For Customer Intelligence Professionals

Marketing Dashboards Advance Strategic Thinking Across The Enterprise

by Julie M. Katz, November 20, 2009

Dashboards allow Customer Intelligence (CI) professionals to better influence marketing strategy and drive corporate activities beyond marketing. But many firms don't use them. Absent a culture of sharing, sufficient resources, and clean data, dashboard . . .

For Customer Intelligence Professionals

Case Study: The UK's Channel 4 Decodes Customer Engagement

How To Measure Engagement To Drive Business Results

by Julie M. Katz, November 20, 2009

Despite Forrester's four-part engagement definition, many Customer Intelligence professionals struggle to find the best way to measure engagement. When Channel 4 (C4), a media outlet in the UK, shifted its teen programming from TV to online, it needed . . .

For B2B Market Research Professionals

What Type Of Market Research Online Community Vendor Should Tech B2B Market Researchers Use?

Three Choices Exist, Dependent On Budget, Usage Pattern, And Support Needs

by Brad Bortner, November 19, 2009

Market research online communities (MROCS) are the next wave in qualitative research, due to their combination of new qualitative research capabilities and ability to provide cheaper faster results. There is, however, buyer confusion about what type of . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

Navigating The Twittersphere

How To Market On Twitter

by Nate Elliott, November 19, 2009

Successfully engaging with consumers on Twitter requires both the right overarching strategy and a series of small best practices. Interactive marketers must ensure that consumers can find their brands' accounts, confirm that they are legitimate, and . . .

For eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals

Travelers Are Cashing In On Loyalty Programs

How US Online Travelers Redeem Travel Loyalty Points And Rewards

by Henry H. Harteveldt, Elizabeth Stark, November 16, 2009

Travel loyalty programs may be old news, but that old news pays the bills and generates revenue in the billions of dollars every year for travel companies. Forrester data shows that half — 52% — of all US online travelers actively use travel loyalty programs, . . .

For eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals

eBusiness Professionals: Plan Your Customer Intelligence Strategy Now

How To Develop A Focused Customer-Centric Approach

by Brian K. Walker, November 16, 2009

The importance of eBusiness professionals to the customer intelligence (CI) effort is clear. As owners of the online profit and loss (P&L), they must align with the CI command center to drive a true multichannel, multipronged approach, which Dave . . .

For eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals

Case Study: Hunter Douglas Europe Grows Via Distributed Content Management Platform

ChannelNet Solution Improves Network Of Web Sites For Local Dealers

by Chad Mitchell, November 16, 2009

Hunter Douglas, a leading manufacturer of window coverings and architectural products, distributes its products through thousands of local dealers. Hunter Douglas saw an expanding online consumer retail market in Europe and wanted to use eBusiness to . . .

For Customer Intelligence Professionals

The Privacy Exchange Disconnect

Marketers Must Show Value For Consumer Information

by Dave Frankland, November 16, 2009

Consumers and marketers have contradictory impressions of the value marketers provide in exchange for the consumer data they collect. Marketers claim they deliver more relevant products, services, and ads based on the consumer information they capture. . . .

For Marketing Leadership Professionals

Favorite Online Brands Succeed On Traditional Brand Values

How Marketers Can Position Their Brands With Online-Friendly Attributes

by David Card, November 16, 2009

Google remains consumers' favorite online brand, with Yahoo! and Amazon not far behind. In the minds of their fans, the top online brands exhibit very traditional attributes such as trustworthiness, helpfulness, and relevance, all at the expense of more-predictable . . .

For eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals

Adaptive Brand Marketing: An eBusiness Perspective

by Sucharita Mulpuru, November 13, 2009

Adaptive Brand Marketing is a flexible approach in which marketers respond quickly to their environment to align consumer and brand goals and maximize return on brand equity. We expect marketing professionals to embrace this new approach in order to keep . . .

For Customer Intelligence Professionals

Assessing Your Customer Intelligence Quotient

A Diagnostic Tool To Gauge Your Firm's Customer-Centric Prowess

by Dave Frankland, November 12, 2009

Forrester introduced the concept of a Customer Intelligence (CI) quotient that indentifies three levels of CI maturity in firms: functional intelligence, marketing intelligence, and strategic intelligence. At the highest maturity level, the Customer Intelligence . . .

For Consumer Product Strategy Professionals

Connected TVs Need To Sharpen Their Value Proposition

TV Makers Can't Reinvent TV Without Dramatic Steps

by Laurence Meyer, November 11, 2009

Connected TVs offer a huge advantage compared with legacy interactive TV and Internet TV platforms; they will also be in more than one-third of European TV households by 2014. With more than 150 million potential European users in 2014, connected TVs . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

US Interactive Marketing Forecast By Industry, 2009 To 2014

by Shar VanBoskirk, November 11, 2009

Although interactive marketing is poised to grow at a 16% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) overall, not all industries will match this pace. Retail and financial services will own the largest share of all interactive marketing, while brand advertisers . . .

For Consumer Market Research Professionals

Case Study: How Fox And Microsoft Used Mobile Research To Measure Movie Advertising Impact

Mobile Research Helped Gain Insight In The Buildup Of Movie Promotion

by Reineke Reitsma, November 10, 2009

Fox and Microsoft Advertising collaborated on a project at the end of 2008 to better understand the impact of and the interaction between the different media channels used to promote movies. They used MESH Planning's mobile research methodology, called . . .

For Marketing Leadership Professionals

Lessons From Online Consultation In Australia

Organizations Worldwide Can Learn From Recent Experiments

by Steven Noble, November 6, 2009

Online consultation can range from the government's hosting an online discussion about policy issues to its co-authoring policy documents with its citizens. It's still a minority practice, but Australia has completed more than 100 online consultations . . .

For eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals

Online Retailers' Adoption Of Online Video Content Is Ahead Of Consumers' Preferences

by Patti Freeman Evans, November 5, 2009

Sixty-eight percent of the top 50 Internet retailers use video content on their Web sites, compared with 18% in 2008. Online retailers are committed to making product videos central to their merchandising and marketing strategies because of the positive . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

Case Study: The NHL Uses Tweet-Ups To Energize Its Fan Base And Reach New Audiences

by Nate Elliott, November 4, 2009

To create excitement around the start of the 2009 Stanley Cup Playoffs, the National Hockey League (NHL) worked with fans to organize a series of tweet-ups that took place simultaneously around the world — energizing more than 1,000 fans directly and . . .

For Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals

2009 Forrester Groundswell Awards Winners Offer B2B Tech Marketers Valuable Social Media Lessons

by Laura Ramos, November 4, 2009

Business-to-business (B2B) marketers approach social strategy with a mix of enthusiasm and skepticism. Most want to know which firms execute social pursuits well and what tangible outcomes occur. The B2B Division winners of the 2009 Forrester Groundswell . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

How Europeans Search

by Shar VanBoskirk, Rebecca Jennings, October 30, 2009

Many European online consumers start at search engines when doing product research, especially in the UK and Germany, and consumers across Europe exhibit a high level of trust in natural search engine results. However, European consumers are wary of paid . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

Targeting Eco-Friendly Consumers

by Emily Riley, October 29, 2009

Eco-friendly consumers are an educated group with higher incomes than most online consumers and a high likelihood of using the Web to research and purchase products. As the green trend rises in Europe, interactive marketers must be keenly aware of how . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

Three Steps To Measuring Social Media Marketing

A Measurement Framework Based On Objectives, Not Technologies

by Nate Elliott, October 29, 2009

Interactive marketers know they're not good at measuring the effectiveness of social media: On average, they rate their own efforts to measure social initiatives at only 4.5 out of 10. Marketers fail because they focus on the metrics that are most easily . . .

For Customer Intelligence Professionals

Reinforce Privacy Through Full Disclosure

Marketers Must Embrace Privacy To Avoid Consumer Outcry

by John Lovett, Dave Frankland, October 29, 2009

Despite consumer privacy concerns, the vast majority of Web sites from retailers to healthcare providers are actively tracking the behavior of online visitors. This practice is well within the rights of these Web site operators not because they adhere . . .

For Customer Intelligence Professionals

Consumer Privacy Is A Ticking Time Bomb For Customer Intelligence Executives

Consumers Are No Longer Passive About Their Privacy

by Dave Frankland, October 29, 2009

Despite renewed interest from Washington, D.C., regarding consumer privacy, the marketing industry continues to call for self-regulation — a concept that is given shorter shrift following its perceived role in preventing the financial crisis. Given this . . .

For eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals

Is The Time Right To Build A Mobile App?

Balance The Buzz With Real Customer Value And Revenue Opportunities

by Brian K. Walker, October 29, 2009

The rapid growth of the iPhone and iPod touch application market has fueled a race to develop these applications on the part of eBusiness and channel strategy professionals. Recently, Forrester published a useful outline to help determine if a mobile . . .

For Marketing Leadership Professionals

Marketing Leaders Take On Technology

So What Happens Now?

by Lisa Bradner, October 28, 2009

Marketing leaders understand that technology is critical to their success — 61% of marketers in our survey agree that "marketing technology is a key component in my marketing organization's success." To get the most from their technology investments, . . .