Avi Hein

Yesterday’s Cyber Monday was bigger in China than in the United States. According to a press release from eCoupons.com, 47% of American 18-49 year olds plan on making a purchase online, compared to 60% of Chinese 18-49 year olds.

If you are a retailer, why only sell in the United States when the emerging markets want to buy? As the American economy remains stuck in a tailspin, other countries, like India and China, are eager to buy.

For the past 6.5 years, I have lived in Israel. The domestic market is small – the population is less than New Jersey – so businesses must look abroad to succeed. The flight to China takes the same time as the flight to New York, so  businesses can take whatever market they want. While in the past it was prohibitively expensive, with the low cost of shipping and logistics, e-commerce, and the fact that much commerce takes place digitally and not through the postal service, considering global markets should be an important question in your business strategy.

What markets do you work in?

VC Fred Wilson visits Google’s Mountain View, CA headquarters to discuss disruption. This event took place on May 13, 2009, as part of the Marketing Talks@Google series.

Marketing is changing rapidly. It’s not sufficient to have a website, nor even a social media account. A facebook page is no more a marketing strategy than a telephone is communications strategy.

Here are some of the concerns that your organization needs to prioritize this upcoming year.

• Digital first, print last: Both mediums are important but because of the real-time nature of digital, because of the immediacy of it, your planning should be one of digital first, print last. It’s far easier to repackage digital content for print than vice versa. Beyond that, digital is taking on increased importance. Google Israel CEO Meir Brand frequently says that in the future, we won’t be talking about “digital marketing” but just marketing: because all marketing will be digital. USA Today announced this past summer that they were emphasizing digital and reorganized their newsroom precisely to put digital first. The distinguished magazine, owned by Mort Zuckerman, US News and World report is ending its print edition, only publishing online. Digital content is real-time, requires writing for the screen and not print (The Yahoo! Style Guide provides some important tips for writing for the web and UI concerns).

• Website and IT integration: Jeremiah Owyang, of the Altimeter Group, writes on his blog web-strategist.com, that “strategists will start to infuse the most trusted conversations of prospects and customers back to the corporate website closer to the point of purchase or during customer support.” This is an essential tactic to increase conversions. Ultimately, one of the major reasons for smaller brands to get on social media is to increase sales. In Owyang’s blog, he writes, “Social Strategists have deployed social media in existing social networking channels like Facebook, Twitter, and beyond.   Yet there’s an inbalance as they’ve joined customer where they are, but have not tied it back to their overall corporate website.  This is due to a few reasons: primarily stemming from the reactionary nature of “we must have a Facebook strategy” and not thinking it through, and also the freedom to not rely on legacy IT and web publication systems.”
• Dialog – Owyang points out that most companies “lack true dialog, engagement, and enabling the customer to leave their own voice.” Past behaviors don’t lead to future success. “While strategists may be focused on dialog with customers, most are unable to give up legacy behaviors of direct marketing, advertising, and spewing content in all channels.  Brands must follow the 8 Success Criteria of Facebook page marketing –or risk an ineffective investment or worse yet, brand backlash.”
• Listening – Despite tools that still lack actionable metrics, brands are investing more and more in listening – essential as the volume of chatter increases exponentially. According to Owyand, “companies are already investing in brand monitoring systems, with deal sizes ranging from 50-100k per year per major product set”