Monday, June 9, 2008

Online Marketing Demand for Ratings and Reviews - More Web 2.0 Benefits

In our prior post we outlined a number of benefits of using the web for social mediated customer communication. The next set of stats reinforce the marketing needs for ratings and reviews to help promote products and services. These statistics are taken from a variety of sources to demonstrate the value of online marketing approaches, in particular social mediated forms of communication.

Marketer Demand for Ratings and Reviews

• 79% of online UK retailers surveyed reported that the main benefit of consumer-generated rating and reviews was that they improved site conversion rates. (eMarketer, 2007).

• The Shop.org State of Retailing Online study, conducted by Forrester Research, found only 26% of the 137 top retailers surveyed offered customer ratings and reviews, but 96% of them ranked customer ratings and reviews as an effective or very effective tactic at driving conversion. (Forrester).

•68% of online marketers believe "media is in big trouble and will lose dollars to user-generated content." (iMedia Connection, February 2008).

•Of merchants who adopt customer reviews, 58% said improving customer experience was the most important reason for adding reviews to their sites, followed by building customer loyalty (47%), driving sales (42%), and maintaining a competitive advantage (37%). (eTailing Group, 2008).

•By 2020, 84% of marketers agree that building customer trust will become marketing's primary objective, and 82% agree that collaboration with customers will prevail over marketing. (1to1 Media survey of the 1to1 Xchange panel, April, 2008).

•11% of retailers reported a 20% or more overall increase in conversions as a result of adding reviews to their sites, 21% reported an 11% to 20% increase and 5% reported a 1% to 10% increase. (eTailing Group, 2008).

81% of marketers surveyed say that their social media spending will meet or exceed their traditional advertising spending within the next 5 years. (TWI Surveys/Society for New Communications Research, November 2007).

•Dave Seifert of Bass Pro Shops noted at a Shop.org round table discussion that Top Rated Products were “the #1 merchandising technique ever utilized on their site.” (Bass Pro Shops).

•After their order, PETCO asked customers, "What online tool most influenced your purchase decision?"The #1 answer was product ratings and reviews, with site search coming in a distant second. (PETCO).

•43% of retailers have reviews – double in one year. (Marketing Sherpa, February 2007).

•Ratings and reviews is the second most important site feature behind search and online buyers who cite ratings and reviews most useful site feature has more than doubled from ’05 to ’06. “Retail Marketing: Driving Sales Through Consumer-
Created Content” says retailers who adopt ratings and reviews as a differentiator and retention strategy will gain market share. (Jupiter)

2 comments:

Sparker said...

Actually all of these were pulled from the stats section of the Bazaarvoice website. People work hard to put those things together; citing source material is always a good thing to do.

Unknown said...

Review and Rating Software increase customer’s confidence and can significantly increase sales. Online ratings and reviews provide incredible value and benefits that businesses cannot afford to ignore. Such system help businesses to establish credibility and improve their search engine visibility.

Customers Ratings and Reviews

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