Social media has been around for some time now, from Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and even LinkedIn.  As all of these social platforms have evolved over the years, you still hear people asking…..but what does it all mean?  If you really sit down and think about it, social media is just another form of communication simply just bringing the world closer together.  Ten years ago if someone were to ask me if I would ever have the ability to chat with Madonna I would have just laughed at them, but now with Twitter the thought of that chat doesn’t seem so far off.

With the introduction of all these social media outlets, retailers are slowly starting to enter the realm of building societies and groups of avid fans and followers.  It was only a matter of time before my colleague’s looked at me funny because I was not friends with Amazon.com on Twitter.  I can still hear them whispering; “That’s exactly why he never gets any one day deals on Amazon….sucker!”

With all the Facebook friends and Twitter followers, what does this ultimately mean for retailers and vendors alike?  More potential shoppers!!  By using the social media outlets, retailers are now keeping shoppers informed and ahead of the rest of the crowd through Facebook updates and Twitter tweets.  This is allowing them to create a cult following and loyal fan base of shoppers that they can direct to their site whenever they want.  Once again, you have to take one step back and ask ”what does this all means?”  With increased loyal traffic coming to retailers sites, and certain promotional offers being provided to the Twitter bugs, Facebook friends and MySpace followers, how are these retailers able to differentiate between the various traffic sources and what to provide them with?

As social media continues to mature, so has Sitebrand’s involvement with these new sources of traffic.  Being the leader in online website personalization, Sitebrand has once again taken the lead and is allowing retailers to segment their various social media traffic sources through a series of simple one click campaigns.

It’s been a long time coming, but allowing retailers to speak to their individual Twitter traffic or Facebook friends is becoming an everyday affair with Sitebrand.  The new Segment&Serve tool is allowing retailers to use referrals through any one of the social media tools to speak to their unique traffic segments and add a sense of continuity and relevance to that customers shopping experience.  By clicking on a tiny_url from Twitter and then having a “Welcome Twitter bug” message once the link is clicked, has allowed retailers to create a friendly and non threatehing environment for shoppers.  This has allowed our customers to enjoy higher cart averages and ultimately more Twitter followers and Facebook friends!

This campaign was also used for all Twitter shoppers.

This campaign was used for all Twitter referrers.

Alok Ahuja

The Road Less Travelled

No first blog is complete without some kind of introduction – but this is no ordinary blog, my fellow readers. As a Sitebrand blogger, 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: Request a Sitebrand consult 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 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.

This is the theme of our August 21 webinar and it’s a nice spin on our usual format. That’s right, you’re not just signing up for the perspectives of two presenters this month. Oh no. This time you’ll be treated to the perspectives of four presenters! And even though each presenter wears a Sitebrand hat, there will be guaranteed controversy thanks to old school versus new school perspectives. This on top of four distinct personality types…if you know what I mean.

I know we’re in the thick of summer holidays, but don’t let that stop you. Sign up anyhow and watch for a post webinar email that will include a link to view it online at your leisure. 

Joining me for this roundtable panel will be 3 more of Sitebrand’s own. We’ve got Darryl Praill, VP Marketing – he always makes discussions interesting thanks to his highly, shall I say, opinionated thoughts on all things marketing. We would be the “over 40″ side of the equation so our world hasn’t always been about the web.

And then to round things out, we’ve got the ”under 40″ pair of this panel who I daresay have almost always lived in world with the web. These would be Mr. Jim Cain, a Senior Analyst here who is very plugged in to all things analytics…especially as it relates to actioning those analytics which is a big part of why web personalization should matter to you. And then there’s Alok Ahuja, one of our senior account managers and possibly one of the most adored this side of the moon. His clients love him and I think it’s because Alok is always testing the boundaries…not just geo-boundaries, but boundaries in general!!!

So the essence of our webinar will revolve around the mixed messaging on the meaning of web personalization. We’ll talk about what it’s NOT – ie.
- A/B testing
- Recommendation engines
- User registration and personalized greetings
- Analytics
- ‘One-to-one’ emails mentioning first names

And we’ll talk about why it matters – ie. how it really does present an opportunity to dramatically increase revenue and conversion with segment and serve functionality that creates highly relevant online experiences.

So what’s holding you back? We typically hear comments like:
- I’m already using Google analytics, isn’t that enough?
- I’ve already optimized my content.
- My marketing dollars are limited and already committed.

In just 29 minutes, Sitebrand promises to break myths, educate, inform and convince you that personalization should be your #1 priority…and that it doesn’t have to cost a thing if you do it right.

So go ahead and register today…unless of course you’re happy doing the same old, same old.

I had a good chat this morning with my colleague Larry (Manager, Corporate Training) about a term he has been bumping into in the last few weeks called ‘Social Conversion’. It all seems to stem from a nice blog-post that was written last month by Justin Talerico, CEO of ion Interactive, about the importance of monitoring, understanding and optimizing the micro-conversions associated to social media marketing.

Loved the blog, agreed with the concepts, but not sure we need to coin any new terms. Social Conversion is just another way of saying conversion. According to the WAA Standards Committee, Conversion is “The number of times a desired outcome was accomplished.” So let’s try and really nail down the basic definitions before we throw them out the window and come up with new ones. (Still, it’s a great piece, specifically the landing page and whitepaper examples)

Wondering what my intro has to do with the title yet? Here we go.

Just as the term ‘social conversion’ has been doing the rounds in the last few weeks regarding its relevance and veracity (or truthiness), the concept of engagement in digital marketing has done the rounds for almost two years, and has been the subject of heated debate and scrutiny.

The ongoing dialog (or should I say blogalog? Yet another new term) has revolved around two primary questions:

• Is engagement an important concept?
• If it is important, how can it be quantified.

To learn more about the topic, here are a number of great posts on the subject. I specifically recommend checking out the recent flamewar between Omniture and Eric Peterson, both industry heavyweights with very differing opinions.

I myself blogged on the issue back in February, and my take is that being able to understand and manage visitor engagement to/from/within a given web property is the first major step towards ‘analytics 2.0’. Standardizing what metrics are used however is much more difficult.

If you work with a company like ion Interactive, engagement will have a strong landing page/social media focus. If you are a multi-channel marketer, engagement might have strong online/offline ties.

Having helped some of Sitebrand’s customers directly identify engagement related KPI’s in their business for the purposes of Optimization, I know it works. As for the ‘philosopher’s stone’ of engagement equations that work for every site, the jury is out.

In a fairly new industry like internet marketing, new terms will be coined at the speed of….internet. But some terms stick and have a profound impact on our discipline.

Engagement is one of these important terms.

Do some homework and form an opinion. If you think it’s bunk so be it. But if you think engagement monitoring and management could be a core aspect of your job in the coming years, start applying some of the concepts now so you don’t miss the boat.

Cheers,

Jim

PS. Larry heard I was referencing him in the blog today and wanted to make sure all our customers knew that he is available for all training requests/questions at training AT Sitebrand.com. Go team go!

For our customers, working with Sitebrand is pretty exciting.  Frankly, any site specific optimization initiative is exciting, because most marketers have historically been blocked out of the website by technical/political barriers, and optimization allows them much greater control over their conversion rates and sales.  Because of this excitement (and the associated results) there has been rapid growth in visibility and adoption of optimization as an online marketing practice.

In my last post I referenced a few points on Online Optimization, specifically goal setting and the difference between optimizing the look of the store and the dialog with the visitor.

Because of discussions I have had about this particular post, I thought I would add another ‘best practice’ point that is critical to the longterm success of any optimization initiative.

Don’t boil the ocean.

While this is a straightforward and somewhat obvious statement, it can get lost in the initial excitement of optimization. (Note: if you work in eMarketing and don’t think site optimization is exciting, you will soon)

Per point one in my last post, you need a defined goal to start an optimization initiative.  Alongside that goal, you need to start with a tightly defined plan to achieve that goal.  So for example if you want to minimize the bounce rate of California visitors on your homepage, you can run a targeted piece of content to 50% of your Cali. Visitors for a one month period, and compare the two bounce rates.

Will an entire California page work better?  Maybe, even probably, but how can you really prove which message on the page had the most impact?  This will be important when you are showing your results to the top of the org chart and asking for additional optimization budget.

Shane Atchison of ZAAZ speaks directly to this concept in his great “Web Analytics intervention” series on ClickZ.  Look at Point 5 in part 2 of the series. (Click here for column)

Lily Chiu at Omniture speaks to this issue as well in a recent post.  As a real estate optimization vendor, Omniture knows the importance of transparent results and encourages starting with small changes that show clear impact, like changing a green button to a red one.

As a vendor that optimizes dialog with a targeted visitor segment, Sitebrand makes similar recommendations.  If you say fifty different targeted messages to fifty different segments, some of which overlap mid-session, how will you know which ones work well?  Moreoever, how will you know which ones work well together?

The purpose of starting small in the initial short term is not to minimize your results, it is to provide the required clarity in a murky web metrics world to ensure that you can grow your optimization plans in the long term.  The upside is that your initial requirements are smaller, and your long term payoff is larger.

Cheers,

Jim