Digital Trends for B2B and B2C Marketers in 2014 [Infographic]

What are the most exciting opportunities for digital marketers this year and where should they focus? Content marketing, customer experience and mobile dominate. Check out the results from Econsultancy and Adobe’s 2014 Digital Trends Briefing.

Content, Customer Experience and Mobile dominate

Content, Customer Experience and Mobile dominate

Does this inforgraphic represent your priorities? What would you add? Join the conversation and say “Hi” in the comments below

Smartphone = Smarter Healthcare? [Infographic]

More people reportedly have access to mobile phones than to clean water, according to the nonprofit Tides Center that runs openmhealth.org. Assuming this is true, the implications of “mHealth” — the electronic management of health care through mobile devices — could be far reaching. Wondering what mHealth is exactly? The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services defines it as “the use of mobile and wireless devices to improve health outcomes, healthcare services, and health research.”

Sound unlikely? Not really. Chances are you already manage some aspect of your value based healthcare using mHealth. If you’ve ever downloaded an app like “Calorie Counter” to see how many carbohydrates those daily peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches account for or if you’ve ever been online to see if it’s OK to yank out your daughter’s loose front tooth, then you’ve discovered what it is that comprises mHealth.

Original Post http://www.alliedhealthworld.com/visuals/smartphone-healthcare.html

How Retailers Are Adapting to the Mobile Shopping Craze

Like it or not, the time for retailers to adopt a mobile strategy is over. Shoppers are using smart phones and mobile devices for all manner of shopping activities, including price comparison, product information, local inventory lookup, reviews, and more. Retailers are striving to improve their mobile shopping experience to meet the demands of today’s connected consumer, if you like online shopping then check here to save with monetha here.

Created by Milo

Is Mobile Africa’s Future?

The economy of Africa consists of the trade, industry, agriculture, and human resources. As of 2006, approximately 922 million peoplewere living in 54 different countries. Africa is a resource-rich continent but many African people are poor. Recent growth has been due to growth in sales in commodities, services, and manufacturing.Africa is by far the world’s second poorest inhabited continent, second only to Asia in the number of poor people. Though parts of the continent have made significant gains over the last few years. In recent years, African countries consist of the fastest growing economies in the world.

 

Is Mobile Africa's Future?

 

IBM Benchmark Christmas season report

reveals the following trends:

December 2011 Compared to December 2010 (year/year)

  • Consumer Spending Increases: Online sales were up 5.4 percent over 2010.
  • Mobile Traffic: 15 percent of all online sessions on a retailer’s site were initiated from a mobile device, up from 5.6 percent over this same period in 2010—an increase of 169 percent.
  • Mobile Sales: Sales from mobile devices grew, reaching 12.9 percent versus 4.5 percent in December 2010—an increase of 186.5 percent.
  • The Apple Shopper: Apple’s iPhone and iPad ranked one and two for mobile device retail traffic (6.4 percent and 4.7 percent respectively). Android was third at 3.6 percent. Collectively iPhone and iPad accounted for 11.1 percent for the month.
  • The iPad Factor: Shoppers using the iPad also continued to drive more retail purchases than any other device with conversion rates reaching 6.1 percent compared to 3.8 percent for all mobile devices.

“This Christmas shopping season has been characterised by consumers looking for deals and increasingly using their mobiles to shop online,” said Andrew Jackson-Proes, Enterprise Marketing Management (EMM) leader for UK & Ireland, IBM. “The report demonstrates that retailers can really benefit from Smarter Commerce initiatives by meeting their customers’ expectations for offers and service via any device.”

 

 

Source

These early Christmas season findings are based on data from IBM Coremetrics Benchmark, the only analytics-based, peer-level benchmarking solution that measures online marketing results, including real-time sales data. All of the data is aggregated and anonymous.

Coremetrics Benchmark uses IBM’s cloud-based digital analytics platform to rapidly collect and analyse intelligence on how consumers are responding to the products and services being offered to them, enabling clients to make accurate decisions on marketing expenditures. As a result, marketing teams can gain deeper insight about their consumers and present personalised recommendations, promotions and other sales incentives across the wide variety of channels—including social networks and mobile devices—where consumers interact with their brands.

More information on Smarter Commerce can be found at:

http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/uk/en/smarter_commerce/overview/index.html

UK Christmas Season Recap Report PDF

UK Retailers must prepare for mobile and social media Christmas rush

Sales driven by social media, and mobile retail are both set to play a bigger role in this year’s Christmas shopping season according to the IBM Coremetrics 2011 UK Christmas Season Readiness Report.

Using data gathered from more than 150 contributing UK retailers, IBM predicts that mobile traffic as a percentage of all retail site visits will hit double figures by Christmas 2011, having grown from just over 4 per cent to 7.2 per cent between November 2010 and May 2011. In the same time period, the contribution of mobile as a per cent of all online site sales nearly doubled, from 3.2 per cent to 6.1 per cent, which suggests further growth for mobile as a sales channel is likely in the run-up to Christmas.

The benchmark also found that mobile users exhibit a trend for fewer page views (5.8 compared with an average of 8.4, across all means of going online), spend less time on websites (4 minutes and 13 seconds, versus 6 minutes and 24 seconds across all means of going online) and display higher bounce rates to other sites (39.6 per cent compared with 32.8 per cent).

“Despite the attractiveness of engaging with customers on the move, mobile brings with it unique considerations and challenges,” said Marcel Holsheimer, global marketing executive for Enterprise Marketing Management (EMM) for IBM. “Using a mobile device to browse, compare prices, check availability and store locations or make a purchase is convenient for the consumer, which can translate into significant conversion opportunities – but only if the etailer delivers a compelling mobile experience. Etailers therefore need to monitor and optimise the mobile browsing experience to counteract mobile users’ tendency for short and erratic periods online.”

Social media contribution to retailer site traffic also grew consistently during the 7 months covered by the report.

From a social media perspective, users behave in a more efficient manner in terms of sales conversion. They are twice as likely to convert, at an average rate of 11 per cent versus 6 per cent overall. This conversion rate, when viewed in conjunction with other behaviour, also suggests social users are more receptive to offers. Their high bounce rate of nearly 62 per cent, coupled with a low average time spent  on the websites of just over 3 minutes, suggests they are responding to social media-only offers – such as Facebook coupons or exclusive offers advertised on Twitter.

“With the recession still very much front of mind, many savvy e-shopper are buying surgically,” said Holsheimer, “They know what they want and can hone in on it with far less browsing than in previous years. Smart etailers still have time to step up and expand their mobile and social networking platforms in time for this year’s festive season, as way to deepen engagement with their prized customers, strengthen their long-term loyalty – and, convert sales via the customer’s personal channel of choice.”

The IBM Coremetrics 2011 UK Christmas Readiness Report is available to download in full here http://measure.coremetrics.com/corem/getform/reguk/holiday2011-wp

About IBM Coremetrics Benchmark

The findings in this press release is based on data collected by Coremetrics Benchmark between November 2010 and May 2011. Coremetrics Benchamrk captures online marketing results and commerce data from more than 150 contributing UK retailers.