70% of tablet-owning parents with children under 12 say their kids use the device, with the most popular activity being to play downloaded games (77%), according to data released in February 2012 by Nielsen. Other ways in which parents report their kids using tablets include for educational purposes (57%), for entertainment while traveling (55%), to watch TV shows/movies (43%), and for entertainment at a restaurant/event (41%), though communicating with friends/family on the device is less common (12%).
- Marketers are expanding the methods used to find new customers, according to a survey released in February 2012 by Chief Marketer. 80% of B2C and B2B marketers said that at least three-quarters of their leads came from non-broker sources in 2011. Email remained the dominant lead-gen medium, used by 83% of respondents, ahead of direct mail (57%), and web opt-ins, social network sign-ups, and trade show/conference leads (all at 55%). In terms of prospecting for this year, though, social networks moved into the second place (69%), behind email (87%), but ahead of web registrations (66%) and direct mail (61%). The chief obstacles to further adoption of social media as a prospecting channel are its content-hungry nature (45%), users’ perception of these platforms as non-commercial zones (40%), and the difficulty of calculating the return on social media lead-gen (37%).
- Customer interaction is a top priority for retailers this year, according to an NRF and KPMG report released in February. Almost two-thirds of companies rank customer satisfaction as their top strategic initiative, and 82% say customer service strategies will be their top priority in the coming year, representing a 9% increase from 75% last year. Meanwhile, for the first time in the survey’s 10-year history, retailer’ websites or online channels topped physical stores as the top channel for marketers (86% online vs. 81% brick-and-mortar).
- Data from a recent survey launched through the Schnucks Listens research panel indicates that 6% more men are doing the primary grocery shopping in their households today as compared to 5 years ago. Men are also making significantly more routine (regular stock up trips) and immediate needs (ran out of something) trips than women. Women, though, spend more money per trip for routine and fill in trips, and spend more time in the store, with the largest difference coming for routine trips (42% of women say they spend more than 45 minutes in the store for these trips, compared to 24% of men). Grocery destinations for these men and women may not hinge on prices, though: according to a National Grocers Assocation (NGA) consumer panel report, shoppers do not focus exclusively on low prices when selecting a primary supermarket. Indeed, for the fourth year running, low prices as being “very important” slide, cited by 39% of respondents, compared to 51% in 2009.
About the Data: The Chief Marketer survey was conducted in November and December 2011 and was completed by 833 marketing professionals in all verticals of B2B and B2C marketing. The NRF results are based on a survey of 247 retail executives from various sectors. The Schnucks Listens survey was based on responses from about half of the more than 13,000 grocery shoppers that comprise the Schnucks Listens research panel. The NGA survey was conducted by SupermarketGuru.com on its website in November and December 2011. 1,805 chief household shoppers completed surveys.
