Have you seen The Customer-Focused Marketing Playbook?

This comprehensive and practical guide to the latest ideas in customer-focused marketing hands you over 200 packed pages of strategy, best practices, do's and don'ts, practical know-how, facts and figures, and ideas to optimise your marketing strategy, boost sales, market share, increase ROI and profit.

Get it on Amazon (Kindle/Print)

Social reviews far more trusted than adverts

The survey of the shopping habits of 1,000 UK consumers found that 52% rate friends' recommendations as influential, and 48% are influenced by consumer reviews online. Conversely only 24% and 22% respectively rated advertising and recommendations from sales assistants as significant to their purchase decisions.

A surprising 88% of those surveyed said they sometimes or always consult reviews when making a purchase, and 60% said they were more likely to purchase from a site that has customer reviews on.

Travel and automotive are the sectors that rely on user reviews the most heavily, with almost one third always reading reviews when booking travel and nearly 30% always reading reviews when choosing a car.

Financial services is another area where reviews are becoming increasingly important, with nearly 20% saying they always read online reviews when buying insurance and more than one in seven consumers stating they always read reviews before choosing a bank, mortgage or loan provider.

It is important to make sure social content such as users reviews appear across a variety of shopping channels, as multichannel shopping behaviour is here to stay, with nearly 80% of consumers using two or more channels to shop. Amongst the most popular channels with these consumers are mobile and social networks.

Reevoo found that that shopping and researching products via mobile has increased from 38% to 46% in a year in the UK. Using mobiles to shop and research whilst inside a shop is rising, so retailers and marketers should consider this connected shopping experience when planning a mobile shopping strategy.

Using Facebook as a shopping and research tool has increased by almost 40%, with a majority of users of the social network now researching purchases or seeking friends' advice on the site. Asking friends for product suggestions or checking out what they've bought and recommend has increased by around 50% in a year, while purchasing through Facebook has doubled.

Interestingly, the one social shopping channel that seems to be on the wane is group buying sites. Regular users have more than halved, compared to this time last year. Consumers are finding new and different ways of social shopping as the space diversifies.

However, a key element in the success of social shopping and reviews is trust. We found that two thirds (67%) of consumers have concerns about the trustworthiness of reviews. More people than ever suspect positive reviews might be paid for and bad reviews hidden. The rise of false reviews has been well documented in the media and consumers are becoming savvy to this tactic. In fact, Reevoo's research shows that shoppers consistently trust independently collected reviews more than twice as much as reviews collected by the business being reviewed.

According to Reevoo’s founder, Richard Anson, "This study revealed an increasing sophistication in consumers' use of multi-channel and social shopping tools. As well as the tools and technologies becoming more innovative, people's browsing and buying behaviour is also changing. Whereas when social commerce was in its infancy people were happy to take reviews at face value, now consumers are becoming more discerning about who they'll trust and which information sources they find most valuable for them."

Have you seen The Customer-Focused Marketing Playbook?

This comprehensive and practical guide to the latest ideas in customer-focused marketing hands you over 200 packed pages of strategy, best practices, do's and don'ts, practical know-how, facts and figures, and ideas to optimise your marketing strategy, boost sales, market share, increase ROI and profit.

Learn the insider's tricks and techniques to turn every customers into a 'super spreader' for your brand. It's better than free advertising. Once you start this ball rolling, your brand can grow rapidly through word-of-mouth, advocacy, influencers, and customer loyalty. Super-charge your company's marketing strategy, build up your market share, and make more sales through repeat business and customer loyalty.

Find out what works - and what doesn't - and who's succeeded, and how they did it. See how the world's top brands keep their competitive edge against all odds.

The Customer-Focused Marketing Playbook walks you step-by-step through the techniques, metrics, reporting, analysis, marketing models, technologies, tools and innovations for successful marketing strategies - both traditional and emerging - with expert guidance from thought leaders in every major market. Find out the best ways to gather, analyse, and act on customer data to increase profitability, build your brand, empower your customers, beat the competition, reduce churn, and increase customer profitability. This is a marketing book you simply can't afford to be without.

This book aims to hand you all the facts, figures and research data you need for the best decisions for a more profitable, more engaging marketing strategy. It also highlights all the facts, forecasts and trends identified by our experts from the global Marketing Factbook's vast database of market data, news, studies, research and articles, and presents you with an invaluable library of ideas and practical support you can call upon at will.

With The Customer-Focused Marketing Playbook at your side, you'll have instant access to a true goldmine of easily adaptable and up-to-date strategies, walk-throughs, trends, research and market data, plus all the supporting arguments you need to build a solid, profitable marketing strategy.

Get it on Amazon (Kindle/Print)