Our presentation focused on the UK consumers' point of view and identified trends and opportunities for Turkish food and drink brands in the UK. For the presentation we undertook an online survey to gauge the awareness and perception of Turkish food and drink amongst  UK consumers. You can view a copy of the presentation given at the TBCCI seminar by Clarity's Gillian Angel and a copy of the survey results below. Both should provide very interesting reading for anyone looking to establish ethnic food or drink brands in the UK. 

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• [Turkish Version] What do UK Consumers Want?
• Turkish food and drink awareness survey results

If you'd like find out more about establishing brands in the UK market or would like to understand the UK perceptions of and opportunities for your brand please contact Gillian Angel at Clarity In Marketing.

If you are a member of the Turkish British Chamber of Commerce and Industry we offer a UK Consumer and Marketing Benchmark service at a specially reduced rate. Please contact Burhan Aytac.

According to predictive analytics software provider SPSS, despite 82 per cent of firms claiming that social networking sites such as Facebook are a useful source of information, the majority do not use them to survey customer opinion.

Reported by Precision Marketing, the firm suggests that such portals provide a good opportunity for companies to collaborate market data, irrespective of language or distance. Colin Shearer, senior vice-president of market strategy at SPSS, explained that consumers are more open about their opinions towards products or services on social networking sites.

He also claimed that businesses will be "overwhelmed" by the wealth of information available from social network data. "While traditional contact channels are still applicable, businesses need to recognise and capitalise on the shift towards social networking or they are missing vital insight," he said.

Last year, it was revealed by comScore that Brits are the biggest users of social networking sites in Europe.

The mobile virtual network operator has been trialling a WAP advertising portal since May 2007, which Tesco said has displayed strong month-on-month growth, gaining 300,000 unique visitors in December.

Banner advertising served up on the portal delivered a click-through rate to tailored WAP campaign sites of between three and seven per cent, said Tesco. Brands advertising on the portal included Bee Movie, ITV, Nivea and Teletext.

Tesco said the user-base of the portal has a strong segment of female household budget owners with an average age of 36 - a demographic it said is particularly valuable for fast-moving consumer goods such as toiletries and cleaning products.

According to a survey commissioned by Tesco, more than half (60 per cent) of portal users are female and the same percentage said they visit the portal at least once a month, while 69 per cent claimed they would click on a relevant advert.

Ashley Schofield, head of customer management at Tesco Mobile, said in a statement: "Our customers are showing a real appetite for more products and services through the mobile internet. Delivering more great experiences and value through our portal is a priority for this year."

By opting to anonymously share your data with Google you can now compare the performance of your site against sites of a similar size (judged by visits). You can further refine this by selecting industry or regional categories. This is potentially very valuable management information as it can provide actionable insights based on how your site is performing in comparison to the market on a number of key metrics:

• Visits;
• Bounce rates;
• Page views;
• Average time on site;
• Pages per visit; and
• New visits.

Is Google Analytics industry benchmarking as good as it sounds?

While this is the type of web data MDs will love - they are a competitive bunch after all, as with any benchmarking you need to look at the relevancy of the data it’s based on.

In this case the data is based on users of free service which may skew the data towards the smaller, less professional end of the market. Furthermore, the service is new (March 2008) so data may not be expansive as yet though “… each category can have anywhere between 100 and hundreds of thousands of websites per category.” according to Google’s website.

Overall, Google Analytics Benchmarking – which is currently in beta – has a great deal of promise which will attract serious marketors to participate. It will be interesting to monitor the data over the next few months and see how and if that promise is fulfilled. For now, I’d certainly give it a go – I just wouldn’t tell your MD until you’ve had time to assess it.

If you’d like to know how to utilise marketing metrics to improve the performance of your marketing give Clarity a call.

Search marketing is the largest form of internet advertising and has become a significant medium in its own right worth over £1.5 billion in the UK alone. It now has a fundamental place in the marketing mix, yet it can still be a confusing format to understand because it is constantly evolving.

Here's some interesting search marketing facts from the handbook:

• Between July 06 – June 07 paid for search became a £1.4 billion pound medium in the UK, accounting for 57.1% of the total amount of money spent on online advertising.
• In July 2007 28m people visited a search engine in the UK and 26.2m of these clicked through onto a site.
• This equates to 90% of the internet population visiting a search engine and 83% clicking through. 
•  There were 1.4bn search queries carried out in the UK in July 2007.
• On average, there are 3.3 click throughs per search session.
• Search revenues in the first half of 2007 reached £762m

Download the Advanced Search Marketing handbook from the IAB website

In September 2007 alone, social networks accounted 3.1% of visits to shopping and classified sites. While the main beneficiaries are auction sites, notably eBay, more traditional retailers are also benefiting. Department stores and Apparel and Accessories sites are next respectively receiving 1 in 8 and 1 in 9 of all retail visits from social networks.

Incredible growth of UK social networking

Social networking has grown by over 70% in the UK since December 2006 and accounted for 1 in every 20 internet visits in September 2007. At the same time, the profile of social networkers is changing. The number of visitors aged 55+ to social networking sites has increased by 63%, while the 18 - 24 age group has declined by 19%.

This growth and changing profile means social networks are becoming an increasingly important channel to communicate and interact with your audience. As reported on this site in August (Facebook presents opportunities and challenges for online marketers) these new opportunities come with significant challenges.

If you would like to explore the potential of social networking for your business, talk to Clarity In Marketing.

Read the Hitwise UK research.