How does online acquisition compare to offline in terms of cost? Roberto Hortal, MORE THN:
56
Q. Are there still a lot of consumers out there that research online but convert offline?
Roberto Hortal, MORE THN:
I’m not seeing a lot of those cases anymore. People did display that behaviour years ago but most are now familiar and comfortable with
the internet as a distribution channel. People are also aware of the many ways in which merchants, payment providers and regulators protect their online transactions. Indeed,
it seems to me I’m better protected when shopping online – from disreputable merchants – than offline.
We do see consumers doing research on price comparison sites, then visiting direct and getting a quote before they eventually buy. That figure is made up of early adopters
and is rapidly decreasing as well, on the back of familiarity, trust and changes by the price comparison sites which mean that prices displayed are more accurate and less
likely to change now.
Q. Are you doing anything to move away from the last click wins [attribution of sale to the last referrer to a site discussed in Chapter 9] model?
Roberto Hortal, MORE THN:
As I’ve already mentioned a couple of times, this is a priority for me. I believe finding such a model could be a huge competitive advantage
for a marketer. We’re working hard internally and with our agencies to develop and test various approaches to a much more complex way to attribute sales to the ‘marketing
value chain’, with some success so far although we’re still well into the journey.
Q. Are you looking at other forms of online marketing like viral? Roberto Hortal, MORE THN:
I’m always looking at opportunities to do things differ- ently. We did an interesting thing with viral last Christmas where we bridged online and
the real world. Our Personal Customer Managers emailed customers to let them know of our Christmas opening hours and included, as a little present, a papercraft model of
our MORE THN wood people, the ones featured in our ad campaign.
The models could be printed, folded and glued into Christmas decorations. We had quite a few downloads and I’m sure we made a few people smile. Some may have even
decided to stay with us.
Q. Can you talk a bit about Living, your green social network; the reasons for its launch and the challenges of execution?
Roberto Hortal, MORE THN: Living is our main social networking activity. We’re not
new to social networking by any means – we’ve been successfully running PetHealthcare.co.uk, a community and forum for Pet owners, for a number of years.
In the spirit of MORE THN, We Do More, last year we started looking for more opportunities for MORE THN to enable conversations around other topics of interest
to our potential customers. We commissioned iCrossing, our SEO [Search Engine Optimization, explained in
Chapter 9] partner, to use its Network Sense methodology to map the networks of topics and conversations where our product, brand or site featured as part of the
discussion. This work identified a gap that we could step in to fill – we couldn’t find a neutral, authoritative, trusted and consumer-friendly space to discuss practical issues
around how to live greener daily lives.
If it was to succeed, the site had to be genuine: countless companies have tried and failed to infiltrate the social space remember Zuzzid? when the only workable
approach is to contribute and share freely. To be genuine useful. To really participate. So we set it up using the tools that most bloggers use Wordpress and plugins,
gave it an independent voice the writers, all professionals, are completely independent
Part 1 Introduction
57
All organizations operate within an environment that influences the way in which they con- duct business. Strategy development should be strongly influenced by considering the
environment the business operates in, as illustrated in Figure 2.1. To inform e-commerce strategy, the most significant influences are those of the immediate marketplace of the
micro-environment that is shaped by the needs of customers and how services are provided to them through competitors and intermediaries and via upstream suppliers. Wider influ-
ences are provided by local and international economic conditions and legislation together with whatever business practices are acceptable to society. Finally, technological innovations
are vital in providing opportunities to provide superior services to competitors or through changing the shape of the marketplace.
Strategic agility
The capacity to respond to these environmental opportunities and threats is commonly referred to as
strategic agility
. Strategic agility is a concept strongly associated with knowl- edge management theory and is based on developing a sound process for reviewing
marketplace opportunities and threats and then selecting the appropriate strategy options. See Mini Case Study 2.1 for an excellent video introduction to the principles of strategic agility.
The e-commerce environment
Strategic agility
The capability to innovate and so gain competitive
advantage within a marketplace by
monitoring changes within an organization’s
marketplace and then to efficiently evaluate
alternative strategies and then select, review and
implement appropriate candidate strategies.
from MORE THN and have complete editorial control, freed the content by using a non-restrictive Creative Commons licence throughout the site and allowed it to
become part of the fabric of social networking by providing countless ways to share, bookmark, recommend, rate and comment.
We also made sure the site was easy to use, accessible and effective at interacting with search engines. And of course we give it daily in-depth, engaging, original content
so our audience will always find a new topic to add to their online conversations. We launched the site just a couple of weeks before the big flood events last year.
When the floods hit we published an article on how to best prevent flood damage and make a successful claim. It shot up to position one on Google for the search ‘flood
advice’. Even now, over a year later, it sits comfortably at position three, just below the entries from the environment agency and direct.gov.
The site is clearly delivering its stated goals of being eminently useful and creating long-term engagement with the brand. It’s constantly developing as a result of user
feedback, broadening the topics covered and providing the types of content and serv- ices its increasingly numerous audience find useful. It is really taking on a life of its own.
And all the while, it is delivering a branded experience to the thousands of people who decide to spend the time of the day in conversation with MORE THN.
Source: Econsultancy 2008 QA: MORE THN’s Roberto Hortal Munoz on comparison sites, 8 August. www.Econsultancy.comnews-blog366073q-a-more-th-n-s-roberto-hortal-munoz-on-comparison-sites.html