Alex Baar | International Digital Marketing | E-commerce

Hello!! It is almost 2018 and as the new year approaches, many websites publish trends for 2018. I have collected a couple of links to the most valuable consumer and marketing trends in 2018, so once you are done reading this blog post you are completely up to date and you can continue your party preparations for new year's eve! The first one I would like to share is a trendwatching video from trendwatching.com. Trendwatching describes consumer trends as " a new manifestation among people in behavior, attitude, or expectation of a fundamental human need, want or desire ." meaning that this video goes beyond short term (product) trends. To work with trends it is important to uderstand what trends are and how they are created. This video explains this as well. Besides this explanation, 5 trends are described and altough the words below might seem familiar I still encourage you to watch the video as the trends themselves are explained differently then you might think, w...

Last week I visited Club Ecommerce it's Digital 1 to 1 conference in Barcelona. I had a great time! Very well organised (compliments to the organisation) and it gave me many new insights in tooling, solutions and the ecommerce in southern Europe. On the lookout for new digital tooling at Digital 1 to 1 in Barcelona The event consists of more or less 2.5 day in a conference/hotel in Barcelona. During the days there are generic sessions and presentations but also 1 to 1 sessions with potential vendors or other webshops that are open for collaboration. The 1 to 1 sessions take 25 minutes each and it looks like this: In the evening they organise a big party including a casino, DJ and quiz! I even learned some new dancing moves at this party! :) Source I did not plan to write a blogpost about the event but I do mention a few vendors in this post that I met with very interesting solutions, for easy reference in the f...

Recently, I followed a great 4 months course about customer journey and experience mapping. Although I cannot share these slide decks, I will write down a few take aways and I decided to just browse the internet, collect templates about customer journey management and share them here. Customer journey and experience managenent, will get increasingly more important for brands to attract and to keep customers. There is a declining trend in transactions for ordering at all those "mini" brandend webshops. People more and more directly at marketplaces and platforms like Alibaba, Amazon ( in depth video ), WeChat, FB messenger, Instagram, Google Shopping. Most brands will have less and less control on their purchasing channels. In this video for example the impact of voice search at Amazon is demonstrated. Amazon will decide which products it will offer to it's customers, even more so then is the case at this moment. So how to create an excellent customer journey and exper...

First of all I wish everybody a great, creative and customer oriented 2017! I started the year great, in St Anton, where there is lot's of sun (but not so much snow). I traveled here by train this time, so I had time to read again. I do like to share again some of these reads. Me in the new flexenbahn in St Anton am /A This time I did not read a direct ecommerce or digital marketing related book but a book about doing business in a new way, about examples of traditional companies that have changed the way they do business. The book is called " simply brilliant " and the subtitle of the book is: How great Organizations do ordinary things in extraordinary ways and it is explicitly not a book about the sillicon valley type of businesses, but how traditional organisations are also able to change and succeed.

What motivates me in work are a lot of things, but currently especially the following aspects are very motivating for me: Using user feedback into digital media (websites/devices), to really get this interaction with users. To find out what is working but also what to improve, and to understand why users do not buy! (and to change that of course). Optimizing the user experience (user engagement, touchpoints, data collection) Constantly innovating to improve the user experience Crossborder e-commerce Startup mentality, doing things together in a great team with the same focus. I really think that ecommerce (and marketing) has evolved from a functional model (direct selling) to a brand model and is now moving to an experience model. Things might overlap a little bit between these models, but this is the greater picture.  It is not only me who thinks so of course, more  and more  is written about this subject recently and it fits perfectly in line with another ...

Ah holiday again, finally time again for reading a lot about ecommerce, digital experience marketing and videomarketing! This time a blog post from Bangkok Don Muang airport where I am awaiting my for my AirAsia flight to Kunming, China. Waiting for my flight Yes, video's! I already liked making video's when I was age 6 or something, I can even remember making and editing video's with our Sony Handicam Video, one of the first videocamera's made for home usage. Nowadays video is very important in your (content) marketing strategy. Video is growing rapidly and there are many reasons why videos can be useful for your brand. A few reasons why video is so important: Video can boost your conversion and sales, directly but also indirectly. Video builds trust, and trust is only getting more important. Advertising alone will not give you the succes you need. In fact advertising is changing rapidly to less and higher quality. Video will help you rank better i...

It is september, and I do not know why, but in september there is alway's lot's of interesting ecommerce news. I do like to share a few interesting articles with you today. Take for example Ryanair. Ryanair is going to introduce "personalisation by force". You do not have a choice but to get personalised offers and information, Read more about it here and here .  I think a really good move. Make loyalty easy. It always annoys me if I fly with an airline and I can only benefit from their loyalty programme if I sign up. Why not just match my email adress, and see my booking history. For example I flew many times with Cathay Pacific, but I never took the effort to sign up for their loyalty programme, same goes for KLM. But they do have my fly history and flight pattern, so they can personalise offers! However they do not do so  leaving me chosing often other airlines. Curious how this works out countries where privacy is an important issue in online marketing, countries...

Today, August 20th,  I am in Zermatt, Switzerland. Hoping to do some summerskiing. It is summer in the village, but winter is still present up in the mountains here, 3883 meters high there is lot's of snow. However today is cloudy and windy and lifts are closed. So I grabbed a book and started reading about “Entangled Marketing” and watching the people go by in their electric mini cars, with the Matterhorn at the background. Tomorrow I will go to enjoy summerskiing, tomorrow the weather will be great! This post is a combination of items from the book, some personal opinions and some examples I found at the web. Enjoy reading! I gave the book a view at the Matterhorn, during my stay here..(but the Matterhorn is sometimes "entangled" with clouds as today :). I bought this book since I believe, that the way of marketing brands or building brands, is changing rapidly. It’s no more just some display advertisements or an always on PPC strategy, there are many other poss...

In cross border e-commerce, often the question is asked: "what can I centralise and what can I decentralise if I do cross border ecommerce"? Cross border ecommerce wisdom The question really depends at your strategy, your products or services, the size and structure of your company, your financial capabilities and of course the countries where you are active, or want to expand to. There are nowadays companies who can fully fulfil every aspect of your cross border e-commerce activities, Having said that, I have described per e-commerce channel, my view at localisation versus /decentralisation and how I think it is most effective. To make it easy I introduce here the Alex -localisation-centralisation -*- meter! Stars and Alex a good combination SEA (search engine advertising) Search engine advertising, can be centralised, there are nowadays some really good global search engine agency's who really can help you with your international sea ...

Wouldn't it be nice if: Booking.com used the data of my hotel reviews, informing hotel owners of future bookings I make, with things I find important? If they know from previous reviews, I find WiFi very important, give me a room next to a router. If a person don't like children that makes noise, give him a room far from family rooms (or the other way around).  I received local commercials in my own language, at spotify? I was walking in a town, abroad, while listening to my spotify playlist. But I kept on receiving Portugese commercials. It would be so much more effective, if I could receive local commercials in my own (or in the English) language. "take part in this boat excursion, say the promotion code "spotify" in our shop, here in Albufeira and receive 10% off" I could just shake my phone (or press a button), and receive discount coupons of retailers near me. It is already possible in China (alipay), I have not yet seen it in Europe. If I receive ...

Goodmorning! I have a few days off, so time to catch up again, lot's of reading to do. In two weeks time, I am invited for the mediapost email insider summit in Portugal! Seems like a great event and I will for sure post some interesting insights at this blog during this event. I hope to learn more about customer centricity and CRM there! But today something about organisations and especially the future of them. Take a look at this article The Future of Organisations is Responsive I think so true, the new branding is not anymore about a nice video, and some ATL branding campaigns and a nice logo. It is about being relevant, about reconnecting with your customer, being able to adapt quickly, solving problems for customers with the help of digital tooling. To be able to do so, as an organisation it is essential to optimise for uncertainty instead of certainty. Many traditional organisations keep on thinking from a traditional point of view. They do not dare to think out of...

I am currently in Jahorina, try to ski somewhere different, a little bit more adventurous. First I made a stop at Kapoanik, and now I am here in Jahorina. That really worked out, it is fun to ski somewhere completely different, if you have skied in many major ski resorts. I am in a real funny hotel here, very, very friendly people. Unfortunately their car broke down today, so I did not go to the slopes today, but decided to write something, as it is very cloudy today as well, so skiing is not optimal especially not above the three lines. I always like to work a bit from abroad or to write something about my interests from abroad. Internet is so awesome that these things are all possible you can work and study from everywhere! Fun! All of the hotel including me, packed in a small car on our way to the slopes. Language or country selectors in crossborder ecommerce: Many international websites, have a language or country selector. Either everybody sees it and you first have to ma...