Page 282 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

268 9 Marketing and Advertising in E-Commerce

Web-Based Surveys
A special type of online survey is done by placing questions • Blogging. Bloggers can raise issues or motivate
on selected websites and inviting potential consumers to others to express opinions in blogs.
reply. For example, Mazda North America used a Web-based • Chatting. Community members love to chat in
survey to help design its Miata line. Web surveys may be public chat rooms. By following the chats, you can
passive (a fill-in questionnaire) or interactive (respondents collect current data.
download the questionnaires, add comments, ask questions, • Tweeting. Following what travels on Twitter can be
and discuss issues). The surveys may include both approaches. enlightening.
• Live chat. Here, you can collect interactive data
Online Focus Groups from customers in real time.
Several research firms create panels of qualified Web visitors • Chatterbots. These can be partially interactive. You
to participate in online focus groups. For example, see NPD can analyze logs of communications. Sometimes peo-
Group, Inc. (go to npd.com/wps/portal/npd/us/about-npd/ ple are more honest when they chat with an avatar.
consumer-panel). This panel consists of two million con- • Collective wisdom (intelligence). This is a type of
sumers recruited online and verified by telephone to provide community brainstorming. It is used in crowdsourc-
information for NPD’s consumer tracking services. The use ing where communication is encouraged.
of preselected focus group participants helps to overcome • Find expertise. Expertise is frequently found in the
some of the research limitations (e.g., small sample size and Web 2.0 environment; many times it is provided for
partial responses) that sometimes limit the effectiveness of free (e.g., Yahoo! Answers).
Web-based surveys. • Folksonomy. This social tagging makes data easier
to find and access.
Hearing Directly from Customers • Data in videos, photos, and other rich media.
Places where these media are shared contribute to
Instead of using focus groups, a company may ask customers valuable data collection.
directly what they think about a product or service. Companies • Discussion forums. Subgroups in social networks
can use chat rooms, social network discussion groups, blogs, use a discussion format where members exchange
wikis, podcasts, and electronic consumer forums to interact opinions on many topics.
with consumers. For example, toymaker LEGO used a mar-
ket research company to establish a direct survey on an elec-
tronic bulletin board where millions of visitors read each Example: Xiaomi’s Data Collection
other’s comments and share opinions about LEGO toys. The from Social Media in China
researchers analyzed the responses daily and submitted the Xiaomi, Inc. (mi.com/en) is a Chinese company that designs
information to LEGO. Netflix is using this approach exten- and sells smartphones and consumer electronics. The com-
sively by encouraging customers to report their likes and dis- pany has grown unprecedentedly to become one of the top
likes. Software tools can facilitate obtaining input directly five smartphone brands in China in 3 years. It sold 18.7 mil-
from customers. For example, see insightexpress.com, a lion smartphones in 2013, only 3 years after its launch. A key
leading provider of media analytics and marketing solutions. to its success story is the effective use of social media as a
marketing research tool. Xiaomi engages fans on social media
Data Collection in Social Networks and Other Web sites. For example, the company organized a flash sale in
2.0 Environments 2014, using social media to notify their fans about their
upcoming sale. According to the company’s global director of
Collecting data in social networks and Web 2.0 environments marketing, social media is very important to Xiaomi, as it is
provides new and exciting opportunities. Here are some the most direct and effective way to interact with its fans.
methods: Within a year, the market research website had enrolled over
six million registered users (called Mi Fen). The company
analyzed user contributions on the Xiaomi website to design a
user interface called MIUI. Xiaomi’s first smartphone model
• Polling. People like to vote (e.g., the U.S. television was released in August 2011, which received more than
show American Idol), expressing their opinions on 300,000 pre-orders. Two years later, its sales reached US$5
certain issues. People provide opinions on products, billion in 2013 and started entering the market of other elec-
services, performances of artists and politicians, tronic products. Xiaomi’s success story shows the importance
and so forth. Voting is popular in social networks. of market research on social media. By November 2014, the
Millet Forum (bbs.xiaomi.cn) had more than 221 million