Persuasive e-Marketing » 2008

Archive for March, 2008

Tim ‘the Toolman’ Taylor is NOT a good eCommerce person.

March 28th, 2008 by Jim Cain

The purpose of this weeks blog was going to be around the concept of the first time visitor segment and how it can be appropriately marketed to on a given web property. Once I hit the 2000 word mark, I decided to keep going and make it a whitepaper. More will follow on that in coming weeks.

Instead I would like to take a moment to throw in my two cents on a real challenge that I think most eCommerce properties face in regards to site optimization: horsepower vs proper planning.

The purpose of most of my blogs and of the upcoming whitepaper has to do with proper execution, building the right marketing plan to effectively achieve the right sales outcomes. While Sitebrand’s technology will assist in achieving better outcomes, it will not in itself give you a good plan.

This thought runs in parallel to the ’90-10’ rule regarding analytics software coined by Avinash Kaushik. If you spend 90% of your analytics budget on the right people who can make the right plans, and 10 percent on the technology to allow them to do their jobs, you will get the best possible results.

So what do I mean about horsepower vs proper planning? While eMarketers are starting to take more control of the web site, overall ownership is still firmly in the domain of the IT department and the CFO. This is for two reasons:

Websites, despite all the talk of ‘commerce 2.0’, are still considered to be black boxes where traffic is plugged in one end, and revenue comes out the other.
Most marketers have built their plans around this ‘drive traffic-manage customers’ model, and don’t have a sound strategy or plan for insite marketing.

If your site is viewed as a black box, or intelligent catalog, or online sales engine, the only way to optimize it is to bolt on ‘more horsepower’ in the forms of self learning software like merchandising management, site search tools, and multivariate testing engines.

With this thought in mind, re-read the websites for some of the vendors who have cold called you in the last few weeks. While the stated audience will be the marketer, the true stakeholders are finance and IT. The value propositions tend to revolve around the concept that the primary job of the marketer is to get good traffic to the website, and the primary job of technology is to manage the experience of the visitor through self learning databases and patented algorithms.

“More power!”

I could sell a LOT of software to Tim the Toolman. I can also guarantee you that while his website would get the basic value that any good software product will provide, the ‘sales engine’ would never be shifted out of second gear due to the lack of a solid plan.

There is no point in buying a Ferrari to be a grocery getter, and there isn’t much point in putting more horsepower into your website before you have a cohesive plan around how you are going to use it.

Cheers,

Jim

Posted in Conversion, Optimization, Customer Experience, Jim Cain, Web Analytics, Personalization, eCommerce, Search Marketing | No Comments »

Why do 9 out of 10 consumers abandon transactions?

March 26th, 2008 by Carolyn Gardner

Before you all scream ”high shipping fees” which are often the culprit for eTailers, let me go a little further in my definition of “transaction” and how it relates to the Aug 2007 Tealeaf Technology survey I’m referencing…

For the data I’m discussing from Tealeaf, all survey respondents conducted either a shopping (retail), travel, banking or insurance transaction within the prior year.”

Now that we’ve got that straight, a whopping 90% of these consumers experienced an issue that caused them to abandon a transaction. I kid you not! But here’s the good news, even though the issues are serious ranging from nightmare technical problems to mind-numbing functional problems, the issues are also addressable. Take a look at this list:

37% reported difficult navigation
34% received error messages
30% reported login difficulties
29% reported insufficient, incorrect or confusing information
22% reported endless loops blocking transactions
21% reported the search function not working properly
20% were automatically kicked off the page

See what I mean? There is no excuse for this type of stuff. I get especially ticked when I see that almost 1/3 of the lost transactions are the result of “insufficient, incorrect or confusing information”. This is all about understanding the consumers wants and needs…their intent if you will.

After all, every visit to your site is backed by some type of motivation. Since so much traffic arrives via keywords, let’s talk about that for a minute. If someone is kind enough to tell you what they’re looking for via a keyword search, why aren’t the landing pages responding with the right information? Isn’t that marketing 101?

Let’s consider the keyword arrival of a consumer visiting an online store I’ll call Bikinis-R-Us. Now let’s pretend it’s someone searching for a red polka dot bikini. Great now apply this intent for a red polka dot bikini to the walk-in arrival of a consumer visiting one of Bikinis-R-Us brick and mortar locations. In this scenario, it’s kind of like imagining someone walking in to a store with a post-it on their forehead reading “I want a red polka dot bikini”. In this case, a salesperson would instantly respond to the shopper, deliver it and complete the transaction.

But at the e-store, this ability to complete the transaction gets railroaded by site’s that fail to instantly respond and deliver according to every unique visitor’s interest and intent. When you consider that 1 in 3 potential transactions fail because of poor messaging information, it’s alarming. It’s especially alarming considering web personalization can effectively address this very challenge.

Want to get really scared? Consider the business impact of lost transactions. Online competition is fierce and the sites that thrive will be the sites that create positive, personalized online experiences that meet and exceed what we’ve come to expect in the offline world. The bar is high!

Posted in Optimization, Customer Experience, Conversion, Carolyn Gardner, eCommerce, Web Analytics, Personalization | 2 Comments »

e-Retailing will save us from a recession, too bad it’s just a fad!

March 24th, 2008 by Kelly Rusk

Shopping online Apparently, in 2008, the best place to be during a looming recession is in the online retail industry.

In fact, all signs point to this trend, including Sitebrand’s CEO who is on the front page of the Ottawa Business Journal today.

It’s pretty incredible that online retailing has the potential to save the economy. Especially when it was just a crazy pipe dream less than 15 years ago. I dug up this piece of gold from Newsweek, dated 1995. The whole article is a great read, but let me draw your attention to a few gems:

“I’m uneasy about this most trendy and oversold community. Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic.”

And my favorite paragraph:

“Then there’s cyberbusiness. We’re promised instant catalog shopping–just point and click for great deals. We’ll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts. Stores will become obsolete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month? Even if there were a trustworthy way to send money over the Internet–which there isn’t–the network is missing a most essential ingredient of capitalism: salespeople.”

Now we can laugh at how wrong poor Clifford Stoll was, but the truth was at the time we were so far away from where we are now that his point of view was likely seen by a lot of people to counteract the enormous hype surrounding that new cool thing called the Internet. Think about the hype du jour — there are many opinions, and they definitely won’t all be right. Let’s see what happens in another 15 years…

PS- Still don’t believe people are skimming and scanning when they read online? Check out the comments section and notice how many people missed the article date, thinking it was current!

Posted in Kelly Rusk, eCommerce | 2 Comments »

How: Persona building for the three person eMarketing team

March 19th, 2008 by Jim Cain

‘Clive the Coupon Clipper’ Clive “the Coupon Clipper” doesn’t just want value for money; he wants to know he did everything possible to get the best deal. He will come to your site because of online or email promotions, and every page needs to reinforce the concept of getting more and paying less. Create a series of documents around what makes Clive tick, and how that effects how he shops and surfs. Draw a big picture of what you think Clive looks like and put it in your office. Bring that picture to marketing meetings, and make sure Clive is represented on every page in your site.

Umm what?

In a typical eMarketing team, headcount is low, and each one of those heads is wearing five hats. Email, search (paid and natural), merchandising, promotions, copy, design……all these things are owned by, and need to be executed properly by – 3 people in many cases, 1 person in many more.

Note that I didn’t put analyze data in the job description above. This is for two reasons:

Reason one: Most eMarketing groups barely scratch the surface of their respective analytics package.

Reason two: eMarketers don’t use analytics because they are super busy and analytics has no direct perceived value.

In my last blog I ranted a little about how there are too many “What” and “Why” bloggers in eCommerce and very few who focus on “How”. Here are a few thoughts on how to take the concept of personas and make it worth your while to squeeze them into your already full day.

Step One: Find a traffic segment

Don’t worry about building Lucy “the Listmaker” or Stevie “Gen. ‘Y’” level personas. Open up your analytics, blow the dust off, and play around in the reports. Take the last six months or year of data, and start looking for segments of your traffic that are:

· Larger than 10% of your total traffic

· Converting lower than your site average for the time period

A great example is the “First Time Visitor” segment of your traffic. Every analytics product can give you the conversion rate of your first time visitors, and they tend to represent 60-80% of your traffic, and convert anywhere from .5%-1.5% lower than your site average.

Step Two: Use some persona marketing best practices on your segment

Use some of the persona building techniques for this basic type of visitor (for more info click here. You can even give the segment a cool name “Fernando First Timer”. You are quickly going to see a lot of things that you can add or change on your site (messaging, design and layout) that would have a positive impact on this segment.

Now if I was a member of an overworked 3 person marketing team, I would see a ton of value in altering my site to speak to a large and underperforming segment… the analytics package has already showed that money is being left on the table. Building a strategy to go and get it, providing it doesn’t become a full time job, is nothing but goodness.

More best practices to follow in a subsequent blog on first time visitors. In the meantime, feel free to post comments on Persona building in general, or segments you have identified and optimized in the past.

Cheers,

Jim

PS. Happy St. Patricks day!

Posted in Optimization, Customer Experience, Conversion, Jim Cain, eCommerce, Web Analytics, Personalization | No Comments »

Big guns at eMetrics Summit in Toronto

March 14th, 2008 by Carolyn Gardner

eMetrics Summit

For the first time ever, Toronto is host to the Web Analytics Association’s ever-expanding eMetrics Summit. It’s happening March 31-April 2 and featuring some big gun names like Bryan Eisenberg, Jim Sterne, Jim Novo, Mitch Joel, Carolyn Gardner and more. Like how I slipped my name in there? lol

OK, OK, I know I’m not a “big gun” like those guys (wait till I publish a book though), however I will be part of a cool panel debating Campaign Optimization Case Studies. Joining me will be Simon Rodrigue, senior manager e-commerce/interactive marketing at Home Depot Canada and John Hossack, partner at VKI Studios. We’ll be chatting about things like the use of behavioral, A/B and multi-variate testing for the optimization of email, search and online advertising campaigns.

BTW Sitebrand is a Silver Sponsor for eMetrics Toronto….so if you want a 10% discount, just let me know and I might be able to work some magic!

Posted in Optimization, Conversion, Carolyn Gardner, Web Analytics | No Comments »

Where’s the personalization survival guide?

March 12th, 2008 by Carolyn Gardner

5 Survival Guides

For anyone craving more information on many popular terms associated with online marketing, Oneupweb offers five free guides:

SEO Survival Guide - More than 100 terms related to natural search.
Paid Search Survival Guide - Essential information for successful PPC advertisers.
Social Media Survival Guide - Conquer the world of consumer-generated content.
Blogging Survival Guide - Discover online empowerment through corporate blogging.
Eye Tracking Survival Guide - Improve your online presence; see what your market sees.

Sadly, there’s no mention of a web personalization survival guide. But I’m not surprised because the whole concept of web personalization remains underused and misunderstood…at least for now. With any luck, e-commerce marketers will soon look for life beyond the predictable tactics of search, email, etc. And by “beyond life”, I really mean stepping up and trying new things - that’s what living is, right?

It’s not about finding new budgets either. It’s about spending existing budgets differently. For the converted (pardon the pun), the measurable impact of web personalization is significant in terms of lifts to conversion and revenue.

My moral of this post - just because everyone else keeps sinking more and more money into search and email doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do. Just look at your analytics and you’ll see reports that highlight the continual failures with this type of follower mentality.

Instead you should take “the norm” as a cue to be different. Consumers are being wooed in every direction. Think beyond the “woo” factor (aka acquiring new customers with a wam-bam approach - I got you here and now your mine!!! This rarely succeeds for the long term).

Now don’t get me wrong. Acquisition is important. But real customer value is earned when you factor in the “wow factor” (aka converting and retaining with a personalized approach that thinks beyond the landing page…an approach that is customer-centric, vs corporate-centric).

Who’s up for the challenge?

Posted in Carolyn Gardner, Conversion, Customer Experience, Social Media, Web Analytics, Search Marketing, Personalization, eCommerce, Email marketing | No Comments »

Relevance is key: Internet users think it’s all about them!

March 11th, 2008 by Kelly Rusk

This is an interesting story from eMarketer, showing adult internet users who believe online content is focused on their own age group. It’s no surprise to anyone that the younger generations think it’s all about them. However, it’s really interesting how overall, more than half of Internet users think it’s all about them!

But what it’s *really* all about is relevance. If you target multiple demographical ranges, you want each to perceive your site as all about them. But wait–our analytics data doesn’t tell us demographic data! (yet?)

Here’s where it gets really cool. You can use your analytics data to discover exactly who your customers are. It won’t be perfectly accurate, but taking the time to understand, and intimately know your customer and you will start to be able to draw logical connections between analytics and demographic data.

Posted in Optimization, Kelly Rusk, Personalization | No Comments »

Online or Offline? The Great Divide

March 6th, 2008 by Darryl Praill

Alright, let’s start this post off with context. I’m forty years old. I’m a software developer by trade but have been a marketing executive since I was 29. Early in my career I realized I loved technology but had definite attention span issues. Sitting in front of a monitor was not conducive to my happiness even though I enjoyed it in short durations. Accordingly I transitioned into consulting, product management, product marketing, marketing and sales. My heart is in marketing. I learned classical marketing while doing it. I became street smart. I managed budgets with the best of them. I was there before Windows, the Internet, client/server, Y2K, dot com bubble, dot com crash, and software as a service. I’ve lived them all and become a better marketer for it. In other words, I’m old.

And then along came online marketing. And it’s a different beast.

As a marketer, it is awesome. Great tools, cool applications, real-time feedback, and immediate and measurable results. It’s word of mouth on steroids. Yet, for most of my contemporaries, it scares the hell out of them. They don’t get it. They don’t have time to learn it. And they end up outsourcing all facets of it to the very people who read these blogs; the next great generation of marketers.

A recent article published by Wharton, with inputs from the CMO Council, suggests that CMO’s of the future will come from the digital side. That’s a mistake.

The problem with people who solely do interactive, or online, marketing is that they don’t understand the full picture. They don’t understand the power of product roadmaps, or of industry analysts, or of direct marketing, or of public relations beyond the online medium. They don’t understand the importance of long-term strategy and tactical execution, integrated marketing campaigns tied to corporate objectives and financial forecasts. Conversely, the problem with marketers with traditional skill sets is that they are equally missing the big picture.

I know I’m generalizing but having worked with so many staffers and vendors I know I’m pretty safe in these statements. What evidence do I have? Current statistics say Americans spend 14 hours a week watching TV and 14 hours a week online. Talk about a split between the old and the new!!!

So what am I blogging about today? I’m blogging about Marketing as a trade. If you’ve chosen this trade, make the effort to learn both sides of the business. Think big. Use all of the tools of the trade to achieve big goals with big results. Marketing is an awesome career if you treat it as an apprenticeship and learn every aspect. Be an online and an offline marketer and you’ll avoid the Peter Principle.

Over the coming posts we’ll examine things to think about in a complete and integrated marketing plan and strategy. It won’t be a marketing course and it won’t be a Harvard discussion. It will be Marketing from the streets. It’ll integrate online and offline and provide the big picture you can use to achieve your goals. Best of all, it will address processes, measurements and budgets - the three things marketers hate to talk about.

Posted in Darryl Praill | 2 Comments »

Get Inspired - How retailers are using social media

March 6th, 2008 by Kelly Rusk

Chapters-Indigo’s Online Community

Chapters-Indigo has made the bold move of starting its own community for “booklovers” (apparently it’s one word to Chapters). Closely tied to its online store the community is a ‘meeting’ place for book lovers to connect and share.

What it does: Allows you to connect with other book lovers. You can post content (like a blog), rate and review books, join groups and find ‘friends’.

Chapters Online Community Usability: Love the div overlays — no page re-loading so it works fast. However I wasn’t too impressed with the site search - when I was adding books I read, I couldn’t remember the spelling of a well-known author. It couldn’t help me; I had to consult my good friend Google. Generally I found the navigation a little awkward. I didn’t give it much of a chance though, so it could be more intuitive once you poke around a bit. Social bonus points for integrating RSS, send to a friend and del.icio.us bookmarking.

Community: I found it hard to find others like me. If I knew a lot of people already on the site, perhaps it would be easier. Also I wish they promoted the ratings and reviews better, that’s what would really draw me in as a user, and the most value I would get out of this social site vs. others.

What it’s great for: Finding new books to read. It’s a risky move to go into the book store and buy a book you haven’t heard of. Here you can read others’ reviews and ratings and find people like you. And obviously a great idea for Chapters-Indigo, since they sell books!

What it’s lacking: A distinct site apart from chapters.indigo.com. I suppose the point is to keep it closely tied with the online store, but it feels like I’m in a store, not a community siteWhen I go to a store, I go to shop, not to meet and hang out with other people. It’s no different on the web. I think it could have been designed differently but still tied into the store as much as possible with functionality.

Success potential: High. I didn’t spend a lot of time searching, but I don’t see much competition. People love to talk books, so creating an online community around is a brilliant idea and it seems it’s being promoted very well on the site. Also Chapters-Indigo has made it very easy to buy books you find interesting from the site, which allows it tie a dollar amount to the success of the community.

Big thanks to Mel Gallant of Women 2.0 who tipped me off to this site, via Twitter.

Posted in Customer Experience, Kelly Rusk, Social Media, eCommerce | 4 Comments »

Customer Engagement via Email, LiveChat…and Twitter?

March 5th, 2008 by Carolyn Gardner

When I think of LiveChat technology, I think of LivePerson which has been around since back in the 1900’s (since 1995 / 13 years to be precise). And since I’m all about monitoring the online customer experience, I absolutely love what LivePerson stands for. Here’s a blurb straight from their “about” page:

“Founded in 1995, LivePerson is a provider of online engagement solutions that facilitate real-time assistance and trusted expert advice. Connecting businesses and experts with consumers seeking help on the Web, our hosted software platform creates more relevant, compelling and personalized online experiences. ”

Allow me to pull some powerful statements as they relate to customer experience:

* online engagement solutions
* facilitate real-time assistance and trusted expert advice
* connecting businesses and experts with consumers seeking help on the Web
* creates more relevant, compelling and personalized online experiences

Taking it a step further, I’ve always liked sites that serve the LiveChat option. For me, the most meaninful invitations for LiveChat come after I’ve been on a site for that “oops, she’s probably lost and needs some help” amount of time. But regardless of how it’s presented as a service option, I’ve never seen LiveChat offered outside the web…until today that is.

This morning I received an email from Kiyonna Clothing - a Sitebrand customer that designs stylish plus-size women’s apparel in sizes 10-32. And this email was different!

Yes, this morning’s email personally invited me to have a LiveChat with Kim, a style expert and personal shopper. With just one click, I could chat live with an expert and have all my fashion questions answered…just like I would expect if I walked into the store itself! To me, this is a great way to get personal in the inbox. It’s a great example of thinking differently and I love it. The email also pointed me in to the web site, but this LiveChat invite was such a refreshingly nice way of putting customers first since it truly says “Carolyn, it’s Kim and I’m here IN PERSON to help you get PERSONAL answers to your PERSONAL questions” It wasn’t an intrusive invitation and it wasn’t hard-sell. Plus, to cover all the bases, Kiyonna offered 3 ways I could connect with Kim - LiveChat, email or a toll-free phone call. Sheer brilliance I say! Scroll down to see the email in all its glory AND a startlingly different perspective on LiveChat…one that speaks to Twitter, the new kid on the block…

What do other people thing? I always find it interesting to get other people’s perspectives and for that reason, I flipped this email to a few respected colleagues. Most thought the LiveChat invite in the email was very cool, but one who happens to be very GenY said this: “It’s interesting, but I’m not really big on LiveChat. It actually seems archaic to me because it’s what I used to do online when I was 12.” She went on to say how she prefers Twitter…

While Twitter sounds interesting, I’m not sure how it could be used in a business sense? And I don’t think I’m alone! According to the Twitter value proposition:

“Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?”

Since Twitter itself doesn’t even position itself to be a business tool, can anyone tell me how it could be used to help customers the way LiveChat helps customers? Please share your comments as this is spicy stuff!

Posted in Customer Experience, Carolyn Gardner, Social Media, eCommerce, Email marketing | 15 Comments »

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