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January 5, 2009 by Kevin Butler
Hello and happy 2009 to all Sitebrand frequenters. Thanks for kicking off the new year by reading our blogs – we appreciate it and love all the comments that come with blogging. According to Chinese calendars, 2009 is the year of the Ox. So just how are oxen relevant to anything e-Commerce you ask? Keep reading to find out…
So apparently the United States is in a recession and has been for some time. Lately, I’ve been so immersed in various other things and may have missed out on such news. However, as sad as that may sound, I am up to date in things like Twitter (totally the new RSS of 2009, don’t you know), Amazon’s massive holiday sales spike, Chinese new year’s, terrible year end lists and of course, personalization. I swear my introductions are getting longer, but this is all going somewhere, I promise.
A recession, eh? Is that the thing that makes companies shrink budgets – more specifically, shrink marketing budgets? From talking to some peers, it seems a big trend for 2009 will see marketers finding cheap, inexpensive or free (the best kind) ways to promote and grow. I’m no genius, especially since I didn’t even know about this ‘recession thing’, but how does a company grow with limited/reduced budgets? While the aggressive side of me thinks there’s no time better than now to increase marketing budgets, I also understand the other side here – the responsible side of me, that is. And that could be why social media has and will continue to climb to the top of many marketers “definitely need to do/try that in 2009 lists”. I know, more lists at the beginning of a new year, but I digress.
You might be thinking: “social media is the buzz, but it’s not a proven revenue generator”. True and like all things, I’m sure social media will quickly evolve with that in mind over the next few years. Something to bare in mind here - social media is still very new and I don’t feel social media should be providing mass sales at this point. Mashable.com has a great survey about this, too. That’s where I see social media differently at this point – does it have to provide unassisted new sales, right now? I look at the Twitters, Facebooks, (etc…) as a part of the marketing mix, not an independent one. They will help the conversational aspect – a critical piece – with your customers and potential ones, but won’t act as the first and last points of contact to drive the sale.
Looking at this from an outside perspective, you can pay agencies, firms, specialists, etc… to run integrated social media campaigns, but it seems many companies are keeping it in-house. Whether financial reasoning or otherwise, marketers are taking notice of varying methods from big time companies like Southwest Airlines, Starbucks, Dell, all the way down to the mom and pop shops that are still around. And why not? They’ve done a great job reaching out to customers and speaking to them. Those familiar with my views from previous writings probably see this part coming: you’ve developed interest. You’ve cut through the mass and now they want to know more, so they return to your website, only to find generic messaging and content. Maverick and Iceman just called: they said mission failed – failed like the Detroit Lions historic no-win season. Back to my point, use social media to cut through the clutter, use personalization to get relevant. That’s a better 1-2 punch than Brady/Moss (from 2007, of course – sorry Lions fans). While you can have one without the other, the combined efforts are far greater than one on its own. Also, personalization is a better and more proven ROI effort than social media, as of writing this. Like all things internet these days, that could change in a hurry.
For a quick recap, I’ll leave you with an equation that should help demonstrate why personalization should be on your radar, why it makes sense in today’s economy and how it will help even the newest social media-ist get the message heard loud and clear, at the right time. Its not scientific, but I’m fairly sure it checks out…
1. 2009 = the year of the ox
2. Oxen = methodical and detail oriented, yet have difficulty connecting with others (I swear I looked this up)
3. Sitebrand = easily connects with specific audiences, sending relevance/targeted marketing campaigns
4. Social media = easy way to speak directly to customers and is quickly becoming an integral part of all marketing plans (big and small)
5. Year of personalization = 2009 (according to many, including me)
Therefore: 2009 is the year marketers/e-Commerce professionals must integrate social media efforts with Sitebrand’s personalization in order to deliver that 1-2 combo that your customers deserve.
Stay classy, internet.
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1 Comment | Posted in Customer Experience, Kevin Butler, Optimization, Personalization, RSS Marketing, Segment&Serve, Sitebrand, Social Media, eCommerce, online marketing
December 12, 2008 by Kevin Butler
A colleague of mine – who we’ll refer to as “naD” for anonymity sake – recently told me my blogs are verbose. I’ve never considered myself to be loquacious before, but I suppose there’s a first for everything. Am I really of the garrulous kind?
Anyways, this all came full circle as some co-workers, naD and I were caught up in a rousing game of lunchtime Scrabble via Facebook. Without divulging any further information about my lunchtime habits, I got thinking, with so much emphasis on social media, what web 2.0 medium is most effective for e-commerce companies? I had an interesting conversation with another co-worker recently regarding social media and despite the emphasis placed here in the last few years, it’s very uncontrollable. I’ll get to that shortly…
Full disclosure: I realize it will differ for each company and that this blog is probably one of 2,000 blogs that will touch on social media today. And while there are numbers of books and blogs from experts like Dave Evans (Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day, and Dave, if you are reading this, I don’t own this book yet and December 25th is right around the corner), this is a take that directly affects Sitebrand users or those further looking into web 2.0 strategies with personalization, targeted content and other marketing strategies. It’s a look at segmentation, how to work with open environments (users are free to say what they want, when they want – regardless of validity or truth) and avoiding the “boil the ocean” mentality.
Hypothetical example here… let’s assume you are an online electronics retailer selling everything from alarm clocks to MP3 players.
You are up to date with all the Facebook’s, Linked In’s, Twitter’s (this itself can be daunting, I know) and a specific intent is established for your internet marketing plan. You know you want to use Facebook and Twitter for different promotions. Those could be two vastly different kinds of visitors, right? Going back to a comment I made earlier, you can’t control what’s being said about you and any preconceived notions that go along with it, so how do you deal with this, without having a face-to-face conversation with every visitor? Since my example has us selling the coolest widgets and gadgets, understanding your visitors based on where they are coming from is just as important as anything else on your site and the need to segment your audience and dynamically message them truly begins.
The traffic coming from your hourly/daily tweets trust your promotions or the source it came from (and let’s suppose your analytics tell you nearly 12% of your traffic is from mobile browsers). Your landing page could offer minimal images and focus on messaging/links that load quickly and since I’m in ultra-merchandising mode, focus on the latest in smart phones and Bluetooth headsets. Since that trust is there (or at least higher than most first time visitors), you can focus on what the visitor should buy, not why. And that’s just for first time visitors. When they come back, you can target these same visitors to help increase brand awareness and drive home non-financial conversions/goals. Ultimately, ensuring they’ve seen your great promotions, seen why you are a great company and changing any preconceived notions they may have had about you before. This is your chance to get into your visitors mind and represent your company the way you want. The power of targeted messaging, eh?
For traffic coming from Facebook, you know this is either from paid ads or a link from a user profile. Either way, they aren’t as connected to you and your company as the Twitter crowd. Seems like a good opportunity to segment, right? One way or another, you’ve paid for this customer to be on your site, so it needs to count and needs to capture the visitors attention/trust. At this point, having a banner run through the entire session for these visitors (clickable or not), telling them the site is secure, potential refund info, shipping info based on geography/location might be worthwhile. Maybe the message changes and talks to the visitor based on their click patterns or the fact they came from Facebook, who knows – the sky is the limit here. Since it’s a more general crowd, you could opt to show an array of your different products and special sales. Or perhaps you want to focus on company branding more than particular promotions and quick conversions. Personalization and visitor segmentation give marketers a window to brand like never before. You can drive home your message in a conversational way. Imagine having your customers line up to have a face-to-face conversation with you. I’m sure you can make them a believer in your company (at least you could for me… I know how convincing our Sitebrand blog readers are) and isn’t that the whole point of a webpage in the first place?
If all this sounds cooler than a $4 sweater on Christmas, then hold onto your hat: I’ll be running a product demonstration webinar this coming Wednesday, December 17th @ 2pm EST (BTW, they are only 29 minutes long!). In the new year, I’ll be running these webinars bi-weekly, so this Wednesday’s presentation will be the neonate demo. I’ll be talking about web 2.0 integration with Sitebrand, showing its ease of use and effectiveness. If your conversion rate is lower than 4% and you want to get more out of your existing traffic, I’d love to meet you. Remember: the tools your company uses to tap into your visitors represent the kind of company you are and the kind of customers you are after.
To everyone who can’t make it, happy holidays and see on you on the other side (2009).
Stay classy, internet.
p.s – naD won the lunchtime game… but only because he found an anagram-scrabble cheat online. He’s since been banned from our lunchtime game.
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1 Comment | Posted in Conversion, Customer Experience, Kevin Butler, Optimization, Personalization, Segment&Serve, Sitebrand, Social Media, Web Analytics, eCommerce, first time visitor, online marketing, webinars
December 2, 2008 by Kevin Butler
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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2 Comments | Posted in Conversion, Customer Experience, Kevin Butler, Optimization, Personalization, Segment&Serve, Sitebrand, Web Analytics, eCommerce, online marketing
November 18, 2008 by Kevin Butler
As I was thinking of topics to address for this particular blog, I feared I’d used all my material and thoughts in my e-debut two weeks ago. Kind of like Chumbawamba did on their first album. I hope I don’t suffer the sophomore jinx… you will never keep me down, internet.
Moving right along, the e-Commerce-online marketing world is a funny one, right?
What is the average marketer or e-Com director planning over the next 6-12 months for their respective websites? Search engine optimization, personalization, platform upgrades, search engine marketing, post-click marketing, or just general optimization – whatever that means? Is it possible the term optimization is more over-used than personalization? The first rule about optimization: don’t talk about optimization. Whenever someone says to me, “we’re looking into optimization” I have no idea how to react. Optimizing what? Landing pages, Content Spaces (*cough, Sitebrand, cough*), Videos, Search, E-mail (*cough, Sitebrand, again, cough*), etc… Sounds like those general statements I make at awkward parties “I like stuff”. But in all seriousness, I like optimizing, too and that’s the point of what I’m getting at. What are we optimizing?
Lately, we’ve seen another quick shift with the rise of m-Commerce. Although interesting, I’m confused. Don’t get me wrong – I get it’s a new and direct market, recent claims to fame include Barack Obama using text messaging to announce Joe Biden as his running-mate in the now historic 2008 US Elections. To me, m-Commerce, although viable and important seems like a small branch of e-Commerce. You still need targeted content, market segmentation and wait for it… optimized messaging that can speak to visitors, regardless of whether it’s e-Commerce, m-Commerce or any other commerce. Mobile messaging will help drive traffic to your website and I think it’s important to be ready and prepared for those visitors.
Internet marketing is a vast space, but I see value in dynamic webpages. Right now, Sitebrand has begun a series of first time visitor landing pages with specific calls to action for a few clients in different markets and have seen tremendous results. We’re talking conversion rates doubling the site average (let me know what would that mean to you) resulting directly from Sitebrand’s Segment&Serve. The scary part of all this: the results and lifts in conversion come from running one or two campaigns. It takes less time to create these campaigns than it does to get sick of that Chumbawamba song (so not very long at all!). Remember, that’s just one campaign. Imagine the impact of running 10-15 thorough behavioral targeted campaigns, addressing other e-Commerce challenges you may be having or trends you are noticing.
The big thing I keep going back to, something I read recently from Sean Carton’s blog: conversations are king. And that’s exactly what these first time visitor landing page experiments are proving. We are talking to new visitors, explaining options, values and news about the company. Something interesting to chew on, majority of the time, the content on these pages don’t include any specific product to buy. Either “see shipping information for your State/Country”, “see hottest sellers” or “learn more about the company” are the messages helping drive sales.
How are you speaking to your visitors?
Stay classy, internet.
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1 Comment | Posted in Conversion, Kevin Butler, Optimization, Personalization, Segment&Serve, Sitebrand, Social Media, eCommerce, online marketing
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.
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3 Comments | Posted in Conversion, Kevin Butler, Optimization, Personalization, Segment&Serve, Sitebrand, Web Analytics, eCommerce, first time visitor, online marketing
