals who possess:

  • An active approach to life
  • Enthusiasm for learning and keeping up
  • Connections to many people and groups
  • A clear set of priorities
  • A strong belief in growth & change
  • Impact and the ability to create change
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Research, User-Generated Content, eCommerce

Brant Barton For Every $1 Spent Online, the Internet Influences $3.45 Offline

February 27th, 2008 by Brant Barton Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer

Yesterday's edition of the always informative eMarketer newsletter featured new information on the enormous influence the Web wields over the offline economy.  The title of this post says it all.  eMarketer's Multi-Channel Retailing report found that online product research by "Precision Shoppers" is driving far more sales in the offline world than online.  By eMarketer's estimates, Web-influenced store sales totaled $471 billion last year compared to just $136 billion in e-commerce retail sales.  "Precision Shoppers" are those that leverage the wealth of product information available online, from price comparison data to consumer reviews, to find the very best option for an intended purchase. 

eMarketer's insights complement findings from a joint research study conducted by Bazaarvoice and Keller Fay Group late last year: 

Sixty-six percent of respondents that had posted feedback online about a product or service had done so at a retailer website for a purchase made offline.  

It seems that "online product reviews" are far more reflective of offline purchase decisions than online, a fact that should help e-commerce teams command a bit more attention and budget from their brick & mortar counterparts.  With the adoption of ratings & reviews, product questions & answers, and customer stories (read about our latest product, Bazaarvoice Stories) about brands themselves, e-commerce websites are now competing with each other not just on price and product selection but on the quantity, quality, authenticity, and relevance of the information they offer to help shoppers make a purchase, regardless of channel.  

As more of our multi-channel customers begin to leverage their customer-generated content beyond their websites, in catalogs, retail kiosks, in-store signage, and other offline marketing vehicles, the Web's influence on offline purchasing could outpace even the rapid growth of online spending.  

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Research, User-Generated Content, Word of Mouth

Sam Decker Proof of the Altruistic Consumer

December 3rd, 2007 by Sam Decker Chief Marketing Officer

I recently posted results from our study with Keller Fay, that 90% of product reviewers do so to help other shoppers. As evidence of the general 'goodness' of customers wanting to help other customers, Andrew Chen (our Ask & Answer product manager) took this iPhone picture of the note someone left behind at the ATM. "This machine is not issuing receipts.". Another small piece of evidence that customers want to help each other…you just need to invite them in!

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New at Bazaarvoice, Research

Sam Decker Why Customers Write Reviews

November 28th, 2007 by Sam Decker Chief Marketing Officer

Because reviewers want to help others…that's the short answer.

We just announced the results of a study we executed with Keller Fay Research to understand the intentions and motivations behind reviewers. Overwhelmingly, the survey found, reviewers are motivated by goodwill and positive sentiment. The summary of the findings:

  • Fully 90 percent write reviews in order to help others make better buying decisions
  • More than 70 percent want to help companies improve the products they build and carry.
  • 79 percent write reviews in order to reward a company
  • 87 percent of the reviews are generally positive in tone (self reported, but matches our actual findings of the J-Curve where 80% reviews are positive)

Why is this important?

  • To understand the motivations behind customers’ taking the time to post user generated content is to understand how to reward them and encourage others to participate.
  • It confirms why reviews are so positive – customers believe they help others more by sharing products they loved.
  • It tells us that these reviewers have positive feelings towards the companies that created products they love. And it says that companies can benefit far more than just a review from these influential, participatory customers.
  • There are great opportunities for CRM / segmentation strategies and loyalty programs for both retailers and manufacturers.

And a surprising finding:

Prior to writing the review preceding taking this survey, only 19 percent of reviewers had posted on independent product review sites such as ePinions or CNET, while 66 percent had posted to a retailers’ site after an OFFLINE purchase, compared to 34% who had previously posted due to an online purchase. This underscores that customers are more apt to post reviews from the retailers from which they buy. Further, customers are likely to return to the retailer's site to write a review from an offline purchase. Evidence of these results: from some of our clients we've found as much as 30% of all reviews are from in-store customers.

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Customer Centricity, Marketing Strategy, Word of Mouth

Brett Hurt ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, Wal-Mart, and Word-of-Mouth

August 17th, 2006 by Brett Hurt Founder and CEO

A month and a half ago on this blog, I predicted that An Inconvenient Truth would be remembered as the most impactful documentary to date.  There was no doubt in my mind that consumer sentiment is shifting towards green products for a variety of reasons – environmental (i.e. concern about the earth), political (i.e. oil conflicts), and sociological (i.e. concern about the crops that are being wiped out in Africa).  Here is an interesting quote from BusinessWeek that brings it home, so to speak:

  • "That American drivers aren't cutting back, and may not cut back drastically even if prices go higher, has huge implications for the world oil market. That's because U.S. motorists are the single biggest consumers of petroleum in the world. They use more than 9 million barrels of gasoline a day. That's roughly a third more than the consumption of all types of petroleum by every home, car, and factory in China, the nation whose energy consumption gets all the attention these days."

Green coffee supplier to Wal-MartWhat I didn't expect is that a month later, Wal-Mart would lead the charge (see Fortune magazine's article).  From a word-of-mouth and customer demand perspective, this makes complete sense to me.  Witness the amazing rise of Whole Foods Market, which is actually headquartered here in Austin.  Their stock has skyrocketed up to 500% in the past five years.  Why should Wal-Mart (or anyone else) cede such amazing growth to Whole Foods?  Clearly the market is ready for competition, and Whole Foods has been virtually uncontested.

Whole Foods Stock Growth

If you read the Fortune article, you will learn that Wal-Mart had Al Gore kick off this initiative.  What a great way to spark word-of-mouth inside the massive Wal-Mart employee base (they employ more people than the US Postal Service).  If those employees turn into evangelists, you can bet that will "infect" Wal-Mart customers as well.

Wal-Mart's scale is almost incomprehensibly massive.  Their scale almost put Vlasic out of business a few years ago.  As the corporation of retail corporations, they get their share of negative word-of-mouth, but most of it is among the intellectual elite.  The masses are actually very positive on Wal-Mart (because of their obvious low-price focus), and Ed Keller (one of our Board members and the former CEO of Roper) confirmed that Wal-Mart is one of the word-of-mouth marketing elite, right up there with Toyota, Honda, and the iPod.

But this is Wal-Mart's most brilliant word-of-mouth marketing move to date, especially among the intellectuals.  Because the intellectuals are the ones that will most appreciate An Inconvenient Truth.  And Wal-Mart has the scale to literally force many CPGs to "go green".  It is a big blow to Whole Foods, and it will be interesting to watch how they react.

Scale drives business change faster than any other factor.  How will you leverage your scale to "go green", spark positive word-of-mouth, explore new niches, and ultimately create higher margin opportunities?

By the way, I may appear to be a "greenie" but I am actually a die-hard technology optimist and believe that entrepreneurs will soon figure out real alternatives to oil given that it is a multi-trillion dollar business opportunity. 

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Books, New at Bazaarvoice

Brett Hurt Five Updates: BusinessWeek articles, Red Herring 100, and Ed Keller

June 6th, 2006 by Brett Hurt Founder and CEO

So, I am supposed to be on vacation tonight after traveling 13 hours to Maui to celebrate my 10-year anniversary with my wife, Debra. But I am having trouble sleeping (it is 3:15am CT, 10:15pm Maui time) after reading some exciting articles. And both wife and child are asleep…

First, a friend of mine that works at Yahoo! sent me a BusinessWeek article put out yesterday, Web 2.0 Has Corporate America Spinning. If you have read "The Cluetrain Manifesto", this article will lead you to believe that companies are finally hopping on the train. It continues to amaze me how visionary that book really was. If it wasn't for the tech market bubble bursting right after it came out, more people would cite it today.

As usual, BusinessWeek has an insightful and practical view on the subject, instead of the typical hype-laden fluff. Here are a few of my favorite excerpts:

  • Companies are starting to take a page from MySpace, Facebook, and other social-networking services. The reason: As appealing as that social aspect is for teens and anyone else who wants to stay in closer touch with friends, it's even more useful in business. After all, businesses in one sense are social networks formed to make or sell something. [Comment: Why reporters don't mention "The Cluetrain Manifesto" when they write sentences like this boggles my mind.]
  • But the payoff can be substantial, if hard to quantify. Genial Microsoft (MSFT) blogger Robert Scoble, for instance, is credited by many Redmond watchers with doing more to improve the company's image than millions of dollars in public relations. In no small part that's because he has shown a willingness to criticize his company at times. [Side note: I am speaking with Robert Scoble at the Supernova conferencein San Francisco in two weeks.]
  • But the upside can be a brand to which people feel a stronger emotional tie. Says Forrester Research analyst Chris Charron: "In the end, the brand is owned not just by the people who create it, but by the people who use it."
  • All that's going to require more than slick technology. Executives, long used to ruling from the top of the corporate hierarchy, will have to learn a new skill: humility. "Companies that are extremely hierarchical have trouble adapting," says Tim O'Reilly, CEO of tech book publisher O'Reilly Media, which runs the annual Web 2.0 Conference "They'll be outperformed by companies that don't work that way." Ultimately, taking full advantage of Web 2.0 may require — get ready — Management 2.0.

Second, Netflix was profiled in BusinessWeek's June 5th issue for their "top 100 hot growth companies" feature story.  This reminded me of my blog post back in February. The subtitle of the BusinessWeek article is "the mail-order movie house that clobbered Blockbuster." If that doesn't sum it up in a few words, I'm not sure what would. Read my blog post to get a different perspective on why this is happening and what it has to do with word of mouth.

Third, I was happy to see Ed Keller's new company, Keller Fay Group, prominently mentioned in the same June 5th issue of BusinessWeek on page 12. Keller Fay is producing some really groundbreaking research.  Sam Decker blogged about some of it earlier this month, highlighting research that 62% of word of mouth is positive. Ed is answering questions that have been perplexing us for some time.

Fourth, congratulations to Ed Keller (and Bazaarvoice) on him joining our Board of Directors (as our first independent member) as well as WOMMA's Board of Directors (in their first elected Board).  Ed has the perfect profile for our Board as well as WOMMA's. He has fantastic operational experience (as the former CEO of Roper) and deep industry experience (27+ years in marketing research, including co-authoring "The Influentials", a truly amazing book that helped launch the recent word-of-mouth movement). I feel flattered that Ed joined our Board and look forward to working with him for years to come.

And fifth, congratulations to Chris Pacitti of Austin Ventures. Throughout my entrepreneurial career, I have had the fortune of working with some truly great venture capitalists. It is an amazing achievement for two of the companies that Chris serves on the board of, Bazaarvoice and Pluck, to be the only Texas-based companies in North America to be selected for Red Herring's Top 100 list.  We are very fortunate to be working with him. With Chris and Ed on our Board, we have a very powerful combination of resources.

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Marketing Strategy, Ratings & Reviews, Research, Word of Mouth

Sam Decker Keller Fay Study: 62% of Word of Mouth is Positive

May 15th, 2006 by Sam Decker Chief Marketing Officer

The Keller Fay Group (www.kellerfay.com) today released results from a survey of American consumers indicating that brands are a critical part of daily conversation.  

The study was done using TalkTrack™, the first continuous monitoring system of all marketing-relevant conversations, providing nationally representative measures on word of mouth for every major consumer category and thousands of individual brands.  

Here are some key findings:

  • The average American discusses specific brands in ordinary discussion 56 times per week. 
  • 41% of conversations about brands involve a reference to advertising or something seen or heard in the media.
  • Contrary to conventional opinion, nearly two-thirds (62%) of brand-related talk feature products in a positive light, while less than 1 in 10 conversations features products negatively.

(more…)

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