November 09, 2005 | Wednesday

Latitude Intelligence Network: London

By Jackie Danicki - Blogger  in Events |Latitude Intelligence Network |Marketing |Online Sales

Yesterday, less than a month after our Latitude Intelligence Network event in Manchester, we held another Intelligence Network event. This time around, we gathered some of our London and southeast-based clients to hear from a variety of presenters on emerging industry trends. There was also a great deal of conversation throughout the day with our clients about various topics that are of particular importance to them.

One of the themes that keeps emerging from these events is that trust is a huge issue for those selling online. Apart from aims specific to certain types of e-commerce sites - such as getting basic subscribers to convert to customers with funded accounts - any company that sells online needs to cultivate trust if they are to enjoy long term success. This goes beyond considerations such as the language used in landing pages and right to the core of how a business works. The former President & Creative Director for Condé Nast Publishing’s online arm (and current consultant to The New York Times and other big players), Jeff Jarvis, writes of using the internet as a marketing and sales tool:

If you use this medium wisely, you don’t treat it as a medium. You treat everyone you find here as a consumer, as a customer, as a person. You find the people who help you improve your products (alpha consumers); you find the people who help you market your products (influencers); you find the people who help each other with your products (life is customer service); you make good products and get out of the way...You create a sufficient and trusted relationship with consumers to answer questions and solve problems and keep them coming back.

Is this easier said than done? To be sure. The issue of trust is not going away. If anything, it is becoming even more important as people grow increasingly information-rich and technically-savvy. Those people are your customers and potential customers. Search can put you in contact with them, and how you can convert those site visits to sales and longterm, genuine relationships - beyond the standard landing page formation and ‘stickiness’ considerations - is something we’re going to explore further in upcoming events. Watch this space for more details soon. 

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