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Research Roundup: New Entrepreneurs and Online Consumers
Feb 3rd
January is always pretty slow in business research land and this month has been no exception. So, I’m a few days late getting this report to you but that’s a good thing because I managed to wait long enough for the release of the 2011 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM). This is their 13th annual survey and the news was good.
Entrepreneurship: Alive and Well
In 2011, GEM researchers estimate that 388 million individuals worldwide were actively engaged in starting and running new businesses. That’s fantastic because previous research from Kauffman tells us that most net new jobs come from new businesses. And that is borne out by GEM’s numbers: about 36% of these new entrepreneurs expect to create at least 5 new jobs over the next five years. In fact, 16.8% of them expect to create at least 20 new jobs over the next five years.
In the United States, the 2011 GEM entrepreneurship rate is estimated at 12% — this is not much different from what it was ten years ago and it’s a little less than twice the global average. On average, about 17% were necessity driven and 57% or so were opportunity driven, while in the United States, an estimated 21% were necessity driven and 59% were opportunity driven. This is interesting, because it’s not what you’d expect to find, given the job losses over the last couple of years.
I have a feeling that, when the nonemployer numbers for 2011 come out later this year, we’re going to see them starting to recover from the two disastrous years before.
Selling? Selling Online?
A couple of studies on retailing caught my eye this month and both of them offer some interesting possibilities for small businesses engaged in retail.
For starters, the National Retail Federation proclaimed to the world sometime around mid-month that they expect overall retail sales growth to hit 3.4% in 2012. Presumably, before the world comes to an end later this year, a lot of people are going to want to buy things.
According to a survey by The NDF Group Inc., almost half of online consumers have bought books, stationery and office supplies in the last 12 months, making this the most active category for online retail. Must be all those home offices out there. Apparel and consumer electronics tie for second place, each with 46% of respondents saying they had bought in that category within the last year.
This survey also found that 25% of respondents follow a retailer or brand on a social media site and 27% say they’ve bought something because of what they’ve seen there. But another study, this one conducted by Puneet Manchanda of the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, found that the best social media site for your business may be your own.
Manchanda took a look at company-sponsored social networking sites, “using data from an unnamed retailer of books, CDs, and DVDs,” and found that unnamed retailer experienced a 19% increase in incremental revenue from their customers who joined their branded online community. In the community, members can recommend and review products, share favorites lists, make suggestions, and socialize with each other. The researcher also found that customers who were more active in the community, with larger numbers of friends, tended to spend more.
And this survey finds that you get a better return on the investment with your own branded community that you do by simply using Facebook. That will give you something new for you to factor into your online marketing strategy for 2012.
Ecommerce Photo via Shutterstock
Research Roundup: New Entrepreneurs and Online Consumers
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
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Read The End of Business as Usual for Social Media Insights, Research and Trends
Dec 31st
At the end of each year and into the beginning of the next, we take stock of where we’ve been and where we are about to go. TV shows and magazines look back on the significant events of the year, and then prognosticators predict what’s yet to come.
One of the best prognosticators out there (although he may not take to being called that) is Brian Solis (@briansolis). In 2010 he wrote the book Engage, which leads you through the specific steps you need to take to conceptualize, implement, manage and measure a social media program.
I had the privilege of interviewing Brian Solis for an article I wrote for Personal Branding Magazine. In some ways, he reminded me of Matthew Broderick’s character Ferris Bueller; fun, smart and super-savvy about the ways of the social media environment and how to play it. Solis knows how to navigate, pull the technological strings and use these tools to business advantage.
But wait, there’s more
And new for 2012, Solis has released The End of Business as Usual: Rewire the Way You Work to Succeed in the Consumer Revolution. This book takes you to the next level, taking social media away from the context of tool and into the context of strategy. Let me put it another way: We don’t write about telephones or microwaves or stoves as revolutionary tools for communication or cooking. We’ve integrated these items into our lives. Business as Usual does the same thing for us in terms of social media. Solis is taking the tools and technologies we’ve been enamored with and pushing us into accepting them as tangible, real and unimportant as tools, but vitally important in terms of what we do with them.
The End of Business as Usual is a bellwether
If you like Groundswell, then you will love this. This is a business book, a social media book and a trend book all in one. It’s 20 chapters and 300 pages of lesson after lesson, insight after insight, and terrific charts and graphics that give you a perspective on what Solis is talking about.
There are so many facts and figures in this book relating to what’s going on in social media that you could probably tweet out a stat every day and have enough to last you a couple of years. I’m not sure if I’m exaggerating, but I think I’m pretty close.
Here are just a few chapter names that will give you some idea of what to expect:
Chapter 3: The medium is no longer the message. This is the core message of the book. People are spending more time on social networks, TV shows are live tweeted, news comes from Twitter online video networks – in other words, social is as integrated into our lives as phones and appliances.
Chapter 4: Attention deficit crises and information scarcity: This chapter addresses one of the key reasons I admire Brian Solis: “If you don’t have anything interesting or productive to say – then don’t say it.” While Solis is a social media expert and evangelist, I respect his integrity in terms of using social media as a valuable communication channel rather than a vehicle for pabulum.
Chapter 7: Your audience is now an audience of audiences with audiences: This chapter has terrific visuals and charts to show you exactly how communication and information functions in the social media world. This chapter is worth reading and rereading.
Chapter 11: The rise of connected commerce: You’ve already heard the phrase “blurring the line between personal and business. This chapter gives you the background on how and why this is happening. Mobile devices, constant connection and communication will force business to look and feel more personal.
Chapter 14: Reinventing the brand and sales cycle for a new genre of connecter commerce: The message in this chapter is to plug into decision making. We’ve never had better access to data about our customers’ behavior. Businesses will have to become masters at managing their brand promises.
Who should read this book?
To say that anyone who intends to be in business over the next three to five years should read this book is an understatement. Business owners will see data and research that will help them create a context for the world that they and their customers are participating in.
Sales and marketing professionals will get insights and be able to develop much more powerful marketing strategies that get to the heart of what’s important to their customers.
Social media practitioners will have evidence and resources to share with their clients that will show exactly why the strategies they are proposing will work.
At the risk of sounding over the top, The End of Business as Usual is a book you absolutely, positively must read to succeed in 2012 and beyond.
Read The End of Business as Usual for Social Media Insights, Research and Trends
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
Research Roundup: Independent Contractors and Consumer Retail Spending
Dec 1st
Everybody loves lists — or at least, everybody who reads blogs, so we are told. I don’t do lists very often because it never seems that the information I write about fits well into the format. This month’s Research Roundup post breaks the mold.
Lists take up a lot of space, though, so I’m only going to give you two of them. On the other hand, they’re two good ones. Besides, it’s pleasant to offer you some research that is not all about how badly we small business owners are doing.
The Rise of the Independents
Ego fodder is always a good thing and a recently released study by MBO Partners documents and quantifies a whole slew of things I first wrote back in 2004 in my white paper The Entrepreneurial Economy.
The MBO study is all about independent contractors, and my only beef with this study at the moment is the way MBO seems to underestimate their numbers. MBO says there are 16 million independent contractors; the Census says there are more than 21 million nonemployer businesses.
Can anybody tell me what the difference is between a nonemployer business and an independent contractor? I didn’t think so.
In any event, here are MBO’s key findings:
- 75 percentof independent contractors say that doing something they love is more important than making a bucket of money;
- 74 percent of independent contractors say that making a difference in people’s lives through their work is more important than making a bucket of money;
- 79 percent of independent contractors say they are satisfied or highly satisfied with their work situation;
- 55 percent of independent contractors say it was a proactive choice rather than a case of not being able to find a traditional job that made them become indies;
- 63 percent say they will continue to work as independent contractors, while only 12 percent plan to grow into employer firms;
- Indies are spread across generations: Seniors (over 65) make up 10 percent of independent contractors, Baby Boomers (50-64) account for 30 percent of them, GenX (30-49) are the largest group, making up 48 percent of them; and Millennials are 12 percent of independent contractors;
- Independent contractors are most seriously challenged by uncertain income streams (56 percent), concerns about retirement (46 percent) and concerns about lack of job security (41 percent); and
- MBO predicts that the number of independent contractors will increase by 25 percent within the next two years.
Makes me eager to see what the nonemployer numbers do over the next couple of years.
‘Tis the Season for Ca-Ching
One of the nice things about research, data and numbers is that sometimes, in addition to telling you things about yourself and your peers, research tells you useful things about your customers.
If, for example, you are a retailer, then you don’t need me to tell you how critical this time of year is for your bottom line. And, as usual, there are all sorts of predictive numbers out there that you might find useful from our friends over at the National Retail Federation.
- The average shopper is expected to spend $704 this holiday season on gifts and related stuff;
- In November and December, retail sales are expected to post a reasonably healthy $465 billion;
- Overall, holiday retail sales are expected to increase this year by 2.8 percent over 2010 numbers;
- Half of all gift receivers say they would prefer to receive a gift card rather than a gift (so you might be helping yourself quite a bit by figuring out a way to approximate the handy-dandy gift card for your retail outfit);
- 152 million holiday shoppers are expected to visit stores and websites on Black Friday weekend;
- Expect more spending in so-called “discretionary” categories this holiday season, including home furnishings and decor, sporting goods and leisure items, personal care and beauty products, electronics and computer accessories, apparel, toys and food. (What’s left?)
- Americans plan to spend money this holiday season, but they don’t seem to want to go into hock to do it. Forty-four percent say they will use debit cards, 24 percent will use cash and 3 percent will use checks. Everybody else (29 percent) will use credit cards;
- Online holidays sales are expected to grow by around 15 percent this holiday season;
- In addition to all those gifts, the average holiday shopper is expected to spend $130 or so taking advantage of seasonal sales and promotions to buy things for themselves; and
- Retailers beware: The retail industry is expected to lose approximately $3.48 billion to return fraud.
Image from Dmitriy Shironosov/Shutterstock
Research Roundup: Independent Contractors and Consumer Retail Spending
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
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