I think the real problem is that companies are not always aware of the power of online word-of mouth. Consumers today have the possibility to convey and share their opinion with other people about products or services they have bought online. They can voice their satisfaction or dissatisfaction regarding a specific brand or company, undermining the confidence of these companies to exert full control over their consumers. If the majority of consumers convey negative experiences with a specific company that sell its products online it will lose its credibility on the web and its digital marketing effort will no longer be profitable.

In fact, if I have to buy a product on Internet I will first check on blogs, forum and other social network how are the experience of the other consumers that have bought the same product or service online. If I found that a lot of people are dissatisfied with the website that sell that product I won’t buy it on Internet.

As you said, if companies want to do e-marketing they have to assure reliability and credibility of the service they offer. They have to be able to manage complaints or dissatisfaction and try to improve their service as much as they can. What happen today is that everyone tries to do digital marketing without knowing its specific rules and strategies. I think that a company can do e-marketing only if it is consolidated in the off-line market.

Nowadays in each moments and everywhere, we go online and in few seconds we find whatever you want and we need.  Each online consumers is comfortable with search engines and they use it to search a lot of various information.

Most of us use Internet, for example, to find information about flights and for booking online tickets. Travelers use search engines to purchase travel arrangements, 82% of online consumers buy airline tickets and 67% book overnight accommodations ( source: travel industry association of America).

People book online for a wide range of reasons: one of these is that in a busy lifestyle, they save time staying  comfortable sit down in their home and because online it’s possible to see different opinions and reviews of different users or buyers. In this way online customers have a list of advantages and disadvantages about a product or a service before and if they decide to buy.

The arrival of web 2.0 and social networks change the way of communication in the web: there is an interaction between users through a 2 way medium, where people share experience, ask questions, collaborate and participate.

Through the social network ( ex: Facebook, Twitter, My Space, You Tube) traditional word of mouth is enhanced and more convenient, experience and comments can’t be erased and unshackled from time. In these social network search meets social: all experience and opinion of users are available; good experience are amplified and bad experience remain. Listen different experiences is a way to learn, added value and for create interesting contents for new and potential online customers.

But my question is: all the companies are equipped to meet the digital consumer needs?!

Recently, IBM Global Business Services’ Media and entertainment and IBM Institute for Business Value developed a global study.

http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/gbs/bus/html/gbs-beyond-advertising.html?cntxt=a1000401

The study, titled “Beyond Advertising: choosing a strategic path to the digital consumer” indicate that we have different trends emerging lately: consumer adopt new distribution formats and the digital migration of platforms.

Nowadays, consumer adopt with high level of engagement Social Networking tools such as Facebook and Twitter but companies, for reach different segments, have to offer new tailored offers for new platforms. Now social media can be used to address both transaction and brand requirements called “brands-actional” advertising.

Digital consumers today have fast growing and quickly emerging expectations; companies have to clearly choose the right way to deliver information to them and move quickly to become more effective.

An Online Store Frontpage – Foraker.com

Often companies start their e-store thinking that customers will come and buy, because there are billions of people surfing online everyday. That is not true.

As customers, when we decide to buy online, we do it because of some important factors:

We buy online, because we often have a wide range of products available. We can choose between hundreds of products that to basically exactly the same thing. We also usually buy something that is not available in our local store. If the product online is exactly the same as offline, we usually buy it offline, because we can see it, try it, and receive information from the seller. Now three factors come into the decision process: price, time, trust.

If there is a huge difference in price, for the same product, the modern customer buys it online.  Thanks to the Internet customers are now much more informed. They can read product descriptions, they can compare products and they can read reviews from real users about the product. This means that the role of the seller is sometimes reduced to beeing a simple cashier or checkout assistant. If the big price difference is there, no story: we buy online.

Online shopping also gives to the customer the possibility to save time. We do not have to go to the shop, in order to buy a product. We do not have to stand in the queue with our car, try to find a parking for the car, and more important: we do not have to wait the normal opening time of the local store. We can buy online 24/7 and we have only to wait for the carrier that rings to our door.

The third factor that is important to remember is trust. We, as customers, trust our local bricks-and-mortar store. It has been there selling his products for 30 years, it never moved and it is not possible to close it and make it disappear in a few minutes. But what about online stores? Often we do not know exactly who is behind the website. We do not know the person we are sending our money, to pay for our new jacket. That is really important. If a web store is not supported by a well-known brand, it needs to build up during years (you read it right: years!) an online reputation. One good way to start is to have a good looking website, offer regularly a stunning service to customers, price the products not so cheapily and think about every aspect of the website in order to reassure the customer. We are going to discuss about trust in one of the next posts.