Engage Your Audience / studies

A brand manager can't be there for every single zero moment today. Marc Vanlerberghe, Android's Senior Director of Global Marketing, shares his solution in this ZMOT case study, "I spend almost 100% of my time building and arming an 'Android Army' of fans. My job as a marketer is to cultivate that group and arm them with the right facts and the right things to say on our behalf at ZMOT."

Social media has made the classic marketing/sales funnel obsolete. Viral referrals and customer evangelism now play a major role in purchase decisions, so savvy marketers need to engage consumers where it really makes a difference. In this report, Wildfire by Google's experts will walk you through a framework for today's social customer journey based on a model created by Forrester Research. You'll learn:

• How consumers interact with social media while on their journey to purchase
• Successful strategies for how brands can meet consumers at critical junctures along the way
• How real brands are doing it today

Getting mobile right is more important than ever, as we see how 1 in 6 people switching banks say a poor mobile banking experience prompted them to shop for a new bank. Explore this report to learn the importance of sequential and simultaneous device usage and how marketers can retain existing banking customers and acquire new ones.

We know a lot about WHAT people are doing in the mobile space: when they use their phones, what activities they do with their phones, how many times a day they use their phones, etc. But what is missing in the marketplace is a deep understanding of the WHY the mobile space is so powerful. That is, what is the emotional relationship people truly have with the mobile space and how they make meaning there? To answer this, we conducted an anthropological study to gain a better understanding of how people feel about, relate to and find meaning in the mobile space. And ultimately we learned how brands can engage their consumers in more emotionally resonant and impactful ways.

The problem (and opportunity) is big...

While nearly 75% of users prefer a mobile-friendly site, 96% of consumers say they've encountered sites that were clearly not designed for mobile devices. This is both a big problem and a big opportunity for companies seeking to engage with mobile users.

Mobile-friendly sites turn users into customers

The fastest path to mobile customers is through a mobile-friendly site. If your site offers a great mobile experience, users are more likely to make a purchase.

• When they visited a mobile-friendly site, 74% of people say they're more likely to return to that site in the future
• 67% of mobile users say that when they visit a mobile-friendly site, they're more likely to buy a site's product or service

Not having a mobile-friendly site helps your competitors

A great mobile site experience is becoming increasingly important, and users will keep looking for a mobile-friendly site until they find one that works for them. That means your competitors will benefit if your site falls down on the job (and vice versa).

• 61% of users said that if they didn't find what they were looking for right away on a mobile site, they'd quickly move on to another site
• 79% of people who don't like what they find on one site will go back and search for another site
• 50% of people said that even if they like a business, they will use them less often if the website isn't mobile-friendly

Non-mobile friendly sites can hurt a company's reputation

It turns out that you can lose more than the sale with a bad mobile experience. A site that's not designed for mobile can leave users feeling downright frustrated, and these negative reactions translate directly to the brands themselves.

• 48% of users say they feel frustrated and annoyed when they get to a site that's not mobile-friendly
• 36% said they felt like they've wasted their time by visiting those sites
• 52% of users said that a bad mobile experience made them less likely to engage with a company
• 48% said that if a site didn't work well on their smartphones, it made them feel like the company didn't care about their business

Takeaways

While the research confirms what we already suspected -- that mobile users actively seek out and prefer to engage with mobile-friendly sites -- it's a sobering reminder of just how quickly and deeply users attitudes about companies can be shaped by mobile site experiences. Having a great mobile site is no longer just about making a few more sales. It's become a critical component of building strong brands, nurturing lasting customer relationships, and making mobile work for you.

Visit howtogomo.comto explore resources to help build a mobile-friendly website. Download the below quick sheet to share these learnings.

On average, only 17% of fans share a brand's campaign with friends and family. But top-performing social brands get 39% of their fans to share their campaigns. Social Superbrands excel at turning fans into sharers and advocates. Wildfire analyzed 10,000 Facebook campaigns over a 9-month period to uncover 6 best practices to turn your brand into a social "Superbrand" and achieve:

• 2x greater reach
• 3x greater engagement
• 10x greater fan growth

Google partnered up with TNS and Tru in this 2012 study to better understand the Back-to-School preparation mindset and the behaviors of incoming and current college students, including: perceptions and usage of course textbooks and e-textbooks as well as the study habits related to technology and classroom materials. Here's what we found:

• Today's college students are highly price-conscious, bearing most or all of their college costs.
• The majority research back to school purchases for at least a week, spending an average 7 hours researching online.
• When researching where to buy textbooks, they look for low price & convenience, with bookstores losing ground to the Web.
• Although not yet mainstream, tablet usage is growing and future consideration of e-textbooks is high.
• Using digital materials to supplement classroom learning & studying is now the norm, particularly online searches and videos.

Did you know that Google+ is much more than a social destination site? Google+ is the "social spine" across all of Google's properties, and your brand's activity on Google+ today can positively impact your brand's search results and other advertising efforts across Google.

In this white paper, Wildfire - the cross-network social marketing software division of Google - suggests why Google+ should be a key part of your larger social and digital marketing strategy. Inside you'll learn:

• How to increase ad click-thru rates by 5 to 10% on average by enabling "social extensions".
• How to be eligible for enhanced right-hand Google Search listings by maintaining and active Google+ page
• 7 best practices for connecting with the fast-growing Google+ global audience.

With US smartphone penetration now at 44% and 66% of smartphone owners accessing the Internet every day from their device, mobile has become an indispensable part of our daily lives. Google partnered with Ipsos OTX Media CT to understand how the growing adoption of smartphones has transformed consumer behavior from media consumption to commerce to connecting with the world around us. These insights can help advertisers understand how to best use smartphones to engage with their customers. Here's what we found:

• Smartphone users are multi-tasking their media with 86% using their phone while doing other things such as watching TV (52%). 94% of smartphone users look for local information on their phone and 90% take action a result.
• Smartphones are critical shopping tools with 96% having researched a product or service on their device. 35% of smartphone users have made a purchase on their phone.
• Mobile ads are noticed by 89% of smartphone users. Smartphones are also a critical component of traditional advertising as 66% have performed a search on their smartphone after seeing an offline ad. Review the full study to understand the business implications and opportunities for marketers.

Our research partner BabyCenter shares their latest edition of their industry leading 21st Century Mom® Insights Series. BabyCenter, together with Nielsen, introduces The 2012 American Media Mom Report – an exploration of how the media habits of today’s moms are changing the rules for marketers. Motherhood significantly impacts how women use media, and this report examines how this critical audience segment – with over $2 trillion in spending power – is blending traditional and digital formats in new ways. Before engaging Mom, marketers need to be aware of the changing dynamics affecting her media choices, like some of the findings below:

• Women are using 40% less each of magazines, newspapers and TV since becoming a mom.
• Moms use their mobile device for mobile shopping 58% more than the general population.
• Moms spend 60% more time on blogs than the general population.
• 1 in 5 moms have scanned a product barcode for price comparisons in the past 30 days.

Google partnered with Ipsos in 2012 to understand the evolution of customer service in the telecom industry. The study looks at subscribers’ awareness, use, and satisfaction with their provider’s customer service offerings. It also looks at the use of digital customer service programs among advertising professionals.

Among the key consumer findings:

• 19% prefer to contact customer service online.
• 37% use search at least once a month to help look for answers to their wireless customer service questions.
• Only 39% are aware of online chat, 29% are aware of social media solutions, 24% are aware of online forums, 20% are aware of online video tutorials hosted on the provider’s website.

Among the key advertiser findings:

Did you know? There are 4.6x more light TV viewers than heavy TV viewers in the male 18-24 audience. As a consequence, for a brand like Reebok, 41% of their target can be very hard to reach on TV. We worked with Reebok to help them use YouTube and the Google Display Network to expose their brand to a physically fit, professional and affluent audience at an efficient cost. Here are the results:

• 24% of viewers on YouTube/GDN had not seen the TV campaign, which amounts to about 300,000 males ages 18-24.
• Half of the TRPs were delivered to the light TV and light medium TV viewers.
• YouTube/Google Display Network added 2.1% points of incremental reach to TV, with more than 60% of the incremental reach coming from the lightest TV quintile.
• The projection analysis shows that if Reebok was to shift their current media buy from 90% TV/10% YouTube/GDN to a weight of 53/47, they can even out the TRPs distribution across light versus heavy TV viewers, which leads to a more efficient buy to reach their audience.