In the market of consumption services, dianping.com is a typical company based on such a business model. It attracts consumers to publish their service experience after the consumption, which can be referred to by consumers who have not experienced this as yet. Founded in 2003, with the monthly active users exceeding 200 million, dianping.com has collected information over 14 million businesses, covering over 2,500 cities nationwide and a few areas abroad. Thanks to the mass data of business reputation, it has now become a leading platform for providing business and trading opportunities for the locals, which has laid a solid basis for furthering its online-to-offline (O2O) business next. It has been widely agreed by consumption service companies to set up a feedback profile and obtain positive comments by hosting joint promotion activities on dianping.com before opening up a new shop.
1.1.1.6 SoLoMo
In traditional models, social marketing, local marketing and mobile marketing are basically independent. The social marketing department is only responsible for online social marketing. Teams from different regions complete regional marketing together and hold a large number of marketing activities. As for mobile marketing, it is more likely to be SMS marketing, developing the business by sending short texts. The popularity of smartphones and tablet computers changes the picture. These mobile devices give consumers many more new functions and choices, which enable them to get any product and service they need at anytime and at anyplace.
SoLoMo is a mixed concept that combines Social, Local and Mobile. An example of SoLoMo is a smartphone app such as dianping.com that can position users, provide the comments and ratings of nearby shops, and allow users to publish their feedback, upload photos and have social interactions.
SoLoMo is an increasingly growing marketing trend. According to the current location, consumers get the relevant content or promotion information and share them through the social website. A 2013 Adobe survey shows that 71% of cell phone users visit social websites by mobile ends. A total of 70% of the respondents search for information, map and comments on nearby shops using mobile devices, among which one-third of them opine that they are encouraged by promotions from the merchants. Also, a 2012 Nelson study report demonstrates that 78% of respondents discover the shops they are interested in by cell phones, 63% of people learn the price through cell phones and 22% of people read the comments of merchants. According to the statistics above, the application function of SoLoMo has been extremely critical for the geographical comments of consumers.
When potential consumers show up nearby, businesses need to make sure that consumers can reach you easily by cell phones. Businesses also need to spur consumers to come into the shop and experience by any possible means such as SMS, regional SEO, regional discount or trading information. These marketing technologies, based on positioning marketing, have a good effect under SoLoMo.
Geofeedia is a US social media company, which specializes in social positioning and geo-fencing technology. It has developed a series of tools, allowing developers to mark and trace the geographic information from an individual’s social media. By using complex positioning and geo-fencing technology, it shows what social media content has been published in a certain area, like a stadium or a public place. The business can use its technology to obtain social media information that has been publicly released, helping them to conduct market research and data collection.
1.1.1.7 App
The surge in the number of smart mobile devices has increasingly made users rely on mobile search functions. According to Google’s data, 94% of the users look up the address of physical retail stores. In addition to social applications and local searching applications, apps of retail businesses will become more common in the next few years. WeChat as a large app can replace many singular-function applications. This is also a factor that should be weighed before investing in an application.
Specialized apps can provide more specific action targets as well as a simple and direct user experience. In the 2013 Nelson study, 53% of Americans used applications of retail businesses, which had already begun to dominate the mobile ecosystem. In 2013, consumers on average spent 2 hours and 31 minutes on mobile devices every day, including smartphones and tablet computers. About 80% of the time (2 hours and 7 minutes) is spent on apps, while the remaining 20% is spent for mobile network. Digital marketing people attract consumers based on marketing content on the webpage, but currently, it is a good option to put part of the resources on their specialized app.
1.1.2 Digitalized interaction for clients
1.1.2.1 Social media
Social media is a channel for enterprises to have a deeper and easier conversation with clients thanks to digital technologies. It also serves as a tool to build brand loyalty in the digital era. In the current age, enterprises must go further beyond the relationship of not only passing on information but also establishing social relationships to cultivate brand affinity that enhances communication, understanding and trust.
Social network and community connect people together, allowing them to share and transmit real-time information. Social media can be regarded as contact and interaction of online culture in the virtual market.
• Around 27% of the time, Internet users have been active on social media;
• Around 70% of B2C companies say that they obtain new clients via social media channels;
Traditional methods of marketing in most cases have resulted in linear growth rate, while marketing on social media helps to achieve an exponential growth rate. Social media can help enterprises to amplify the brand influence and obtain better outcomes by more effectively using their own marketing content. When a company launches marketing content on an official account, followers will forward or comment on the content. Once the content has been forwarded many times, even non-subscribers can also receive the information shared by these followers. By such means, social media can help brands obtain unimaginable attention. We also discuss methods on how to “go viral” on social media in the later chapters of the book.
However, being seen or having many followers is not enough. Enterprises need to encourage users to participate. Digital technologies provide an unprecedented chance, which enables enterprises to have deeper communication with the existing clients and potential clients and build closer brand relations. Enterprises should master a richer range of interactions to foster brand affinity. To improve the level of participation, Google’s research team has made a research project. Research results show that the full process includes four steps: user choice, interactions, sharing and conversion. And the research team believes that the key method for improving the participation of clients is “during the information boom, those enterprises who attach importance to social participation are more likely to succeed compared with the enterprises that only concern about exposure. For example, in terms of investment in Chinese social media, investment in microblog is to reach more users; that in WeChat is to focus on depth. The traditional way of marketing makes a lot of advertising work to a target group, but these enterprises adopt the completely opposite approach. They give priority to the most critical and important people who can amplify brand influence by their opinions and suggestions”. The research team suggests that the former mode of transmission