Krishna De: Insights From Ireland On Digital Marketing, Social Media And Entrepreneurship

Quick thoughts and tips about building visibility, buzz, reputation and profits - plus stuff that doesn't fit my blog

Verde Business - Proposed transfer of Loyds TSB and Chetenham & Gloucester branches to Co-Operative Bank in the UK

On the 15 December, on the BBC Paul Lewis covered the potential implications for the transfer of Lloyds Bank and Cheltenham & Gloucester branches to The Co-operative bank which impacts 632 branches.

Follow Paul on Twitter http://www.Twitter.com/paullewismoney for more information about this proposed sale.

Here is the proposed list of branches that are impacted - Paul shared this list - download it here:

Net Promoter Score Research in the UK :First Direct, Samsung, Saga, Tesco Mobile, Churchill and Apple, among the most recommended brands

Are you asking the ultimate question in your business? I am talking about your Net Promoter Score, or NPS, which is based on customers' likelihood to recommend your company's product or service. Your NPS is calculated as the percentage of customers who are Promoters, rating the company 9 or 10 on a zero-to-ten point scale, minus the percentage who are Detractors, rating 6 or lower.

Nps

Last month independent research conducted by Satmetrix, co-developers of the Net Promoter® Score was announced - the research was based on detailed responses from more than 16,000 European consumers, including more than 6,800 from UK consumers who had purchased products or services from each company within the previous 12 months. Consumers also rated companies on various aspects of customer experience including product or service features, customer service and overall value, allowing Satmetrix to analyse drivers of loyalty and performance gaps.

The following is a summary of the overall winners in the categories included in the NPS research in the UK:

Banking: First Direct

Car Insurance: Saga

Home and Contents Insurance: Churchill

Internet Service Providers: Sky and Virgin Media jockey for position at the head of the ISP sector, coming in with nearly identical scores again this year: Sky at 14% and Virgin Media at 13%

Mobile Phone Carriers: In the extremely competitive mobile telecoms market, Tesco Mobile stole the top position

Mobile Phone Handsets: The Apple iPhone

Computer Hardware: Apple

Televisions: Samsung

Utilities: New to the benchmark this year, companies providing electricity services in the utilities sector were characterised by low scores, reflecting weak customer engagement and recommendability for the sector. The average score was -35%, lowering the bar considerably for competitors. The best performing provider was Scottish and Southern energy at -19%

Your Net Promoter Score is based on asking customers the ultimate question: “How likely are you to recommend this product or company to a colleague or friend?” The response is based on a ten-point scale and categorizes responses as follows:

Promoters- Loyal fans of a brand that are most likely to share their good experiences with their friends and be a brand advocate; those who respond to the NPS question with a score of 9 or 10. (customers who answer with a 9 or 10). These are customers who are advocates or loyal fans who will willingly tell their friends to do business with the company.

Passives - Satisfied customers of a brand who are at risk of tying a competitive brand; those who respond to the NPS question with a score of 7 or 8. (customers who answer with a 7 or 8). These are customers who might be categorized as satisfied, but do not enthusiastically support the company. They are vulnerable to competitive offerings.

Detractors - Unhappy customers that are likely to share their bad experiences via word of mouth or social networking; those who respond to the NPS question with a score of 0 to 6. (customers who answer with a 0 to 6). These are customers who are not happy and are likely to pass along stories about their bad experiences to their friends via word of mouth or social networking.


Infographic - The State of Social 2010 survey from Econsultancy and Bigmouthmedia Survey

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via images.bigmouthmedia.com

Are you struggling to work out if your social media marketing programme is worth your investment in time? Then you are not alone - some 47% of marketers who responded to the recent Econsultancy survey said that they were not able to measure the ROI of their social media marketing programme and that the 'jury is out'.

In my experience you can determine the outcomes of your social media marketing - but to do so you have to get clear about your goals at the beginning of your campaign - but that is what many organisations fail to do.

Of the 800 companies and agencies who took part in the research in August-September 2010 (72% being based in the UK), 40% reported they have “experimented with social media but have not done much”.

Some highlights of the report are:

- Around a quarter of company respondents (26%) said their most senior managers were “very interested indeed” in social media, compared to 19% who said there was “very little interest”

- Direct traffic (72%) is still regarded as the most important metric for assessing social media activity - almost three-quarters of respondents say this is one of the three most important metrics they use

- 45% of responding companies don’t have any policies or guidelines for the use of social media (in my experience this is far higher and many companies have started engaging in social media without a policy being in place).

You can purchase the Econsultancy Social Media and Online PR Report 2010 here: http://econsultancy.com/uk/reports/social-media-and-online-pr-report

Thinking Digital Conference 2011, The Sage, Gateshead - announcing the speakers

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via thinkingdigital.createsend5.com

It's not that I was born a Geordie that I've taken an active interest over the last couple of years about the Thinking Digital Conference that takes place in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear each year. They do have great speakers.

In fact a date for your diary in 2011 should be the Thinking Digital Conference 2011 taking place in the 24-26 May 2011. They have just announced the first 8 speakers.

You can book your place today here: http://www.thinkingdigital.co.uk/newcastle10/2011

You will be in good company as they already have almost 200 people registered!

Virgin Media Pioneers and The Entrepreneur Report - encouraging young entrepreneurs in the UK

Here is an interesting initiative by Virgin Media Pioneers - The Entrepreneur Report featuring eleven of the UK's most prominent entrepreneurs including Sir Richard Branson and Peter Jones.

Of the 270,000 businesses established each year in the UK it is estimated that just 9% are started by people under 35. - however around a quarter (24%) of young Brit's say their dream job would be to run their own business.

The research by Virgin Media identified:

- Over half of young people (52%) have considered setting up their own business, less than one in ten (7%) have actually done so

- A quarter (24 per cent) of young Brits say their dream job would be to run their own business but worries about having the right contacts or experience are stopping many from achieving their ambitions

- Almost two thirds (63 per cent) of those feel they could be making much more of their skills or interests.

Take a look at the Virgin Media Pioneers website - it is a joint initiative between Virgin Media and Enterprise UK who are working in partnership to create opportunities for young entrepreneurs to share their ideas, learn from each other and get their businesses off the ground.

Follow the initiative on Twitter http://twitter.com/vmpioneers

Greenlight Search.com talks about trends with online visibility in in the Fashion sector in the UK

Table 1: Top 5 of 15 most visible fashion brands in social media, UK

No.BrandGreenlight SMPIFacebook Post Per MonthTwitter Tweets Per Month
1asos.com298,32850177
2newlook.com168,873133222
3marksandspencer.com132,815449325
4dorothyperkins.com39,33453107
5lipsy.co.uk34,47449416

Source: Greenlight

via mediacentre.greenlightsearch.com

GreenlightSearch.com recently reported in it's ‘Fashion Sector Report' for the UK that womenswear continued to dominate consumer online fashion searches, accounting for 67% of searches.

The report also reveals ASOS was the most followed fashion brand in social media.

If you are marketing online in the UK check out the GreenlightSearch.com website as they have some helpful information about search.

Hitwise Intelligence reports that Facebook accounts for 1 in 6 page views in the UK

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via weblogs.hitwise.com

Hitwise has reported this week that Facebook is the second most visited website in the UK accounting for 7.14% of all UK Internet visits in June 2010, which is over half (54.48%) of all visits to a social networking websites.

However Facebook accounted for 16.73% of UK page views during June 2010 i.e.1 in every 6 Internet pages viewed in the UK was a Facebook page.

And the amount of time spent on Facebook in each session in the UK is currently about 27.36 minutes.

Sainsbury's Sponsors the London Paralympic Games in 2012 and Marc Bolland starts his role as chief executive of Marks & Spencers

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via news.sky.com

Two big announcements from UK retailers today:

Sainsbury's has announced it has become the first stand-alone sponsor of the London Paralympic Games which will be the biggest ever sponsorship of the Paralympic games.

Sainsbury's will be one of just two sponsors and will be promoting the games in its 850 stores and Sainsbury's employees will also be able to be seconded to London Olympic organisers.

And in the meantime, former head of Morrisons, Marc Bolland has taken up his role as chief executive at Marks & Spencer.

His challenges include how to modernise M&S's clothing range, without alienating long-standing customers comments Sky News (I remember them trying and failing to that previously some 20 years ago).

Bolland will receive a £15million package that includes a £975,000 salary, annual bonus potential of up to 250% of salary, and an annual award of shares.

He comes with a strong reputation for having transformed Morrisons to be come a strong competitor to Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda - so it will be interesting to see what changes he makes at one on the UK's favourite retailers.