Archive for 2008
October 31, 2008 by Kevin Butler
No first blog is complete without some kind of introduction – but this is no ordinary blog, my fellow readers. As Sitebrand’s Sales Engineer, I have but one mandate: write rich and compelling stories worthy of your time and subsequent follow up dialog. That’s a hint for any welcome comments below… you know you want to.
Allow me to be the first to say I am new to the world of e-Commerce and internet marketing. I appreciate the experience of those around me and often feed off their wisdom and knowledge, but with all due respect, I’m going to think outside the box here, so don’t act like you aren’t impressed.
Perhaps it’s the youth in me talking, but I’d love to know why marketers aren’t marketing to reflect the times we currently live in? The economy, social media/web browsing, multi-level branding, targeted content to stand out from the clutter of other, general ads… I smell foreshadowing here, mmmKay?
The opportunity for marketers to drill down into audiences via personalization and segmentation is becoming easier and increasingly more available, yet remains as popular as the last X-Files movie (approximately). I see the relationship between analytics and Sitebrand very much in the same vein as the Smoking man – source of information and Mulder – the action and reason behind the data. Bad analogy? Maybe, but I digress.
We rely more and more on analytical data to better understand web traffic and underlying trends, our day to day priorities have us running in multiple directions, yet personalization/optimization never nears the top of that list. Is there a risk we as marketers don’t want to take? Is it a fear of the unknown? Are we still waiting for that TPS report?
Here’s how I look at it: you’ve spent money, time and effort driving web traffic, increasing site awareness and engaging shoppers. You’ve succeeded in building baseline interest from tens of thousands of e-shoppers, so why not speak to those shoppers directly, peaking additional interest based off consumer behaviors and actions? You are 90% of the way towards the sale, yet the remaining 10% means showing the customer the right solution, of the thousands of products and SKUs available on your site. There’s only so much a static message can say to shoppers who are seeking relevant and targeted information. They may not even know it, but you do. Having a web site that dynamically speaks to customers, driving the right content at the right time, all in real time is the key here. With today’s economy struggling more than the latest release of ICQ (seriously, who knew they are up to version 6.0?), why not retain your initial investments and efforts? Driving new traffic to your website may increase your sales, but won’t help conversion rates or other e-Commerce challenges.
“But Kev, dude, these aren’t the droids I’m looking for, what should I get from this blog?” Glad you asked; I have a challenge for anyone doubting my message: Apply today for a free no risk, no obligation 60-day trial using Sitebrand’s Segment&Serve and we’ll show you the power of behavioral marketing and segment specific marketing strategies.
A quick recap: if Personalization isn’t on your laser guided radar, maybe it should be – start looking at it as a viable way to reinforce your investments and initiatives, and have the opportunity for free Sitebrand trials with slants of pop culture thrown at you (via my blogs, so in the famous words of Apu, please come again). If that doesn’t put a smile on your face like an office Hawaiian shirt day, nothing will.
You stay classy, internet.
Apply for the free no risk, no obligation 60 day Sitebrand trial today.
Related Posts
3 Comments | Posted in Conversion, Kevin Butler, Optimization, Personalization, Segment&Serve, Sitebrand, Web Analytics, eCommerce, first time visitor, online marketing
October 23, 2008 by Carolyn Gardner
At Sitebrand we’re always publishing new case studies around classic e-commerce challenges associated with low conversion rates, high shopping cart abandonment rates, low average order sizes, high bounce rates, low return visitor rates, market segmentation and so on.
In our most recent case study, we dug into life online at BBCrafts.com - a leading retail and wholesale company for craft, wedding and party supplies. Sounds fun already, doesn’t it! Even though we’re talking about a very niche website with a decent amount of activity, there were concerns about cart abandonment and low order sizes.
After approaching many potential personalization and conversion vendors, BBCrafts.com selected Sitebrand because in addition to having a proven personalization platform (Segment&Serve), BBCrafts.com was and is impressed by our consultative approach, aka our Blueprint Success Services. We have a team of pros who help customers optimize their every website move with respect to personalization opportunities.
While high shipping costs are a big reason consumers abandon shopping carts, it’s not the only reason… so BBCrafts decided to do some testing. With respect to reducing shopping cart abandonment, one of the most powerful lessons they learned is that you don’t always have to “give away the farm” using hard incentives and discounts. In some cases all it takes is a bit of reassuring and relevant information - compare this to that friendly in-store assistant at the cash. Presenting this type of reassurance and building consumer trust at the right point in the shopping process (aka the sales funnel) has proven to have significant impact. Call it that little nudge or handshake to go ahead and complete the check-out.
Using an a/b testing type approach, BBCrafts.com experimented with two different types of personalization campaigns at the check-out stage. One focused on information security and the fact that BBCrafts.com does not share or store buyer’s credit card information. In this day and age, this is a huge deal for consumers.
A second campaign simply reinforces that BBCrafts.com usually ships orders fast - often within 48 hours. Of course a default group would see nothing.
The results? Like the headline of this post says - shopping cart abandonment dropped from 85% to 45%…
For more on BBCrafts.com success with website personalization - including how they achieved a 15% increase in average order sizes and a 160% (+) increase in return visitors, read the full case study!
Related Posts
No Comments | Posted in Carolyn Gardner, Conversion, Customer Experience, Optimization, Personalization, Segment&Serve, Sitebrand, Web Analytics, eCommerce, online marketing
October 22, 2008 by Carolyn Gardner
When we met with some folks from Silverpop for lunch at the DMA08 show in Vegas last week, we were really excited to hear about their developments with email marketing going social.
It’s what Silverpop is calling “Share-to-Social” - and it’s email’s first integrated and measurable social networking solution of its kind.
When users choose to share a message with friends in their social network, Silverpop’s systems are able to report on how many of their friends opened and clicked on the links in the message. This also means that marketers can get the same kind of 360 degree view of social networks as they do with email today.
It’s very much an updated forward-to-a-friend type of viral marketing because now instead of keeping the messages exclusive to the email channel, people are able to share their messages via popular social channels like Facebook and MySpace. It’s a great way of bringing all the channels closer together. And since this is today’s reality, it’s brilliant.
Since Sitebrand partners with Silverpop, this is exciting news for us and all our customers. For our many customers, especially retailers looking to sell more, this will be a great way to extend their marketing reach into the very populated social channels. But now more than ever, this also means the pressure is on to create really enticing offers that subscribers and customers want to share across their social network! Do this well, and you’ll find unparalleled reach.
Looking for how to maximize your email’s social potential? Sitebrand has a team of email experts who would be thrilled to brainstorm with you!
Related Posts
No Comments | Posted in Carolyn Gardner, Conversion, Customer Experience, Email marketing, Sitebrand, Social Media, Viral Marketing, online marketing
October 20, 2008 by Carolyn Gardner
I recently had the pleasure of contributing to Constant Contact’s Hints&Tips e-Newsletter. I was specifically tasked with sharing five B2C holiday email tips and five B2B holiday email tips. Under the headline “Holiday Email Tips — Go Beyond Simply Sending More“, I listed some original ideas you might be able to use yourself (regardless of what ESP you’re using)…overall theme - segment and send smartly!
Related Posts
2 Comments | Posted in Carolyn Gardner, Conversion, Customer Experience, Email marketing, Sitebrand, eCommerce, online marketing
October 17, 2008 by Carolyn Gardner
Just back from the DMA08 Conference & Exhibition in Las Vegas! If you’re following us on Twitter, you would know this already (psst - that’s a hint to click the twitter link and start following us if you’re not already). Anyhow the show was full of buzz and I’m not talking slot machine / casino buzz. I’m talking fabulous attendees, vendors and keynotes!
Ty Pennington
The opening keynote was with Ty Pennington, the host of “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”. He got on stage after painfully long opening remarks by John Greco, the DMA president & CEO and a bunch of other people on the DMA board, not to mention a few senators etc. Ya, that was a little too much propaganda for me and most of the people waiting for Pennington. Anyhow, moving right along, the overall theme of this opening ceremony was around Relevance, Responsibility and Results – the 3 R’s.
The DMA people referenced the need for marketers to continually be factoring these 3 R’s into every move we make. That’s the short version = I’ll spare you all the looooong details so we can cut to the good stuff.
So when Pennington finally got on stage, Greco asked him to relate these 3 R’s to what he does with his show. And it was quite easy to see how his involvement with “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” does just this.
The relevance of the makeovers typically starts with a serious understanding of a family’s needs. Not everyone needs the same house and Pennington explained how important this understanding of what makes a family tick really matters for makeover relevance. He says he really digs deep into lifestyle needs to help ensure he creates a home with matching relevance.
As for responsibility, this was a cool one too. More and more, Pennington is embracing environmentally friendly options in home-building. If it can be green, he makes it green. If it can be recycled, it’s recycled, etc. He’s very aware of being environmentally responsible.
And of course results. There isn’t a home makeover that doesn’t score top marks. If you’ve ever watched the show, you know what I’m talking about. The tears say it all!
In talking to Eric Hollebone, one of my colleagues at Sitebrand, he reminded me how well these 3 R’s tie into Sitebrand’s value proposition. Actually, when we apply the 3 R’s to Sitebrand and our Segment&Serve personalization platform, I’m wondering why we weren’t asked to speak right alongside Pennington! Maybe we need to pilot a show called ~ “Extreme Makeover: Website Edition”? We’re already doing it without endorsement by ABC - just look at some of the genius stuff our customers are doing (see case studies galore). I may be on to something here. I better call my agent! I digress…
Let’s consider Sitebrand’s Segment&Serve solution and the 3 R’s:
- Does Segment&Serve speak to relevance? Yes! The name says it all. Segmentation that leads to better targeted messaging is all about relevance. That’s just one way of looking at it.
- Does Segment&Serve speak to responsibility? Yes! We could look at this many ways, but think about this one example first. As marketers you’re spending lots of money driving traffic to your site. You’re also measured on conversion. But what are you doing to take responsibility for the piece in the middle – the persuasion piece of the sales funnel. If you’re using web personalization, you’re proactive ways are very responsible since they help maximize your acquisition spends on things like email and search.
- Does Segment&Serve speak to results? Yes! Hmm, where do we start! I think the best route is via our case studies. Sitebrand is all about measurable results – increased conversion rates, cart spends and loyalty. Decreased cart abandonment and so on.
So what are you doing to ensure your marketing efforts tie into relevance, responsibility and results? That’s something to think about..better yet, action on.
Related Posts
No Comments | Posted in Carolyn Gardner, Conversion, Customer Experience, Optimization, Personalization, Segment&Serve, Sitebrand, eCommerce, online marketing
October 11, 2008 by Dan Auns
A good friend of mine, who I have known since high school works in a car dealership. We talk quite often about the trials and tribulations, pros and cons, even the risks and rewards of our chosen career paths. I always enjoy his perspective on how they measure their sales efficiencies.
I was fascinated to learn that they actually try to determine the number of qualified car shoppers that visit their lot each month. No surprise that they also monitor the number car sales each month, and that they try to maintain an acceptable ratio of shoppers to sales. To be clear, my fascination was not simply that this was occurring - but that they tried to only quantify the ‘qualified’ car shoppers. They do their best to not factor in the kids, ‘tire kickers’ and other unqualified people who visit the lot with no intention of purchasing a new car in their manual performance reports. Fascinating.
Like most who don’t live and breathe eCommerce/analytics/optimization, my friend was not aware of the many tools widely available today to online businesses. Methods to essentially provide the same sort of physical performance reporting that they do by hand.
All this business intelligence talk exposed some critical differences as well.
Now the manual subjective nature of qualifying people has huge room for error, but the intent is genuine. Some kids may just want to sit in the new Challenger - Great. But they don’t represent a lost sale.
Even with more sophisticated automated reporting tools, I don’t talk to many people who dissect their online business in the same manor.
The parallels are obvious - If you don’t ship outside of North America, why not generate a North American conversion report (for example)?
My take: Online stakeholders need to start to think about business analysis differently. This is not about better dashboards, reports, and ones and zero’s collected by your website. Real people are interacting with your brand, your store, and your products. Get to know them.
~~~~~~
Track me down in Vegas next week ……..Vegas, baby. Vegas.
D.
Related Posts
No Comments | Posted in Dan Auns, Sitebrand, eCommerce, online marketing
October 10, 2008 by Jim Cain
It has been just shy of a year since I started blogging for Sitebrand. For those of you who have been reading my blog since I started writing over a year ago (my mom and fiancee), and those who have been reading, commenting and emailing, thanks for your support!
Despite having started writing while still part of the sales department, I decided from the outset to have a strong focus on the fundamental principles behind conversion optimization through dialog personalization, and less of a focus on promoting Sitebrand. The assumption being that if you agree with the concepts behind creating marketing driven dialog with a traffic segment, there is really only one game in town….But I digress.
I am talking about the focus of my blog because it is rare that I get the chance to leave the cube here in Gatineau and go out and talk to practitioners of digital marketing to hear what they currently do and what they want to do when it comes to optimizing visitor outcomes.
Last month Stephane Hamel of Immeria and WASP fame invited our CTO, Falk Gottlob, and myself to attend a Web Analytics Wednesday event in Montreal. Not a lot of hesitating on my response, and going to Montreal was just icing on the cake.
Falk and I got the chance to have a few cold beers and a few heated debates about the state of analytics and optimization, and met some fantastic people.
So I was both surprised and excited to be invited to come back and be the presenter at the next event, which will take place next week.
Much like my blogging, the emphasis of the presentation will be less on Sitebrand and more on how a marketer can understand a specific traffic segment, and then optimize their experience to increase their goal conversion.
Per my last post, I will be sticking to my current favorite segment, the First Time Visitor, and I am jazzed to see what the questions and responses will be to the talk.
A few important points for those attending: I love questions and Sitebrand is buying the beer.
Looking forward to seeing you in la belle province.
Cheers,
Jim
Click Here to register for this Web Analytics Wednesday event, Oct 15, 2008 @ Le Local
Click Here to learn more about WASP, a must have tool for any practitioner of analytics.
Related Posts
No Comments | Posted in Jim Cain, Sitebrand, Web Analytics, first time visitor
October 8, 2008 by Alok Ahuja
I would first like to say thank you to all of those I had the pleasure of meeting while attending the Shop.org Annual Summit in Las Vegas. It was a great show with plenty of vendors, learning seminars and certain people claiming to do exactly what Sitebrand does! It’s always entertaining and enlightening to visit certain booths and listen to the unexperienced pitch man claim; “We can do that”. So you mean to tell me that you can help convert my SEO spends and engage my customers throughout their visit all in real time?….”Of course, and we’ll even take your kids to daycare for you”. It never ceases to amaze…just where do they find these people, and more importantly how do they manage to keep a straight face while making their pitch to me? Nevertheless, it was a great show.
I would like to share a simple concept within Sitebrand’s new Segment&Serve tool that has many of our customers “double taking” their analytic reports. This ‘concept’ that I’m going to discuss is being employed by Sitebrand customers with the efforts of helping to increase their conversion on three simple letters known as ‘S.E.O’.
It’s no secret that SEO is used with the aim of achieving a higher organic search listing and thus increasing volume of targeted traffic from search engines. This is all peachy, but after spending time and money on increasing your SEO you finally have the attention of online shoppers and slowly but surely they all begin to visit your site based on exactly what their looking for. I’m sure your boss is quite happy with all the great work you’ve done, now that you’ve increased your site traffic and shoppers are coming in on specific keywords. One question;”Why are your bounce rates so high and your conversion rate based on these specific keywords is so low?” Looks like the boss isn’t too pleased anymore!
I had the pleasure of having this exact conversation with a valued Sitebrand customer, and after understanding what goals they were trying to achieve, we were able to deploy a simple campaign based on ‘Natural Keyword Search’. Sitebrand’s Segment&Serve tool allows online vendors to build campaigns based on the ‘natural keywords’ that are being used by online shoppers to find, enter and shop on their site. Working concurrently with their SEO efforts, this Sitebrand campaign was able to present a relevant message based on the shoppers keyword search. In this case the shopper was entering the site on a specific product word, which the Sitebrand campaign recognized. Sitebrand was then able to display a campaign on that exact product page offering the customer a discount on that specific product as well as a small message about the history of that site. The result was a satisfied customer who was able to find the website of their desired product but also get validation on that sites reputation and score a deal. This is just one of the many segmentation rules that is available to Sitebrand customers, helping once again to present relevant messaging and help convert customers through discount messaging and reassurance.
Relevant messaging is always important, but I think I can speak on behalf of most online shoppers when I ask; “Who can say no to a good deal?”.
Alok Ahuja
‘The Road Less Travelled’
Related Posts
No Comments | Posted in Alok Ahuja, Conversion, Search Marketing, Sitebrand
October 8, 2008 by Carolyn Gardner
First time visitors are likely your largest underperforming segment of website traffic. And they’re also the most expensive…right? Right.
Because the impact of how you market this huge segment is so significant, Sitebrand invites you to register for our Oct. 30th webinar called: “Your Website and First Time Visitors: Friend or Foe?”.
And who better to co-present than Bryan Eisenberg, best-selling author, publisher of award-winning blog, ClickZ columnist and co-founder of FutureNow. In just 29-minutes, this webinar will offer advice and tips around:
1. Using data to build an understanding and framework for first-time visitors, aka personas.
2. Building targeted messaging to grow the engagement and sales of first-time visitor segments / personas.
3. Mapping the real estate on your site toward your messaging.
4. Launching your cycle, watching results, and planning for re-optimization.
We’ll conclude with questions and answers!
Got a scheduling conflict? Register anyhow so you are notified when the webinar is archived for on-demand viewing at your convenience…
GET SMART EVEN FASTER! To study up on some of what we’ll be talking about, you should go ahead and download our new whitepaper by Jim Cain, a senior analyst (and fellow blogger) here at Sitebrand. The whitepaper is called “First Time Visitor: A Marketer-Oriented Approach to Optimizing Online Conversions” and it also features a foreward by Bryan Eisenberg.
Related Posts
1 Comment | Posted in Carolyn Gardner, Conversion, Customer Experience, Jim Cain, Optimization, Sitebrand, eCommerce, online marketing, webinars
October 6, 2008 by Carolyn Gardner
Fresh back from presenting at Online Market World in San Francisco where I did non-stop tweets you should and could follow at http://twitter.com/sitebrand. One of the highlights was definitely the keynote by Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com. He spoke very passionately about the culture of Zappos.com especially as it relates to outstanding customer service - just look at their tagline under their logo!
Tony also shared “4 things” to build brand - one of which is all about company culture and core values. I’ll pay these forward to you now:
Thing #1: Have a Vision
Whatever you’re thinking, think bigger. Chase the vision, not the money. And make sure the vision has meaning.
Thing #2: Think Repeat Customers
Great product, great service or low prices. Choose and focus on two of these three.
Thing #3: Be Transparent
“Be real, you have nothing to fear” so go ahead and create a face for your company. At Zappos they have a blog, they have zappos TV and perhaps their most notable personality stage is on twitter…twitter.zappos.com
Thing #4: Create a Culture & Core Values
Zappos is a lifestyle for both employees and customers when you get right down to it. Here are the core values that play into the culture that Zappos prides itself on…
1. Deliver WOW through service.
2. Embrace and drive change.
3. Create fun and a little wierdness.
4. Be adventurous, creative and open-minded.
5. Pursue growth and learning.
6. Build open and honest relationships with community.
7. Build a positive team and family spirit.
8. Do more with less.
9. Be passionate and determined.
10. Be humble.
Tony and Zappos are living proof that all of this pie in the sky type thinking is possible. At the end of his presentation, he said that Zappos has tours at their Vegas headquarters and that if anyone wanted to have a tour, just send him an email. Well it just so happens that myself and 3 other Sitebranders are heading to Vegas for the DMA08 Conference & Exhibition Oct 12-15. After hearing this, I approached Tony at the end of the session saying we would like to take him up on the tour invite…so how do we go about setting that up? He said, just send him an email and he would send a shuttle to the airport to pick us up! I almost fell over…but then doesn’t this type of approach to service totally agree to everything Tony just preached in his keynote! You bet it does!
PS - are you going to the DMA08 show? If yes, be sure to drop by booth 1654 because that’s where Sitebrand will be! We’re part of the Passport to Prizes and we’ve got a Flip video up for grabs. As well, I’ll be hosting an Ask the Experts roundtable called: e-Marketing: Building a bridge from the landing page to conversion - would love to see you there!
DMA08
Related Posts
1 Comment | Posted in Carolyn Gardner, Customer Experience, Social Media, eCommerce, online marketing
