Thursday, November 29, 2007
Church music retailer grows sales with audio clips in search results
As printed in Internet Retailer
In a limited market with a lot of competition, Hope Publishing Co. has increased online sales 50% after deploying technology that lets visitors listen to music samples as they search and navigate through song books and sheet music displayed with audio files, vice president Steve Shorney says.
“We compete with many dot-coms and larger companies, but this technology levels the playing field,” Shorney says. “Our web site can now do everything and sometimes more than other companies that are larger and have more technology investment.”
In September 2006, the century-old, family-controlled company launched its Hear the Hope Player tool for letting visitors at HopePublishing.com listen to more than 3,000 audio files of music before purchasing from a selection of church hymnals, song books and sheet music. As shoppers search and navigate through the site, many products appear with a Hear the Hope Player audio clip, which has resulted in longer and more frequent visits and, in turn, increased sales, Shorney says.
“People searching for choral music for Christmas can get 150 titles, and every piece has a sound file attached,” Shorney says. “Visitors are not necessarily familiar with our music files—many files are either newly released or very old—so they need to hear them,” he adds.
A former music player deployed on the retailer’s site offered limited ability to manage audio files, resulting in less shopper activity. Hope replaced that player in September 2006 with one developed on the Internet Secured Application Technology, or ISAT, platform from Chicago-based Performance Communications Group. The new player platform enables Hope to directly manage its audio content while also providing on-demand access by visitors as they search and navigate through Hope’s more than 3,000 audio clips.
A year after deploying the new audio player, the amount of time that Hope’s online visitors spent listening to audio files rose 300%, to 115,000 minutes in September 2007 from 29,000 minutes in the same month of 2006, as the number of site visits rose 90% to more than 110,000. “For the 12 months ended September 2007, sales rose 50% over the prior 12-month period,” Shorney says.
The search and navigation on HopePublishing.com also features audio clips in cross-selling offers, including offers based on past shopping preferences of other shoppers. While listening to an audio clip, shoppers can continue searching for other products.
For Hope, which is based in Carol Stream, IL, its retail site’s new search and navigation functionality is key to serving a market where success relies heavily on attracting repeat customers and increasing average order values. “We cater to a known universe of buyers, mostly church choirs that don’t typically grow a lot in any given year,” Shorney says. “But if a choir has 25 members, and they each buy two or three items instead of one, it goes straight to our bottom line.”
In a limited market with a lot of competition, Hope Publishing Co. has increased online sales 50% after deploying technology that lets visitors listen to music samples as they search and navigate through song books and sheet music displayed with audio files, vice president Steve Shorney says.
“We compete with many dot-coms and larger companies, but this technology levels the playing field,” Shorney says. “Our web site can now do everything and sometimes more than other companies that are larger and have more technology investment.”
In September 2006, the century-old, family-controlled company launched its Hear the Hope Player tool for letting visitors at HopePublishing.com listen to more than 3,000 audio files of music before purchasing from a selection of church hymnals, song books and sheet music. As shoppers search and navigate through the site, many products appear with a Hear the Hope Player audio clip, which has resulted in longer and more frequent visits and, in turn, increased sales, Shorney says.
“People searching for choral music for Christmas can get 150 titles, and every piece has a sound file attached,” Shorney says. “Visitors are not necessarily familiar with our music files—many files are either newly released or very old—so they need to hear them,” he adds.
A former music player deployed on the retailer’s site offered limited ability to manage audio files, resulting in less shopper activity. Hope replaced that player in September 2006 with one developed on the Internet Secured Application Technology, or ISAT, platform from Chicago-based Performance Communications Group. The new player platform enables Hope to directly manage its audio content while also providing on-demand access by visitors as they search and navigate through Hope’s more than 3,000 audio clips.
A year after deploying the new audio player, the amount of time that Hope’s online visitors spent listening to audio files rose 300%, to 115,000 minutes in September 2007 from 29,000 minutes in the same month of 2006, as the number of site visits rose 90% to more than 110,000. “For the 12 months ended September 2007, sales rose 50% over the prior 12-month period,” Shorney says.
The search and navigation on HopePublishing.com also features audio clips in cross-selling offers, including offers based on past shopping preferences of other shoppers. While listening to an audio clip, shoppers can continue searching for other products.
For Hope, which is based in Carol Stream, IL, its retail site’s new search and navigation functionality is key to serving a market where success relies heavily on attracting repeat customers and increasing average order values. “We cater to a known universe of buyers, mostly church choirs that don’t typically grow a lot in any given year,” Shorney says. “But if a choir has 25 members, and they each buy two or three items instead of one, it goes straight to our bottom line.”
Labels: advertising 2.0, Internet Secured Application Technology, ISAT, online advertising, Online Marketing, Performance Communications Group, predictive advertising, social advertising
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Social Advertising
Facebook announced new advertising initiatives in Nov. 2007 which attempt to introduce the next evolution in online advertising. In the 1990's Yahoo, Doubleclick and others ushered in a new era of online advertising by creating scaled systems to deliver and record online banner exposures. In the early 2000's Google became the market maker for performance based advertising tied to viewer context. Since then, companies have been trying to place themselves into a position to take advantage of the next best thing in advertising which was assumed to be behavior based predictive advertising.
Facebook and MySpace may have leap-frogged behavioral advertising with their social advertising concepts which unite advertisers with social network members such that the members themselves are promoting the products. Traditionally, this is called "word of month" advertising. Word of mouth advertising, by most accounts, is the most influential form of advertising as it involves a personal recommendation. The problem with WOM is that its not predictable and difficult to scale. The social networks may have solved the scaling problem and could therefore introduce a valuable new form of online advertising.
Although privacy advocates suggest there are significant issues, "Pandora's box" is open and it will be difficult to keep social advertising contained if this is truly a new advertising model.
Facebook and MySpace may have leap-frogged behavioral advertising with their social advertising concepts which unite advertisers with social network members such that the members themselves are promoting the products. Traditionally, this is called "word of month" advertising. Word of mouth advertising, by most accounts, is the most influential form of advertising as it involves a personal recommendation. The problem with WOM is that its not predictable and difficult to scale. The social networks may have solved the scaling problem and could therefore introduce a valuable new form of online advertising.
Although privacy advocates suggest there are significant issues, "Pandora's box" is open and it will be difficult to keep social advertising contained if this is truly a new advertising model.
Labels: advertising 2.0, Internet Secured Application Technology, ISAT, online advertising, Online Marketing, Performance Communications Group, predictive advertising, social advertising
