Holiday Shopping Report: Consumers Want More Social Media Deals

Holiday Shopping Report: Consumers Want More Social Media Deals

Marketers Have to Find the Balance: Shoppers Increasingly Open to Money-Saving
Offers on Social Channels, but Not to Promotional Message Overload

PORTLAND, Ore., Oct. 30, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to a new holiday
shopping report from Yesmail Interactive, consumers want to see more deals on
social media than brands have been offering; however, the research also shows
that shoppers tune out companies that bombard them with too many promotions
around the holidays.

The findings suggest that retailers have to get the tone and timing of their
campaigns right in order to drive critical fourth-quarter sales.

"Consumers are oversaturated with holiday messages this time of year," said
Michael Fisher, president of Yesmail Interactive, an Infogroup company. "We're
not suggesting that brands ignore the holidays on social media, but marketers
have to strike a balance between using social channels to drive sales and
simply engaging with customers who are celebrating the holidays."

The Yesmail report, based on a consumer shopping trends survey and an analysis
of the digital marketing campaigns of 20 brands over a three-month period,
found that many leading retailers are underutilizing social media as a channel
to promote deals.

The survey found that:

  * Half of consumers are influenced by social media when making online
    purchases, compared to 42 percent for in-store purchases.
  * 34 percent have purchased a product as a direct result of a social media
    promotion.
  * Only 8 percent of Facebook campaigns and 4 percent of Twitter campaigns
    for the brands tracked focused on money-saving promotions.

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While the report shows that consumers are more open to social media promotions
in general, it also revealed a point of caution for marketers: Holiday-themed
promotions often perform worse than non-holiday promotions in terms of
engagement.

The study tracked the social media campaigns for the brands released during
the spring and summer, where 14 percent of Facebook campaigns and 8 percent of
Twitter campaigns had a holiday theme. The findings showed that those
campaigns that focused heavily on getting the consumer to purchase showed
less-than-average engagement, while the messages aimed at simply getting
followers into the respective holiday spirit performed much better.

"The winners focused on what the season means to consumers, rather than using
the holiday to directly promote a product or sales event," Fisher said.
"Brands have to be especially careful about not being overly promotional
during the holidays, even though customers are increasingly turning to social
channels to find deals."

Other Yesmail findings provide additional insight into how brands can leverage
social media this holiday season:

  * Consumers are most likely to interact with a brand on social channels when
    researching a product and after getting an email promotion, and less
    likely right before they make a purchase and immediately afterward.
  * Almost 60 percent prefer to interact with brands on social media between 6
    p.m. and 2 a.m., but the majority of brands run social campaigns during
    office hours.
  * The most common interaction with brands on social media is liking a
    Facebook page (57 percent), followed by commenting and asking for product
    recommendations from friends.
  * The least common interactions are tweeting about a brand (8 percent) and
    adding a brand to a Google+ circle (4 percent).

To gauge consumer shopping preferences, Yesmail polled more than 500 consumers
about their general and holiday shopping habits. Using its Yesmail Market
Intelligence tool, the company also tracked the digital marketing campaigns of
Amazon, Apple, Best Buy, Crate & Barrel, Dell, Game Stop, HH Gregg, JC Penney,
Kohl's, Macy's, Nordstrom, Pottery Barn, Rue La La, Sears, Sprint, T-Mobile,
Toys 'R' Us, Verizon, Walmart and Williams Sonoma.

To view the full Yesmail report, "Consumer Online Behavior Report: Developing
Informed Digital Marketing Strategies for Holiday Success," please visit
www.yesmail.com/surveyreport.

ABOUT YESMAIL INTERACTIVE

We power intelligent customer interactions. We give you the insights to
recognize and understand your customer to deliver contextually relevant
digital communications- while respecting their preferences and privacy. We
help marketers evolve their customer relationships through intelligent
interactions via technology, insights and services in a near real time
multi-channel environment.  We help you compete in the age of the customer.
For more information, visit www.yesmail.com.

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ABOUT YESMAIL MARKET INTELLIGENCE

Yesmail Market Intelligence provides real-time, in-depth competitive data
across multiple digital channels and industries. The tool feeds real-time data
from four digital channel feeds directly into one user-friendly dashboard,
providing a sneak peek into competitor activity and enabling marketers to
evaluate industry market trends and best practices. By helping marketers
refine, adjust or completely redefine their multichannel strategy, Yesmail
Market Intelligence is one of the most sophisticated tools for improving
marketing efficiency and ROI.

About Infogroup

Infogroup helps companies increase sales and customer loyalty through its
high-value data and innovative multi-channel digital and offline marketing
solutions.  Infogroup enables its clients – from local businesses to Fortune
100 companies – to target, connect with and engage their most valuable
audiences.  With cutting edge technology and analytics bolstered by our
proprietary, real-time Data Axle ™ of contextually relevant information on
more than 235 million individuals and 24 million businesses, Infogroup
delivers the complete spectrum of value added data, direct and digital
marketing solutions. For more information, please visit www.infogroup.com.

CONTACT: Mercy Ruiz
         Director, Corporate Communications 
         Phone: (402) 836.5290   
         E-mail: corporate.communications@infogroup.com

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