Across the media, it’s largely thanks to an anticipated 4.3 percent more TV ad money and 12.9 percent more online ad spending. But newspapers and magazines are each forecast to lose about four percent of their ad income this year.

-Multimedia share: TV, which captures forty percent of all ad spend, is expected to gain more and more share over the next few years. ZenithOptimedia reckons the internet will find 13.9 percent of all ad money this year, rising to 17.1 percent by 2012. But newspapers, magazines and radio will find their share decline over that period. The internet already overtook magazines for ad share in 2009, when it hit 12.6 percent.

-Internet figs: Specifically, the internet is forecast to make $62.6 billion from ads this year, rising to $71.9 billion in 2011 and $83.9 billion in 2012. The medium’s “engine of growth” is paid search, which took half of all online ad dollars last year and is forecast to increase that share over the next few years.

Online display spending has fallen from 33 percent in 2008 to 32 percent in 2009 and is expected to decline to 31.7 percent in 2010. But Zenith reckons online video ads and other new formats will kickstart a turnaround in 2011 and 2012.

-Geographies: North America is forecast to be down 1.5 percent this year, western Europe up 0.37 percent, Asia-Pacific up 5.9 percent, central and eastern Europe up 5.6 percent, Latin America up 9.2 percent and Africa/MiddleEast/Rest Of World will be up 6.3 percent.

Robert Andrews – www.paidContent.co.uk April 7, 2010

Chris Nuttall and David Gelles have reportered in the Financial Times  (Published: March 16 2010) that social networking website Facebook has capped a year of phenomenal growth by overtaking Google’s popularity among US internet users, with industry data showing it has scored more visits on its home page than the search engine.

In a sign that the web is becoming more sociable than searchable, research firm Hitwise said that the two sites accounted for 14 per cent of all US internet visits last week. Facebook’s home page recorded 7.07 per cent of traffic and Google’s 7.03 per cent. Some other highlights;

• Facebook’s membership has more than doubled in the past year, passing the 200m mark last April and 400m in February.

• Google has responded to the ascendancy of the social networking site with its own Buzz service last month. Buzz allows users to add status updates, friends, pictures, videos, location information, comments and links to other networking sites.

• Internet users worldwide spent more than five-and-a-half hours a month on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter in December 2009, an 82 per cent increase over the previous year, according to the Nielsen Company research firm.

Enform believes that this points to Facebook becoming the ubiquitous home page for more users in place of search engines and other social media sites. In fact, it suggest the evolution of social media away from its perceived position as simply another kids thing to that of a multi-modal contact and virtual “touch-point” for connected individuals and usomer’s.

They used to say “you have to be on Google” to make it on the web… now Facebook?

Google Analytics Dashboard

Web analytics is one of the most powerful yet underrated online marketing tools on the web. Google Analytics is not the most powerful but it has one significant advantage over many others – its free.

Wikipedia defines web analytics as “the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of internet data for purposes of understanding and optimizing web usage”. Have a look at their excellent summary here and consider the possibilities available via a well set up tracking engine.

Imagine knowing which specific pages your customers from Albania looked at and how they were referred to that page? What time of the day was it? Was the Albanian interest level the same as the same time last year and how many converted to a sale or reached the specified goal target? And how does your site compare with your peers or competitors and which words generate the most inbound traffic through native search?

These are but a small sample of what’s available free through Google, its easy to setup and the reporting options are more extensive than most people will every try.  If you have the functionality installed, ask Enform to help you show what’s possible. If you haven’t got analytics tracking yet, talk to Enform about helping you set up.

Enform has released the results of the Australian performance products usomer survey to help automotive performance brands better understand their customer and the rapidly changing market.  Enform targeted over 15,000 performance enthusiasts and industry participants and invited them to complete an online survey. 

 The survey covered the following issues:

• sources of performance product information and research used
• purchasing intentions including most likely buying channels
• online sources used for researching or buying performance products
• performance brands used in Australia, awareness and related Net Promoter Scores (NPS)*

Jim Gurieff, director of Enform says, ”We believe the results of the survey have uncovered a great opportunity for any Australian automotive performance brand that is looking for export opportunities and more effective and efficient ways to market their products in the performance sector.”

 A highlight summary of the questions and answers can be downloaded here.

Enform Networks is not aligned with Satmetrix or Bain & Co though we value and use the NPS* system to help clients build better and stronger brands that can grow at a faster rate. Global research (including Australia) has shown that brands with the highest NPS in their sector consistently out perform their competitors in growth and financial performance.

 In a nut shell, NPS is a simple but remarkably effective new method for measuring customer loyalty. A higher NPS delivers more powerful and more vocal customer advocacy resulting in cascading brand referral independent of conventional marketing and promotional spend.

NPS provides a simple comparable measure of customer satisfaction and future business growth by looking at customer loyalty perception which is often different to performance perception. That is, a brand or company could be considered as a “can do better” in its delivery performance while still retaining an excellent NPS indicating a strong referral and recommendation base.

For this reason Enform places high value in NPS when planning and deploying usomer promotion and support campaigns to create and leverage the “Buzz”.

The web and social media turbochargers the speed and reach of any message.  It will therefore leverage and multiply the result toward the positive or negative.

Click the link to download a copy of our NPS Explained document enform_nps_outline1

Its a good thing to know what your customers think and how they behave. We thought we’d try and help by launching an online global survey to ask usomers (customer or users) what they think and how they see the automotive performance industry and its brands.

If you’d like to help (or just have a rant) you can follow the link to the survey here and do it online, should only take a few minutes. And if you do, you go into the draw for a bunch of online shopping vouchers worth US$50.

Remember, they can’t help you if you don’t help them so get involved and enjoy the benefits.

Some interesting recent stats on Facebook Everything You Never Knew About Facebook, also summarised below. 

Meanwhile sub 18 year olds are leaving or avoiding Facebook and fragmenting into other sites that are yet to register on business radar. Arguments are starting over kids rejecting parents as “Friends” and the whole thing is starting to migrate toward a more mature mainstream media channel albeit with 2 way connection and classic social media charcteristics (so all you social media cynics shouldnt get too cosy) .

That’s both good and bad news as MySpace revenue has shrunk again and concern is that the core 18-25 and emerging pre-teen demographic is not staying on these channels and will go somewhere else. However, the upside is that a core demographic for many “traditional” brands and those with disposable income are joining up and is the largest growth sector.

Facebook has more than 250 million users, 120 million users log on to Facebook at least once each day

People 35 years old and older represent the fastest growing demographic.

1 billion social objects (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) shared each week

About 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States

30 million users currently access Facebook through their mobile devices

 Taken from http://www.conversationalcurrency.com/732/everything-you-never-knew-about-facebook/

Enform Australian Business Travel Survey 2009

Enform Networks releases the results of Australia’s first comprehensive business travel survey covering brands, technology, emerging trends and the realities of a changed economic climate.

Enform targeted over 300 Australian based senior executives in the corporate sector who regularly travel and those who manage, administer and/or arrange corporate travel on behalf of the business.

The Enform Networks’ Business Travel Survey covered the following issues:

• business travel management in the current economic climate
• business and corporate travel trends in the current environment
• sources of travel information and research used
• technology, systems and how they relate to travel management
• user and traveler preferences and priorities
• business travel brands used in Australia, awareness and related Net Promoter Scores (NPS)*

*Net Promoter Score index – for more on this important consumer advocacy metric visit www.netpromoter.org

The linked en_biztravelsurvey2009_summary document provides details of the questions along with a short summary of key findings. Additional information is available upon request by contacting Enform Networks.

• Business travel management in the current economic climate
• Business and corporate travel trends in the current environment
• Sources of travel information and research used
• Technology, systems and how they relate to travel management
• User and traveller preferences and priorities
• Business travel brands used in Australia, awareness and related Net Promoter Scores (NPS)*

We hope to have a summary of the results soon.