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To kick off the Shop.org May is Marketing Month Webinar series, on May 5 we released initial findings from our first State of Retailing Online (SORO) survey of 2010. Covering interactive marketing, social media and mobile, Brian Walker of Forrester Research (our SORO research partner) presented some highlights, then explored with e-commerce veteran Rob Schmults of Smartdestinations.com how those apply to the “real world”. Their discussion reminded me how important it is to look for examples of what companies in other sectors – travel, financial services, content / media, etc. – are doing vis-à-vis social and mobile, just to shake up our thinking in retail of how to harness these emerging channels.
While a summary here can’t remotely do justice to the actual Webinar, a couple of highlights for you:
- Search continues to be the dominant customer acquisition tactic for online retailers.
- Social media is still regarded as largely experimental, but retailers are forging ahead despite unclear returns beyond listening to and learning from customers.
- While mobile is as-yet nascent, retailers surveyed are investing an average of $170,000 this year in their mobile initiatives, though that figure varies widely based on company type, Web revenue and online selling tenure. Close to two-thirds of retailers surveyed either are developing a mobile strategy now or don’t have a strategy yet, so clearly there is much mobile strategy and implementation work ahead yet for most retailers.
The full SORO report will be published in June (I will keep everyone posted both here and on our site), and in the meantime Shop.org members can download this Webinar deck for reference.
To listen to the full Webinar, please register for the series (just one registration is needed for all five Marketing Month Webinars) and you’ll be set. Once registered, play back the SORO Webinar from May 5, as well as last week’s “ROI for Social Commerce” session with experts from Bazaarvoice, the Estee Lauder Companies and Roots.com. Up this week: “Beyond the Crystal Ball: Predicting Your Way to SEM Success” with experts from Adlucent, ASOS and Buy.com.
As always, I look forward to your comments and questions.
