Observations on Websites

1
Observations on Websites

• Customer Participation in Creating Site Brand
  Loyalty
• with Jonna Holland, University of Nebraska-Omaha

2
E-Business Issues

• Many to Many Communications Model
• Customers - both consumers and businesses as
  active participants in the marketing process

3
Research Questions

• What role does customer participation play in the
  e-Business Model?
• Do customers want to participate in the marketing
  effort?
• What can companies do to increase customer
  participation?
• What are the likely consequences of these efforts?

4
Brand Loyalty

• A strong commitment to a brand
• attitudinally
• behaviorally

5
Consequences of Brand Loyalty

• Repeat patronage
• Increased Revenue
• Inelasticity of demand
• Decreased switching

6
Application to the Online Environment

• Growth in Web sites outstrips growth in new users
• Emphasis will shift from customer acquisition to
  customer retention

7
Application to the Online Environment

• Companies online will increasingly recognize the
  value of brand loyalty to their sites.
• attitudinally
• behaviorally
• Repeat patronage may not mean repeat purchases
  online
• repeat site visits
• longer duration visits

8
Various Web Site Models

• Portals
• Yahoo.com, AOL.com
• Advertising based
• cnn.com
• Subscription based
• WSJ.com
• Transaction based
• Amazon.com

9
Web Site Stickiness

• Web site qualities that induce visitors to remain
  at the site rather than move on
• longer duration
• deeper navigation
• repeat visits

10
Does stickiness Brand Loyalty for a Web Site?

• Longer visit duration means increased perceptions
  of site value
• Or it could represent slow connections, load
  times, or confusing site design

11
Does stickiness Brand Loyalty for a Web Site?

• Increased Depth of Visit is also a sign of site
  value
• Or it could represent confusing site design

12
All Web users are not alike

• Task-oriented uses
• work
• information search
• product purchase
• Experiential uses
• entertainment
• non-goal directed search (surfing)

13
Methods of Increasing Stickiness

• Depth and Breadth of Content
• Personalization
• Building Online Community
• Games, contests, etc.

14
Personalization

• The need for and benefits of personalization will
  vary depending on the task or experiential
  orientation of the users

15
Personalization

• Functional Benefits
• meets customer needs more fully
• increases the efficiency of goal achievement
• Emotional Benefits
• a sign of status
• Self-expressive Benefits
• Uniqueness

16
Personalization

• Relationship Marketing
• One to One Marketing
• Customer Value
• EXAMPLES

17
What is Online Community?

• Groups of people who share common interests and
  needs who come together online to share a sense
  of community with others, without the constraints
  of time or space
• Capitalize on the many to many communications
  capabilities

18
How do Online Communities build Customer Loyalty?

• The need for and benefits of building online
  community at a site will vary depending on the
  task or experiential orientation of the users

19
How do Online Communities build Customer Loyalty?

• Functional Benefits
• Access to information not available anywhere else
  through word-on-line
• Emotional Benefits
• social aspects
• Self-Expressive Benefits
• opinion leadership
• EXAMPLES

20
Summary

• Site Brand Loyalty can be influenced by
• increased personalization
• increasing online community
• Task or Experiential orientation will impact
  these efforts
• Increased Site Brand Loyalty will result in
• repeat visits
• resistance to competitive efforts
• decreased price sensitivity

21
Summary

• Site Brand Loyalty can be influenced by
• increased personalization (e.g., Earthlink)
• leads to decreased brand switching churn rate
  of 4.2 (one of the lowest in the industry)
• increasing online community (e.g., Lycos
  Quote.com)
• leads to longer time at site, more returns and
  more activity (postings)
• Lycos Quote.com reports 535 ROI for this effort
• Task or Experiential orientation will impact
  these efforts
• EXAMPLES

22
Model of Customer Participation
Antecedents
Consequences
Affective
Personalization
Brand Loyalty
Cognitive
Community
Behavioral
Task vs. Experiential Orientation Other
Personal Factors
Examples????