I am just back from attending the 2013 Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas where I was meeting with customers and visiting the massive show floor. CES is an intriguing blend of extremes and contrasts: biggest and the smallest; connected and unconnected; wired and wireless; high tech – low tech. As personal and business technologies converge through the “consumerization of technology,” CES provides an exciting window into the current and future world of technology.
The following are my personal observations and extrapolations from the show based on my conversations with customers, colleagues and walking the floor.
New Next Generation TV Again – You could be mistaken for thinking that CES is really the TV show. Televisions are everywhere and every company seems to produce one. Manufacturers are still selling 3D television, but it has taken a back seat to the next big thing -- bigger and thinner new OLED sets and specular ultra-high definition screens.
Connected Home – CE companies continue to try to connect all of our home devices. But now appliances are getting in on the act. There were lots of examples of connected refrigerators and washing machines. Now you can even control how your clothes are washed from the comfort of your couch with your smartphone or even on your TV.
Content Sharing and Mirroring – At last, Read More »
Retailers are entering a new era of consumer shopping behavior fueled by the digital world in which we live. The explosion of digital content has major implications for retailers across all of the channels through which they offer products and services.
In fact, a new study just released by the Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG) reveals that web-based digital content is now the most powerful influence on buying decisions for shoppers across all retail channels. The study surveyed 5,000 shoppers across five countries: the United States, United Kingdom, Brazil, Mexico, and China.
The study’s results highlight the need for retailers to “catch and keep” today’s consumers, who now effortlessly “mash-up” digital and physical shopping. At this week’s National Retail Federation (NRF) Convention & Expo, Cisco will explain how retailers can take advantage of this evolution in consumer shopping behavior.
Our digital team (the folks who bring you Cisco.com, mobile and presence on the online social venues like twitter, Facebook and YouTube) had another great virtual all-hands today thanks to Cisco TelePresence. Just like last time, we had tons of people in multiple locations around the globe. Most of us are in the Northern Hemisphere, where it’s spring, and so we wore rabbit ears and festive spring colors (the people who look so intent are looking at one of my amazing slides!):
Pretty frequently now, I have been getting this question from friends: “Do I really need a company web site?” Of course, I have been hearing this musing for at least 10 years in Devil’s advocacy conversations. But recently it has become almost a meme. I hear it mostly from people not in the heart of running digital strategy or operations, but I’ve heard it from friends at several other companies, who find running a web site complicated and expensive and wonder if they really need their site or if they could just do it exclusively via other avenues such as Facebook pages. The answer I usually give them is: “Yes, you do; and no, probably not.” And then I add: “But you’d better be thinking about broadening your mix and strategy.”
To back up for a moment, the argument against web sites is usually phrased as in this recent article in ReadWriteWeb, which argues that community building and content happen most effectively outside of the confines of a company web site – where it can be more easily shared and discovered. Fair point, and there’s no better example than the viral nature of YouTube discovery and YouTube sharing via Facebook, twitter and other mechanisms.
There’s strong reason to look hard at your digital mix: Social and especially mobile footprints are growing meteorically. Last year, smart phones exceeded PC sales, and BusinessInsider CEO Henry Blodget recently pointed out that in a few short years PC sales will be absolutely dwarfed by smart phones purchases.
At Cisco, we see similar trends. As shown in this chart below, tablet visitors are growing at 341%, mobile visitors 91%, and social reach is at 55% growth. annually (and all probably more in the last month, and my friends in B2C see even more meteoric mobile growth). Whereas last year our general web site visit growth around 2-5% depending on what month range you look at. And we’re very conservative in these numbers (for social reach, we don’t even count individuals like Cisco CTO Padmasree Warrior who has 1.4 million followers on twitter today).
But look more closely. Looking at traffic size, you will see that the web is the 800 pound gorilla in the room. The core Cisco web sites get 240 million visits per year (around 72 million annual visitors), each one an opportunity to provide support, training and (yes) marketing to people who have sought us out and are engaged with Cisco. Furthermore, notice that the content on the web site draws in more than 70 million referrals from Google and other search engines. Referrals in from social media (mostly Facebook) are a much smaller number (even considering in the activity of “friends of friends.”) Even considering that visitors from social media are more engaged and register and interact more, it’s an impressive picture.
Furthermore, the web sites provide a place to interact in a long-term relationship: We can personalize your experience based on interest and behavior, can provide transactional one-stop service to, say, Partners via vehicles such as My Cisco Workspace, and (to talk marketing for a moment) can personalize offers and collect leads from new potential customers. And, the same technologies, services and processes that support these things on a web site support them on mobile devices including apps.
So, what’s the reality? You need to ensure your strategy aggressively embraces the social and mobile worlds; and, you need a company web site, too. You need to think of your digital footprint is an ecosystem where everything works together. It would be just as ludicrous to have no social presence as it would to have no web site and decide to ignore your visitors on tablets and smart phones. That fact is, all of these digital mechanisms work together to reach and interact with your customers.
Next time: Why I hope you are planning your web, social and mobile technology strategies together.
