The future of online marketing

Good Tuesday morning to all Sitebrand blog readers. To our US friends, happy late Thanksgiving and to our Canadian friends…well… Thanksgiving was more than a month ago. I think that’s around the last time our Ottawa Senators won, too.

With Black Friday/Cyber Monday unofficially marking the beginning of website lockdown from now, through to the New Year, we’ll continue to see the efforts of online marketing at its finest, from months of planning and upgrades in various internet marketing tools.

So with that kind of build up, I was curious to see some of the marketing strategies of e-tailers over the long weekend. Unfortunately, nothing stood out … kind of like those new NHL 3rd jerseys.

Walmart was offering changing specials as the weekend progressed (something a shiny new Segment&Serve from Sitebrand could do) and Starbucks was tweeting or twitting… or twittering or whatever it is we do on Twitter (look me up: kevin_butler).

This got me wondering; what will the internet be like in the future and how will it differ from 2008? From Eric Schmidt (super cool Google dude) to me (super cool Sitebrand guy with a rad blog), everyone has suggested personalization is the future of internet. But how personal are we talking? Will e-Commerce be so optimized that sites will be able to know accurate age ranges, eye colors and favorite Britney Spears songs? Or will all sites be issuing targeted messaging via content spaces? Actually, that’s not very futuristic at all. I happen to know a Canadian e-Commerce SaaS company that could have this integrated within hours, set for your electronic holiday rush.

But the point is, what do we expect online shopping to transform into? I agree with the notion that intelligent recommendations and relevant personalization will become the norm. But will shoppers be so bombarded with recommendations, new products or cross-sell efforts that conversion rates still suffer? I’ve always believed in the KISS principle and that less is more. Perhaps shopping cart optimization will become the new rage. But instead of peering into the future with flying cars and web4.0 causing problems, let’s focus on the now: 2009 and the year of personalization - don’t let me down, internet. If you are interested in personalization and want to know more or don’t see its value, send me a quick note. I’d love to hear more.

Let me know if you saw any cool/unique/totally wicked promotions or efforts that caught your eye this weekend. I’d love to hear some innovative strategies.

Stay classy, internet.

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Posted in Conversion, Customer Experience, Kevin Butler, Optimization, Personalization, Segment&Serve, Sitebrand, Web Analytics, eCommerce, online marketing