Getting Into the Mind of the Consumer

-Emily, 5/9/13

Former Duke student Jack Stauch and his startup NeuroSpire offers cost-effective brain-scanning technology and analysis to companies looking to predict the effectiveness of their ad campains. A study participant uses a brain-scan headset that is hooked up to NeuroSpire software. The participant is then shown images of the advertisement campaign, and the software records the reaction the participant has. Neurospire takes the data and reports back to the company on the effectiveness of its ad campaign. The process costs around $5000 dollars, a huge difference from the $100,000-$200,000 it would cost with traditional equipment. The only criticism of this method is that although it shows the participant’s reaction to the ad (whether or not she or he will buy it), it does not necessarily mean people will actually commit to buying the item advertised.

To find out more about this breakthrough in Neuromarketing, click here

Marketers Are Urged to Use Big Data Wisely

-Emily, 5/7/13

Big Data can mean a lot of things for a company: they can understand what their customers buy, offer similar items to their customers, and expand their target consumer groups. Unfortunately, misuse of big data has been recently viewed as a bit more creepy than just building consumer loyalty. Consumers are now bombarded through email, search engines, and even on social networking sites of all the stores “they should visit” and the items “they should buy” through companies’ use of big data. People increasingly feel that big data tracking is intrusive, making it less effective as more stray away from clicking these suggested ads. Marketers are instead urged to use big data to understand why a consumer buys what she or he buys, not just what she or he buys, in order to build a better and less intrusive loyalty system.

To learn more about big data, click here

Helpful Hints for a Popular Social Networking Site

-Emily, 3/27/13

Sometimes in our haste to familiarize ourselves with new social networking sites, we may not realize some simple etiquette guidelines we may be passing over. This site points out a few small but helpful tips on how to remain clear, professional, and influential when setting up and mainaining a Twitter account.

You can read the article here

Advances in Retail Conversion

-Emily, 3/12/13

Anyone who has shopped online with Amazon before knows what a personalized online shopping experience is. When you add an item to your cart, Amazon says “Customers who bought this item also bought…” and the site gives you five or six other similar items to choose from. This type of sales approach, as old as it may be, only focuses on converting people who have already purchased something before. Personalization is now heading in another direction in order to convert the other 97% of people “just browsing” into customers. Retailers online hope to do this by using big data, which gathers informations from search words and clicks from the user and then compiles items and deals that user may be interested. The future of personalization may go in a direction where big data also compiles information of favorite sizes, colors, patterns, etc. that the user may be interested in. This will help retailers compile better groups of items and deals to go along with them.

To read more about the future of personalized online shopping, click here

Which Fares Better With Consumers?

-Emily, 3/12/13

A recent study shows that 85% of consumers prefer using mobile apps over mobile sites. Consumers reported that they expect mobile apps to be more accessable, to load faster, and to offer more features than what a mobile site would offer. Surprisingly enough, consumers also reported they had more diffuculty with mobile apps as they frequently freeze, shut down, load incorrectly, or are limited in their features. Despite the statistics, it seems consumers are still torn between apps and sites when it comes to m-commerce!

To read more and see the study’s reported statistics, click here