Effective one-to-many online marketing communication in the
high-tech industry: case study of an industrial service company
Author: Maaike Vogel
Student number: 6039049
Faculty of Economics and Business
University of Amsterdam
Date: 21-06-2012
Supervisor: A.C.J. Meulemans
Abstract
X wants to keep their existing and prospective customers up to date about news relating to their service offering. This to increase the knowledge about the services that X has to offer. Keeping your customers updated by e‐mail newsletter is a very cheap and easy method. However, nowadays most people receive an overload of e‐mail newsletters. Thereby there are a lot of new online channels through which news can be sent. This study investigates what is the most effective way to send a news communication to customers of X. An effective news communication should be in line with the customer’s needs and desires, as if it doesn’t match their interests they will not read it. To collect data a combination of interviews and a survey is used, and 298 respondents completed the questionnaire. It can be concluded that the customers of X all have limited time to read a news communication. Therefore it should have a clear layout, with headlines, an abstract and a link to the full article. It should be sent once a month with no more than 10 news items. Overall the respondents are reluctant to receive the news communication via Social Media of any kind, e‐mail is the most preferred channel. More than 75% of the respondents liked to choose beforehand what kind of topics they want to receive, but they don’t agree if the scope of topics should be broad or focused on their professional expertise. More than half of the respondents would like to receive a news communication from X on a regular basis. 1 Contents
1. Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 3 2. Literature Review………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 4 2.1. Marketing and communication literature………………………………………………. 5 2.2. Channel………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 6 2.3. Content………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 7 3. Interviews……………………………………………………………………………………………………………... 8 3.1. Method………………………………………………………………………………………………..… 8 3.2. Analysis………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 8 4. Survey…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 11 4.1. Method…………………………………………………………………………………………………. 11 4.2. Results…………………………………………………………………………………………………… 13 5. Discussion……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 21 5.1. Interpretation………………………………………………………………………………………… 21 5.2. Limitations and recommendation………………………………………………………….. 22 6. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 23 References………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 24 Appendix 1: Interviews Topic list..…………………………………………………………………………….. 25 Appendix 2: Questionnaire……………………………………………………………………………………….. 27 2 1.Introduction
This thesis will address a managerial challenge in a business to business service company which offers a broad range of very advanced high‐tech services. Examples of these services are equipment development, safety and sustainability advice, prototype production and rental of high‐tech research facilities. Company X is part of a larger company P. Just over a year ago M, then part of the R&D department, and A, a support department of were combined to become X. Their main objective is to help the company P, as a whole, grow by being innovative. But X also serves customers outside P, as this helps to spread costs, to secure workload for a “critical mass” of facilities and expertise, and to support the innovative power of the region as a whole. Within the internal (= P) as well as the external customers there is a small group key individuals (in the large and medium sized customers) whom X communicates with one‐to‐one. There is also a large group of individuals (the long‐tail) which should be served with one‐to‐many communication. This could be done with a ‘news communication’ containing industry and company updates. Currently only the customers of the Sustainability, safety and health department and Industry consulting department receive a news communication to keep them updated and aware of news concerning those services within X. Because X is a young organization a great deal of P employees are not yet aware of the services they have to offer. Also outside P X is not yet as widely known as it should be. Therefore the first objective of the news communication is to make these potential customers aware of the services X has to offer. Second, relationships with current smaller (long‐tail) customers should be maintained. Since nowadays mailboxes are often overloaded by newsletters from all sorts of organizations, it is important to stand out and meet customers’ needs and desires. An effective news communication should of course be read by the target. The main objective of this research is to explore what an effective one‐to‐many online communication method with a push‐strategy would look like. Most important is what (content) they want to be informed about, how (channel) and how frequent they want to receive the information. Because both technical specialists and managers are involved in the buying and using process of the services, it is interesting to see whether the preferences of these people differ. If the preferences highly differ a different approach would be needed. 3 2.LiteratureReview
In this section the existing literature about marketing communication, communication channels and the communication message will be discussed. 2.1.Marketingandcommunicationliterature
Since marketing communication tools have been constantly changing the past decades, a lot of research has been done on this topic. To find out what the important variables are regarding marketing communication tools used for one‐to‐many communication, previous research will be discussed. First, the objective of marketing communication tools is addressed since this is of critical importance when testing the effectiveness. Second, the use of e‐communication as a marketing tool will be addressed. Third, the possibilities and important factors regarding the communication channel. Finally, the content of the message will be discussed. Marketing is not only about attracting new customers, it is just as important to maintain and enhance relationships with existing customers. In addition, retaining existing customers might be lower cost and more productive than attracting new ones (Berry, 2002). Building relationships is based on communication rather than persuasion (advertising); particularly in service businesses communication should be deeply involved in the marketing activities (Duncan and Moriarty, 1998). According to Chong et. al. (2010) online marketing had several benefits; it can be used to maintain customer relationships in a way that reduces marketing costs compared to traditional marketing. Thereby it is easy, can be operated round the clock and global presence is just one mouse click away. Chong et. al. (2010) created a framework for implementing an e‐marketing strategy (fig. 6). 4 In this framework the first step into effective e‐marketing is to identify contextual factors as firm size, type of business (B2B of B2C) etc. Next, the right e‐marketplace should be chosen. To create the best e‐marketing strategy the next three marketing components should be carefully considered; people, information and technology. The component regarding people is particularly important in this thesis. Information, resources and the technology is already sufficient within X. 2.2.Communicationchannels
The importance of communicating with customers and the use of the internet to do this is evident. However nowadays the possibilities of communicating on internet are huge, with a lot of different channels like e‐mail, twitter, youtube, linkedin etc. When choosing a channel to spread company news, different factors are important. To start with, a channel can only be effective if customers are already active users of the medium (Silverstein, 2002,p. 103). Hoffman and Novak (1996) argue that there are two fundamental differences between the traditional media and the ‘new media’ online. First, online media is designed for many‐to‐many communication with potentially a lot of interaction. Information or content is not merely 5 transmitted from a sender to a receiver, but instead, mediated environments are created by participants. Since a newsletter is a one‐to‐many communication method, social media might not be a suitable medium to spread news. Second, people seek a challenging environment online which is in balance with their skills. If the online environment is too simple they will get bored, and if too difficult they will get anxious. If the balance is perfect, a ‘flow’ state will be created. A simple news communication sent by email without anything to click on would probably be too simple. Duncan and Moriarty (1998) also state that interaction is the hallmark of the new generation marketing. However in their opinion a combination of one‐way and interactive elements could also be effective. For example a news communication with a possibility to give a reaction by email would be enough to create an interactive environment. This also triggers customers to cross the anonymity boundary and contact X. Not much empirical research has been done into the need for interaction online. It would be interesting to test whether customers expect different online channels to be interactive or not. Customers might react differently when expectations are unfulfilled or confirmed. Expectations about the frequency of updates could also be interesting, a consumer might expect more frequent updates on a medium like twitter than by email. Chittenden and Rettie (2002) state that short messages, with links and images are most effective. The amount of links directly relates to the interactivity and thus is in line with the article by Hoffman and Novak. Links could also create an opportunity for X to get information about what customers find interesting. Nowadays software is available which keeps track of how many people click a certain link. These are of course some general comments, as Silverstein (2002) argues; in every different situation, different factors determine the effectiveness of a communication tool. To determine these factors in the situation of X several customers will be interviewed. For example some media could be perceived as private communication tools and thus not useful to spread business news. 2.3.Content
When the right channel is determined, the content of the message should be considered. Gilliland and Johnston (1997) state that a business purchase decisions, because of its operational and economic criteria, is less emotional and more realistic than personal purchase 6 decisions. Therefore business to business communication messages will be more effective with an informational appeal rather than a transformational appeal. An informational appeal is a factual and meaningful description of the relevant product information, it elaborates on service attributes and benefits. A transformational appeal is created by describing the experience of the service. A second argument for an informational message is found in the results of research by Cheng et. al. (2007). They found that when a product of service is problem solving and thus eliminating negative feelings, there is a need for an informational message strategy. Besides a pure informational message it is effective to use emotion in a business to business communication message. Emotion can be triggered by relating complex issues to elements of the consumer’s everyday life. An example is the use of customer testimonials, which creates trust, which is an emotion. Gilliland and Johnston (1997) also state that exposure to advertisement of information should be more than monthly for the information to be processed correctly. When creating the message content, the knowledge‐level of the receiver should be taken into account. For example a technically educated person and a commercial person have different interests and abilities. When a person has high motivation and ability to process relevant information he is more likely to be persuaded by product attribute‐based arguments. A person who does not have high motivation and ability is more likely to be affected by cues like music, endorser, country of origin etc. (Chen et. al., 2007). Duncan and Morairty (1998) state that it is important that every message sent to customers must be uniform with the overall marketing message or company mission, to constantly remind customers of what the company stands for. A strong consistent message can influence the perception quality of the service. Consistency between new and old messages is also important because previous information creates expectations. As discussed earlier, receivers act differently when their expectations are confirmed or unfulfilled (Chen et. al., 2007). 7 3.Interviews
Because of the explorative character of the research and the unit of analysis, which is rather large, a combination of semi‐structured interviews and a survey is used to gather data. The interviews will be used as a small preliminary research for the questionnaire, to give it the right focus. A survey is used for descriptive research and makes it possible to conduct quantitative data from a population which can provide an explanation for relationships between variables (Saunders et al., 2009, p. 144‐145). Because the results of the interviews are important for the survey design, the results from the interviews are discussed before introducing the survey method. 3.1.Method
A representative sample of the customers of X is interviewed. Also a mix of managers and technologist is chosen as interviewee. The interviews are semi‐structured or with a general interview guide approach, with a topic list and some open‐questions used as guidelines. The reason unstructured interviews are done instead of structured interviews is the explorative character of the research. If too many preliminary assumptions are made some important factor, not yet thought of, might be missed. A topic list is used to make sure all important subjects are discussed and so that interviews can be compared during analysis (Patton, 2002). The topic list contains topics proposed by the principle and topics that are pointed out as important in previous research. Most topics are opinion and value based. The first interview is a pilot to test whether the questions are sufficient and if enough useful information is gathered. The interview takes about 30 minutes and is recorded for analysis. The recorded interviews are analyzed as quickly as possible after the interview. The important factors determined in the interview are taken into account in the following interviews. 3.2.Analysis
The interviews are analyzed by using categorization steps as described by Burnard (1991). First the interview transcripts are read thoroughly and every different topic is written down as a category. The topics should cover all the content of the interview. Next, the topics which are more or less the same are grouped together. Each transcript is coded by using the category list. Because the interview will not be used to come to conclusions, but only helping design a relevant questionnaire, the validity test will not be necessary. 8 After reading the transcripts carefully, three broad categories are identified; Content, Format and Channel. The sub‐categories are displayed in the table below. For the coded transcripts see appendix 1. Table3.1.Coding.
Content Format Channel Additional Scope Links Security Frequency Technical vs. Applied Amount of items Fit, technical news and social media Movies Use and purpose Informational vs. Transformational In the category content, most interviewees agreed that applied information was most relevant but pure technical information could not be left out. Information about new equipment and techniques could be interesting as long as it does not include too much technical information, which will cause people to quit reading. Most interviewees were interested in stories about successful projects with other companies, to help them explore the possibilities and competences X has to offer. Some of them were worried P would present too much company centered information, with little relevance for customers. Almost all the interviewees preferred to receive a broad scope of news instead of choosing beforehand what kind of news would be of interest. A broad scope can lead to more inspiring news, in this fast developing industry you never know what your interest in the future. Content like short movies should only be used when they are highly functional and informational rather than transformational. The movie is functional when it shortens the time needed to understand an article. To show a new process or piece of equipment, for example. This complements the idea that communications in the high‐tech industry should contain more informational appeal than transformational. A couple of interviewees explicitly mentioned they were not interested in ‘sales talk’. 9 The layout seemed to be very important in a news update. Because nowadays time‐
pressure is high and priority of reading news communication is low, it should be efficiently made up. ‘ I don’t want to spend more than 30 seconds scanning the news communication to see what interests me’ one of the interviewees said. The news communication should have clear structure with a heading and a short abstract per article. A link under the abstract should lead you to the full text on the website or lower on the page. The balance in amount of items is more important than the frequency. It should be possible to scan the news communication within half a minute. In the best case scenario at least one or two items are of interest to the reader. The only social medium used by the interviewees is LinkedIn. They use LinkedIn mostly for networking purposes. Some are subscribed to a (news) group but hardly look at the content. They see Social media as meant for (private) social interaction and not necessarily for spreading news. Interviewees also think that social media is a platform for opinions rather than facts. The academic level of communication is rather low because the threshold to place a comment is almost zero. Because technical information is complicated this may not be suitable for social media. In the interviews, doubts were expressed about using social media for news communications, due to its very open and interactive setting, which may sit uncomfortably with R&D sensitivities. Most interviewees are not keen to see their own company project being placed on social media. Again considering time‐pressure, an email news communication would be more convenient. All the interviewees check their email hourly, logging in to a social medium needs extra effort. LinkedIn is checked maximum once a week. Because the information flow on social media is extremely large someone who checks it once a week will be overloaded by information. This is not a good thing since interviewees indicate they would like the news presented to them in a structured manner. Although in fact overload can be avoided, and structure facilitated, by being selective and automatically filtering messages, this is the current perception of the interviewees. Summarized, according to the interviewees, the content of the news communication should be broad to create inspiration and well‐structured to be time efficient. It should be sent by mail because social media is not used often and spreading news via email is seen as less risky. The superficial environment of social media does not fit with technical information. 10 4.Survey
This section will address the method and the results of the survey. First, the sampling plan will be discussed and justified. Subsequently, the independent, dependent and control variables will be presented. Next, the results will be presented in a logical order. 4.1.Method
The questionnaire contains a combination of multiple choice question and statements with a five‐
point Likert scale. Reliability and validity are significantly improved if all points on the scale are labeled with words, because they clarify the meanings of the scale points (Krosnick, 1991). Therefore all points are named, from strongly agree to strongly disagree. These rating questions are especially appropriate because opinion data will be collected. An English questionnaire might be difficult to fully understand by a non‐native English speaking person, therefore the questionnaire is also distributed in Dutch. 4.1.1.Sample
The survey is completed by customers of X. Most of the customers are R&D department employees and thus with a technical specialism. Since Pitself is the largest customer most of the customers are Dutch but also foreign companies will be contacted to complete the survey. The customers are chosen from a database in such manner that a random sample is selected from pre‐
filtered functional groups. In order to compare different groups the sample size per group should be at least 100. Pand non‐Pwill be distinguished and age groups. In total, at least 300 questionnaires are needed for a reliable statistical analysis (Field, 2009, p. 647). About 50% of X customers are from within Pand 50% are non‐P, this will also be represented in the sample invited to participate. A response rate of 20 % is expected. This seems rather large but previous research within the same customer group provided a response rate of 30 %. To check the expected response rate, a batch of 100 (50 non‐Pand 50 P) questionnaires is sent. After two days the response rate was 11,3 %, the expected response rate was adjusted to 15%. To encourage response four prizes will be given away among the participants. Given the expected response rate of 15%, 1000 customers with a technical specialism, from within Pare randomly chosen from the database. Also 1000 random ‘non‐P’ customers are selected. A large group of these customers does not have their specialism specified in the 11 database. Therefore 50% of the chosen customers have a technical specialism, the other 50% has an unknown specialism. This because it is thought, that the customers with a known specialism are the ones which have intensive contact with X. The news communication is also targeted at customers with less contact with X. The questionnaire is distributed online on a survey platform. The selected customers receive an email with a link to the questionnaire. Online questionnaire has several advantages; the data is collected very easily and a lot of people are contacted in a short time. The disadvantage could be that the sample is biased because only certain people are using the internet (Krosnick, 1999). Since nowadays everybody uses email for his or her work this will probably not be a problem. 4.1.2.Independentanddependentvariables
The process of discovering the needs and desires of X customers regarding news communication contains several steps. One of the objectives of the news communication will be to increase the customer’s knowledge level about X. Therefore it is interesting to know what the current knowledge level is. Or in other words how familiar the company is with X products. When the customers indicate to want to know more about X the next step is to test whether they want to receive news from X and how often. The variable subscribe prediction will indicate how much they want to subscribe to a possible news communication. Next, the content of their interest is important. The study is mainly practical orientated; therefore these measures are done on very specific topics. No distinction is made between transformational and informational content because these are nuance differences in the business to business communication. The interviews learned that the customers are absolutely not interested in ‘sales talk’. The agent is not interested in investigating if emotion in the message will increase the effectiveness. In the channel section, social media and e‐mail are the two most important channels therefore the preference for these two variables will be tested. These two variables will be compared within the independent variables age group, customer group and role. There will be several independent variables to compare different categories. The first variable is age group. Because the specific age is not relevant and because some people might feel offended to be asked their age, age groups of 10 years will be used. This control variable is used to find out whether older people have different preferences regarding the channel. 12 4.1.3.Controlvariables
A few control variables are used to check whether the participants are part of the target groups. The first control variable is the role or function within the company. The (potential) users of X’s services are seen as the target group of the news communication. They will decide whether the services are suitable and useful for their project. Because awareness among non‐direct users is also important a user’s role is not a strict criterion. The hierarchical level might affect the interests, technicians have other interests than managers. Therefore the technicians and specialist are targeted and measured with a control variable. 4.2.Results
In this section the results of the survey will be reported. First, descriptive statistics of the sample group will be addressed. Followed by an internal liability test using Cronbach’s alpha of variables containing several items. Finally, the means of different profiles will be compared and some correlation analysis will be done. In the next section, the discussion, the results will be analyzed in light of the existing literature reviewed at the beginning of this thesis. 4.2.1.Descriptivestatistics
In total 298 people participated and completed the survey, and thus the sample size resulted in N=298. Exactly half of the respondents was currently doing business with X . Somewhat more, 67 per cent (N=200) of the participants works for a company which is part of P, 33 percent (98) works for a company outside of P. This asymmetric distribution is probably due to the fact that Pemployees feel more involved with another member of their own company. Most of the respondents belonged to the age group 40‐50 years old. More than half of the participants have a role which concerns using products of X, and are project manager or engineer. 67 per cent of the participants have been doing business with X for more than 3 years. Topics closely related to the respondents own profession are equally popular as a broad range of topics. However these two items are negatively correlated, this means respondents which prefer a broad range of topics do not prefer only topics related to their own expertise. The five most preferred topics are; new service or competence, new equipment, events, projects with other customers and new publications. A number of respondents who indicated they find projects 13 with other customers interesting to read about would also be willing to publicize their own project. Regarding the channel online communication is better than printed news, more than ¾ of the respondents preferred online communication over printed news. By far the most preferred channel to receive news was e‐mail, with 88,8%. Personal contact was preferred by only 28,2% of the respondents and more preferred by people higher in the hierarchy(see table 4.2.1.). 1/3 rd of the respondents do not use social media for work purposes, those who do, use LinkedIn. 14 Table4.2.1Crosstabulationpersonalpreference
Hierachy * Personal Crosstabulation
Personal
Total
Selected
(Senior) Management/
director/owner
Departmental head / group
leader
Hierachy
(Senior) project
manager/architect
8
21
38.1%
100.0%
12
36
33.3%
100.0%
19
70
27.1%
100.0%
23.5%
(Senior) engineer/
technologist
35
146
24.0%
100.0%
49.0%
Other
9
25
36.0%
100.0%
8.4%
Total
83
298
27.9%
100.0%
100.0%
Finally questions were asked about the format of the news communication. Almost all respondents first scan the headlines to choosen the article of direct interest, respectively 95% and 90%. Scanning should not take more than 30 seconds (35,9%) and absolutely not more than 1 minute (34,9%). 85% agrees with the statement ‘I prefer an abstract of the article with a link to the full article, rather than the whole article displayed immediately’. Reading an article should not take more than 4 minutes. A news communication should contain up to 10 items an should be sent once a month (44,3%). 15 4.2.2.Reliabilityofscales
For the variables ‘social media preference’, ‘subscribe prediction’,’ knowledge level’ and ’e‐mail newsletter preference’ different items were used in the survey. In order to make sure that these multiple questions can be combined into one variable it is necessary to control the internal consistency reliability of the scales. The reliability is approved when Cronbach’s alpha is above 0.7 (Field, 2009, p. 675). The Cronbach’s alphas are listed in table 4.2.2., for e‐mail preference the score is way too low. For knowledge level the score is somewhat low, but can still be used but should be interpreted with care. These low alpha scores are due to the face that the scales are so far not used in scientific research. For the variable Social Media preference, one item was deleted to make the scale reliable. Table4.2.2Cronbach’salpha,meansandstandarddeviation
Cronbach
’s Alpha
N
Minimum
Maximum
M
SD
SM preference
.797
298
1.50
5.00
3.6351
.69359
Email preference
.252
298
-
-
-
-
Subscribe prediction
.870
298
0.75
3.75
2.0210
.51511
Knowledge level
.563
298
1.00
4.75
2.5631
.7324
The overall score for social media preference was 3.64 (1= strongly agree, 5= strongly disagree), which represents a small reluctance against social media as a news communication. The subscribe prediction showed a total score of 2.02 which is a strong desire for receiving news from X. 16 4.2.3.Correlationsandcomparemeans
To look for relations within the data, several correlation analysis and comparisons of means are done. The first relations are concerning current knowledge of X. When the knowledge mean of Pand non‐Pcustomers are compared no significant difference is found (table 4.2.3.1.). The correlation matrix (table 4.2.3.3.) shows a strong correlation among all items. The duration of the relationship between X and the customer is negatively related with the knowledge of X and the frequency of hearing news from contacts within X. Longer relationship duration results in higher knowledge and the more communication of news. Table4.2.3.1.IndependentSamplesTestknowledge
Levene's Test for Equality of Variances
Equal variances assumed
F
Sig.
4.312
.039
Know everything
Equal variances not assumed
Table4.2.3.2.Comparemeans
P
Mean
N
Std. Deviation
Yes
3.01
200
.995
No
3.13
98
.869
Total
3.05
298
.956
Table4.2.3.3.Correlationsknowledge
Pearson Correlation
Hear news Reverse
How long
Know
Reverse
everything
1
.232
-.198
.000
.001
298
298
1
-.261
**
Sig. (2-tailed)
N
Know everything
Hear news
298
**
How long
**
**
Pearson Correlation
.232
Sig. (2-tailed)
.000
N
298
298
298
Pearson Correlation
-.198**
-.261**
1
Sig. (2-tailed)
.001
.000
N
298
298
.000
298
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
17 The second variable to be investigated is social media preference. A total score of 3.64 was found, this indicates reluctance to social media as a news communication channel. Differences in social media preference per age group and per role are analyzed by comparing mean scores. In figure 4.2.3.4. the differences per role in the collaboration with X are displayed. Possibly the significant difference between the ‘buyer’ group and ‘other’ group are due to the fact that these groups have a low N. Next, the differences per age group are displayed, no significant differences are found. 18 Figure4.2.3.4.Comparemeanssocialmediapreference/reluctance
19 4.2.4.Regression
To discover what explains the preference or resistance to social media a regression analysis is done. The independent variables are; understanding of social media, security/confidentiality issues with social media and the perception that social media are private communication tools. In table 4.2.5 the model summary is given. The R2 is .535 which indicates the model explains 54 % of the variance in social media preference. The F‐ratio (112.794) is strongly significant (p<.001), therefore we can conclude that overall the model predicts social media preference significantly well (Field, 2009, p. 207). Table4.2.5.Regressionsocialmediapreference
Model Summary
Model
R
R Square
a
1
.731
.535
Adjusted R
Std. Error of the
Square
Estimate
.530
.47532
a. Predictors: (Constant), UnderstandSm, Security, SM is private
a
ANOVA
Model
1
Sum of Squares df
Mean Square
F
Sig.
Regression
76.452
3
25.484
112.794
.000
Residual
66.424
294
.226
Total
142.876
297
b
a. Dependent Variable: Social media preference
b. Predictors: (Constant), UnderstandSm, Security, SM is private
20 5.Discussion
In this section the results from the previous one will be interpreted in light of the literature reviewed at the beginning of this thesis. The similarities and contradictions with the existing literature will be discussed. In addition the limitations of this research will be discussed. Based on these limitations recommendations for further research will be given. 5.1.Interpretation
A communication channel can only be effective if customers are already active users of the medium (Silverstein, 2002, p.103). This is a good explanation for the low preference for social media as a news communication channel. 30,9% of the customers do not use social media for work purposes. Only 21,8% are active users (daily user) of social media. The regression analysis shows three other reasons for the social media resistance found. First it is important to understand how social media works. In addition, social media should be perceived as safe and professional. These three factors explain just half of the social media preference variance. In a high tech industry where mostly technical specialists are involved social media is not a suitable channel to send a news communication. E‐mail on the other hand is a highly preferred channel to receive news. E‐mail even had higher preference than personal contact. This could also be due to the target group namely technical specialist. As seen in table 4.2.1., people higher in the organizational hierarchy more often prefer to receive news by personal contact. According to Hoffman and Novak (1996) an online communication channel and message should be somewhat complex to avoid boredom. This is contradictory to the results of this research. Respondents claim that a news communication should be as simple as possible for time efficient reading. The respondents were asked to give an example of a good news communication. The newsletter from Bits & Chips and Mikrocentrum were both mentioned five times. These newsletters and other examples have a very simple layout. The existing literature about communication message content focuses on the differences in informational or transformational messages. It is difficult to determine to what extend a message is informational or transformational without going in to detail. Because this survey had to 21 cover several topics the content is only investigated within a purely practical perspective. Results are presented in the descriptive statistics section. 5.2.Limitationsandfurtherresearch
This research has some limitations which will be highlighted in this section. In addition recommendations for further research are given. First, the needs and desires of X customers’ are investigated in a very broad sense, not much attention is given to underlying reasons for specific choices and preferences. Social media is not very popular, but it is not fully clear what the reasons for this resistance are. Just 50% of the variance is explained. In future research a focus on either channel or content and the relations between background and the preferences would be interesting. Because the target group for the news communication was technical specialists the survey was targeted at this group. In further research it would be interesting to see if the preference for different channels differs between hierarchies. For bigger projects or continuous services contracts the decisions will be taken higher in the hierarchical ladder. For specific promotion it is valuable to know if different groups need a different approach. Not much previous research has been done in the area of online mass communication. This study is very explorative in nature and does not have a conceptual framework or hypotheses to be tested. As a consequence it was not fully clear what kind of relations would be investigated in the survey. If a conceptual framework was made more focused questions could have been asked and functional scales could have been developed. Another limitation which derives from the fact that not much previous research has been done, is that the questions in the survey were used for the first time. As a consequence some variables did not have a sufficient reliability according to Cronbach’s alpha. If a previously used scale were used the variables would have been more reliable and usable in the analysis. 22 6.Conclusion
This study investigated the most effective way to communicate news to the customers of X. To make the news communication effective it should be in line with the customers’ needs and desires. This study stems from the managerial challenge that the e‐mail newsletter is exploited by a lot of companies nowadays. It is difficult to stand out within these large amounts of news communications. Do companies spread an e‐mail newsletter because everybody does it? Or is this really what the customer wants? First of all it is good to know that a large amount of the customers is interested in receiving a news communication in any form. In the high tech industry, where mostly technical specialists are working e‐mail is still the best channel to send such online news communication. Social media is not actively used and is not suitable to receive news. More than 75% of the respondents would like to choose beforehand what kind of topics they want to receive, but they don’t agree if the scope of topics should be broad or focused on their professional expertise. The top 5 topics of interest included, new service or competence, new equipment, events, projects with other customers and new publications. It can be concluded that the customers of X all have limited time to read a news communication. Therefore it should have a clear layout, with headlines, an abstract and a link to the full article. It should be sent once a month with no more than 10 news items. 23 References:
Berry, L.L., 2002.Relationship Marketing of Services Perspectives from 1983 and 2000. Journal of relationship marketing. 1(1): 59‐77. Chen, C.W., Shen, C.C. and Chui, W.Y., 2007. Marketing communication strategies in support of product launch: An empirical study of Taiwanese high‐tech firms. Industrial marketing management, 36: 1046‐1056. Chong, W.K., et. al., (2010). B2B marketplace: an e‐marketing framework for B2B commerce. Marketing Intelligence & planning, 28(3): 310‐329. Chittenden, L. and Rettie, R., 2002. An evaluation of e‐mail marketing and factors affecting response. Journal of targeting, measurement and analysis for marketing, 11(3): 203‐217. Duncan, T. and Moriarty, S., 1998. A Communication‐Based Marketing Model for Managing\ Relationships. Journal of marketing, 62(2):1‐13. Field, A. (2009). Discovering statistics using SPSS (3rd ed.). Los Angeles: Sage Publications. Hoffman, D.L. and Novak, T.P., 1996. A new marketing paradigm for electronic commerce. The information society: an international journal, 13(1): 43‐54. Krosnick, J.A., 1991. Survey Research. Annual review of psychology. 50: 537‐576. Gilliland, D.I. and Johnston, W.J., 1997. Toward a model of business‐to‐business marketing communication effects. Industrial marketing management, 26: 15‐29. Patton, M.Q., (2002). Qualitative research & evaluation methods (3rd ed.), Sage publications. Silverstein, B., (2002). Business to Business Internet Marketing: Seven Proven Strategies for Increasing Profits through Internet Direct Marketing, (p. 100‐116). Maximum press. Saunders, M., Lewis, P. and Thornhill, A. (2009) Research methods for business students, Prentice Hall. 24 Appendix1:Interviewtopiclist
Personal
‐
What is your role within company x ? Currentnewsletters
‐
Do you currently receive any news communications from us or other companies that you read very often? And why? ‐
Could you think of a few things that really annoy you news communications you in currently receive or have received in the past? Content
‐
If you would receive a news communication from X what kind of content would you like to read? Why? o Informational or lighter content like short videos, anecdotes, stories about projects with other companies etc. o Would you prefer highly technical information or more applied topics? And why? o (Directly related to X or also news from outside?) o Would you prefer to choose beforehand what kind of information you’d like to receive? Channel (the way in which you receive the news) ‐
Do you currently use social media? Which channels? How often? ‐
Do you think social media is (or will become?) useful in the High Tech professional (Business to business B2B) area, for professionals like yourself to keep in touch with relevant news? Or do you think social media is more private communication tool? ‐
Do you currently follow/join a group on business related topics on social media? What kind of news is shared in this channel? ‐
To what extent would you expect news communicated by social media to offer opportunities for interaction? Or could it also be one‐way communication? 25 ‐
Do you feel email is a more personal/direct channel than social media? ‐
Would you expect the content to be different when social media is used as channel (instead of email)? Frequency
‐
Would you like to receive news/updates from X on a regular basis? ‐
How often would you like to receive news from X? ‐
Do you have a preference for short specific communications sent “often” (eg. once/week), or longer communications bundling together different stories, sent eg. once a month/quarter? ‐
Would your expectations and preferences regarding the frequency be different for different channels? Twitter, Youtube, linkedin etc.. Final question: Did you find it difficult to answer the questions? Would you recommend sending some questions in advance to other interviewee’s? 26 Appendix2:Questionnaire
Statements are evaluated on a 5‐point Likert scale. From ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’. First, a few questions to collect some background information. 1. Have you been doing business with X within the last three months? (Doing business = utilizing one or more service(s)) 
Yes 
No 2. For how long have you been doing business with X? (Or MiPlaza or formerly PApplied Technologies) 
< 1 year 
1 ‐ 3 years 
> 3 years 3. Which of the following descriptions fits best with your role in the association with X? 
Decision‐maker: in selecting X 
Buyer: concerned with the contractual purchasing details 
User: directly utilizing the service 
Other, please specify… 4. Which hierarchical description fits best with your current function? 
(Senior) Management/ director/owner 
Departmental head / group leader 
(Senior) project manager/architect 
(Senior) engineer/ technologist 
Other, please specify… 5. Which age category do you belong in? 
20‐30 
30‐40 
40‐50 
50‐60 
60‐70 27 
I don't want to say 6. Is the company/institute for which you work part of P? 
Yes 
No 7. How often do you hear news about X from your contacts within X? 
Never 
Once or twice a year 
Monthly 
Weekly 
Daily 8. Please indicate to what extent you agree with the following statements: 
I know everything I need to know about the services X has to offer. 
I would like to know more about the services X has to offer. 
I prefer to gather my own information (e.g. by internet), rather than the news being sent to me. 
If a regular news communication was offered, with news relevant to my interests, I would subscribe. 9. How many e‐mail newsletters to you currently receive monthly? 10. What percentage of the newsletters you receive do you give attention? 11. Could you give an example of a newsletter, (name of company/institute) you currently receive, and you find exceptionally good. And if possible, why? The following statements concern your wishes regarding content of the possible news communication. 12. I am interested to read news concerning . . . 
New service or competence 
New equipment 
New publications 
Recent/current projects with other customers 
Future or past events 
X participation in Networks/Associations. 
Profile of a new X manager 
Profile of a new X technical specialist 13. Scope of interest 28 
I am only interested in news directly related to my own professional expertise. 
I am willing to have my own recent/current innovation project with X potentially used in news communication. 
I want to select the topics of interest for which I would receive news beforehand. 
I prefer to receive a broad range of news topics. 
Short movies, illustrating technical processes, are a useful component in a news communication. 
Short movies, with a narrative spoken by a X employee, would be a useful component in a news communication. 14. The following statements concern the channel through which you wish to receive our news communication. 
I prefer to receive news communication online rather than a printed newsletter sent by post. 
Social media is a suitable channel to receive news from X. 
Email is better channel to receive news, compared to social media. 
If I received news via social media, I would react/interact on news items that interest me. 
I would not interact on social media because of security/confidentiality concerns. 
I understand completely how social media works. 15. Through which channels do you wish to receive news? (More than one answer possible) 
Press/media 
Conference/seminar 
Personal contact 
E‐mail newsletter 
RSS feed 
Social Media 
Other, please specify .. 16. Which social media do you use for work purposes? (More than one answer possible) 
Facebook 
LinkedIn 
Twitter 
None 
Other, please specify… 
I don't want to say 29 17. I check my social media (for work and/or private purposes) ... 
Continuously 
Daily 
Weekly 
Monthly 
Less than monthly 
Never 
I don't want to say 18. The following statements concern your wishes regarding the format of the news communication 
I scan a newsletter across the headlines before reading it. 
I only read the articles of direct interest to me. 
I prefer an abstract of the article with a link to the full article, rather than the whole article displayed immediately. 
I prefer the link to the full article sends me to a website, rather than expanding the abstract within the newsletter. 19. Scanning a news communication for interesting items should not take me more than.. 
30 sec 
1 min 
1,5 min 
2 min 
> 2 min 20. Reading an article of interest should not take me more than.. 
2 min 
4 min 
6 min 
> 6 min 21. How many news items/articles per news communication would you prefer? 30 
1‐5 
5‐10 
10‐15 
> 15 The last section is about the frequency you wish to receive the news communication. 22. I would like to receive a news communication from X 
Daily 
Weekly 
Every two weeks 
Monthly 
Quarterly 
Yearly 
Never 31